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Caneel Bay history - learn what once happend
Over the centuries, Caneel Bay has been occupied by people of diverse cultures and from far away places. From the religious and spiritually oriented culture of indigenous Americans, it passed to the slavery-based plantation system of Europeans and enslaved Africans, then to the subsistence economy of freed slaves and peasant farmers and from there to a series of vacation resorts, starting out as basic cottages and developing into the super-luxurious Caneel Bay Resort of today catering to the well-heeled from North America and beyond. The first inhabitants of Caneel Bay were the ancestors of the Tainos, who established a village in the coastal section of the valley around 600 AD. For many years, they lived peacefully, planting yucca, fishing, gathering wild fruit, fabricating ceramic pottery, tools and ceremonial objects and conducting their social and religious ceremonies. This peaceful existence lasted until sometime in the fifteenth century, when Caribs from the Lesser Antilles began a series of devastating raids that apparently depopulated the island, shortly before Europeans ever arrived in the Caribbean. When part of Columbus' fleet sailed past the northern coast of St. John in 1493, the crew, as well as their Taino captives, reported St. John to be uninhabited. For the next two centuries, St. John remained only sparsely and intermittently inhabited by small groups of Native Americans fleeing persecution, pirates, fugitives of all sorts and colors, fishermen and woodcutters. Meanwhile Denmark colonized St. Thomas, and in the early eighteenth century, gave permission to a group of Dutch planters to set up plantations on St. John. When English became the predominant language in the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands), Store Caneel Bay became know as Cinnamon Bay and Klein Caneel Bay, no longer needing the distinction "little," became, and has remained, Caneel Bay. In 1733, slaves from the Amina tribe rebelled and took over most of St. John, with the exception of Caneel Bay, where surviving white planters and enslaved Africans from other African tribes with their own long standing animosities against the Aminas, regrouped after the rebellion. With the help of two cannons guarding the entrance to the estate, the small force was able to maintain control of the plantation until the rebellion was put down by French troops from Martinique. After slavery was abolished, the estate declined and reverted to cattle grazing and subsistence farming, until it was purchased by the West India Company of St. Thomas. Appreciating the natural beauty of the bay, the company began to operate a modest resort building three cottages, a small commissary and a narrow wooden dock. Five additional cottages were gradually constructed by the West India Company. In the 1940s when the property was acquired by the Trigo brothers from Puerto Rico, four more cottages were built bringing the total to twelve.
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Caneel Bay Vacations site
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