The "The Wrath Of The Arawaks Will Forever Haunt La Belle Créole" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Checking out a few sites on my MacBook Air when I came across a story about a resort known as La Belle Créole on the French side of the island of St. Martin.  La Belle Créole comprises the 25-acre tip of a secluded peninsula.  The views from the peninsula are out to sea toward the island of Anguilla as well as the island known as St. Barths.  You supposedly can also see across Marigot Bay toward the French Capital of Marigot and the island's backbone of mountains.  

La Belle Créole was built of stone to resemble a French fishing village.  The resort was a long time dream of Cladius Charles Philippe, manager of the famous Waldorf- Astoria, who ran into financial problems part way through construction and was eventually finished by someone else.  La Belle Créole was a 25-acre complex with dozens of buildings.  Today the resort is nothing but a remnant of its original glory, having been destroyed during the 1995 Hurricane Luis.  

Centuries ago the location housed a battery of cannons to defend the island from intruders.  Legend has it that the site was at one time home to an ancient Arawak Indian burial ground, thus the reason for the many problems that has plagued the resort.  Today the resort has been left to the elements for over a quarter of a century.  When my wife and I began to visit the island at the beginning of the 2000's, we often passed the entrance to the resort and wondered what it may have looked like when it was first opened.  

At times I almost turned the car down the road, into the resort, but something told me not to do it.  First of all, it would be trespassing.  The multi-story reception hall is empty, the grounds are overgrown and crumbling, the hot tub is full of tadpoles and the trees have covered most buildings with vines, so why bother to make a visit.  As of today, it still remains the same as it has since we began to travel to the island.   I recently read a rather unique set of verses written in prose that were titled "The Haunting Of LaBelle Créole."  Rather interesting and I thought you may enjoy it.  For me....it is the story of La Belle Créole as perceived by the Arawaks who once inhabited the land.  The author of the following was Breana Johnson and her website is: www.3rdculturewife.com.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. 

They have forgotten us.  We have faded from memory, like our flesh faded from our bones centuries ago.  Yet we are here, invisible yet seeing, inaudible yet hearing, intangible yet sensing.  Our spirits laugh with the lapping waves.  We cry with the soaring birds.  We moan with the wind.  And we rage with the storms.

There was a time when warm blood flowed through our bodies and warm flesh wrapped our bones.  We walked on the shore then cooling our feet in the ancient and everlasting waters.  We ran under the tropical sun from shore to shore.  Our children dove from the cliffs - how different they looked then! - into the clear waters of the reef.  We tasted the sweet meat of the crab and danced in the firelight to the rhythm of the tide.

Then they came - the strange men with strange words and strange clothing.  They were harsh and resolute, and we hated them.  They brought with them their vicious dogs, their explosives, and their lust.  We grew weak, and our children died with raging heart in their bodies.  Our women and men died with boils and scars.  We wailed as our lived ones died, and we buried them with broken hearts near the sacred islet.  I died, and I lay in the chill earth, away from the warm sunlight.

They left, and came again, this time with their cannons and ships and slaves.  They had already forgotten us, and they walked on our graves.  I heard their footsteps on the ground above.  They dragged their cannons over our graves and shattered our silence with their wars.   They annihilated our peace with the crack of whips on human flesh.

They left, and others took their place.  Generations lived and died.  We slept in peace for a hundred years, with only the occasional wanderer to stir up.

They came.  Their machines roared, rattling our bones.  They dug over our resting places, and built great structures over our graves.  I felt the pressure of a great tower over my body.  We groaned under the weight.  Many people came from the whole world over, and trod on our sacred tombs.  We moaned, but our cries were lost in the wind.  Our bloodless beings saw the blush of the new bride.  Our bleached bones saw the sun-kissed skin of the happy travelers.  We remembered what we had been, and what we had lost.  And we remembered that we were forgotten.  

Our moans whirled as wind around the whitewashed wall that had become a monument to our destruction.  Our screams filled the air, and our souls ripped from our broken bones.  We broke through the sandy earth, through the cracking concrete to the surface.  We felt again the humidity of the air.  We knew again the roar of the sea.  Our tears of rage and loss poured from the heavens, and the rush of our agony ripped through the trees.  We stirred the elements and raged from the sea to sea, screaming our anger through the darkening sky.  We saw them pour from buildings and take flight from our island home.  We saw them take cover in every nook and cranny.  We saw that they were afraid, and we took our vengeance. 

We tore through the quaint buildings, tearing with invisible claws at the rich furnishings of each room.  The sound of shattering glass was lost in the volume of our screams.  We threw the books, the paintings, the decorations out of the windows and doors.  We destroyed their world, just as they had destroyed ours.

We satiated our lust for vengeance, and we regarded the havoc we had wreaked.  Shredded curtains floating in the gentle breeze.  Glass and splinters carpeted the earth.  Not a living soul was to be seen.

Only dead ones.