SSS islands
18°01′00″N 63°02′00″W / 18.0167°N 63.0333°W
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The SSS Islands are the three islands in the Lesser Antilles that are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands:
Sint Maarten is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and consists of the southern half of the island of Saint Martin (the northern half is the French Collectivity of Saint Martin). The islands of Saba and Sint Eustatius are public bodies of the Netherlands.
The acronym is analogous to the ABC islands, consisting of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, and the BES islands, consisting of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, which are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. With the exception of Aruba, the other five island territories were formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles.
History
Saint Martin was split between the Netherlands and France in 1648. The Dutch part became a single Dutch colony in 1818 as Sint Eustatius and Dependencies when France returned its possessions after the Napoleonic Wars. This colony was merged in 1828 with the colonies Curaçao and Dependencies (the ABC islands) and Suriname with a capital in Paramaribo. When this merge was partly reversed in 1845, the Dutch part of the SSS islands became part of Curaçao and Dependencies with Willemstad as capital. This colony became the Netherlands Antilles in 1952. The Dutch part of the SSS islands initially formed the single "island area" (Dutch: eilandgebied, the main administrative division of the Netherlands Antilles, governed by an island council) the Leeward islands (Dutch: de Bovenwindse eilanden) until 1983.
References
Bibliography
- Kompagnie, Jan H. (1996). Soldaten overzee: aanwijzingen voor het doen van onderzoek naar onderofficieren en minderen bij het Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger (KNIL) en bij het leger in West-Indië (1815-1949). Den Haag: Algemeen Rijksarchief. ISBN 9074920071.
