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Concept
Saba (island)
Summary
Saba (ˈseɪbə; Saba, ˈsaːbɑ) is a Caribbean island and the smallest special municipality (officially "public body") of the Netherlands. It consists largely of the active volcano Mount Scenery, which at is the highest point of the entire Kingdom of the Netherlands. The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, southeast of the Virgin Islands. Together with Bonaire and Sint Eustatius it forms the BES islands, also known as the Caribbean Netherlands.
Saba has a land area of . The population was 1,911 in January 2022, with a population density of . It is the smallest territory by permanent population in the Americas. Its towns and major settlements are The Bottom (the capital), Windwardside, Zion's Hill and St. Johns.
Theories about the origin of Saba's name include siba (the Arawakan word for 'rock'), sabot, sábado, and Sheba. The island was referred to by its present name, Saba, as early as 1595 when it appeared in a voyage account by John Hawkins. Before its present name, the island was designated "St. Christopher" (San Cristóbal) by Christopher Columbus.
Saba is thought to have been inhabited by the Ciboney people as early as the 1100s BC. Later, circa 800 AD, Arawak 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 upon Saba. In the 1640s, the Dutch governor of the neighbouring island of Sint Eustatius sent several Dutch families over to colonise the island for the Dutch West India Company. 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 eventually gained complete control of the island in 1816.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Saba's major industries were sugar, indigo and rum produced on plantations owned by Dutchmen living on St.
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