History of Martinique

Carib and Arawak Era

Martinique was originally inhabited by Arawak and Carib peoples.

Christopher Columbus came across the island in 1493, making the region known to European interests. In 1635, Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc landed with a hundred French settlers from Saint Kitts, settling in the northwestern region that later became known as St. Pierre. The French settler systematically fought the fiercely resisting Caribs for territorial control, a battle that increased in brutality as the French settlers desired increased territory to grow sugar cane on the island. Between 1640 and 1660, those Caribs who had survived the fighting were forcibly removed from the island in what has become known as the Carib Expulsion. Many were killed in a brutal massacre in the area now known as Fort-de-France. The city later became a major port for ships following the trade winds from Europe.

Europe, Sugar, and Slavery

By the middle of the 17th century, France was the dominant European power on the island. Although labor intenstive, sugar was a lucrative product to trade, and cultivation on Martinique soon focused only on growing and trading sugar. In 1642, King Louis XIII authorised an action referred to as "La Traite des Noirs" that allowed for black people to be seized from Africa and forcibly brought to work as slaves on the French sugar plantations. Ensuing Martinican culture has in many ways been the result of creolization between the French colonial settlers, known locally as békés, and enslaved Africans.

Britain captured the island during the Seven Years' War, holding it from 1762 to 1763. However, the sugar trade made the island was so valuable to the royal French government, that at the Treaty of Paris which ended the Seven Years War they exchanged the entirety of Canada in order to regain Martinique as well as the neighboring island of Guadeloupe. Between 1794 and 1815, there was a strong British interest in Martinique, with Britain controlling the island during the French Revolutionary Wars from 1794 to 1802, after which the British returned the island to the French with the Treaty of Amiens and Napoléon Bonaparte reinstated slavery. Led by Victor Schoelcher, the French officially abolished slavery in 1848. Martinique got its independece after the wars they fought.

Mount Pelée Eruption

On May 8, 1902, a blast from the volcano Mont Pelée destroyed the town of St. Pierre, killing almost all of its 29,000 inhabitants. The only survivor was a prisoner saved by his position in a jail dungeon with only single window. The town had to be completely rebuilt and lost its status as capital, a title which shifted to Fort-de-France.

Departmental Era

In 1946, the French National Assembly voted unanimously to transform Martinique from a colony of France into a department, known in French as a Département d'Outre-Mer or DOM. Along with its fellow DOMs of Guadeloupe, Réunion, and French Guyana, Martinique was intended to be legally identical to any department in the metropole. However, in reality, several key differences remained, particularly within social security payments and unemployment benefits.

French funding to the DOM has somewhat made up for the social and economic devastation of the slave trade and sugar crop monoculture. With French funding to Martinique, the island had one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean. However, it remained dependent upon French aid, as when measured by what Martinique actually produced, it was one of the poorer islands in the region.

Sources and references

Burton, Richard D.E. (1978). Assimilation or Independence? Prospects for Martinique. Centre for Developing-Area Studies. McGill University. ISBN 0888190395.

Burton, Richard D.E. and Fred Reno (1995). French and West Indian: Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana Today. New World Studies. University Press of Virginia. ISBN 0813915651.

Wilgus, A. Curtis (1958). The Caribbean: British, Dutch, French, United States. University of Florida Press. ISBN 0813915651.

External links

• Institutional History of Martinique - Official site of the French Government (translation by Maryanne Dassonville)