anchorage for vessels of twelve to fourteen feet
draught. St. John has a population of about 16,-
ooo, which is probably half that of the entire island.
I t is the seat of government of the Leeward
Islands colony, as well as the Antigua presidency,
and has such public buildings as the colony affords.
It is a well built town with stone houses and a fine
cathedral with two yellow towers. T h e island is
divided into six parishes, each with its town or village
and its church and chapel. With some variation
of industries it might still be a thriving place,
but it has long been declining, because wholly devoted
to sugar in slavery times. T he population at
the time of emancipation in 1834 was 2000 whites
and 33,000 negroes. Since then the whites have
diminished in number and the blacks increased, while
the old plantation life has decayed.
A s Columbus came up the islands on that second
voyage he christened this one for Santa Maria la
Antigua, with whose fane in Valladolid he was
familiar. It was in that same church that his mortal
remains were first deposited. In 1520, a Spaniard
named Serrano made an effort to colonise the island,
but the Caribs objected so strenuously that he had
to desist. Even when that persistent English coloniser,
Sir Thomas Warner, first settled here in 1632,
he had some desperate fights with the Caribs, who
were not wont, like the Arawaks, to give up their
land without a struggle. There is a romantic story
of an English governor whose wife was stolen by a
Carib chief and carried off to Dominica, and who
after recovering her went insane with jealousy. Thq
island was granted to Lord Willoughby after the
restoration, but the French seized it at about
the same time. It was definitely conceded to Great
Britain by the treaty of Breda in 1667. A fte r the
plantation system was well under way there was a
serious uprising of the negro slaves in I73^> which
was put down with a relentless severity that was regarded
as necessary to the safety of the small white
population. Earthquakes and hurricanes have
troubled the island at times. There was a violent
shaking in 1833 and a furious blowing in 1835, and
in 1841 the city of St. John was wellnigh destroyed
by fire.