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Saint John's, city, Antigua and Barbuda

(Encyclopedia)Saint John's, city (1991 pop. 21,514), capital of Antigua and Barbuda, in the West Indies. St. John's, at the head of a harbor formed by an inlet, is the commercial center of the country. Tourism is i...

Bethlehem, town, West Bank

(Encyclopedia)Bethlehem bĕthˈlĭhĕm, –lēəm [key] [Heb.,=house of bread or house of Lahm, a g...

Louis II, emperor of the West

(Encyclopedia)Louis II, d. 875, emperor of the West (855–75), king of Italy (844–75), son of Emperor of the West Lothair I. In 844, Lothair I designated him king of Italy and in 850 he was crowned emperor of th...

maroon

(Encyclopedia)maroon, term for a fugitive slave in the 17th and 18th cent. in the West Indies and Guiana, or for a descendant of such slaves. They were called marron by the French and cimarrón by the Spanish. Form...

Gage, Thomas, English traveler

(Encyclopedia)Gage, Thomas, d. 1656, English traveler. He went (1612) to Spain to study and became a Dominican. He lived and traveled among the Native populations of Central America from 1625 to 1637, when he retur...

Economic Community of West African States

(Encyclopedia)Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), organization established in 1975 to increase economic cooperation and development in West Africa. Members include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, C...

Bandaranaike, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias

(Encyclopedia)Bandaranaike, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias, 1899–1959, prime minister (1956–59) of Ceylon (later Sri Lanka); husband of Sirimavo Bandaranaike. A lawyer educated in England, he entered politics and r...

Dutch West India Company

(Encyclopedia)Dutch West India Company, trading and colonizing company, chartered by the States-General of the Dutch republic in 1621 and organized in 1623. Through its agency New Netherland was founded. The phenom...

Manley, Norman Washington

(Encyclopedia)Manley, Norman Washington, 1893–1969, prime minister of Jamaica (1959–62); father of Michael Manley. Of Irish and African descent, he was educated at Oxford and became an internationally known law...

Esnambuc, Pierre Belain d'

(Encyclopedia)Esnambuc or Énambuc, Pierre Belain d' both: pyĕr bəlăN dānäNbükˈ [key], 1585–1636, French pioneer in the West Indies. Seeking to recoup his family fortune by privateering in the West Indies,...