Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy

Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy (1584–1660) was a French nobleman and Bailiff Grand Cross of the Knights of Malta. He governed the island of Saint Christopher from 1639 to his death in 1660, first under the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique and later under the Knights of Malta themselves. Poincy was the key figure in the Hospitaller colonization of the Americas.

On 12 January 1638 Poincy set sail for the Caribbean on board La Petite Europe On February 20 he took up his commission as Lieutenant Governor of the Isles of America and Captain general of the French at St Kitts. He arrived wearing the regalia of the Knights of St John of Malta and soon dispensed with the authority of the French king, declaring "The people of St Kitts will have no other Governor than Poincy and will take no orders from the King of France."

In 1639 he reached an agreement with the English on St Kitts that neither nation should grow tobacco. for one and a half years.

Poincy instructed one of his followers, the Huguenot Levasseur with sixty buccaneers, to drive the English out of Tortuga. Levasseur was successful, and on 6 November 1640 a treaty was drawn up between Poincy and Levasseur which allowed religious toleration and trade between the two islands.

By 1642 Poincy started building the Château de la Montagne on his estate called La Fontaine. This was an elaborate building, credited as being one of the grandest ever constructed in the Americas, though today it is in ruins. The grounds of La Fontaine were also heavily planted with exotic tropical plants. The Poinciana (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) was named in his honor, the name later becoming secondarily associated with the Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia).

He had a Town Hall erected in Basseterre in what is now known as Church Street. This served as his administrative centre, where he dispensed justice and administered the colony.

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