A History of St Lucia

A History of St Lucia is the first-ever detailed andcomprehensive record of St Lucia's turbulent past.Beginning with the island's geological formationand subsequent Amerindian occupation,this book takes one through colonization byFrance and England to the rise and fall of thesugar industry, the tribulations of slavery, thefeverish hopes and fears of the Brigand Warsand, eventually, Emancipation. After 1838,St Lucia's newly freed people went in searchof independence, dignity and respectability:an era marked by the immigration of indenturedworkers from Barbados, Africa and India, the riseof a peasantry, and a labouring class in search ofnew horizons.The arduous battle with 'Mr Hard Times' formedfertile soil for a hard-fought coming of age in the20th century when unions and political partiesdeveloped amidst the turmoil of two World Warsand a city's Death by Fire. Forcing 'King Sugar' tohis knees paved the way to a new St Lucia, builton the 'green gold' of the banana industry - anera which in many ways came to an end in 2007with the passing of the architect of independence,Sir John Compton.