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Nevis is a small island in the Caribbean Sea that forms part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies. Nevis and the neighbouring island of Saint Kitts constitute one country: the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Nevis is located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago, about 350 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 km west of Antigua. Its area is and the capital is Charlestown. Saint Kitts and Nevis are separated by a shallow channel known as "The Narrows". Nevis is roughly conical in shape with a volcano known as Nevis Peak at its centre. The island is fringed on its western and northern coastlines by sandy beaches which are composed of a mixture of white coral sand with brown and black sand which is eroded and washed down from the volcanic rocks that make up the island. The gently-sloping coastal plain ( wide) has natural freshwater springs as well as non-potable volcanic hot springs, especially along the western coast. The island was named ''Oualie'' ("Land of Beautiful Waters") by the Caribs and ''Dulcina'' ("Sweet Island") by the early British settlers. The name, ''Nevis'', is derived from the Spanish, ''Nuestra Señora de las Nieves'' (which means Our Lady of the Snows); the name first appears on maps in the 16th century.〔Hubbard, Vincent K. (2002). ''Swords, Ships & Sugar: History of Nevis''. Corvallis, Oregon: Premiere, ISBN 1-891519-05-0, pp. 20-23 (Captain Gilbert, Captain Smith), 25 (pearl diving), 41-44 (name Dulcina, treaty with Spain, first settlement), 69-70 (privateers, Captain Francis), 79-85 (slave trade, Royal African Company, Queen of the Caribees), 86-102 (Caribs), 113-120 (d'Iberville, buccaneers), 138-139 (Great Britain's wealth derived from West Indian sugar and slave trade, 1776 starvation), 194-195 (Alexandra Hospital), 211-223 (electricity, Anguilla in 1967, OECD blacklist).〕 Nevis is also known by the sobriquet "Queen of the Caribees", which it earned in the 18th century, when its sugar plantations created much wealth for the British. Nevis is of particular historical significance to Americans because it was the birthplace and early childhood home of Alexander Hamilton. For the British, Nevis is the place where Horatio Nelson was stationed as a young sea captain, and is where he met and married a Nevisian, Frances Nisbet, the young widow of a plantation-owner. The majority of the approximately 12,000 citizens of Nevis are of primarily African descent. English is the official language, and the literacy rate, 98 percent, is one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere. ==Etymology== In 1498, Christopher Columbus gave the island the name ''San Martin'' (Saint Martin). However, the confusion of numerous poorly-charted small islands in the Leeward Island chain meant that this name ended up being accidentally transferred to another island, which is still known as Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten. The current name ''Nevis'' was derived from a Spanish name ''Nuestra Señora de las Nieves'' by a process of abbreviation and anglicisation. The Spanish name means Our Lady of the Snows. It is not known who chose this name for the island, but it is a reference to the story of a 4th-century Catholic miracle: a snowfall on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. Presumably the white clouds that usually cover the top of Nevis Peak reminded someone of this story of a miraculous snowfall in a hot climate. Nevis was part of the Spanish claim to the Caribbean islands, a claim pursued until the Treaty of Madrid (1670), even though there were no Spanish settlements on the island. According to Vincent Hubbard, author of ''Swords, Ships & Sugar: History of Nevis'', the Spanish ruling caused many of the Arawak groups who were not ethnically Caribs to "be redefined as Caribs overnight".〔 Records indicate that the Spanish enslaved large numbers of the native inhabitants on the more accessible of the Leeward Islands and sent them to Cubagua, Venezuela to dive for pearls. Hubbard suggests that the reason the first European settlers found so few "Caribs" on Nevis is that they had already been rounded up by the Spanish and shipped off to be used as slaves. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nevis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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