St Helena
Exactly 500 years ago, in 1502, a Portuguese navigator named João de Nova, became the first person to set foot on the island known today as St Helena. In the days of sail, this remote island was a useful place to obtain supplies of fresh water. The introduction of goats and pigs by the Portuguese, and the beginning of plantation agriculture by the British East India Company who took possession of the island in the eighteenth century, enabled the island to supply the plentiful provisions needed in the Age of Sail. The British Crown took over the administration of the island in 1834 and it remains a British possession to this day.
In spite of its remote location its roll-call of distinguished visitors is impressive. In 1676, Edmund Halley built an observatory here to track the transit of Mercury and Venus. In 1775, Captain Cook called here on the first Endeavour, making his second circumnavigation of the world. In 1792, Captain Bligh of the Bounty arrived on the island with a cargo of breadfruit, and in 1836 Charles Darwin called by on the final leg of his circumnavigation of the world aboard the Beagle.
But St Helena is famous for one visitor in particular. Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1815, the former emperor had abandoned his exile on the Mediterranean Island of Elba, and attempted to make a comeback in the celebrated 100 days campaign. After marching up the Rhone valley and gathering an army of loyal Bonapartists, he was finally defeated at Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington. This time he was to be placed more safely out of harm’s way in exile on St Helena. Napoleon lived out the remainder of his days - he died in 1821, of wallpaper poisoning - in a purpose-built house, Longwood, while the island was heavily fortified and garrisoned. While the island prospered, briefly, Napoloen got to work dictating his memoirs.
And to a bored post-Napoloeonic generation in Europe, those memoirs launched a myth. European literature in the 1830s an 1840s is a dialectical struggle between ennui and gloire from which the dangerous figure of the romantic super hero was born. Napoleon saw himself and his followers saw him as a man of destiny, a Prometheus-like figure who dared to steal fire from the gods to become godlike himself. The cult of Napoleon had quasi-religious overtones, as the engravings we saw during our visit to Longwood today testified. In 1840, his body was returned in triumph to Paris where it lies today in the celebratory mausoleum of Les Invalides. An ambiguous figure certainly, but a man whose influence continues to reverberate. There were Napoleonic souvenirs a-plenty at Longwood, just as there are at Waterloo. Wellington? Who?
Exactly 500 years ago, in 1502, a Portuguese navigator named João de Nova, became the first person to set foot on the island known today as St Helena. In the days of sail, this remote island was a useful place to obtain supplies of fresh water. The introduction of goats and pigs by the Portuguese, and the beginning of plantation agriculture by the British East India Company who took possession of the island in the eighteenth century, enabled the island to supply the plentiful provisions needed in the Age of Sail. The British Crown took over the administration of the island in 1834 and it remains a British possession to this day.
In spite of its remote location its roll-call of distinguished visitors is impressive. In 1676, Edmund Halley built an observatory here to track the transit of Mercury and Venus. In 1775, Captain Cook called here on the first Endeavour, making his second circumnavigation of the world. In 1792, Captain Bligh of the Bounty arrived on the island with a cargo of breadfruit, and in 1836 Charles Darwin called by on the final leg of his circumnavigation of the world aboard the Beagle.
But St Helena is famous for one visitor in particular. Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1815, the former emperor had abandoned his exile on the Mediterranean Island of Elba, and attempted to make a comeback in the celebrated 100 days campaign. After marching up the Rhone valley and gathering an army of loyal Bonapartists, he was finally defeated at Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington. This time he was to be placed more safely out of harm’s way in exile on St Helena. Napoleon lived out the remainder of his days - he died in 1821, of wallpaper poisoning - in a purpose-built house, Longwood, while the island was heavily fortified and garrisoned. While the island prospered, briefly, Napoloen got to work dictating his memoirs.
And to a bored post-Napoloeonic generation in Europe, those memoirs launched a myth. European literature in the 1830s an 1840s is a dialectical struggle between ennui and gloire from which the dangerous figure of the romantic super hero was born. Napoleon saw himself and his followers saw him as a man of destiny, a Prometheus-like figure who dared to steal fire from the gods to become godlike himself. The cult of Napoleon had quasi-religious overtones, as the engravings we saw during our visit to Longwood today testified. In 1840, his body was returned in triumph to Paris where it lies today in the celebratory mausoleum of Les Invalides. An ambiguous figure certainly, but a man whose influence continues to reverberate. There were Napoleonic souvenirs a-plenty at Longwood, just as there are at Waterloo. Wellington? Who?
