Good Friday and its accras
Good Friday, the day of the Stations of the Cross, is also a day of fasting reserved for accras. These are small, salty vegetable fritters made especially for the occasion. These specific vegetables are related to taro(dachin in Creole, dasheen in English), what we call Caribbean cabbages grown in our regions for their underground tubers, which grow on a rhizome and are edible. Purists who adhere strictly to the fast eat natural accras, with vegetables only, while others add crayfish and crab paste without going without, so it's hard to talk about fasting.
Saturday Gloria
The following day, Saturday Gloria, is the resurrection of the bells, a time when many people bathe as if to purify themselves. Evenings of traditional local dance, bèlè and ladja, are scheduled around the island.
Easter Monday, Pentecost Monday and their crabs
After a month of supposed fasting, people eat matoutou crabs on the beach, just as they will on Whit Monday. The whole population, even those of non-Catholic faith, celebrates Easter Monday at the beach or by the river (at Saut du Gendarme in Ajoupa-Bouillon, for example), but since the pollution caused by chlordecone, the organochlorine insecticide that pollutes soils in a lasting way and has caused a health scandal in our regions, the habit has unfortunately regressed for the rivers.
May 22, 1848 and the abolition of slavery
Following the revolutionary days of February 1848, which overthrew the July Monarchy, the provisional government drew up decrees abolishing slavery in all the French colonies. These decrees, which were signed on April 27, 1848, provided for abolition within two months of their promulgation, but did not reach Martinique until June 4, 1848. Given the distances involved, it was a long time before they reached the colonies and could be applied.
The rebellious people decided otherwise, and gathered around a slave named Romain on the habitation Sainte-Philomène in Le Prêcheur, to demand the abolition of slavery in Martinique.
Conferences, commemorative marches and evenings of bèlè (traditional dance), open to all, have been organized everywhere ever since. This special day honors the history of Martinique.
Today, every year on the same date, the whole island commemorates this day, which is of the utmost importance. However, this has not always been the case, as it was only under President Mitterrand's mandate in 1983, when May 22 was declared a public holiday, that we were invited to immerse ourselves in this essential moment in our history.
The newspaper L'Humanité reports that "it was Gabriel Henry, an English teacher, who was the first personality from Martinique to highlight the significance of May 22, 1848, the date on which the slaves themselves conquered their freedom. The decree of April 27 was not then known to the 60,000 slaves who rose up in Martinique on May 22, 1848". Armand Nicolas based his research on Gabriel Henry's indications. The professor was to awaken this date from the depths of the archives, which was to change habits. Activists demanded that May 22 become a day to honor the most important event in the history of the Martinican people, and to make it a public holiday.
The statues. May 22, 2020 was marked by the destruction of two statues of Victor Schoelcher, one in downtown Fort-de-France, the other in the commune of Schoelcher. Schoelcher had signed the decrees abolishing slavery and the slave trade in the colonies. He is blamed for his involvement in the outrageous demand for compensation granted to slave owners, the békés, from 1849 onwards. On the same day, the statue of Josephine, Napoleon I's wife, was destroyed on the Savane. The latter was blamed for having reintroduced slavery with the law of May 20 1802, the abolition of which had been voted by the Convention in February 1794. At the same time, the statue of Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, a French colonist born on March 9, 1585 in Allouville and who died in 1636 in Saint-Christophe, in the West Indies, was demolished as a symbol of the colonizer.
In the North. May 22 is a day when bèlè drums, tibwa and lambi conches can be heard everywhere, including at the Sainte-Philomène dwelling in Le Prêcheur, where a stele has been erected. It's also an opportunity to take part in the "Lasotè", a symbol of solidarity, union and understanding. Men armed with hoes begin to turn the soil together, to the accompaniment of drums and lambi conches: Lasotè is the art of transforming work into pleasure on this day of commemoration.
