The Useless Islands - The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House - page 59

The history of Vieques has always reminded me of a tale of three petulant children—in
this case, the sovereign nations of England, France and Spain—squabbling over a small,
seemingly-undesirable toy.
It wasn't that any of the children particularly wanted the toy; they just didn't want the
other kids to have it.
The aforesaid toy, a.k.a. Vieques, was first spotted by Christopher Columbus in Novem-
ber 1493. “Spotted” is the operative word here. He didn't bother to come ashore to claim
the island for Spain, he just called dibs on it from the deck of the Santa Maria . He totted it
up in his notebook and, just like that, it belonged to Spain. Its pristine beaches and fertile
fields were instantly the property of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and its indigenous,
peaceable Taino and Carib people were instantly their subjects.
Minimum effort, maximum gain.
Adding insult to injury, Columbus dubbed Vieques and the neighboring island of Culeb-
ra Las Islas Inutiles —the useless islands.
Talk about bad press.
Surprisingly, it was the French who first settled Vieques around 1535. It's hard to ima-
gine how they endured in this unimaginably remote backwater without a single vineyard,
bakery or accordion in sight.
Not that they suffered long. In 1666 the English kindly released them from their Gallic
misery by invading the island and tossing them out. For most of the 18th century, the island
see-sawed between English and Spanish control until the Spaniards finally established dom-
inance on the island in the early 19th century.
For a place described as “useless,” Vieques seemed to get plenty of people worked up.
In 1811, for some inexplicable reason, the Spanish sent a Frenchman to serve as military
commandant on Vieques. This gentleman, quelle surprise , spent most of his days holed up
in his country house smoking, drinking and making sport with the local lovelies.
His fun, alas, was interrupted in 1816 by none other than Simón Bolívar, who dropped
by en route from Venezuela to St. Thomas. The French commandant reported that Bolívar,
true to his name as the Great Liberator, liberated half of his personal possessions before sail-
ing on to glory.
Even more surprising is the fact that it was a Frenchman, Le Guillou, who consolidated
Spanish control of Vieques once and for all. Le Guillou was himself a refugee. Having op-
erated a spectacularly successful sugar plantation on Haiti for a couple of decades, he had
been invited by his slaves in 1823 to get lost—or have his throat cut.
Having heard that Vieques was in a state of anarchy, Le Guillou set sail for San Juan to
make a deal with the governor: he would “tame” Vieques for Spain in return for unfettered
personal use of the island for the rest of his life.
Nice work if you can get it.