Histories of the British Overseas territories

The British Crown dependencies, and overseas territories, are St Helena, Tristan Da Cunha which holds Gough Island.
St Helena Turks and Caicos, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, South Georgia and the claims in Antartica, Montserrat The Cayman Islands The Virgin Islands Bermuda Anguilla Pitcairn Channel Islands Gibralter Isle of Man Ascension, You can scroll down and find what I have written about each of these places. Diego Garcia,

They are over a range of 3 pages. With at the bottom of this page, a small essay on the democides and disasters, of the isles.

Part 2 of our Overseas territories History section

Part 3 of our Overseas territories History section

The history of Saint Helena begins in 1502 with its discovery by the Portuguese. Uninhabited when first discovered, the Portuguese named it for Helena of Constantinople. The island now known as Saint Helena was garrisoned by the British during the 17th century. It became famous as the place of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile, from 1815 until his death in 1821.
The island was discovered on May 21, 1502 by the Portuguese navigator João da Nova, on his voyage home from India, and he named it "Saint Helena". The Portuguese found it uninhabited, with an abundance of trees and fresh water. They imported livestock (mainly goats), fruit trees and vegetables, built a chapel and one or two houses, and left their sick there to be taken home, if they recovered, by the next ship, but they formed no permanent settlement. The Portuguese kept the location of the island a secret. They wanted to keep this strategically-placed watering place to themselves. Its first known permanent resident was Portuguese, Fernão Lopez who had turned traitor in India and had been mutilated by order of Albuquerque, the Governor of Goa. Fernando Lopes preferred being marooned to returning to Portugal in his maimed condition, and lived on Saint Helena from 1513. By royal command Lopez did visit Portugal some time later, but returned to Saint Helena, where he died in 1530.
When the island was discovered, it was covered with unique (indigenous) vegetation, including many tropical trees. The island's interior must have been a dense tropical forest but the coastal areas were probably quite green as well. The modern landscape is very different, with a lot of naked rock in the lower areas, and a high interior that is green-but mainly of imported vegetation. The dramatic change in landscape must be contributed to the introduction of goats and the introduction of new vegetation.
In 1584 two Japanese ambassadors to Rome landed at the island. The first Englishman known to have visited it was Thomas Cavendish, who touched there in June 1588 during his voyage round the world. Another English seaman, Captain Kendall, visited Saint Helena in 1591, and in 1593 Sir James Lancaster stopped at the island on his way home from the East. In 1603 Lancaster again visited Saint Helena on his return from the first voyage equipped by the British East India Company.
From about 1600 the island was well known by captains from Portugal, England, France and the United Provinces. The island was used for collecting food and as a rendez-vous point but at homebound voyages from Asia only: during outbound voyages the ships sailed hundreds of kilometres west of Saint Helena. Sometimes ships waited near the island, when their captains were hoping to pirate hostile richly-loaded ships. For example, the Italian merchant Fransesco Carletti, sailing on board a Portuguese ship, was robbed of his valuable possessions by Dutch (or more precise, Zeeuws) mariners in 1602 [1 in his autobiography entitled My voyage around the world: The chronicles of a 16th Century Florentine Merchant and his story is confirmed in Dutch archives].
After about 1610 the Portuguese seem to have given up calling at the island, which appears to have been occupied by the Dutch in about 1645. The Dutch occupation was temporary and ceased in 1651, the year before they founded Cape Town.
The British East India Company appropriated the island immediately after the departure of the Dutch, and they were confirmed in possession by a clause in their charter of 1661.
The company built a fort (1658), named "Jamestown" after the Duke of York (later James II), and established a garrison on the island. In 1673 the Dutch succeeded in obtaining possession, but were ejected after a few months' occupation. Since that date St Helena has been in the undisturbed possession of Great Britain, though in 1706, two ships anchored off Jamestown were carried off by the French. In 1673 the Dutch had been expelled by the forces of the Crown, but by a new charter granted in December 1673 the East India Company were declared the true and absolute lords and proprietors of the island.
At this time nearly half the inhabitants were negro slaves. In 1810 the company began the importation of Chinese from their factory at Canton, China. During the company's rule the island prospered, thousands of homeward-bound vessels anchored in the roadstead every year, staying for considerable periods, refitting and revictualling. Large sums of money were thus expended in the island, where wealthy merchants and officials had their residence. The plantations were worked by the slaves, who were subjected to very barbarous laws until 1792, when a new code of regulations ensured their humane treatment and prohibited the importation of any new slaves. Later it was enacted that all children of slaves born on or after Christmas Day 1818 should be free, and between 1826 and 1836 all slaves were manumitted.
Among the governors appointed by the company to rule at Saint Helena was one of the Huguenot refugees, Captain Stephen Poirier (1697 - 1707), who attempted unsuccessfully to introduce the cultivation of the vine. A later governor (1741-1742) was Robert Jenkins of "War of Jenkins's Ear" fame. William Dampier visited the island twice, in 1691 and 1701; Halley's Mount commemorates the visit paid by the astronomer Edmund Halley in 1676 - 1678 - the first of a number of scientific men who pursued their studies on the island.
In 1815 the British government selected Saint Helena as the place of detention of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was brought to the island in October 1815 and lodged at Longwood, where he died in May 1821. During this period the island was strongly garrisoned by regular troops, and the governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, was nominated by the Crown. In fact, the island was heavily overpopulated with thousands of soldiers and dozens of VIPs, including some French aristocratic families belonging to Napeleon's household and many British officers with their families. A lot of food had to be imported and even fish was becoming scarce. Many soldiers died on the island as result of poor sanitory conditions. Foreign ships were not very welcome any more. For more details about Napeleon on Saint Helena, see Exile in Saint Helena and death
After Napoleon's death the thousands of temporary visitors were soon withdrawn. The East India Company resumed full control of Saint Helena and life returned to the pre-1815 standards - apart from the gradual emancipation of the slaves. As a result of an act passen in the British Parliament in 1833, on April 22, 1834 the rule of the East India Company was discontinued and Saint Helena became a British Crown colony.
As a port of call the island continued to enjoy a fair measure of prosperity until about 1870. For example, around the 1840s and 1850s the island was an important basis for the suppression of the illegal slave trade. From about 1870 the number of vessels visiting Jamestown went sharply down, depriving the islanders of their principal means of subsistence. When steamers began to replace sailing vessels and when the Suez Canal opened (in 1869) fewer ships passed the island, while of those that still passed, the majority were so well supplied that they found it unnecessary to call. The withdrawal in 1906 of the small garrison, hitherto maintained by the imperial government, was another cause of depression.
The British sometimes use the island to lodge prisoners of war. For example, in the 1890s some Zulu chiefs, including Dinizulu, lived in exile on the island. During the Second Anglo-Boer war of 1899 - 1902 some thousands of Boer prisoners were detained at Saint Helena.
Tristan Da Cunha
The islands were first sighted in 1506 by a Portuguese mariner, Tristão da Cunha, although he did not land. He named the main island after himself, Ilha de Tristão da Cunha, which was later anglicised to Tristan da Cunha Island. The first survey of the archipelago was made by the French frigate L'Heure du Berger in 1767. Soundings were taken and a rough survey of the coastline was made. The presence of water at the large waterfall of Big Watron and in a lake on the north coast were noted, and the results of the survey were published by a Royal Navy hydrographer in 1781. The first permanent settler was Jonathan Lambert, from Salem, Massachusetts, who arrived at the islands in 1810. He declared the islands his property and named them the Islands of Refreshment. His rule was short lived, as he died in a boating accident in 1812.
In 1815 the United Kingdom formally annexed the islands, ruling them from the Cape Colony in South Africa. This is reported to have primarily been a measure to ensure that the French would not be able to use the islands as a base for a rescue operation to free Napoleon Bonaparte from his prison on Saint Helena. The occupation also prevented the United States from using Tristan as a base, as they had during the War of 1812. Attempts to colonise Inaccessible Island failed.
The islands were occupied by a British military garrison, and a civilian population was gradually built up. Whalers also set up on the islands as a base for operations in the Southern Atlantic. However the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, together with the move from sailing ships to coal fired steam ships, saw the increased isolation of the islands, as they were no longer needed as a stopping port for journeys from Europe to the Far East.
In 1867, The Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria visited the island. The main settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas was named in honour of his visit. A second Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, visited the islands in 1957 as part of a world tour onboard the royal yacht Britannia. Lewis Carroll's youngest brother, the Rev. Edwin H. Dodgson, served as an Anglican missionary and school teacher in Tristan da Cunha in the 1880s.
On 12 January 1938, by Letters Patent, the islands were declared a dependency of St Helena.
During World War II the islands were used as a Royal Navy station. Atlantic Isle was established to monitor German shipping movements in the South Atlantic Ocean. The first Administrator was appointed by the British Government during this time.
In 1961, a volcanic eruption forced the evacuation of the entire population to a former RAF station in Calshot near Southampton, England, living mainly in a road called Tristan Close. In 1962, a Royal Society expedition went to the island to assess the damage reporting that the settlement Edinburgh of the Seven Seas had only been marginally affected. Most families returned in 1963 led by Willie Repetto (head of the 10-strong island council) and Allan Crawford (the former island welfare officer).
In 2005 the island was given a UK post code (TDCU 1ZZ) to make it easier for the residents to order goods online.
The island also holds Gough Island,
Gibralter
Human settlement in Gibraltar can be traced back to the Phoenicians around 950 BC, although there is earlier evidence of habitation by the Neanderthals, an extinct species of the Homo genus. Semi-permanent settlements were later established by the Carthaginians and Romans. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Gibraltar came briefly under the control of the Vandals, and would later form part of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania until its collapse due to the Muslim conquest in 711 AD. At that time, Gibraltar was named as one of the Pillars of Hercules, after the legend of the creation of the Straits of Gibraltar.
On April 30, 711, the Umayyad general Tariq ibn Ziyad led a Berber-dominated army across the Strait from Ceuta. He first attempted to land at Algeciras but failed. Subsequently, he landed undetected at the southern point of the Rock from present-day Morocco in his quest for Spain. Little was built during the first four centuries of Moorish control.
The first permanent settlement was built by the Almohad Sultan Abd al-Mu'min, who ordered the construction of a fortification on the Rock, the remains of which are still present. Gibraltar would later become part of the Taifa Kingdom of Granada until 1309, when it would be briefly occupied by Castilian troops. In 1333 it was conquered by the Marinids who had invaded Muslim Spain. The Marinids ceded Gibraltar to the Kingdom of Granada in 1374. Finally, it was reconquered definitively by the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1462, ending 750 years of Moorish control.
In the initial years under Medina Sidonia, Gibraltar was granted sovereignty as a home to a population of exiled Sephardic Jews. Pedro de Herrera, a Jewish converso from Córdoba who had led the conquest of Gibraltar, led a group of 4,350 Jews from Córdoba and Seville to establish themselves in the town. A community was built and a garrison established to defend the peninsula. However, this lasted only 3 years. In 1476, the Duke of Medina Sidonia realigned with the Spanish Crown; the Sefardim were then forced back to Córdoba and the Spanish Inquisition. Gibraltar would not pass under the hands of the Spanish Crown until 1501. One year later, the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella granted Gibraltar a coat of arms.
The naval Battle of Gibraltar took place on April 25, 1607 during the Eighty Years' War when a Dutch fleet surprised and engaged a Spanish fleet anchored at the Bay of Gibraltar. During the 4-hour action, the entire Spanish fleet was destroyed.
During the War of the Spanish Succession, British and Dutch troops, allies of Archduke Charles, the Austrian pretender to the Spanish Crown, formed a confederate fleet and attacked various towns on the southern coast of Spain. On 4 August 1704, after six hours of bombardment starting at 5 a.m., the confederate fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir George Rooke, captured the town of Gibraltar in the name of the Archduke Charles. Terms of surrender were agreed upon, after which much of the population chose to leave Gibraltar. Many others stayed.
Franco-Spanish troops failed to retake the town, and British sovereignty over Gibraltar was subsequently recognised by the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the war. Spain ceded Gibraltar and Minorca to the United Kingdom, which has retained sovereignty over the former ever since, despite all attempts by Spain to recapture it.
Gibraltar subsequently became an important naval base for the Royal Navy and played an important part in the Battle of Trafalgar. Its strategic value increased with the opening of the Suez Canal, as it controlled the important sea route between the UK and its colonies in India and Australia. During World War II, the civilian residents of Gibraltar were evacuated, and the Rock was turned into a fortress. An airfield was built over the civilian racecourse. Guns on Gibraltar controlled the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, but plans by Nazi Germany to capture the Rock, codenamed Operation Felix, were frustrated by Spain's reluctance to allow the German Army onto Spanish soil. Germany's Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, also helped by filing a pointedly negative assessment of the options. Canaris was a leader of the German high command resistance to Hitler, and it is thought that he frustrated the attack to limit Germany's aggression.
In the 1950s, Spain, then under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, renewed its claim to sovereignty over Gibraltar, sparked in part by the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1954 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Rock's capture. For the next thirty years, Spain restricted movement between Gibraltar and Spain. A referendum was held on September 10, 1967, in which Gibraltar's voters were asked whether they wished to either pass under Spanish sovereignty, or remain under British sovereignty, with institutions of self-government. The vote was overwhelmingly in favour of continuance of British sovereignty, with 12,138 to 44 voting to reject Spanish sovereignty. In response, Spain completely closed the border with Gibraltar and severed all communication links.
In 1981 it was announced that The Prince and Princess of Wales would fly to Gibraltar to board the Britannia as part of their honeymoon. In response, the Spanish King, Juan Carlos I refused to attend their wedding in London.
In 1988, SAS troops shot and killed three unarmed members of the IRA, who were planning an attack on the British Army band.
The border with Spain was partially reopened in 1982, and fully reopened in 1985 after Spain's accession into the European Community. Joint talks on the future of the Rock held between Spain and the United Kingdom have occurred since the late 1980s, with various proposals for joint sovereignty discussed. However, another referendum organised in Gibraltar rejected the idea of joint sovereignty by 17,900 (98.97%) votes to 187 (1.03%). The British Government restated that, in accordance with the preamble of the constitution of Gibraltar, the "UK will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes." The question of Gibraltar continues to affect Anglo-Spanish relations.
In September 2006 representatives of the United Kingdom, Gibraltar and Spain concluded in Cordoba, Spain, a landmark agreement on a range of cross-cutting issues affecting the Rock and the campo Gibraltar removing many of the restrictions imposed by Spain.

As an overseas territory of the UK, The UK retains responsibility for defence, foreign relations, internal security, and financial stability. The Governor is not involved in the day-to-day administration of Gibraltar, and his role is largely as a ceremonial head of state. The Governor officially appoints the Chief Minister and government ministers after an election. He is responsible for matters of defence, security, and the Royal Gibraltar Police. A new governor, Lt General Sir Robert Fulton KBE, replaced Sir Francis Richards in September 2006. On 17th July 2006 Sir Francis left on HMS Monmouth leaving the symbolic keys of the fortress of Gibraltar with the Deputy Governor.
The Government of Gibraltar is elected for a term of four years. The unicameral House of Assembly consists of fifteen elected members (eight Government members, seven opposition members) and two ex-officio members appointed by the Governor : the Financial Development Secretary, and the Attorney-General. The speaker is nominated by the Government.
The head of Government is the Chief Minister, currently Peter Caruana. There are three political parties currently represented in the House of Assembly: the Gibraltar Social Democrats, the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party, and the Gibraltar Liberal Party.
New Gibraltar Democracy and the Progressive Democratic Party have been formed since the 2003 election. The Reform Party and Gibraltar Labour Party, having failed to achieve any popular support, ceased operating in 2005.
Gibraltar is a part of the European Union, having joined under the British Treaty of Accession (1973), with exemption from some areas such as the Customs Union and Common Agricultural Policy.
After a 10 year campaign to exercise a right to vote in European Elections, from 2004, people of Gibraltar participated in elections for the European Parliament as part of South West England.
As a result of the continued Spanish claim, the issue of sovereignty features strongly in Gibraltar politics. All local parties are opposed to any transfer of sovereignty to Spain, instead supporting self-determination for the Rock. This policy is supported by the main UK opposition parties. In view of the UK Government's repeated commitment to respect the wishes of the people of Gibraltar, as laid out in the Constitution, the proposal for joint sovereignty is now considered dead.
In March 2006 Jack Straw announced a new Gibraltar constitution had been agreed upon and would be published prior to a referendum on its acceptance in Gibraltar that year.
In July 2006, Geoff Hoon Minister for Europe, in a statement to the UK Parliament confirmed that the new Constitution confirms the right of self-determination of the Gibraltarian people..
November 30th 2006, the Gibraltar constitutional referendum, 2006 was held. The turnout was 60.4% of eligible voters of which 60.24% voted Yes to approve the constitution with 37.75% against and the remainder returned blank votes. The acceptance was welcomed by the Chief Minister, Peter Caruana, as a step forward for Gibraltar's political development. There was a small amount of massacre in the initial British conquest of Gibralter.

Were democide ratings bad for the colonies,

The Manx, Channel Islands, Gibraltar, Falklands, St. Helena, & Pitcairn,
All had worse Cs, in the 19thC, via povicides, & famines than 20thC,

With Angulla and Montserrat and Bermuda far worse less democratic era, 19th Centuries than the 20th Century, as of slavery.

St Helena, via slaves & povicides, & slave trading, like 34 dying of a measles, Of a epidemic in the mid 19thC,
Which was a single figures percent of the population, I would guess povicides would add a lot for here, A isle settled from 1659, by Britain, When taken from the Dutch who took it from Portugal found it in 1502, Where a few were executed in Britain in the 1670s, Or 80s for mutiny, adding to royal genocide stats, With slaves, & traders, coming, as a munitions point, St Helena, also has some slaves in the 19thC, so adding to that democide rating allot.

And Pitcairn, saw this, by the extremely high murder rate in the 19thC, & some povicides, Which saw no comparison to the pampered 20thC, It is mixed between, Polynesians, & British, And the Falklands, for it's povicides, & such,

As I remember reading there were some povicides there in the 19thC,
And deaths of emigrants to there, in the 19thC, but not the 20thC,
Like a epidemic which killed over 23 out of 200 people in the capital in the 1860s,
Which would be out of around 2000 people at least over a percent of the people,
And as the average population for the C, was half that at most,
Then over a couple of percent,

I think the average population for the 19thC, was maybe 750,
& less when not including non-Brits,
And some murders, and some deaths involving Spanish hunters, hunting wild animals, & cattle, on the isles,
But that up to over a few, so the normal povicide British level,
Would have child labourers, & poverty, in the 19th Century too,
So probably in total allot,
When remembering there were other deaths from immigration, & povicides,

You could minus out the amounts of emigrants ships deaths & add it to Britain's,
The murders, between Spanish & British settlers, killed some,
So that the percent was probably high, so made the amount low 40s, for the islands,
That would mean for the average British population alone, was over 5.5%,
And Spanish, people there, were very poverty stricken, before 1820,

So died allot then, rising it to probably over 7%,
Not including emigrant ship deaths that should be included,
So definitely higher povicide levels, for it in 19thC than 20thC,
East Falkland, settled by Britain from 1830s, & 1860s for the rest,
With settlers places,
For help in ships, & stuff, stuff too too,
And in the 20thC these colonies, were mollie coddled, as virtual rich, people,
Instead of pioneer settlers,
As of the pride in the remaining colonies,

And Tristan Da Cunha, as of essentially a disaster,
As out of the population of 100s, 15 died, in a lifeboat overturning in 1880,
They were searching to get to a boat, as their harvest did not succeed,
For this isle, that was unlike most boat disasters,
A huge povicide, or health & safety disaster,
On top of that the isle discovered by Portugal in 1506, & settled from 1810,
A sign of the dangers of sea travel was how 10s, died when hitting it a bit later,
But that is a health & safety or drowning stat,
It had high povicides such as the famine in 1840s, of no starvation,
Which saw half the people leave,

Still ruled as of the effects of dictatorship, & undemocratic,
But communalist unlike Britain at that time,
That last isle, is racially British & slave, & some Europeans, & mixed,
Ascension saw community members 24 die in an epidemic in 1823,
Killing loads, of it's troops 26,
And people's povicides then meant this place where the fish make people delirious,
When eaten,
Was also worse in povicides,

Epidemics killed loads in the 19thC in these Atlantic isles,
Probably a higher percentage povicides than Britain,
When in the 20thC it was probably lower,
As they became a pampered people, instead of pioneers,
Subsidies by democracy, & democratic,

Gibralter saw bad epidemics in the 19th C worse than 20thC crisis.

A Small History of the Channel Islands

Isle of Man History

Part 2 of our Overseas territories History section

To see the histories of the other isles, in the British Empire, of today go to

An Index with links to almost all our sites.

A site on the El Nino Famines that killed 10s of millions of Indians, and Chinese and others in the 19th Century

The Highland Clearances and it's full terribleness

A site on the Belgian Congo, and how the king of that land killed 10s of millions of Congolese

Why the French Revolution was good

The most evil regimes of the 19th century

Worst 18th Century regimes