Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Kitts and Nevis - Is officially known as The Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Saint Kitts and Nevis is a North American two-island nation located southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of Central America, and to the north of South America. Carib Indians occupied the islands for hundreds of years before the British began settlement in 1623. The islands became an associated state of the United Kingdom with full internal autonomy in 1967. The island of Anguilla rebelled and was allowed to secede in 1971. Saint Kitts and Nevis achieved independence in 1983. Nevis is now seeking to separate from Saint Kitts. Saint Kitts and Nevis is the smallest nation in the Americas, in both area and population. The economy of Saint Kitts and Nevis is heavily dependent upon tourism revenues, (mainly US) which has replaced sugar, the traditional mainstay of the economy until the 1970s. Following the 2005 harvest, the government closed the sugar industry after decades of losses of 3-4% of Gross Domestic Product annually.
Five thousand years prior to European arrival, the island was settled by Indian peoples. The latest arrivals, the Kalinago peoples, arrived approximately 3 centuries before the Europeans. The Kalinago allowed the Europeans to colonize Saint Kitts, while earlier attempts to settle other islands were met with immediate destruction of the colonies by the Indians. The Kalinago were eventually wiped out in the great Kalinago Genocide of 1626.