Recently, with Albert & Michael’s, big upswing in sales of properties, we’ve been thinking about the history of Saba and acknowledging the land and the Indigenous People who first lived and worked here.

Indigenous is about belonging and comes from the Latin word indigena, which means “native – sprung from the land.”

Land acknowledgment is a custom dating back centuries. It’s a powerful way of showing respect to the Indigenous Peoples of the land
on which we work and live, a simple way of telling the truth and resisting the erasure of Indigenous histories and working towards honoring different cultures and rituals.

We know the Ciboney (Soo-bony) 1100 BC from Haiti, Cuba and the Dominica Republic and the Arawak (Ar-a-wak) Indians 800 AD from
South America were the founding people of Saba, which should always be celebrated.

Our roots are in the land

> Saba is thought to have been originally inhabited by the Ciboney people as early as the 1100s BC – people of Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, and
the Dominican Republic.

> Later, circa 800 AD, Arawak indigenous people from South America settled on the island.

> Christopher Columbus is said to have sighted the island on 13 November 1493; however, he did not land, being deterred by the island’s perilous rocky shores.

> In 1632, a group of shipwrecked Englishmen landed on Saba.

> In the 1640s, the Dutch Governor of the neighboring island of Sint Eustatius (Statia) sent several Dutch families over to colonize the island.
In 1664, refusing to swear allegiance to the English crown, these original Dutch settlers were evicted to St. Maarten by Jamaican
governors-cum-pirates Edward, Thomas, and Henry Morgan.

> The Netherlands gained control of the island in 1816.

The earth is what we all have in common and when you stand on a piece of land it holds not just the vital facts of history but the lives and feelings of people – individuals, family, community.

Here are several quotes about nature and land and people that matter to us:

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“Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.”  – Mark Twain – American writer, humorist

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