This is a page on the history of the island of Martinique.
100–1450 The island was originally inhabited by Arawak and Carib peoples. Circa 130 AD, the first Arawaks are believed to have arrived from South America. In 295 A.D, an eruption of Mount Pelée resulted in the decimation of the island's population. Around 400 A.D, the Arawaks returned and repopulated the island. Around 600 A.D, the Caribs arrived. They exterminated the Arawaks and proceeded to settle on the island over the next few centuries.
1450–1600 Christopher Columbus charted the island in 1493, making the region known to European interests, but it was not until June 15, 1502, on his fourth voyage, that he actually landed, leaving several pigs and goats on the island. However, the Spaniards ignored the island as other parts of the New World were of greater interest to them.
17th century
In 1635, after 133 years of Spanish rule, Spain was forced to cede Martinica to the French under Cardinal Richelieu who created the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique (Company of the Isles of America, the successor to the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe). The company contracted with Messrs l'Olive and Duplessis to occupy and govern on its behalf the Caribbean islands belonging to the French crown. This led on September 1, 1635, to Pierre Bélain d'Esnambuc landing on Martinique with eighty to one hundred French settlers from Saint Cristophe. They met some resistance that they were able to dispatch quickly because of their far superior weaponry and armor. They settled in the northwestern region that later became known as St. Pierre at the mouth of the Roxelane River, where they built Fort Saint Pierre. The first governor was Jean Dupont.
The following year, d'Esnambuc fell ill and passed the command of the settlement to his nephew, Jacques Dyel du Parquet. At this time the colony's population numbered some 700 men. The settlers cleared the land around St. Pierre to grow crops. They grew manioc and potatoes to live on and rocou, indigo, tobacco, and later cacao and cotton, for export. French and foreign merchants frequently came to the island to buy these exotic products, transforming Martinique into a modestly prosperous colony. The colonists also established another fort, Fort Saint Louis in 1638. This fort, like Fort Saint Pierre, was little more than a wooden stockade. In 1640, the fort was improved to include a ditch, high stone walls and 26 cannons.
Over the next quarter of a century the French established full control of the island. They systematically killed the fiercely resisting Caribs as they expanded, forcing the survivors back to the Caravelle Peninsula in the Cabesterre (the eastern side of the island).
Although labor-intensive, sugar was a lucrative product to trade, and cultivation on Martinique soon focused only on growing and trading sugar. In 1685, King Louis XIV proclaimed "Le Code Noir", which aimed to provide a legal framework for the removal of Africans from their homeland and their transport to work as slaves on the French sugar plantations. Ever since, a strong theme of Martinican culture has been creolization or interaction between the French colonial settlers, known locally as békés, and the Africans they imported. For over two hundred years, slavery, and slave revolts, would be a major influence on the economy and politics of the island.
The French colonial settlers were peasants attracted by propaganda promising fortune and a life under the sun. The "volunteers" were indentured servants who had to work for their master for three years, after which they were promised their own land. However, the tiring work and hot climate resulted in few of the workers surviving their three years, with the result that constant immigration was necessary for maintaining the workforce. Still, under the directorship of du Parquet, Martinique's economy developed as it exported products to France and the neighboring English and Dutch colonies. In 1645, the Sovereign council was established with several powers, among them the right to grant titles of nobility to families in the islands. In 1648, the Company of the Isles of America started to wind up its affairs and in 1650 du Parquet bought the island.
In 1650 Father Jacques du Tetre built a still for converting the waste from the sugarcane mills into molasses, which became a major export industry.
In 1654, du Parquet allowed 250 Dutch Jews, who were fleeing Brazil following the Portuguese taking back their territory in that colony, to settle Martinique, where they engaged in the sugar trade. This was by far the most sought after product in Europe and the crop soon became Martinique's biggest export.
After the death of du Parquet, his widow ruled on behalf of his children until 1658, when Louis XIV resumed sovereignty over the island, paying an indemnity of £120,000 to the du Parquet children. At this time, Martinique's population numbered some 5,000 settlers and a few surviving Carib Indians. The Caribs were eventually exterminated or exiled in 1660.
In 1658, Dominican Fathers built an estate at Fonds Saint-Jacques. From 1693 to 1705, this was the home of Père Labat, the French Dominican priest who improved the distillery. A colorful character, he was also an explorer, architect, engineer, and historian, and fought as a soldier against the English.
In 1664, Louis transferred the island, this time to the newly established Compagnie des Indes Occidentales. The next year, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, a Dutch fleet under Admiral Michiel de Ruyter retired to Martinique to refit after the fleet's indecisive encounter with an English force off Barbados. Two years later a hurricane devastated Martinique and Guadelope, killing some 2,000 people. This was the first of several natural disasters that would devastate the population of Martinique over the next few centuries.
The French buccaneer François l'Ollonais (Jean-David Nau) spent part of his early life as a servant on Martinique before joining the buccaneers based in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). Martinique is a home port to for French buccaneers as well as pirates like Captain Crapeau, Étienne de Montauban and Mathurin Desmarestz which earned a notorious reputation for their violent tactics against Spanish captives, often referred to as "Fléau des Espagnols" (Flail of the Spanish). It allowed the French to operate in the Caribbean against Spanish ships in both Hispaniola and Martinique.
In 1666 and 1667 the English unsuccessfully attacked. The Treaty of Breda (1667) ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War and hence the hostilities.
In 1672, Louis XIV ordered the construction of a citadel, Fort Saint Louis, at Fort Royal Bay to defend Martinique. The next year, the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales decided to establish a town at Fort Royal, even though the location was a malarial swamp. The Compagnie des Indes Occidentales failed in 1674, and the colony reverted to the direct administration of the French crown. Martinique's administration was in the hands of council. The King appointed two members: the Lieutenant-general and the administrator. They chose the other council members (the governor, the Attorney General and the ordinary judge). This organization lasted until 1685.
During the Third Anglo-Dutch War, de Ruyter returned to Martinique in 1674, this time with the intent to capture Fort Royal. Calm winds and French booms prevented him from sailing his fleet of 30 warships, nine supply ships, and 15 transports into the harbor. The French repulsed his attempt to land his 3,400 troops, causing him to lose 143 men, at a cost of 15 French lives.
In 1675 the first Governor General of the West Indies, Jean-Charles de Baas-Castelmore, arrived in Martinique and served until 1677. His successor was Charles de La Roche-Courbon, comte de Blénac, who served for the first time from 1677 to 1683. He drew up a plan for the city of Fort Royal and improving the fortifications of Fort Saint Louis. de Blénac was responsible for the 10-year effort that resulted in the building of a 487-meter wall around the peninsula on which the Fort stood, the wall being four meters high and two meters thick, and cutting a ditch that separated from the town. de Blénac served as Governor General again from June 1684 to February 1691, and again from 24 Nov 1691 until his death in 1696.
The growth of the town resulted in the progressive clearing and draining of the mangrove swamp. By 1681, Fort-Royal was the administrative, military and political capital of Martinique. Still, Saint Pierre, with its better harbor, remained the commercial capital.
In 1685, in France King Louis XIV promulgated the "Code Noir" (literally, Black Code), a collection of law texts whose 60 articles would regulate slavery in the colonies, and which was partially inspired by Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The code forbade some cruel acts, but institutionalized others and slavery itself, relegating the status of slaves to that of chattel. It also ordered the expulsion of the Jews from all the French islands. These Jews then moved to the Dutch island of Curaçao, where they prospered.
In 1692, Charles de La Roche-Courbon, Count of Blénac, the Governor and Lieutenant General of the French colonies in America, named Fort Royal as the capital city of Martinique. In 1693 the English again unsuccessfully attacked Martinique.
1700–1788
In 1720, a French naval officer, Gabriel de Clieu, procured a coffee plant seedling from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Paris and transported it to Martinique. He transplanted it on the slopes of Mount Pelée and was able to harvest his first crop in 1726, or shortly thereafter.see Gabriel de Clieu for more detail By 1736, the number of slaves in Martinique had risen to 60,000 people. In 1750, Saint Pierre had about 15,000 inhabitants, and Fort Royal only about 4,000.
During the Seven Years' War the British 76th Regiment of Foot under William Rufane captured Martinique in early 1762. Following Britain's victory in the war there was a strong possibility the island would be annexed by them. However, the sugar trade made the island so valuable to the royal French government that at the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War, they declined to regain Canada in order to regain Martinique and the neighboring island of Guadeloupe. During the British occupation, Marie Josèph Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, the future Empress Joséphine was born to a noble family living on Les Trois-Îlets across the bay from Fort Royal. Also, 1762 saw a yellow fever epidemic and in 1763 the French established separate governments for Martinique and Guadeloupe.
August 2, 1766 saw the birth of Saint-Pierre de Louis Delgrès, a mixed-race free black who would serve in the French army and fight the British in 1794, before becoming the leader of the unsuccessful resistance in Guadeloupe against General Richepance, whom Napoleon had sent to restore slavery to that colony. On August 13 (in either 1766 or 1767) a hurricane – apparently accompanied by an earthquake – struck the island; 600–1600 were killed.1995: Rappaport, Edward N. and Fernandez-Partagas, Jose; "The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492–1994", NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC-47, National Hurricane Center, 41 pp. Monsieur de la Pagerie, the father of the future Empress, was almost ruined. At the time, there were some 450 sugar mills in Martinique, and molasses was a major export. Four years later an earthquake shook the island. By 1774, when a decree ended indentured servitude for whites, there were some 18 to 19 million coffee trees on the island.