St. Helena Island (also known as St. Helena) in the South Atlantic Ocean, with a geographical location of 3656 km from South America, 1900 km from Angola in Africa, and hundreds of kilometers in all directions without human habitation, is recognized by the world as the "most isolated island", isolated to the point that it takes 12 days to reach it by boat from the nearest continent.
Interestingly, the island is quite well-known in European territory, as it once imprisoned Europe's most famous "military genius" and Napoleon who conquered almost all of Europe.
The first discovery of St. Helena Island was discovered by the Portuguese navigator Nova, who was discovered in 1501 on his way from Europe to India, which happened to be the birthday of Helena, the "goddess of peace", hence the name St. Helena Island. Due to the remoteness of the location and the lack of development value, neither the Portuguese nor the Dutch Navy, which arrived later, had a colonial plan.
But the more discerning British did not think so, because in the era before the Suez Canal was built, ships from South America and Europe to Asia had to take the South Atlantic route, during which 1500-3000 kilometers were blank areas without supply stations.
As a result, the British Navy captured large numbers of blacks from Africa, sent them to St. Helena Island to build docks and supply facilities, and then charged ships around the world, which were said to be equivalent to the price of a cow at that time.
St. Helena Island is very small, and the total area of the two affiliated islands and reefs is only 121 square kilometers, which is not suitable for large-scale agricultural cultivation due to latitude and climate. Coupled with the fact that it is a volcanic island itself, the mineral rock soil is difficult to supply the nutrients needed by bananas, sugar cane and other plants, and almost all the black slaves stranded on the island are starved to death.
Before the 19th century, British colonists made immeasurable wealth on the island, and Edmund Halley, the astronomer who first discovered the return movement of Halley's Comet, also spent a lot of money to be allowed to land on the island to complete the world's first map of the southern hemisphere.
But what really made St. Helena the island known to the world was Napoleon, a famous military figure in the nineteenth century and the founder of the First French Empire, who led an expedition to Russia with an army of 570,000 in 12 languages and almost unified Europe.
In 1814, a coalition of Britain, Russia, Prussia and Switzerland counterattacked and occupied Paris, France, and Napoleon was forced to declare his surrender and sign the Treaty of Fontainebleau and abdicate immediately, first under house arrest on the island of Elba in central Italy, only to be exiled to St. Helena Because Napoleon showed signs of reponderance, and was closely monitored by the British Royal Navy, which controlled the entire Atlantic Ocean at the time.
Napoleon did not even have a place to live when he first came to the island, but had to live in the home of longwood, an English businessman who admired his military talents, and only moved into the Belasses cell where he was held until his death a few months later.
The reason why the current Napoleon House is located in Longwood's home is because Napoleon gave him a sum of money and asked him to leave a cemetery for him after his death. Considering that Belasses was too rudimentary, the British government simply expelled the Longwood family from the island after Napoleon's death, confiscated the property and set up an old residence to appease the anger of Napoleon's followers.
The museum on the island has recorded many interesting stories about Napoleon, among which it is widely rumored that Napoleon changed the eating habits of the islanders.
It turned out that although Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica, he was extremely disgusted with seafood throughout his life, and his long-term career in horse racing developed the habit of "ten minutes to eat" and "like to eat coffee and scones". But don't talk about coffee on the island, even flour and meat are "luxuries", in order to eat better, Napoleon taught the locals how to grow coffee, wheat, and herd cattle and sheep.
For generations of black African descendants who were closed,000, Napoleon spoke like the "Book of Heaven." Fortunately, Longwood mediated the seeds of crops and cattle and sheep to the island.
Although only coffee and sheep survived in the end, it did change the eating habits of the islanders, the daily diet from the early single seafood fish added a variety of exquisite and nutritious European eating methods, and now the annual food contest is even attended by Michelin chefs, and the price of coffee on St. Helena Island has always been high, all thanks to Napoleon.
Napoleon was buried on the hill after his death (the skeleton was transported back to France a few years later), and ownership of the island was transferred to the British crown and opened to the public, as the opening of the Suez Canal caused St. Helena's island to lose its military and economic significance. From then on, admirers (including the British Navy) came every year until 1899, when the Boers of South Africa declared war on Britain.
In order to conquer more than 600,000 South African Boers, the British invested 400,000 soldiers, during which tens of thousands of Boers were sent to St. Helena Island for detention. The three-year war cost britain, which was experiencing economic decline, and after the signing of the contract, all the soldiers on st. Helena were also withdrawn, leaving tens of thousands of Boers and black descendants to fend for themselves on the island.
Before the outbreak of the First World War, half of the people on this isolated island were starved to death, and Longwood's son Tobert returned to the island after hearing the news, selling the accumulated coffee to Europe for living supplies, and the islanders came out of the predicament, in order to thank the Longwood family for spontaneously electing Tobert as the "governor", and then resisted the British.
In order to punish the islanders, the British royal family listed St. Helena as the only "overseas possession" at that time, and the difference between the "overseas territories" was that the islanders did not have British residency, which completely reduced St. Helena to an island, without any transportation, medical and educational benefits, but the tax paid could not be less.
Fortunately, the kind Prince Andrew heard that the islanders were in an unbearable situation, and purchased a passenger and freighter ship of st. Helena at his own expense, and since then has traveled between Cape Town and St. Helena Island in South Africa, so that the islanders' living conditions have gradually become normal.
Today, although St. Helena Island has opened an airport route, the annual number of tourists received is 6,000-7,000 people, mainly because it takes six days and six nights to arrive by boat from South Africa, and the flight is only one flight a week and the price is as high as two thousand US dollars, there is no mobile phone and network on the island, and the only telephone cable that can communicate with the outside world is laid by the US military during World War II and transferred to the islanders free of charge.