Philippe de Longvilliers de Poincy

Who is Philippe de Longvilliers de Poincy?

Philippe de Longvilliers de Poincy was a French nobleman, naval officer, and Bailiff Grand Cross of the Knights of Malta whose colonial administration shaped the early history of Saint Barthélemy. Before his Caribbean career he fought the Ottomans in the Mediterranean and took part in the sieges of the Isle of Ré and La Rochelle in 1627, later serving in the French colony of Acadia. From 1639 until his death in 1660 he governed the neighboring island of Saint-Christophe (Saint Kitts), first for the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique and, from 1651, for the Knights of Malta, whom he persuaded to purchase the French Antilles outright so he could rule with greater independence from the French crown. In 1648 he dispatched a party of roughly fifty French colonists, led by Jacques Gentes, to found the first permanent European settlement on Saint Barthélemy, extending French colonial reach to the small, drought-prone island. He is remembered as the dominant French colonial administrator of his generation in the Lesser Antilles, credited with developing Basseterre and with founding the settlements that became Saint Barthélemy and Saint Croix.

Sources: St. John Source, "De Poincy Sends Settlers to Saint Barthelemy" (21 December 1999) · Wikipedia, "Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy" · Records of the Hospitaller colonization of the Americas, Knights of Malta Caribbean venture (1651-1665)