WHY GUADELOUPE?
white sand beaches – sugarcane fields – mountainous landscape – plantations and more…

HISTORY:
(1994 est. pop. 429,000), 687 sq mi (1,779 sq km), in the Leeward Islands; comprising Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, and smaller islands. Visited (1493) by Columbus, it was settled (17th cent.) by the French, who eliminated the native Caribs, imported African slaves, and made it a major sugar producer. Sugar remains important, as are tourism, bananas, livestock raising, and fishing. The population is mainly of African or mixed descent. French is the official language, but a French patois is widely spoken

PEOPLE / CULTURE:
The population is composed principally of Creoles (i.e., persons born in the islands), most of whom are mulatto, but on Saintes Islands the inhabitants are mainly white. The largest minorities are the black and French-Amerindian groups. The white population greatly declined during the period of the French Revolution.

The first inhabitants several hundred years before Christ were the Arawaks, an indian tribe, peaceful, but highly developed fishermen.
They became extinct around the 9th century by the men eating warriors of the Caraibes (Karibs), who still inhabited the island Caloucaera (Karukera in creole language) when the fleet of Christopher Columbus landed on November 3rd, 1493. He named the island Guadeloupe.

When sighted by Columbus in 1493, Guadeloupe was inhabited by Carib Indians, who called it Karukera, ‘Island of Beautiful Waters’. The Spanish made two attempts to settle Guadeloupe in the early 1500s but were repelled both times by fierce Carib resistance and finally abandoned their claim to the island in 1604.

Guadeloupe’s political status hasn’t satisfied everyone, however, and a local secessionist movement has occasionally resorted to acts of terrorism. The peace has also been disrupted by the local volcano, La Soufriere, which erupted in the 1970s and still belches sulfurous fumes today. Though agriculture remains the mainstay of the economy, the importance of tourism has grown in recent years.

The combination of dissatisfaction with government administration and the drought led to a series of strikes throughout this period, indicating that, though conditions were peaceful, frays in the social fabric were beginning to make themselves apparent. In late 2003, a referendum proposing greater autonomy for France’s overseas was defeated and – in March the following year – Lucette Michaut-Chevry and her party lost an election in favour of Victorin Lurel’s Socialist Party.