Macnee Th WaThe Province ot Providence ‘Walwin G. Petersen The Christian University of San Andres, Providence, and Catalina San Andres Island, Colombia- The Province of Providence by Walwin G, Petersen Copyright © 2001 No part of this publication may be reproduced in total or in part without the written authorization of the owner. First Edition, 2002 Editor and Publisher: The Christian University of San Andres, Providence and Kathleen Islands, Colombia Printing Services Provided By: } R. H. Boyd Publishing Corporation . 2 Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America Acknowledgements This work was made possible thanks to the effort of the direc- torate of the Christian University. It would be unfair to end my book without mentioning the names of special people who have provided the means and encouragement to make this dream a reality. I must first thank Dr. George May Mitchell, who for some time has been encouraging me to write some of the things I have been saying during most of my lifetime. He always says, “Wal, why don’t you write it?” I must also thank my friends and colleagues in this great task, Doctors Ricardo Gordon May and Fidel Corpus Suarez, who also encouraged me to relive many long hours of my life cloistered in a cubicle which they provided within the administrative space of the university in order to dig into my old mind and accumulated files with records of 50 years of investigative memories, some happy and others very, very unhappy, to the extent that I doubt anyone else would have dared to write, but that is what history is all about. One must relate the good and pleasant as well as the bad and unpleas- ant, as long as it is the truth! I am also grateful to my faithful pupil and secretary, Mrs. Lucia Barker Palacio, who has helped me from the beginning of the proj- ect, typing some of my manuscripts, notes, and reports for confer- ences, which no one else would have understood, my style of writ- ing being so different. Tt would be inappropriate of me not to mention Doctor Luren Turnage, with whom I have shared much information over the years, having been able to interest him in writing his book Island 3