After the original settlers, Arawak and Caribs, the
island has been in the possession of French and English slave traders and
plantation owners. They brought hundreds of Africans to the island, mostly from
regions of Africa that are now Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola, and Ghana. Sea Island
Cotton was an important export crop, a good example can be found in the Bougainvillia
complex beside the Anchorage Yacht Club in Clifton Harbour.
When slavery was abolished, people still relied on
farming and fishing. As a result, a lot of men went to sea to work on
freighters to support their families. Union Island was the centre of some
political unrest in the late 1970s when a group of residents were in favour of
secession from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and merger with southern
neighbour Grenada. The insurrection was put down by forces of the Saint Vincent
and the Grenadines Government.
Today the yacht services business and tourist
day-chartering business provides a lot of jobs, there are numerous boutiques
and supermarkets, bars and restaurants, internet cafes and a dive operator. There
are several hotels and guest houses on Union Island, as well as schools,
churches and a small health clinic.
For Union Island I bought a random souvenir sheet on a
Dutch website for less than the face value. I took the stamp from the souvenir
sheet, put it on my envelope and sent it to the post office on the island. In
only three weeks it came back with a nice Clifton postmark. The $5 stamp was of
course far more than the normal rate for international letters, but it was the
easiest way to get an envelope from this island in the Grenadines.
Date sent: 16 May 2017
Date postmark: 26 May 2017
Date received: 7 June 2017
Number of days: 22
Envelope in collection: 149
No comments:
Post a Comment