Did You Know… The north of the island was part of a Kingdom in 1648, and now the southern part?
(Photo courtesy of Amuseum Naturalis)
Dutch Republic, French Kingdom
At the point St. Maarten was divided in a French northern half and a Dutch southern part in 1648, nobody had any idea how some things would be turned “upside down” later in island history.
At the signing of the Treaty of Concordia in 1648, the small Dutch Republic ruling St. Maarten was a global force to be reckoned with. Its parliamentary system of the Staten-Generaal and a powerful merchant class kept the nobility of the House of Orange at bay with predominantly ceremonial and military functions (though also on St. Maarten, this power relation would change towards the end of the eighteenth century).
On the French side, the house of Bourbon was at the height of its power. It was the times of Louis XIV, claiming “he was the state himself” (L’ Etat, C’est Moi).
Fall of Monarchies – and Comeback
It was the imperial splendor and overspending that would lead to the French Revolution. Years of revolutionary infighting and the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte would eventually bring back monarchies in the 1800s.
This also pertained to the Netherlands, becoming a Kingdom for the first time in 1813 under Prins Willem Frederik (now King Willem I) of the House of Orange. Marigots Fort St. Louis had already shortly carried his original name during a Dutch orangist occupation between 1793 and 1795.
France was to undergo various royalty changes in the wake of Napoleons reign, even another “Empire” and various republics before the current “5th” republican type of government saw the light of day in the 1960s.
So history ironically had it that what was a republic on St. Maarten over time became a monarchy, and vice versa. King Willem Alexander is now the head of state of the autonomous southern side, whereas the French president is that of the northern side.
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