History History

Archaeological excavations have estimated the first settlements on the island to be around 2,000 years B.C. They were nomadic tribes from Central America and the Orinoco basin in South America.

Establishment of the Arawaks in the islands of the Caribbean archipelago. This people of farmers, originally from present-day Venezuela, brought with them many plant species. In 295, the Arawaks are said to have fled Martinique following an eruption of Mount Pelée.

New tribes, the Tainos, land cultivators, fisherman and hunters, settled on the island. They lived peacefully until the conquest of the Lesser Antilles by the Caribs, a people of warlike navigators, around 1350.

On his 4^th voyage to the Indies, the Spanish sailor reached the Carbet coast. For a long time, Martinique was to serve as a stopover for supplies: French, Dutch and English adventurers exchanged alcohol and tools for tobacco, water and food with the Caribs.

The filibster Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc lands in Saint-Pierre with 150 French settlers. He founded the first French colony on the island on behalf of the Compagnie des Isles d'Amérique. Saint-Pierre thus became the capital of the French West Indies. The following year, Louis XIII authorized the introduction of slaves into the French West Indies. This is the beginning of colonization.

The Company of the American Islands goes bankrupt. Jacques Dyel du Parquet, nephew of Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, buys Martinique, the Grenadines and Saint Lucia. At his death in 1658, war broke out between the French colonists and the Caribs. The latter are massacred. The survivors were forced to take refuge in St. Vincent and Dominica. The settlers then developed the culture of indigo, coffee and sugar cane on the island.

Louis XIV buys Martinique, the Grenadines and Saint Lucia. He entrusts his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert with the foundation of the West India Company.

Martinique comes under the direct authority of the king. The slave trade is now open to all French ports.

Promulgation of the Royal Edict “concerning the police of the isles of French America”, known as Colbert's Code Noir, which defines in sixty articles the condition of slaves on the island. From the second half of the seventeenth century, France, like England and the Netherlands, entered the triangular trade with the trade of Africans to the New World and used black slaves massively on the plantations. The purpose of the Code Noir was to regulate relations between masters and slaves, who were four times more numerous than the former. This text, which makes slaves “movable beings” (that can be bought and sold), notably regulates the torture of slaves, imposes weekly rations on the masters and limits interbreeding.

Until 1814, Martinique is attacked several times by the British. This period was marked by resounding battles, such as the Battle of Martinique in 1779 in front of Fort Royal, which pitted thirteen Hyde Parker ships against the fleet of La Motte Picquet and resulted in the victory of France.

The island is torn between the official revolutionary power and the great white landowners, the békés, supporters of royalty. The latter start a royalist counter-revolution. It is in this heated context that the British invaded Saint-Pierre in February 1794. Meanwhile, slavery, which was increasingly disputed in metropolitan France, was abolished by the Convention. But Martinique, under English occupation, does not apply the decree.

Signing of the Treaty of Amiens: the British withdraw from Martinique. The island becomes French again and slavery is maintained by Napoleon.

In 1803, the English fleet seized the Diamond Rock and fortified it. Seven years later, the English took Fort-de-France. Martinique was not ceded back to France until May 1814 with the Treaty of Paris.

Uprising of slaves in Martinique, who obtained immediate abolition of slavery. Information about the decree drafted by Victor Schoelcher, who planned to free 250,000 black slaves in the French colonies within two months, spread rapidly in the French West Indies. Everywhere on the island, the tension between masters and slaves was explosive. It is the arrest of Romain, a slave from the Duchamp estate in Le Prêcheur, imprisoned for continuing to play the drum, that set fire to the powder keg. In the streets, slaves began to gather. On May 22^nd, Romain was released but Huc, mayor of Le Prêcheur, shoots at the crowd, leaving three dead and ten wounded. An outbreak of violence then fell on Saint-Pierre. On May 23^rd, the municipal council of Saint-Pierre declared immediate abolition of slavery. Governor Rostoland issued the following decree: “Art.1 : Slavery is abolished from this day on in Martinique. There are neither masters nor slaves among us anymore; Martinique today has only citizens”. The “new freemen” became full-fledged citizens, were given a surname and had the right to vote, to be educated and to work. Settlers, for their part, will be compensated for the loss of their free labor. This date of 22 May (a public holiday in Martinique) is celebrated with fervor because it marks the end of two centuries of the slave trade on the island, but above all it underlines the key role played by slaves in the conquest of their freedom.

Representation of the colonies in the National Assembly, in the Chamber of Deputies, then in the Senate. The numerous reforms launched in France (secularism, free education…) under the Third Republic find an echo in Martinique.

After several weeks of ash rain and underground rumblings, a fiery cloud escapes from the Mount Pelée volcano. This cloud of flaming gas hurtled down at a speed of nearly 700 km/h (and at a temperature close to 1,000 degrees) towards Saint-Pierre. This catastrophe, the deadliest in the 20^th century, claimed nearly 30,000 lives in three minutes! The island's economic and cultural capital is wiped off the map. With it, the entire rum industry collapses. On August 30, a fiery cloud kills a thousand people in Le Morne-Rouge.

The island comes under the Vichy regime, represented by Admiral Robert. From 1942, a blockade imposed by the Americans towards the French islands deprives the people of Martinique of food.

Adoption of the law of departmentalisation and assimilation defended by the young Martinican deputy Aimé Césaire. Martinique becomes a French department, administered by a prefect.

Creation of the Martinican Progressive Party (PPM), by Aimé Césaire and Pierre Aliker, which defines itself as a party inspired by the socialist, progressive and humanist ideal.

Fort-de-France is shaken by three days of riots following a racist incident. Repression leads to 3 deaths.

Creation of BUMIDOM (Bureau for the Development of Migration in the Overseas Departments), which is responsible for organizing the migration flows of the inhabitants of the Overseas Departments to mainland France.

Alfred Marie-Jeanne, Lucien Veilleur, Marc Pulvar and Garcin Malsa founded the movement "La Parole au Peuple". Five years later it became the Mouvement Indépendantiste Martiniquais, whose objective was the independence of Martinique. It was dissolved on November 12, 2019.

Creation of the Regional Council of Martinique, as part of the decentralisation process. The island becomes a Region in its own right. Aimé Césaire is the first president.

Vote on the finance law that ratifies social equality between metropolitan France and the overseas departments under the presidency of Jacques Chirac. The aim of this law is to reduce disparities in social protection between the overseas departments and metropolitan France. The overseas minimum wage is aligned with that of metropolitan France, and Martinique's inhabitants now have access to the same social benefits.

Election of Serge Létchimy (PPM) to the mayor's office of Fort-de-France. He succeeds Aimé Césaire who spent 56 years at the head of the capital of Fort-de-France.

The whole world pays tribute to him at a national funeral.

The island is shaken by an unprecedented social movement against the high cost of living. This leads to a drop in the prices of a hundred or so basic necessities.

The people of Martinique rejected by referendum the application of article 74 of the Constitution and preferred to maintain the current system by renewing article 73. Martinique becomes a DROM, overseas department and region, subject to the regime of legislative assimilation as defined by Article 73 of the Constitution, which provides for a legislative identity regime for these entities, i.e. that "the laws and regulations are applicable as of right", subject to the possibility of adaptation or derogation of the laws and regulations, in order to take into account the particular characteristics and constraints of these DROMs.

Merging of the two territorial authorities, the Regional Council and the General Council. Alfred Marie-Jeanne becomes the first President of the Executive Council of the Collectivité Territoriale de la Martinique.

Rehabilitation of the Franck Perret Museum in Saint-Pierre, renamed the Mémorial de la Catastrophe de 1902 (1902 Catastrophe Memorial).

Two statues of Victor Schoelcher are torn down by a group of activists on the day of the commemoration of the abolition of slavery. These anti-colonial heritage protesters emphasize that the slaves freed themselves and not thanks to Victor Schoelcher, and that tribute should be paid above all to the slaves and their struggle.

On 26 July, the statues of Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, already headless since 1991, and Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc on the Place de la Savane were destroyed. The motivations are the same: the demonstrators say they are surrounded by “insulting symbols”.

The Man and Biosphere program of UNESCO has recognized the entire land and marine territory of Martinique as a World Biosphere Reserve. This distinction commits Martinique to enhance its natural and cultural wealth in a dynamic of sustainable development.

For the first time in its history, the Transat Jacques Vabre, which retraces the coffee route taken by the great merchant ships in the 18^th century, stops in Martinique. On November 25^th, it was LinkedOut, represented by Thomas Ruyant and Morgan Lagravière, which reached Fort-de-France first and signed his first victory after 18 days, 1 hour and 21 minutes to cover the 6,000 miles that separate Martinique from Le Havre.

The social conflict, which also strongly affected Guadeloupe, started on November 22, inspired by the inter-union group which launched an unlimited strike and set up roadblocks all over the island, thus preventing any movement of the inhabitants. The origin of this protest? The introduction by the French government of an obligation to vaccinate health care workers as well as the health pass in several public places.

From the first evening, on the fringes of the trade union demands, acts of vandalism began in all parts of the island: blockades, fires, shooting of projectiles, ransoming of motorists… Martinique experienced unprecedented nights of violence, and the prefect instituted a curfew from 6pm onwards to deal with the nightly violence. The conflict got bogged down and on 30 November the Minister for Overseas France, Sébastien Lecornu, announced the postponement of the mandatory vaccination until 31 December. If the origin of this movement was mandatory vaccination for nurses and firemen, it quickly extended to other diverse political and social claims: the high cost of living, a distrust of the State, in particular because of the scandal of chlordecone, this pesticide which poisoned the West Indian soils for years and is at the origin of many cancers.

Saint-Pierre celebrates the 120th anniversary of the eruption of Mount Pelée.

The Tour Cycliste International de Martinique made its comeback in Martinique after two years of health crisis. The 41st edition of this highly anticipated event on the island was won by the Colombian Diégo Armando Soraca Cabezas of the Pédale Pilotine.

On September 16, 2023, the outstanding universal value of Martinique's Montagne Pelée and Pitons du Nord was officially recognized by the Unesco Committee in Riyadh. The special geology of the Pitons du Nord, a mountainous complex of volcanic origin, some of the best-preserved forests in the Lesser Antilles and an extremely rich flora and fauna, with many endemic species, characterize this site, which covers 14,000 hectares or 12% of Martinique's territory, and is now included on the Unesco World Heritage list.