Page 6 - Bulletin 16 2012

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Jamestown at sea level records 200 mm whereas falls exceeding 1,000 mm are normal in
the high interior. Water is therefore plentiful and the Island once supported luxuriant

tropical forests.

The Island was uninhabited when discovered in 1502 by Portuguese navigator in the

service of Spain, Juan de Nova Castella, on his voyage home from India. He named it
after Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, as he arrived there on her birthday.

The Portuguese did not colonise it and during the next 130 years it was visited from time

to time by explorers and sailors from various nations. In the process a variety of animals
and plants were introduced, and a small township with a chapel came into existence, but

it remained effectively unoccupied. The Dutch annexed it in 1633, but never occupied it,
and instead turned their attentions to establishing a settlement at the Cape. In 1658 the

English East India Company (also known as John Company) built a fort and established a
garrison on the Island. In 1659 it became a British possession, belonging to the Company

until 1834 – whose Charter declared it to be the “true and absolute lords and proprietors”

of the Island – and since then enjoying the status of a Crown Colony.

The EIC had been founded in 1600 and like one of its rivals, the Dutch VOC founded in
1602, was a state-chartered, profit-driven monopoly trading company answerable to its

wealthy shareholders. It had interests in India and Canton, China, and St. Helena’s
purpose was to be a refreshment station and rendezvous point at the only safe haven in

the South Atlantic for Company ships returning from the East. It therefore had to be

fortified and garrisoned which in turn required the production of fresh food for the
Company’s administrative and military staff, as well as for the ships. To this end civilian

planters (ie. farmers), believing posters displayed in London that extolled “the joys of

pioneer life on the island” (Royle, 2007: 45), were given free passages and land on the
interior plateau: a married man was given 20 acres plus a cow and a single man 10 acres

plus cow. Half of the arable land was retained by the Company. As this type of
agriculture was unlikely to produce a profit for the Company there was a continual search

for cash crops, none of which proved viable until the successful introduction of flax in