[Sidenote: In West Indies]
French and English were neighbors also in the West Indies. Martinique
and Guadeloupe acknowledged French sovereignty, while Jamaica,
Barbados, and the Bahamas were English.[Footnote: The following West
Indies were also English: Nevis, Montserrat, Antigua, Honduras, St.
Lucia, Virgin Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. St. Kitts was
divided between England and France; and the western part of Haiti,
already visited by French buccaneers, was definitely annexed to France
in 1697. The Bermudas, lying outside the "West Indies," were already
English.] These holdings in the West Indies were valuable not only for
their sugar plantations, but for their convenience as stations for
trade with Mexico and South America.
[Sidenote: In Africa]
In Africa the French had made settlements in Madagascar, at Goree, and
at the mouth of the Senegal River, and the English had established
themselves in Gambia and on the Gold Coast, but as yet the African
posts were mere stations for trade in gold-dust,[Footnote: Gold coins
are still often called "guineas" in England, from the fact that a good
deal of gold used to come from the Guinea coast of Africa.
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