I don't claim to write the History with a big H of the island. I just want to write a quick summary, and thus wrong, of the history of the island with the little information I could have found.

The history of SB is closely related to that of the West Indies and in particular of the Guadeloupe and the Caribbean.

The settlement of the West Indies was done by migratory waves coming from various points of the American continent. 4000 years before Jesus-Christ, in the Greater West Indies were installed Taïnos, still called Arawaks, and which came from Guyana and Venezuela. Organized in village, they practised a sedentary agriculture (sweet potato, pepper, bean, manioc, corn), fishing, the gathering and hunting.

Arawaks were the first inhabitants of the Small West Indies, before being driven back by Karibs or the Caribbean, towards 600. They are established then in St-Domingue. On board very handy boats, the piraguas, the Caribbean travelled between the Domenica and St Vincent. Organizing raids into the Greater West Indies, they sowed terror on the cuban, Porto Rican shores and Jamaicans. The Caribbean were controlled by kings and produced only one utility ceramics, without any decoration.

The chroniclers said them that they were brutal and cannibals. In fact, they recognized like capacity the higher only warlike order, i.e. the triumph on the adversary, and they ate them to absorb their capacity. The Caribbean never accepted the domination of Europeans, even less the conversion with their religion. The 150 000 to 300 000 Amerindians who lived in the Lesser west Indies with the arrival of Christophe Colomb had disappeared in one century and half.

Rediscovered by Christophe Colomb in 1493 at the time of its second forwarding. Baptized with the firstname of his brother, it becomes definitively French in 1878. It passes under various dominations according to strategic choices of the actors in the presence of the fact of his strategic position on the chess-board of the European competitions, it becomes thus French, English, Swedish. France unloading of Saint-Kitts removes it from the English who occupied it in 1648 because of his strategic position. In 1656, the Caribs Indians devastate the island and massacre the totality of the colonists. After this tragedy, the island will be abandoned. In 1673, Huguenot people originating from Normandy and Brittany install the first permanent colony there. Saint-Barth grows rich thanks to the spoils by the French corsairs who plunder the Spanish ships, of which it is the point of rallying. The climatic conditions not lending itself to the development plantations of cane with sugar, Saint-Barth calls little upon the slaves and its population will remain mainly European. In 1784, the king Louis XVI yields to the island to his friend the king Gustav III of Sweden. The capital, Carenage, is renamed Gustavia by the Swedes, who set up the town hall like three forts. In 1800, it becomes a frank port, the island grows rich and its population goes up to 6000 hearts. In 1852, a fire devastates Gustavia. Trade route between Europe and America changed, which leads to a demographic and a commercial decline of the island. Its passage under Swedish domination is an economic failure and the king of Sweden reassigns it in Louis XVI with the help of finances (320 000 Francs) and exchanges against a commercial base in Gothenburg; this choice was largely approved by a popular referendum in 1878. The French flag floats on the island on March 15, 1878. From its Swedish period, it preserve are statute of frank port.

In 1946, the Guadeloupe and Martinique islands become French departments, St Barthelemy becomes against its liking, commune of the Guadeloupe.

It remains today an island with population mainly white counting about 7000 peoples of native of St Barth , "métros" (coming from France) without forgetting some foreigners allured by his attaching personality

Since the referendum of the 12/07/2003, St Barths decided to be freed from the department of the Guadeloupe to become a French territorial community with whole share. In spite of its attachment to France, the American influence is considerable, due to tourism and the relation privileged with the United States Virgin Islands. Thanks to a regulation of strict construction and a pricing policy, Saint Barth resists successfully to mass tourism and has become the paradise for billionaires of the West Indies. A city, Gustavia, and a dozen villages gather the heteroclite population of St Barth, the residents of Metropolis and the residents come besides.

It presents two faces today. For some, it is the appointment of the Jet set, a compromise of Cannes, Deauville and Saint-Tropez, with all that that comprises. For others, it is on the contrary a place of calms far from the media madness where one does not come to be seen but to profit in all peace from the beaches, the Sun and his own personality. These two faces of the island cohabit, one living during the day in the light of the Sun and the other the night under the strobe lightings of the spots. You make your choice, one or the other or both.