Article: The Caribbean smorgasbord It's clean, kempt and bijou. It's all that you'd expect of a posh French island in the Caribbean. But then you start to realise that, underneath it all, St Barts is really Swedish...

St Barts is an unusual island in two ways, both of which strike the visitor at once - in the eye, the ear and the pocket. Firstly, it's a white island - the only one in the West Indies. It never had plantations (it was too small and hilly) so it never had black slaves. Today, out of a population of 6,850 people, over 95 per cent are white.

Secondly, St Barts is French, legally and politically. Columbus named the island after his brother Bartolemeo, but the Spaniards didn't bother with it. Instead, a boat load of 60 French Huguenots from Brittany and Normandy first settled there in 1674. Today it's part of the French department of Guadeloupe, though, unlike Guadeloupe, St Barts' citizens ...

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