Quotes from Carol Boyle

Again, remember to bring a number of $1 bills for ferries, taxis, etc., or you will be going home with a lot foreign currency.

St. Kitts was the oldest and wealthiest of the English colonies in the Caribbean. This island had rich volcanic soil, a climate of sun and rain, and an endless supply of slaves. Annually it yielded a fortune in sugar and rum for its wealthy, mostly absentee, landholders. Around 1775, the time of the American Revolution, 68 sugar plantations existed on St. Kitts alone!

Today St. Kitts is the only Leeward Island, of the Caribbean, that still grows sugar cane. However, sugar cane is very expensive to grow, harvest, and process. The fields are now state owned and the entire island crop is processed in one government-run factory. The dozens of sugar plantations, which had dotted the island, climbing from the shore up into the mountains, were gradually abandoned. In time, the handsome stone structures -- complete factories-- fell to wind, weather, and vandalism.