Our focus today is on the early survival and expansion of the French Colony in St Kitts.
The colony was often struck by severe famine, saved only by the visiting Dutch ships. Sine the cultivation of food crops had been seriously neglected on the island, the increasing trade with the Dutch proved a very useful way of assuring the food supply, and led to even more land being set aside for tobacco cultivation.
In the 1630's, French St Kitts at last began to survive on its own, as relations with their English neighbours had by this time deteriorated. The second Dutch War, was particularly devastating for St Kitts. In times of was, the French Kittitians were often either evacuated or deported, in most cases to St Martin, St Barts, Anguilla or Montserrat., Most returned however, once peace had been restored.
The main crops were tobacco, cotton, roucou and pimento. Sugar was introduced towards the end of the 1640's, but was no initially successful, because local landowners lacked sufficient capital to make this change. Besides, Kittitian planters made a reasonable profit from tobacco, cotton and other crops. Sugar cultivation in French, St Kitts became dominant on St Kitts only after it had already done so in its daughter colonies in Martinique and Guadeloupe. Even though sugar was dominant in St Kitts by the late 1650's, tobacco and ginger were still very important.
As the English colonized one island after the other, Richelieu got nervous and decided that his empire should expand as well, although St Kitts was not ready for this - and there was great difficulty in persuading people to seek fortune on other islands. D'Esnambuc himself occupied Martinique with the help of "old and experienced inhabitants of St Kitts." In 1639 the much praised Phillipe de Longuilliers De Poincy became Governor of the French West Indies and continued D'Esnambuc's expansion plans. "A so ee go."
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