St Helena

Saint Helena was named after Saint Helena of Constantinople and is is a tropical island of volcanic origin in the South Atlantic Ocean, 4,000 km east of Rio de Janeiro and 1,950 km west of the southern coast of Africa. It is part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Saint Helena is Britain's second oldest remaining British Overseas Territory, after Bermuda.

Saint Helena is about 16 by 8 kilometres (10 by 5 mi) and has a population of 4,255 (2008 census).

The island was uninhabited when discovered by the Portuguese in 1502. One of the most remote islands in the world, it was for centuries an important stopover for ships sailing to Europe from Asia and South Africa. Napoleon was imprisoned there in exile by the British, as were Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo (for leading a Zulu army against British rule) and more than 5,000 Boers taken prisoner during the Second Boer War.

No permanent colony was established by any nation until in 1657 when Oliver Cromwell granted the English East India Company a charter to govern Saint Helena and the following year the company decided to fortify the island and colonise it with planters. The first governor, Captain John Dutton, arrived in 1659. A fort and houses were built. After the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, the East India Company received a royal charter giving it the sole right to fortify and colonise the island. The fort was renamed James Fort and the town Jamestown, in honour of the Duke of York, later James II of England.

Between January and May 1673, the Dutch East India Company forcibly took the island, before English reinforcements restored English East India Company control. The company experienced difficulty attracting new immigrants, and sentiments of unrest and rebellion fomented among the inhabitants. Ecological problems, including deforestation, soil erosion, vermin and drought, led Governor Isaac Pyke to suggest in 1715 that the population be moved to Mauritius, but this was not acted upon and the company continued to subsidise the community because of the island's strategic location. A census in 1723 recorded 1,110 people, including 610 slaves.

18th century governors tried to tackle the island's problems by implementing tree plantation, improving fortifications, eliminating corruption, building a hospital, tackling the neglect of crops and livestock, controlling the consumption of alcohol and introducing legal reforms. From about 1770, the island enjoyed a lengthy period of prosperity. Captain James Cook visited the island in 1775 on the final leg of his second circumnavigation of the world. St. James' Church was erected in Jamestown in 1774 and in 1791–92 Plantation House was built, and has since been the official residence of the Governor.

In 1676, Edmond Halley visited Saint Helena and set up an astronomical observatory with a 24 ft aerial telescope with the intention of studying stars from the Southern Hemisphere. The site of this telescope is near Saint Mathew's Church in Hutt's Gate

Throughout this period, Saint Helena was an important port of call of the East India Company. East Indiamen would stop there on the return leg of their voyages to British India and China. At Saint Helena ships could replenish supplies of water and provisions, and, during war time, form convoys that would sail under the protection of vessels of the Royal Navy. Captain James Cook's vessel HMS Endeavour anchored and resupplied off the coast of St Helena in May 1771, on her return from the South Pacific

The importation of slaves was made illegal in 1792. Governor Robert Patton (1802–1807) recommended that the company import Chinese labour to supplement the rural workforce. The coolie labourers arrived in 1810, and their numbers reached 600 by 1818. Many were allowed to stay, and their descendents became integrated into the population. An 1814 census recorded 3,507 people on the island.

In 1815, the British government selected Saint Helena as the place of detention of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was taken to the island in October 1815, staying at the Briars pavilion on the grounds of the Balcombe family's home until his permanent home, Longwood House, was completed; he died there on 5 May 1821. During this period, Saint Helena remained in the East India Company’s possession, but the British government met additional costs arising from guarding Napoleon. The island was strongly garrisoned with British troops, and naval ships circled the island.

The 1817 census recorded 821 white inhabitants, a garrison of 820 men on the East India Company's payroll, 1,475 men from the King's troops (infantry, engineers etc.) and 352 people as their families, 618 Chinese indentured labourers, 24 lascars, 500 free blacks and 1,540 slaves; in total, 6,150 people on the island. In addition, the British government had sent a naval squadron under the command of a rear-admiral and consisting of a couple of men o'war and several smaller vessels. These were not counted in the Census, as most of them lived on their ships. Concerning the slaves, Governor Hudson Lowe initiated their emancipation in 1818: from Christmas of that year, every newborn child was considered a free person (though his parents remained slaves until their death).

After Napoleon's death, the thousands of temporary workers were withdrawn and the East India Company resumed full control of Saint Helena. Between 1815 and 1830, the EIC made available to the government of the island the packet schooner St Helena, which made multiple trips per year between the island and the Cape carrying passengers both ways, and supplies of wine and provisions back to the island.

Under the provisions of the 1833 India Act, control of Saint Helena was passed from the East India Company to the British Crown, becoming a crown colony. Subsequent administrative cost-cutting triggered the start of a long-term population decline whereby those who could afford to do so tended to leave the island for better opportunities elsewhere. The latter half of the 19th century, with the advent of steam ships and eventually the opening of the Suez Canal, saw a drop in ships needing to resupply in St Helena from 1,100 in 1855 to only 288 in 1889.

In 1858, the French emperor Napoleon III successfully gained the possession, in the name of the French government, of Longwood House and the lands around it, last residence of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is still French property, administered by a French representative and under the authority of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

A place of exile . The British have used the island as a place of exile, most notably for Napoleon Bonaparte, Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo (a Zulu chief) and over 5,000 Boer prisoners.

Napoleon Obviously most tourists going to St Helena will be following the Napoleon Trail there. The three main Napoleonic sites — the Briars, Longwood and Napoleon’s Tomb — stand under the fluttering tricolour flag. Queen Victoria transferred Longwood Old House, the surrounding gardens and the land around the Tomb in Geranium Valley to French rule in 1858. And The Briars was given to France more recently

Briars is the name of the small pavilion, that served as the family's tea house, in which Napoleon Bonaparte stayed for the first few weeks of his captivity on Saint Helena - until Longwood was got ready. The pavilion was in the garden of William Balcombe, an English merchant who became a purveyor to Napoleon. His 14-year-old daughter Elizabeth Lucia ("Betsy") Balcombe was the only family member who spoke French and she became the family translator. Because of his family's closeness to Napoleon, Balcombe attracted the suspicion of Governor Hudson Lowe, and in 1818 he was forced to leave the island and return to England.

The Briars then was used as the home for the Admiral on duty in the station. Later, Balcombe was offered a post in Australia and established a new estate called "The Briars" in the Carwoola area of New South Wales. On this new estate, it is believed that William Snr was responsible for introducing two plants to Australia, the Sweet Briar (Rosa Rubiginosa) and the Weeping Willow (Salix Babylonica). The willow grew nearby Napoleon’s grave on St Helena and Balcombe is reported to have taken cuttings from these trees. In 1959 the Pavilion was offered to the French government by a descendant of William Balcombe, Dame Mabel Brookes, an Australian descendant of the Balcombe family and became the third of the French properties on the island.

The pavilion lies in a shady spot surrounded by gardens. The small one-room house has been restored to its original neo-Classical style, with imperial green walls and period furniture.

Longwood House was the residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, during the rest of his exile on the island of Saint Helena, from 10 December 1815 until his death on 5 May 1821. It lies on a windswept plain some 6 km from Jamestown.

Formerly the summer residence of the lieutenant governor, it was converted for the use of Napoleon in 1815. The British government recognised its inadequacy as a home for the former Emperor and his entourage, and by the time of his death had built a new house for him nearby, which he never occupied. In February 1818 Governor Sir Hudson Lowe proposed to Lord Bathurst to move Napoleon to Rosemary Hall, a house that became available and was located in a more hospitable part of the island, sheltered from the winds and shaded, as Napoleon had preferred. But the revelations of General Gourgaud in London brought Lord Bathurst to the opinion that it was safer to keep Napoleon at Longwood, where an escape was harder to undertake. So the building of the new house only began in October 1818, three years after Napoleon's arrival on the island.

Today the place looks nice, newly painted and restored, surrounded by trees and shrubbery. The interiors are fresh and clean after an international fund-raising effort by the French Consul. But when Napoleon and his retinue arrived, they found it a great disappointment. It lay on an arid and damp plateau 1,800 feet above sea level, open to the buffeting trade winds and often blanketed with mist. The Emperor’s Grand Marshal Count Bertrand described the place as “a few dark rooms with low ceilings,” a far cry from the palaces of the Élysée and Tuileries of Napoleon’s glory days. Contemporary accounts paint the domicile, which Napoleon shared with his courtiers, their families, several servants, his doctor and the British orderly officer assigned to observe him, as a damp and cheerless place crawling with mould and festooned with cobwebs that his servants camouflaged by hanging fabric and paper on the walls and ceilings. And, of course, there were the rats and other pests scurrying under the floorboards.

Here it is easier to imagine Napoleon’s last days. A visitor can stand on the latticed front porch and gaze past the jagged rocks of Flagstaff Hill and the Barn peak at the limitless ocean, imagining the emperor doing the same as he scans the horizon for passing ships and bemoans his exile on “questa piedra maladetta — this cursed rock.” There are about 30 small rooms and a courtyard at the house. The anteroom, which is large and bright, contains the original billiard table over which Napoleon used to spread his maps as he dictated his memoirs and relived his missteps at Waterloo. One can also see the holes that Napoleon had cut into the window shutters so that he could use a telescope to watch unobserved activity in the garden or his detested overseer approaching the house. The drawing room contains no original items but it has a replica of the camp bed where Napoleon died, placed close to the wall between two windows. (The original is in Les Invalides.) Because Napoleon was an insomniac, he had his servants place one camp bed in his bedroom and another in the adjoining study as he would move around in the night like a somnambulist, dictating, reading, snacking and catnapping.

Past the main salon lies a small dining room where Napoleon and his threadbare court attended formal dinners served on fine Sèvres porcelain by butlers in livery, as elegant silverware glittered in the candlelight. These trappings lent the proceedings a comic opera quality. More poignant still are the portraits of the empresses Josephine and Maria Louisa on the walls, and on the fireplace mantel the bust of the so-called King of Rome, Napoleon’s legitimate son. After the second abdication Napoleon was not allowed to see his family again, a loss he sorely felt.

The Emperor was closely guarded, despite the apparent inaccessibility of St. Helena. It was a requirement of the Governor that every visitor to Longwood House should be issued with a pass, signed by himself. Napoleon had only a few distractions to occupy his time. He did some gardening: Count Balmain, Russian Commissioner, wrote on 20th January 1820: I saw General Bonaparte this morning. He was amusing himself in one of his private flower gardens. His morning dress at present consists of a white gown, and straw hat with a very wide brim. In the afternoon he appears out in a cocked hat, green coat, and white breeches and stockings. He walks a good part of the afternoon in Longwood garden, accompanied by either Counts Montholon or Bertrand, and often pays a visit to the Bertrands in the evenings. Yesterday afternoon he walked around in the new garden and buildings. Reading and dictation of his memoirs occupied more of his time.

He also engaged in horseback riding, but found the close guard maintained by his captors annoying. A perimeter was designated, within which he could ride unaccompanied. The area is shown on the map. It looks extensive but it must be remembered that much of the enclosed area comprised steep valleys and other inhospitable terrain, severely restricting his practicable range. He undertook a few trips during his stay, including to Sandy Bay in January 1816 and to Mount Pleasant in October 1820. Governor Lowe was not only suspicious of Napoleon himself, he also suspected (in some cases, with grounds}) the British Personnel who attended the Emperor

Following Napoleon's death, Longwood House reverted to the East India Company and later to the Crown, and was used for agricultural purposes. Reports of its neglect reached Napoleon III who, from 1854, negotiated with the British government for its transfer to France. In 1858 it was transferred to the French government along with the Valley of the Tomb for a sum of £7,100. Since then they have been under the control of the French Foreign Ministry and a French government representative has lived on the island and has been responsible for managing both properties.

In 1959 the Briars, where Napoleon spent the first two months while Longwood was being prepared, was given to the French government by Dame Mabel Brookes. As a result of the depredations of termites, in the 1940s the French government considered demolishing the building. New Longwood and the Balcombe's house at the Briars were both demolished at this time, but Longwood House was saved, and it has been restored by recent French curators. The stone steps at the front are the only part of the original fabric to survive.

In 2006 Michel Dancoisne-Martineau donated the heart-shaped waterfall valley to the Saint Helena National Trust. In 2008 he donated the land surrounding the Pavilion at the Briars to the French Republic. Longwood House is now a museum owned by the French government. It is one of two museums on the island, the other being the Museum of Saint Helena.

Napoleon’s first tomb, is in Geranium Valley, overlooking a ravine known as the Devil’s Punch Bowl.

In his will Napoleon asked to be buried on the banks of the Seine, but the British Governor, Hudson Lowe, insisted he should be buried on St. Helena, in the Valley of the Willows (now Sane Valley). The Tomb is one of the Seven Wonders of St. Helena. Lowe said the inscription should read “Napoleon Bonaparte”; Napoleon’s friends, Montholon and Bertrand, wanted the Imperial title “Napoleon” - by convention royalty were signed by their first names only. Unable to resolve the dispute the tomb was left nameless

Sane Valley was his second choice as a burial site, and visitors still go there to view the rectangular fenced grave site under the trees. The willows that once grew there have been stripped away as souvenirs.

Napoleon died on the 5th of May 1821, the funeral services were conducted by the Abbé Vignali and held on the 9th of May. The English soldiers of the 20th Regiment, all 3,000 of them, lined the route as Napoleon’s funeral procession passed by. Twenty-four soldiers carried the coffin down the narrow path that led to Geranium Valley where his burial place was already prepared. Napoleon selected this place himself, as he found it peaceful. There was a brook whose water Napoleon enjoyed and every day, water from this brook was brought to Longwood House for his use.

A metal fence surrounded the burial area and a large cement slab covered most of the burial area. The companions wanted to inscribe "Napoleon" on the slab of cement but Sir Hudson Lowe, the British Governor, refused. He insisted that they inscribe "Bonaparte" instead. Since they couldn't agree, the slab of cement was left without a name for 19 years.

Napoleon’s body is no longer there - it was collected in 1840 by the Prince de Joinville, loaded onto the frigate Belle-Poule, which had been painted black for the occasion, taken back to France and re-buried in L’Hotêl Les Invalides. Prince de Joinville, the son of Louis Philippe, with some of the companions of the exile, opened the tomb in order to identify the Emperor before the returning of the body to France. Imagine their surprise when the tomb was opened to identify Napoleon, he was in a perfect state of preservation, Napoleon laid there as if he were asleep. His body had been sealed airtight in a lead coffin

In 1854, at the time of the great friendship between Napoleon III and Queen Victoria, the land around Longwood House, and the tomb area was purchased by France for 7,100 English pounds and is now considered a Consulate so the area is protected politically.

In 1890 Dinuzulu was captured by the British and exiled to St. Helena — or seven years, for leading a Zulu army against the British during the British attempts of annexation of the coastal planes of Zululand. On the island the Zulus were first housed in Rosemary Hall, the house that had once been the residence of Baron Stürmer and Baron Balmain, the Austrian and Russian Commissioners who were on the island during the exile of the Emperor Napoleon. However as the rainy season set in, the prisoners found Rosemary Hall cold and damp and so the household was moved to Maldivia House in Jamestown. The Zulu prisoners left the island in December 1897. The departure of the Zulu prisoners placed the island deeply in financial straits, for during the seven years of their exile, they had spent about one thousand pounds annually on the upkeep of their establishments, and so poor was the island's economy that the loss of this trivial sum was felt acutely.

In 1900 and 1901, over 5,000 Boer prisoners were held on the island, and the population reached its all-time high of 9,850 in 1901. In April 1900 the Saint Helena Guardian carried the following notice:

In a few days the troopship Milwaukee escorted by the HMS Niobe will arrive with prisoners of war. No unauthorized person will be allowed on the Wharf at the time of disembarkation. The Police will assist, as far as they can, the Military acting under the orders of the Officer Commanding the Troops in keeping order. His Excellency the Governor expresses the hope that the Inhabitants will treat the prisoners with that courtesy and consideration which should be extended to all men who have fought bravely in what they have considered the cause of their Country and will help in repressing any unseemly demonstration which individuals might exhibit.

Between April 1900 and February 1902, more than 5,000 Boer prisoners of war arrived on the island. In addition to receiving General Cronje, the island also hosted another important Boer General, Ben Viljoen, who had been ambushed and captured towards the end of the war. Viljoen arrived at Saint Helena on 25th February 1902 on board the Britannic and recorded his first sight of the island: “The Rock” rose out of the ocean, bare and rugged, the imprisonment upon it offered a gloomy prospect. No animal was visible and foliage was wanting. …I must confess that the feeling grew upon us that we were to be treated as ordinary criminals, since only murderers and dangerous people are banished to such places to be forgotten by mankind.

By 1902 there were more than five and a half thousand prisoners of war on the island guarded by one and a half thousand troops. The first arrivals were sent to Deadwood Camp. The prisoners were housed mainly in canvas tents, and huts which they later built themselves from biscuit tins. As time went on, disturbances occurred among certain of the prisoners at Deadwood. Some of the prisoners openly expressed a desire to become British Subjects; those who were bitterly against the British treated these men with great scorn and hostility. To prevent further conflict, the authorities were compelled to form a separate camp located apart from the general camp, the prisoners desiring to become British Subjects and subsequently desiring an end to the hostilities in South Africa, were segregated into “Deadwood No2” or “Peace Camp.” Friction also developed between the “Freestaters and the Transvaalers” and the authorities decided to open another camp at Broadbottom, a broad shallow valley, about five miles from Deadwood. Here with certain exceptions, all the prisoners were burghers of the Orange Free State. This camp was opened in early 1901.

Eventually peace was declared in the Boer War and on Tuesday 17th June 1902, Jamestown was unusually crowded as some three hundred prisoners of war came to sign the Oath of Allegiance. Although there was reluctance on the part of some prisoners to sign the Oath initially, the lure of their returning to South Africa in a short while proved to be greater than their pride and on the 26th June 1902 the first batch of prisoners (470) embarked on the Canada for Capetown. By mid September, the prison camps were broken up and the contents sold by public auction. The last batch of prisoners left the island on the 21st October aboard the SS Golconda.

In June 1907 the Saint Helena Guardian carried a report of the arrival of 25 Zulu prisoners shipped to the island from Natal. These prisoners had been a part of the Zulu insurrection in Natal earlier that year and included among the number such men as Tilonko, Messeni, Ndhlove a son of Sigananda, and others who were identified by the Government of Natal as being the ringleaders of the rebellion. The prisoners were originally to be deported to Mauritius but because of an outbreak of beri-beri there, it was agreed with the British Government that they should be sent to Saint Helena instead. The Zulus arrived on the steamship Inyati on 11th June 1907. They were landed the following day wearing khaki jackets bearing the letter L and various other marks to indicate their sentences which ranged from “Life” to 10 years. The prisoners ranged in age from about 20 to 70 years and seemed in very poor health when they arrived.

The Zulus remained on the island for the next two years and worked mainly on the roads or in rock breaking in the local quarries. Many years later a local character by the name of “Chief” supposedly the son of Dinizulu by an islander, recalled how when the 25 Zulu prisoners arrived on the island his mother had hidden him away, for fear that he might be taken back to Natal when the prisoners were repatriated there in 1909.

Saint Helena was given a brief respite from her prison role until August 1917 when the Sultan of Zanzibar, Sayyid Khalid bin Barghash al Said, described in the Records as the pretender to the Sultanate, arrived with his harem and several others totalling 25 people. There is no information available in the local archives on the prisoners of Zanzibar, according to the archivist; all newspapers and other records relating to Khalid were censored during that period. Local people referred to the prisoners as the “Zanzibars”. As with the Zulu prisoners of 1907, very few people remember them being on the island, and the recollections of those who do are very vague and of little substance. The prisoners were kept in Jamestown at the building on the Military Parade Ground. They did not mix much with the Saint Helenians, some of whom remember that the prisoners were always very smartly dressed in long flowing silken robes, the women were described as having a beautiful appearance. In 1921 the Sultan and the rest of his group were removed to the Seychelles where they remained until 1925 when he was released and allowed to settle in Tanganyka and later in Kenya. He died at Mombassa in 1927.

It was to be another thirty-six years before Britain was to call on Saint Helena's services as a prison island one more time, on this occasion to detain three Bahrainis. The three men had been prominent members of a Committee of Nationalists in Bahrain. They had been tried by the court of the ruler of Bahrain for offences against the state after disturbances, which took place there early in November 1956, and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. The ruler of Bahrain had asked Britain for assistance in removing them to a British Territory and it was subsequently decided that they should be sent to Saint Helena.

The three prisoners were housed under guard at the former searchlight station at Munden's Point, which had been specially prepared for the purpose. They were cared for by local male servants and kept very much to themselves. In March 1959, one of the prisoners, Abdul Rahman applied to the Saint Helena Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus: he challenged the Governor to show that the imprisonment was lawful. The Bahraini's appeal to the Privy Council, which was heard in the first half of 1960, was dismissed. In June 1961 another of the three men, Abdul Aziz Shemlan, made a similar application. On this occasion Mr. Myles Abbott, formerly of the Nigerian Federal Supreme Court, three barristers and Shemlan's solicitor came for the trial, and this time the application was successful. As the circumstances were identical in the cases of the other men, all three were immediately released from custody and left for England by the next ship.

In the 20th century the island enjoyed increased revenues through the sale of flax, with prices peaking in 1951. However, the industry declined because of transportation costs and competition from synthetic fibres. The decision by the British Post Office to use synthetic fibres for its mailbags was a further blow, contributing to the closure of the island's flax mills in 1965.

From 1958, the Union Castle shipping line gradually reduced its service calls to the island.. Eventually the RMA St Helena.replaced the Union-Castle Line mailship service in 1977

The UK government has invested £250 million in the construction of the island's airport. Expected to be fully operational early 2016, it is expected to help the island towards self-sufficiency and encourage economic development, reducing dependence on British government aid. The airport is also expected to kick start the tourism industry, with up to 30,000 visitors expected annually