Editing Nevis (section)

===Colonial era===
{{Infobox country
| demonym                = 
| area_km2               = 
| area_rank              = 
| GDP_PPP                = 
| GDP_PPP_year           = 
| HDI                    = 
| HDI_year               = 
| today                  = 
| conventional_long_name = Colony of Nevis
| common_name            = Nevis
| image_flag             = Flag of Great Britain (1707–1800).svg
| capital                = 
| national_languages     = English, Creole
| government_type        = Colony of [[Kingdom of England|England]], later [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]]
| currency               = 
| life_span              = 1620–1882
| title_leader           = King
| year_leader1           = 1620–1625
| leader1                = [[James VI and I|James I]]
| year_leader2           = 1837–1882
| leader2                = [[Queen Victoria]]
| title_representative   = Governor
| p1                     = Native Amerindians
| s1                     = Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla
| flag_s1                = Flag of the United Kingdom.svg
}}

Despite the Spanish claim, Nevis continued to be a popular stop over point for English and Dutch ships on their way to [[North America]]. Captain [[Bartholomew Gilbert]] of [[Plymouth Colony|Plymouth]] visited the island in 1603, spending two weeks to cut 20 tons of [[lignum vitae]] wood. Gilbert sailed on to [[Virginia]] to seek out survivors of the [[Roanoke settlement]] in what is now [[North Carolina]]. [[Captain John Smith]] visited Nevis on his way to [[Virginia]] in 1607 on the voyage that founded [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]], the first permanent English settlement in the New World.<ref name="Hubbard" />

On 30 August 1620, [[James I of England]] asserted sovereignty over Nevis by giving a Royal Patent for colonisation to the [[Earl of Carlisle]]. However, actual English settlement did not happen until 1628, when Anthony Hilton moved from nearby Saint Kitts following a murder plot against him. 80 English settlers accompanied him, soon boosted by a further 100 settlers from London who had initially hoped to settle [[Barbuda]]. Hilton became the first Governor of Nevis.<ref name="Hubbard"/>

After the [[Treaty of Madrid (1670)|Treaty of Madrid]] between Spain and England, Nevis became a major part of the [[British West Indies|English West Indies]] and an [[admiralty court]] also sat in Nevis. Between 1675 and 1730, the island was the headquarters for the slave trade to the Leeward Islands, with approximately 6,000–7,000 enslaved West Africans passing through en route to other islands each year. The [[Royal African Company]] brought all its ships through Nevis.<ref name="Hubbard"/> A 1678 census shows a community of [[Irish immigration to Saint Kitts and Nevis|Irish people]] – 22% of the population – existing as either [[indentured servants]] or freemen.<ref>[http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/irish-indentured-labour-in-the-caribbean/ "Irish indentured labour in the Caribbean"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160322013117/http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/irish-indentured-labour-in-the-caribbean/ |date=22 March 2016 }}. Nationalarchives.gov.uk. 11 March 2013.</ref>

Due to the profitable [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trade]] and the high quality of Nevisian [[sugar cane]], Nevis soon became a dominant source of wealth for the colonial [[slavocracy]]. When the [[Leeward Islands]] were separated from [[Barbados]] in 1671, Nevis became the seat of the [[Leeward Islands colony]] and was given the nickname "Queen of the Caribees". It remained the colonial capital for the Leeward Islands until the seat was transferred to [[Antigua]] for military reasons in 1698. During this period, Nevis was the richest of the English Leeward Islands.<ref name="Hubbard" />

Nevis outranked larger islands like [[Colony of Jamaica|Jamaica]] in sugar production in the late 17th century. The planters' wealth on the island is evident in the tax records preserved at the Calendar State Papers in the [[Colonial Office]]'s Public Records, where the amount of tax collected on the Leeward Islands was recorded. The sums recorded for 1676 as "head tax on slaves", a tax payable in sugar, amounted to 384,600 pounds in Nevis, as opposed to 67,000 each in Antigua and Saint Kitts, 62,500 in [[Montserrat]], and 5,500 total in the other five islands.<ref>''Calendar State Papers'' (1676). Number 1152, 1676. The British Colonial Office Public Records. Qtd. in Hubbard, p. 85.</ref>

The profits on sugar cultivation in Nevis was enhanced by the fact that the [[sugar cane|cane juice]] from Nevis yielded an unusually high amount of sugar. A gallon (3.79 litres) of cane juice from Nevis yielded 24 ounces (0.71 litres) of sugar, whereas a gallon from Saint Kitts yielded 16 ounces (0.47 litres).<ref name="Hubbard" /> Twenty per cent of the [[British Empire|English colonial empire]]'s total sugar production in 1700 was derived from Nevisian plantations.<ref>Watts, David (1987). ''The West Indies: Patterns of Development, Culture and Environmental Change Since 1492''. Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 285.</ref> Exports from West Indian colonies like Nevis were worth more than all the exports from all the mainland [[Thirteen Colonies]] of North America combined at the time of the [[American Revolutionary War]].<ref name="Hubbard" />

The enslaved families formed the large labour force required to work the sugar plantations. After the 1650s, the supply of white indentured servants began to dry up due to increased wages in England and less incentive to migrate to the colonies. By the end of the 17th century, the population of Nevis consisted of a small, wealthy planter elite in control, a marginal population of poor Whites, a great majority of African-descended slaves, and an unknown number of [[maroons]], escaped slaves living in the mountains. In 1780, 90 per cent of the 10,000 people living on Nevis were Black.<ref name="Hubbard"/> Some of the maroons joined with the few remaining Kalinago in Nevis. Memories of the Nevisian maroons' struggle under the plantation system are preserved in place names such as Maroon Hill, an early centre of resistance.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Surveyor/Mapper |first=Simeon Hill |date=2021-04-28 |title=Nevis Heritage Sites (St. George) |url=https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e85ad1ef2b544eb792af6703264de89e |access-date=2024-09-16 |website=ArcGIS StoryMaps |language=en}}</ref>

The great wealth generated by the colonies of the West Indies led to wars among the great powers of Europe. The formation of the United States can be said to be a partial by-product of these wars, and the strategic trade aims that often ignored North America.<ref name="Hubbard"/> Three [[privateers]] ([[William Kidd]] being one of them) were employed by [[the Crown]] to help protect ships in Nevis' waters.<ref name="Hubbard"/>

During the 17th century, the French, based on Saint Kitts, launched many attacks on Nevis, sometimes assisted by the Kalinago, who in 1667 sent a large fleet of canoes along in support. In the same year, a Franco-Dutch invasion fleet [[Battle of Nevis|was repelled]] off Nevis by an English fleet. Letters and other records from the era indicate that colonists on Nevis hated and feared the Kalinago. In 1674 and 1683, they participated in attacks on Kalinago villages in [[Dominica]] and [[Saint Vincent and the Grenadines|St. Vincent]], despite a lack of official approval from the Crown for the attack.<ref name="Hubbard"/> On Nevis, the English built [[Fort Charles (Nevis)|Fort Charles]] and a series of smaller fortifications to aid in defending the island. This included Saddle Hill Battery, built in 1740 to replace a [[deodand]] on Mount Nevis.<ref name="Hubbard"/>{{rp|44,62,131}}