St. Helena

St Helena is a volcanic island rising steeply from the South Atlantic, far from Africa and South America. Its valleys offered water and shelter to ships on long ocean passages. Portuguese navigators reached the island in the early sixteenth century, and homeward-bound ships from the East Indies came to rely on it for provisions.

The English East India Company established a settlement in 1659 and fortified the island to protect its anchorage. Its plantations depended in part on enslaved labour, including people brought from Madagascar. St Helena remained a valuable meeting place for ships returning from Asia. In 1815, after his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte was sent into exile here; he died on the island in 1821. Its isolation had made it both a useful port of call and a closely guarded place of confinement.