page_title: Basseterre
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Basseterre / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Wesleyan Chapel, Basseterre, St. Christopher's, West Indies (VII, p.18, February 1850)
context_page_description: Basseterre is the capital and largest city of Saint Kitts and Nevis with an estimated population of 14,000 in 2018. Geographically, the Basseterre port is located at 17°18′N 62°44′W, on the south western coast of Saint Kitts Island, and it is one of the chief commercial depots of the Leeward Islands. The city lies within Saint George Basseterre Parish.
  Basseterre is one of the oldest towns in the Eastern Caribbean.
context_section_description: Basseterre was founded in 1627 by the French, under Sieur Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc. It served as the capital of the French colony of Saint-Christophe, which consisted of the northern and southern extremities of the island of St. Kitts (the centre was yielded to Britain). When Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy was made the French governor of St. Kitts in 1639, the town turned into a large, successful port, commanding Eastern Caribbean trade and colonisation.
  De Poincy then quickly made Basseterre capital of the entire French West Indies colony, which included the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and remained so until his death in 1660. The city was made capital of the entire island of St. Kitts in 1727, following French expulsion from the island and full British control.
  The city of Basseterre has one of the most tragic histories of any Caribbean capital, destroyed many times by colonial wars, fire, earthquakes, floods, riots, and hurricanes. Despite all of this, a considerable number of well-restored buildings still exist in downtown Basseterre.
  Most of the city structures were built after the great fire of 1867.  The Circus was modelled after Piccadilly Circus, and the fountain in the centre was built in 1883, and dedicated to The Honourable Thomas Berkeley Hardtman Berkeley, the father of Henry Spencer Berkeley.
caption: Wesleyan Chapel, Basseterre, St. Christopher's, West Indies (1850)[3]
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2015:11:19 10:15:25", "Image ExifOffset": "2242", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4516", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7886", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:11:19 10:13:45", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:11:19 10:13:45", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "20", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}