St. Lucia’s History, Culture and Heritage

St. Lucia is a nation in the Windward Islands in the Caribbean Sea. It was believed that Christopher Columbus first saw the island on St. Lucy’s Day, December 13. Although historians dispute this, the island, under the name of St. Lucia, can be seen on a Vatican map dated 1502.

The population is descended from West African slaves who worked for both French and British plantation owners. St. Lucia alternated between French and British control fourteen times before it became a British Crown Colony under the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Although the British ruled the island for 165 years without interruption, the cultural influence of the French persists to the present day. It is reflected in the islanders’ Catholicism, in their French – based patois (dialect) and in such customs as its Flower Festival.

In the twentieth century, St. Lucia gradually moved toward self- government. In 1958 it joined the short-lived West Indies Federation. On February 22, 1979, St. Lucia became an independent state within the British Commonwealth. Replacing a dependence on sugar as the basis of its economy, St. Lucia today produces a large banana crop.

Culture Heritage

St. Lucia’s traditional music includes work songs that originated during the days of slavery. There are also beach party and game songs and Carnival Folk instruments include the bélè (or ka) drum; a long, hollow tube called the baha; a rattle called the chakchak; the zo (bones); and the gwaj (scraper). Various types of banjos and a four-stringed instrument called the cuarto are also native to the island.

St. Lucian gospel songs are called san-keys in honor of American singer and song-writer Ira D. Sankey. Each year the calypso tunes currently popular on the island appear in a recorded collection called Lucian Kaiso, The St. Lucian kwadril, a popular traditional dance, reflects the islands French heritage (it is based on the quadrille). It is a complicated dance with five distinct parts.
Noble-prize winning poet and playwright Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucian in 1930. He established an international writers’ retreat, the Rat Island Foundation, off the coast of his native land. Other St. Lucian writers include Walcott’s twin brother, Roderick Walcott, novelist Garth St. Omer and poet and short story writer John Robert Lee. Calypso and reggae music are universally popular in the Caribbean. Two other musical styles—zouk and cadance—are heard on French influence islands like St. Lucia.