Culture

Salt and the Great Salt Pond: the trade that shaped St. Martin

Salt was one of the key reasons Europeans settled St. Martin. How the Great Salt Pond salt pans worked, who did the labour and what is protected today.

By SXM Daily · October 14, 2026

For the Europeans who arrived in the 17th century, St. Martin's main attraction was salt. The industry that grew up around the Great Salt Pond relied mainly on the labour of people of African descent, and it left behind stone-walled salt pans that are now partly protected as a monument.

Photo: Unknown photographer, Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

A name that means salt

The link between the island and salt is older than European settlement. The Indigenous name Soualiga is identified as meaning "land of salt". That reading comes from text by Jay Haviser of the Sint Maarten Archaeological Center (SIMARC), published in the MaSS heritage database of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.

Why Europeans came

Salt was one of the key reasons Europeans first settled the island in the 17th century. Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that the island's natural salt lakes were valued because salt was scarce in Europe at the time.

On the Dutch side, salt was worked as a commercial business from the early 17th century onward.

The people who did the work

By 1850, salt production on the island had reached 337,000 barrels a year.

The heritage agency's text is clear about who carried that load: the main labourers in the salt industry were people of African descent. Any account of the salt pans is also an account of their work.

What the salt pans look like

The salt pans are a network of dry-stone walls laid out in geometric patterns. They run across the eastern side of the Great Salt Pond, and the walled enclosures are the salt pans themselves.

Two pieces of technology once stood alongside them. One was a Dutch-style wind-pump built in the 19th century, which was lost in the mid-20th century. The other was a steam-powered plant from the 1870s, used both to pump freshwater and to crush salt. Together they show that salt-making here was not only hand work but, by the late 19th century, a small industrial operation.

A protected monument

In 2008, the eastern part of the salt pans was placed on the St. Maarten Monuments List. The listing gives the site some degree of protection. It covers the eastern part of the pans, not the whole pond.

Why it matters today

For residents, the salt pans are one of the most visible links to the island's early economy and to the people of African descent whose labour built it. The monuments listing means that what remains of the eastern pans is recognised as heritage, and any discussion about the future of the pond starts from that status.

For visitors, the pans explain the island's old name and why European powers wanted St. Martin in the first place.

What this article does not cover

SXM Daily has not confirmed when commercial salt work stopped on either side of the island, or the details of later changes to the pond. Those points are left out until they can be checked against an official or archival source.

FAQ

Q: What does Soualiga mean?

A: It is the island's Indigenous name, identified as meaning "land of salt".

Q: How much salt did the island produce?

A: By 1850, output had reached 337,000 barrels a year.

Q: Who worked the salt pans?

A: Mainly people of African descent.

Q: Are the salt pans protected?

A: The eastern part was placed on the St. Maarten Monuments List in 2008, which gives it some protection.

Sources

https://mass.cultureelerfgoed.nl/great-salt-pond-saltpans
https://www.britannica.com/place/Saint-Martin-island-West-Indies

Source: https://mass.cultureelerfgoed.nl/great-salt-pond-saltpans