Old Providence Island/Isla de Providencia

The creation myth of the United States begins with the plucky English puritans of the Mayflower--but what about the story of its sister ship, the Seaflower.  Few people today know the story of the passengers aboard the Seaflower, who in 1630 founded a rival puritan colony on an isolated Caribbean island called Providence. They were convinced that England's empire would rise not in barren New England, but rather in tropical Central America. However, Providence became a colony in constant crisis: crops failed, slaves revolted . . . and then there were the pirates. And, as Tom Feiling discovers in this surprising history, the same drama was played out by the men and women who re-settled the island one hundred years later. The Island That Disappeared presents Providence as a fascinating microcosm of colonialism--even today. At first glance it is an island of devout churchgoers - but look a little closer, and you see that it is still dependent on its smugglers. At once intimate and global, this story of puritans and pirates goes to the heart of the contradictory nature of the Caribbean and how the Western World took shape.

Providence Island was founded in 1630 at the same time as Massachusetts Bay by English puritans who thought an island off the coast of Nicaragua was far more promising than the cold, rocky shores of New England. Although they expected theirs to become a model godly society, the settlement never succeeded in building the kind of united and orderly community that the New Englanders created. In fact, they began large-scale use of slaves, and plunged into the privateering that invited the colony's extinction by the Spanish in 1641. As a well-planned and well-financed failure, Providence Island offers historians a standard by which to judge other colonies. By examining the failure of Providence Island, the author illuminates the common characteristics in all the successful English settlements, the key institutions without which men and women would not emigrate and a colony's economy could not thrive. This study of Providence Island reveals the remarkable similarities in many basic institutions among the early colonial regions.

The author, who spent over a year on the island of Providencia (in the southwest Caribbean) attempts to identify & analyze the standards by which people judge each other's worth, & to explain how values of social differentiation provides a basis for social order among the Providencians.

This is a book of historical anecdotes about the Colombian islands of San Andres and Providencia. The book contains various anecdotes that range from pirate lore to Hemingway's visit to World II adventures.

PROVIDENCIA, Sean Frederick Forbes' debut poetry collection, offers deeply personal poetry that digs beneath the surface of family history and myth. This coming of age narrative traces the experience of a gay, mixed-race narrator who confronts the traditions of his parents' and grandparents' birthplace: the seemingly idyllic island of Providencia, Colombia against the backdrop of his rough and lonely life in Southside Jamaica, Queens. These lyric poems open doors onto a third space for the speaker, one that does not isolate or hinder his sexual, racial, and artistic identities. Written in both free verse and traditional poetic forms, PROVIDENCIA conjures numerous voices, images, and characters to explore the struggles of self-discovery.

#Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

The Colombian islands of Providence, Santa Catalina and San Andres lie 140 miles off the coast of Nicaragua in the Caribbean Sea. The first part of this book comprises a transcription of the Butler Diary. This extensive document was written by Nathaniel Butler, who was Governor of Providence from 1638 to 1640. One of the very few contemporary accounts of the history of Providence during the Puritan period from 1629 to 1640, its daily entries cover 15 months. They include a fascinating account of Butler's unsuccessful voyage around the Caribbean in search of Spanish booty. In the second part of this book, Sam Cuming presents the history of these islands from the arrival of the Puritans in 1629 right through to 1901, when the Colombian government assumed de facto control of running the archipelago. The book also contains a wealth of fascinating maps and illustrations, reproduced in colour, which span the centuries and show the changing perceptions and geography of the region.