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The island of Saba in the Netherlands Antilles is perhaps the only island of its size (5.1 sq. miles) in the Caribbean to be almost continually inhabited. This is due to the fact that there are at least two known sources of fresh water on the island viz. a spring at Fort Bay and one at Spring Bay.

Archaeological research made by Dr. J.P.B. Josselin de Jong on Saba in 1923 and findings by many private individuals on Saba attest to the fact that the Carib Indians were here. Further proof is emerging that the first Sabans were the Amerindian Arawaks, who were here even before the Caribs and who even possibly survived their onslaught. Columbus first sighted Saba on his second voyage, on November 13th, 1492. It had long been assumed that the first settlers sent by the Dutch from neighboring St. Eustatius in 1640 found Saba uninhabited. Recent research, however, brought to light by a archaeological team from Leiden University, has indicated that a Frenchman named Guillaume Coppier found Indian inhabitants living on Saba. He described them in his book of 1645, 'Histoire et Voyages des Indes Occidentales et de plusiers autres regions'. Coppier is an interesting source; he lived for three years on the French (east) side of St. Kitts and he must have been relatively well informed on the Dutch Windward Islands. He probably visited Saba in 1629. He first discusses St. Eustatius, where at the time a Frenchman, de Cusac, lived, and he continues:

We landed thereafter on the island of Saba, which is also small; there is a very large rock, where very large and palatable lizards are; several sea-turtles come to the shore there; their shield is made into finger rings which are enriched with gold and also various costly combs are made of it. [He could be describing activities of people of European decent elsewhere, or possibly referring to them as living on Saba already in 1629.] A group of "wild people" live there, that are named Igniris; they go with their body completely naked and they have beards, which is different from all Indians, who pull out the hair as soon as it comes. They are idolatrous and they live in caves [litt: their retreat is in cave-like places], living like wild animals.

In his book 'The West Indies and Central America to 1898", author Bruce B. Solnick, makes the following references on page 8:

Trinidad was occupied, in part, by still another Arawak subgroup, the Igneri.

and on page 9:

The Caribs who held most of the Lesser Antilles, shared Trinidad with the Igneri Arawaks, but not peacefully. By 1492 Arawakan Puerto Rico was under Carib pressure.

Could it be that the Arawaks of Saba had been spared the fury of the Carib onslaught, and that a small remnant remained on Saba well into the first settlement by Europeans? On Saba an advocado is called 'sabocau', supposedly a name of Indian origin. According to Dr. Kingsley in his book on his travels through the West Indies in the 19th Century, in Trinidad an advocado is also known as a 'sabocau'.

As far as we can ascertain, Coppier's book is the most ancient source of information on Saba, as it gives information on a situation he found in 1629. It is interesting to compare this information with that in his book in the chapter on Johnny Frau and the Great Injun. That story connects the presence of Indians with Spring Bay where indeed an archaeological site with Indian pottery has been discovered. Research has also been done on the people who lived on the Antillean islands before the first wave of cassava-cultivating and pottery-making Indians invaded the islands from ca. 100 AD on. Two geologists, Mr. J. Roobol and Mr. A.L. Smith of the University of Puerto Rico, found a few shell tools of such an early group near Fort Bay in 1978. They have dated the shell by radio carbon analysis: it proved to be ca. 3200 years old; that is about 1200 B.C.! All over Saba in recent years there have been similar findings. A number of carved stone tools have also been found and are on display in the Harry L. Johnson Museum in Windwardside as well as in a number of private homes on Saba. As for the Indians names for Saba, Pere Breton in his Dictionaries (1645) French-Carib and Carib-French gives the following names and reference:

St. Maarten: Oualichi
St. Barths: Ouanalao
Saba: Amonhana
Anguilla: Malliouhana

He states below these four names with a brace: 'Les sauvages ne me les ont pu distingues'. -['The Indians could not distinguish them for me.']

Several authors have mentioned the names not taking into account the words of Breton below the four French and Indian names. To make matters even more complicated one of Breton's dictionaries mentions Saba; in the other the same four Indian names are mentioned but now the French names of St. Maarten, St. Barths, St. Croix and Anguilla are mentioned. It is clear that the Indians who informed Breton did not have a precise knowledge of these far away islands. They obviously knew that north of Barbuda and St. Eustatius four islands with the names Oualichi, Ouanalao, Amonhana and Malliohana were situated but they did not know the corresponding European names. The island of St. Eustatius was known in the Carib language as Aloi, meaning cashew-tree. As there exist no other sources mentioning names for any of the four islands mentioned, Saba can have had any of the mentioned four names, even though several historians have ignored Breton's remarks and referred to the Carib name of Saba as being Amonhama. The other islands (St. Maarten, Anguilla and St. Barths) have also completely ignored Breton's remarks and have adopted the Carib names as referring to their own islands.

There is other speculation as to the origin of the name Saba. Some say it comes from the Arawak word 'siba which means 'rock'. Others connected it with Columbus' reading of the passage in the Bible about the Queen of Sheba while passing the island; he consequently may have named it after the land of Sheba. Anyway since our earliest recorded history the name has been used even though the Indian name could have been any of those aforementioned.

Although Saba first fell under Spanish rule, there are no indications in Spanish records that any attempts at colonization were ever made. In 1632 some Englishmen were shipwrecked here and remained for some time on the Island. It is claimed that they found no one living here, but in light of Coppier's statement this is highly unlikely. We assume that in the almost 150 of Spanish rule that ships passing Saba must have landed from time to time and explored the island, even perhaps to stock up on fresh water and supplies of iguanas which the former Caribs had introduced to Saba from Dominica as a source of food on their travels. In 1635 a French freebooter, Pierre B.d-Esnambuc, claimed the island for the King of France. Around the year 1640 the Dutch sent settlers from the island of St. Eustatius to take up residence on Saba. In 1665 when English pirates from Jamaica captured Saba there were 57 Dutchmen, 87 slaves, 54 Englishmen, some Scots, Irishmen, and Indians living on the island. After all Dutchmen had been deported to St. Maarten in 1665 most of them remained there.

Although Saba changed hands many times in its later history there is no evidence of a return in any numbers of Dutch people to Saba.

It must be assumed then that the population of European descent is basically from the British isles. It is a fact though that throughout our history, leading white families in the Windward Islands intermarried so that many families have ancestors originating from all three Dutch Windward Islands. This was also due to the economic importance of St. Eustatius, which was a commercial hub for the white families of the other islands and from which lasting family relationships were established on all three islands.

Saba's population has varied greatly since it was first occupied by Europeans. In 1715 the inhabitants numbered 512, of which 176 were slaves. Here we see mention of African slaves on Saba. In 1806 the population consisted of 700 white people and 500 slaves.

Due to the island being very small, mainly rocky, and having no large plantations, we learn from historians that the slaves were treated with more tolerance than on the other West Indian islands. The white people and the slaves worked side by side in the fields. Nevertheless the inhumanity of the entire slave system, however tolerant, is nothing in one's history to look back on with pride. We only mention it here because it is part of our history, and the record handed down to this generation must be passed on to the next, so that we should never forget that our island's past population did not escape the curse of the Indies which was slavery. Whether handed down to then or of their own initiative, they lived with it and by it.

In 1816 there were 657 white persons, 27 free colored, and 462 slaves living on Saba. On July 1st, 1863, emancipation finally came and 708 slaves obtained their freedom. The total population at that time was 1807 inhabitants. In 1877 there were 2072 inhabitants. Saba had its record population of 2488 persons in 1915. After 1915, sue to the large emigration to the oil refineries in Curacao and later in Aruba, the population declined rapidly, reaching a new low of 907 persons in 1970.

Little change came to the island until 1963, when the Juancho Yrausquin Airport was completed, and 1972, with the completion of the Capt. L.A.I. Chance Pier. Today with the added facilities of 24 hour per day electricity, a good road network, increased tourism, a radio broadcasting station, television, and a newspaper, life on the island, if not idyllic, is a lot better than on many other West Indian islands, At the end of 1987 the population of Saba had increased to 1130 (553 men and 577 women). Saba is changing rapidly in the composition of its population and in its traditional way of surviving from the sea and the land. We can compare Saba's recent history and its entry into the tourism market to the situation on St. Martin as so eloquently described by Roland Richardson, a native artist and part time historian of that island:

There were years of suspicion and guilt. Years of ferment. Years when hardship and scarcity, the common denominator, attempted to reweave the fabric of human decency through equality. On a small island this process is different from a large territory. New bonds were established through the mingling of blood. Deep wounds were soothed. Years when the "force" was withdrawn, suspended, waiting, with everyone simply struggling to survive.

These were the years when St. Maarten was un-exploitable, unwanted and forgotten by all save those who stayed, or had left families behind while they sought work in other cane fields, or oil fields, and construction sites. For those who remained this period here was peaceful, even though two World Wars were fought across the ocean. The land produced according to scripture, by the sweat of our brows. This was the slow period when an island traps you, when its particularity subtly affects and molds you; when the fugue of rippling sunlight and sea-surge transforms monotony into dreams of paradise. After one hundred years of waiting, the shock and surprise was astonishing as island eyes beheld the first landing on Juliana Airport. The new force to dominate the West Indies had arrived here on St. Maarten. And in that shattering moment the world changed...again...

And so it has on Saba also...!

First plane landing on Saba by pilot Remy F. de Haenen - 1959 Shrubbery being cleared from Flat Point for the first plane landing - 1959

This page was last updated on 06/29/2008