WHY MARTINIQUE?
Rum distilleries, banana museum, beautiful people,

HISTORY:
June 15 1502, Christopher Colombus landed in Martinique, and discovered these people that he called ” Indians ” or ” red skins ” because of a red dyeing (the rocou) used by Arawaks to paint their body against the mosquitos. The Spaniards did not leave colonists on the island. The Spaniards, who feared the Caribbean Indians neglected this island.
The island was colonized by France in 1635 by Pierre Belain d’ Esnambuc, who died in 1658. In 1664, repurchased by the Company of the Western Indies in 1664, the island becomes a colony of the kingdom in 1674 and Colbert institutes the blacks trade.
Colony of the Crown in 1783, it was very coveted by the English who settled there in 1794, after the first convention of the abolition of slavery.

There have been people living in Martinique, a small island in the Caribbean since 3000 BC, but the earliest record is of the Arawak peoples, who populated it around 100 BC. They named their island Madinina, meaning island of flowers. These peaceful inhabitants were killed by the Carib Indians in the 7th century AD, who occupied the island until the arrival of the Europeans.

PEOPLE / CULTURE:
Ethnic groups: African and African-white-Indian mixture 90%, white 5%, East Indian, Chinese less than 5%

Prior to the discovery of Martinique by Columbus in 1493, the area was inhabited by Arawak and Carib Indians. There was no real European interest in the island until French colonies were established in 1635. Though the British made brief attempts to occupy the island during the 18th and 19th centuries, it has remained under French control ever since (along with Guadeloupe). Slavery was abolished in 1848 and, in the late 19th century, tens of thousands of immigrant workers arrived from India to replace the slave workforce on the plantations. Both Martinique and Guadeloupe were administered as parts of French Antilles. In 1946, rather than following a path to independence, the two islands were incorporated into the French nation with the status of Overseas Departments.

Martinique lies in the heart of the Caribbean Archipelago and is one of the many islands which make up the group of lesser Antilles, or “Breezy Islands.”

The waters lapping at its shores are those of the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Caribbean Sea to the west. The island is located 4,261 miles from Paris (8 hours by plane), and is 273 miles from the American continent (4.5 hours by plane, direct flight). The closest two neighboring islands are Dominica (15.5 miles to the north) and Saint Lucia (23 miles to the south).

Despite the ubiquitous French influence on Martinican culture, French-Indian Creole traditions dominate the island’s cuisine, language, music and customs. Although French is the official language, most Martinicans also speak Creole, which grew out of the pidgin that early setters used to communicate with each other, and which also bears the traces of the many tongues spoken by African slaves.

A literary and philosophical movement known as Negritude emerged in the 1930s, largely through the writings of Martinican native Aime Cesaire, a poet and long-time mayor of Fort-de-France. Negritude strived to advance black social and cultural values and re-establish bonds with African traditions that had been suppressed by French colonialism.