Between St. Maarten / Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy lie several islands. The largest of these is undoubtedly Île Fourchue, also known as La Fourchue. The island is likely the top of an extinct volcano.
Île Fourchue is not large and has five hilltops, the highest of which is 103 meters. In the past – before the French bought Saint Barthélemy back from the Swedes in 1877 – the island was known as Five Islands because from a distance, the hilltops appeared to form five islands, or as Five Peaks Island. The Swedes at one point called it Cing-Iles. The names Fork Island or Forché have also been used to refer to this desolate place. Fourchue simply means “split” named for the bay, which resembles an old caldera that opens toward the southeast.
What is even more fascinating is that a “pied fourchu” refers to the split hoof of the devil. It is no surprise, therefore, that this was a pirate island. The history of this island is bizarrely difficult to trace. Online sources simply repeat each other, offering very little information.
The Journal de Saint Barth pointed to a section in the book Saint Barthélemy à l’époque Suédoise by the Swede Per Tingbrand, written in 1995. A search for the book led to only one copy being available at an Emhaus in France, which refused to ship it to the Netherlands.
In the end, it was the kind Avigaël – a beautiful name – from the aforementioned newspaper who was kind enough to scan and send the chapter. No evidence has ever been found on Île Fourchue indicating that the Arawak Indians or other nomadic peoples ever resided on the large rock, and so the human history of this island begins only after Columbus discovered the Caribbean region.
The first time Île Fourchue is mentioned in a brief description appears in Johann Bernoulli’s Sammlung Kurze Reisebeschreibungen from 1781. On page 391, in the paragraph titled Eine kleine Insel, it reads: “Pingré 1 does not give it a name. On the 1758 chart, no island is shown in this area. Its northern latitude is 17.54.30, and the longitude is 62.25. The latitude seems accurate, but the longitude could be a few minutes too far east. According to the chart, it lies at the western end of the channel between St. Martin and Barthélemy, almost equidistant from both. It appeared to them as a small island surrounded by many rocks, 4 to 500 clusters in diameter.”
The first claim of Île Fourchue’s ownership came on July 11, 1773, when a certain Pierre La Place became the owner of Île La Fourchue, according to a notarial deed issued in Martinique and validated by a French general there. The deed was further registered on August 5, 1773, in Guadeloupe. On June 8, 1784, Pierre La Place transferred half of the island to the commander of Saint Barthélemy, Laurent Isnard.
Meanwhile, in 1770, two brothers from Gothenburg, Aaron and Somin Jacob Ahman, settled on Saint Martin. In March 1785, Sweden officially took possession of Saint Barthélemy with the arrival of the frigate Sprengtporten. The two brothers then crossed over and settled there.
On May 20, 1788, Aaron Ahman acquired half of Île Fourchue, specifically the part that belonged to Isnard, and on June 12, 1789, he obtained the other half from La Place. This acquisition proved to be quite handy, as in the autumn of 1789, Ahman found himself in a conflict with a certain Per Hetman von Rosenstein, the Governor of Saint Barthélemy. The dispute escalated to such a point that Ahman ultimately wrote a letter to His Majesty King Gustav III, which was received on September 11, 1790, by the King’s Chancellery.
In the letter, Ahman wrote that, if it was not possible for him to be appointed as the controller of Saint Barthélemy, he should be granted “absolute right as the sole owner of Fork Island to oversee its exploitation and development, ensuring its production and income, and doing what I deem best and most useful without having to coordinate with Saint Barthélemy or the outside world.”
The dispute had escalated to such an extent that Ahman wished to live as a hermit. But what was it that he owned on the island? There were no guano deposits, like on Redonda Island or Sombrero Island, and there was nothing to mine. Travel accounts from that time, including one from Samuel Fahlberg in 1786, describe the island as being mostly covered with melocactus intortus, a spherical cactus known as “pope’s head.” There was nothing to cultivate, and there were many goats. It is likely that Ahman’s income from the island was meager.
Despite this, Ahman is said to have built a house on the island around 1790, and the cistern still present on the island is believed to have been part of that structure. According to a description from Dr. Christopher Carlander, a doctor aboard the merchant ship Enigheten in 1788, there were many goats and birds on the island, which was also used to isolate and likely let die enslaved people who had contracted smallpox. Île Fourchue was not a pleasant island.
In 1789, the French Revolution broke out. A certain Balthazar Biguard fled Marseille for unknown reasons. After various wanderings, he eventually ended up on Saint Barthélemy, where he later acquired Swedish nationality. He established the Biguard Trading House there. Biguard and his son opposed the governor Johan Norderling (governor from 1818 to 1826), likely because a Portuguese ship had been illegally sold, and the Gazette de Gustavia accused the governor of being involved.
The conflict didn’t go well for Biguard, who eventually settled on Île Fourchue, then owned by a merchant named Beal. He set up residence there with his two sons. While some sources refer to them as bastard sons, it is more likely that they were of mixed descent. Biguard lived on the harsh island for 14 years, until his death at the age of 85 in 1827, shortly after Norderling’s departure. Coincidence?
Biguard was buried on Île Fourchue under a marble slab. That slab, however, is now strangely missing. Fortunately, we know what was written on it. In the illuminating article by W.L. Barbanson, titled Grafschriften op Saint-Barthélemy, found in the Nieuwe West Indische Gids (Volume 38, 1958), the inscription is somewhat difficult to read:
“[sous?] cette modeste pierre [reposent?] les restes de Balthazard Bigard Citoyen né à Marseille, le 20 Octobre 1740 et décédé en ce lieu le 1er Dec. 1827.
Charité Chrétienne
Occasions
Bonne Foi.”
An amateur translation:
“Under this modest stone rest the remains of Balthazard Bigard, citizen, born in Marseille on October 20, 1740, and died here on December 1, 1827.
Christian charity
Life events
Good conscience.”
After the Napoleonic Wars, many Spanish colonies revolted. Saint Barthélemy became an attractive island for the smuggling of weapons, gunpowder, and other contraband goods for the rebels. Île Fourchue became an equally appealing spot for pirates and slave traders. Between 1816 and 1826, during Biguard’s stay, pirates and criminal slave ships, transporting “black ivory” (a horrifying term used for slaves), frequently anchored in Île Fourchue’s bay.
Gustavia, the capital of Saint Barthélemy, had too few ships and men to keep the illegal activities on the island in check. They were already struggling to manage the activities in Gustavia’s harbor, and secretly, the administration of Saint Barthélemy was pleased with the situation. Despite reports of the “swarm of hornets” circling the island, Governor Norderling wrote on July 3, 1820, that the Swedish colonial government had reaped significant benefits from the illegal trade at “Forks”: “Since I began to close my eyes to the ‘Cinq Îles,’ piasters circulate here in abundance…”
In his reports to the homeland, Norderling stated that the slave trade and illegal goods occurred at sea, and whenever he spotted them at Île Fourchue, he sent them away. But nothing could be further from the truth. There was far too much money to be made. Eventually, the French, English, and Americans had no trouble entering Fork Bay and taking action against the pirates in Swedish waters.
Norderling reported that the French, led by Admiral Duperré, seized a Venezuelan ship on July 3 and December 23, 1820, that had anchored at Fork Island. In the autumn of 1820, an English ship, under Captain Willoughby, also captured a pirate ship at Île Fourchue.
Five Islands, as a pirate base, did not go unnoticed in the literary world. It inspired writer Sigfrid Nyberg to write Skattgräfvaren: romantisk berättelse från Sanct Barthelemy (Göteborg, 1866), a book about pirate treasure hunting, some of which takes place on Fork Island.
Through American, English, and French interventions, Île Fourchue gradually became less popular among pirates, and Saint Barthélemy saw much less benefit. In the final years of Swedish rule over Saint Barthélemy, the island fell into extreme poverty. When the French took possession of Saint Barthélemy in 1878, things didn’t improve much. Five Island, Fork Island, and all the other names were consigned to the topographical trash bin, and the official name became Île Fourchue.
After the French took over Saint Barthélemy, Île Fourchue remained quiet. During World War II, persistent rumors emerged – similar to those surrounding the nearby Tintamarre – that German U-boats used the bay of Île Fourchue to stock up on fuel and provisions and meet with spies. There is no evidence of these visits, but Fourchue was as ideal a spot for U-boats as it had once been for pirates. Neither Gustavia nor nearby Sint Maarten or Saint Martin had the resources to patrol or monitor the island.
After World War II, Île Fourchue remained a dormant adventure island. In the 1960s, the island was owned by brothers Gustav and Romon Béal, who lived in Gustavia and had inherited it from their father. Today, the island remains privately owned, but it’s unclear who owns it. It has become part of a nature reserve due to the presence of the extremely rare Antillean green iguana (Iguana delicatissima). Ile Fourchue nowadays is a popular location to stop for Caribbean sailing charters as one of the northeastern Caribbeans most well known uninhabited islands. Occasionally, yachts anchor to snorkel or climb one of the peaks, although the goats are said to be somewhat aggressive. That peace will soon be over, as the writer of this article plans to go treasure hunting.
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