Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia is a small island country in the eastern Caribbean. It has fewer than 200,000 inhabitants, many of them descendents of slaves brought by the British to work in sugar plantations in the 19th century. The French were the first European colonizers; they made a pact with the native Carib people in 1660 and soon thereafter began to cultivate sugarcane for export. For the next 150 years, the control of the island changed hands between [Page 1113]the French and British until the war of 1814, when the island became firmly a part of the British Empire. It remained in the empire until Saint Lucia's independence in 1979. It is still part of the British Commonwealth.

The native Carib people died off, largely due to their susceptibility to diseases brought by the Europeans. In their place, the British imported enslaved Africans to work on the sugar plantations. Most of the present-day inhabitants of Saint Lucia are descendents of these African laborers.

The French left their mark on the culture of the island. Though the official language is English, most people speak a form of Creole that is based on French. Because of the French influence, the majority of residents are Roman Catholic.

About 70% of the population is Roman Catholic, and most of the rest are Protestant Christians, including Anglicans, Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, and evangelical Protestants. A few record their religion as Rastafarian, and a small number of East Indian immigrants are Hindu and Muslim.