St. Kitts, officially Saint Christopher, was the site of the first permanent English settlement in the West Indies. English settlers led by Thomas Warner established a colony there in 1623, at Old Road on the island's western coast.
The island's location and fertile volcanic soil made it attractive to European colonists. French settlers arrived in 1625, and the two powers divided the island into English and French zones. Their colonies were briefly destroyed by a Spanish expedition in 1629, but the English and French returned after a peace settlement in 1630.
St. Kitts is sometimes called “the Mother Colony of the West Indies” because it became the first British and French colonial foothold in the Caribbean. Nevis was settled by the English in 1628, while Antigua and Barbados were colonized later. The island's colonial economy eventually became heavily dependent on sugar plantations and enslaved African labor. St. Kitts and Nevis became an independent country in 1983.