"You're the kind of American," he said, "who should be allowed to travel."
I'd be lying if I said that particular comment didn't influence me in deciding to make this my inaugural subject for this blog.
My family took a cruise to some of the Caribbean nations in May 2024, and one of our stops was Sint Maarten. Sint Maarten/Saint Martin is a single and exceptionally beautiful island, but it's divided not quite in half; one side is owned by the Netherlands, the other by France. At 37 square miles, it's one of the smallest land masses in the world to be home to two different countries. The Dutch side of the island is called Sint Maarten; this is the smaller half, at 16.5 square miles. Its capital city is Philipsburg and its currency is the Antillean Guilder, because it used to be part of what was known as the Dutch Antilles. This was a group of territories in the Caribbean under Dutch control, and when this was dissolved in 2010, Sint Maarten became an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The French side, Saint Martin, measures 20.5 square miles; its currency is the euro, and its capital city is Marigot.
Our ship, the Liberty of the Seas, docked on the Dutch side, and from our ship's port my family took a ferry across the bay to Philipsburg. While some of us went swimming in the beautiful clear ocean, and others stretched out on beach chairs beneath umbrellas, I did what I do best: drag my husband in search of local history.
Our first stop was the courthouse seen here, which was built in 1763, though it has been renovated a few times. It reminded me in some ways of the old courthouse in our native Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, which is almost as old and built on a similar plan. The one in Philipsburg, however, still serves its original function - it has always been and still remains their primary court. It's also one of the very few buildings in the world to be featured on its nation's flag, and has done ever since the flag of Sint Maarten/Saint Martin was designed in 1983 by a teenage girl. Girls run the world, after all. I wanted very much to go inside, but it was a weekday and there was a good chance that court might be in session, so we refrained.
My husband Kevin and I found a gelato stand, with icy cold treats made from real fruit, and we sat in a shady garden to eat them. We emerged in the historic quarter and kept exploring, but truthfully neither of us do particularly well in the heat, and I was very anxious that we could find something that would both catch our interest and also get us out of the sun for a little while.
And it was at precisely that moment that I was given a sign. Literally.
Needless to say, we knew what we'd be doing for the next hour at least.
I'm of the opinion that we found the single best thing to do in the whole city - not only is it a history museum but, like most museums, it's completely air conditioned. After all, they have to keep the historical artifacts and documents from being damaged by heat and humidity, and I was more than happy to do my sponge impression and absorb as much history knowledge as I could while cooling off from our walk in the sun.
The main floor of the museum is chiefly a gift shop. Admission is free; they just ask for a cash donation of your choosing, which we were happy to give. The actual museum is upstairs, and every inch of the space is dedicated to one of a number of specific subjects. We had the place to ourselves until we were joined by the individual who made the comment at the start of this post; his name is Jean-Marc, and he's a museum volunteer. He lives in Sint Maarten and is native to the island, but attends university in Florida. After talking with us for several minutes, he made that remark, and then explained that far too often, he encounters tourists who do things like ignore the "please do not touch" signs or even try to correct him when he talks about his country's history. It's incredibly frustrating, so he said he was really happy to talk to people who respected the museum and the history it shared.
Jean-Marc's favorite bit of history is related to the courthouse. In fact, when he first came in, it was to put up a display of some photographs he himself had taken inside the courthouse, including one of its bells. He explained that the courthouse measurements today are not the same as those on the original blueprints. "Most buildings," he said, "get bigger when they're renovated." The courthouse, however, has actually gotten smaller. It hasn't gotten a lot smaller, only a few feet, but the weird part is that nobody knows why. During one of the renovations, they also discovered a small chamber which had been sealed off, and nobody knows why that was done or what the chamber's original purpose had been either. Delightful mysteries, he said.
Jean-Marc did have actual work to do, so after a long friendly chat he left us to our own devices to explore the museum's treasures. Considering the size of the space, they really make use of every possible square inch and display an impressive quantity of relics and documents. Among its chief exhibitions, visitors can learn about the Pre-Colombian period (talking about the first humans to live on the island, from roughly 600 to 1200 AD), the island's salt industry (salt being the country's chief export from the 17th century until the 1960s), and the unfortunate history of slavery on the island and its ultimate enactment of abolition, as well as traditional everyday life for the people of Sint Maarten. Each of these includes dozens of artifacts, from household tools to salt samples to coins to maps to weapons to musical instruments, most of which are carefully preserved in glass display cases or frames.
In the central section of the museum's layout we found relics and archaeological discoveries related to Fort Amsterdam. This triangular stone fort was originally built by the Dutch in 1631; however, it was captured by the Spanish in 1633, and they continued to occupy it until 1648. (It was supported by the Spanish fort at San Juan, which we actually visited the next day, and I'll tell you about it in another post.) The Dutch did try to take it back in 1644 but were unsuccessful. When the Dutch, Spanish, and French signed the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, it ended a skirmish called the Eighty Years War. Over the next few centuries, the fort changed hands a number of times, though most of the time it was occupied by Dutch forces. Long since abandoned, it's now a ruin on its little peninsula, which is also home to a nesting colony of brown pelicans. Visitors can tour the decaying fort and read about its history; among the items still available to view there are some 19th century cannons, which have been left to the ravages of time and sea air. A number of archaeological expeditions have resulted in the recovery of a wide variety of relics, including uniform buttons, ammunition, clay pipes, and broken dishware.
Another focus in the museum's farthest-back room is the wreck of the HMS Proselyte. The Proselyte, originally a Dutch war frigate called the Jason, was taken and renamed by the British; she sank off the coast of Philipsburg in 1801, and remains on the ocean floor to this day. Her wreck has become a popular dive site and the museum boasts many items which have been collected on various searches. A glass box houses this detailed model of the ship; the attached placard states that it was constructed over a period of six months by Brud Boutelle of Endicott, New York. It also notes that although the ship was a total loss, everyone on board was brought safely ashore, and since the island was under British rule at the time of the sinking, they were in no danger on Sint Maarten.
Much as we might have liked it, we couldn't spend the whole day in the museum; there was still some island to explore before we had to be back on our ship for departure. We bade farewell to Jean-Marc and thanked him for his time, and I hope sometime he finds this blog post and can see how much we enjoyed our visit. Meanwhile, if any of my readers find themselves in the vicinity of Philipsburg, Sint Maarten, and would like to check out the (remember, air conditioned!) museum, here's everything you need to know.
Sources and Further Reading:
Official website of the Sint Maarten National Heritage Museum
Official Facebook page of the museum
Visit St. Maarten
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. All rights reserved.
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