History of Castle Bruce

ember 1493, when some of the people of Kouanari saw seventeen large and unusual sailing ships on the horizon. The vessels could not find a place to land on this rough and rocky shore and so they sailed on northwards along the island. Gradually in the years ahead changes came to Kouanari. Strange trade tools of iron and copper were brought to the villages. Printed cloth from foreign lands and mirrors and bells and glazed bowls were also traded, and with them arrived strange diseases that they could not cope with. Many died from malaria and smallpox to which their bodies had no resistance. Eventually Spanish slave raiders came trying to capture the Kalinago at Kouanari to take them to the big islands of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola to work in mines and on plantations but the people resisted by fighting off the invaders and retreating into the mountains.

The French and British arrive

More changes came in the following centuries as first French people and the English came to take the Kalinago lands. The great flat valley of Kouanari was considered to be excellent for planting sugar cane and the hills around were perfect for raising coffee. When the British captured Dominica from the French in 1761 and took over the whole island by treaty in 1763, Dominica was cut up into lots for sale. The privileged people and first British officials grabbed the best land for themselves. One person who knew the value of the area was James Bruce, who had been sent out from Scotland to plan forts for Dominica.

The surveyors cut up Dominica into parishes and named the one in the centre of the east, St. David's, after the patron saint of Wales in Britain. The bay was also named St.David's by the British. The entire valley, totaling some 1,485 acres, was purchased from the British Crown in the 1760s by Royal Engineer Captain James Bruce who named it after himself. It was one of the largest