Everything about Marie-galante totally explained
Marie-Galante is an island of the
Caribbean Sea located in the
Guadeloupean archipelago. Marie-Galante is constitutionally part of
France, as Guadeloupe is an
overseas région and
département.
Administration
Since the beginnings of colonization, Marie-Galante has been part of the
arrondissement of Pointe-à-Pitre, except in 1793–94, during the
National Convention, when it was
Republican whereas the remainder of the Guadeloupe was still
Royalist.
Marie-Galante's chief town is
Grand-Bourg, also a
commune. Its two other communes are
Capesterre-de-Marie-Galante and
Saint-Louis. In 1994, the three communes were federated into a
communauté de communes, the first created in an overseas department.
History
The Huecoides is the oldest known civilization to have occupied Marie Galante. The Arawak tribe followed them. Then around AD
850 the Carib Indians arrived. Among the islands of the Guadeloupe archipelago, Marie Galante was the first one reached by
Christopher Columbus during his second voyage. He arrived at the place called Anse Ballet in Grand-Bourg on
November 3,
1493. He named the Island after his flagship, Maria Galanda. It was previously called "Aichi" by the Carib Indians and "Touloukaera" by the Arawaks.
On
November 8,
1648, Governor Houel organized the settlement of the first French colonists, they were about fifty men near the site of Vieux-Fort in Saint Louis. Jacques de Boisseret bought the island back from the French Company of the Islands of America on September 4, 1649. In 1653 the Carib Indians slaughtered the few remaining colonists, who hadn't given into the harsh living conditions, as reprisal for rapes committed on the island of Dominica by sailors on a barge coming from Martinique.
Sugar cane most probably originated from India had been imported to the French West Indies by Christopher Columbus. In light of its industrialization, it was cultivated in Guadeloupe in the beginning of 1654 thanks to deported Brazilian colonists who incited the creation of the first sugar plantations equipped with small oxen-powered mills to crush the cane.
In
1660, at Basse-Terre Chateau, a peace treaty was signed between the Carib Indians and the French and British who authorized them to settle on the islands of Dominica and Saint Vincent. The Island was now at peace leaving way for human and technological means to unite developing the economic market based on plantations as the center of production and labor by imported African slaves.
In
1664, Madame de Boisseret gave up her rights to Marie-Galante to the Company of the West Indies, and the Island then had its first four (oxen-powered) mills. In
1665, her son, Monsieur de Boisseret de Temericourt became governor. The map of the island he established carries his coat of arms. The Island was plundered by both the Dutch in
1676, and by the British in
1690 and
1691. These radings, which gave way to the destruction of the mills, the refineries and the depopulation of the Island, caused the governor general of Martinique to forbid the repopulation of the Island until
1696. The British took over the Island again from
1759 to
1763.
Windmills were first seen in
1780. By
1830, 105 mills existed, half of which were still oxen drawn. Today 72 mill towers are still standing.From November
1792 to
1794 Marie Galante was independent and separated itself from the royalist government of Guadeloupe. Slavery which was first abolished in
1794 and reinstated in
1802, finally came to an end in
1848 thanks to the combined efforts of abolitionists, such as Victor Schoelcher, and the never ending revolts of the Negro slaves.
The legislative elections of
June 24 and
June 25,
1849, the first time the emancipated slaves voted, it was marred by a bloody repression of protesting groups, from the majority of the population, against the ballot rigging orchestrated by wealthy white plantation owners. Many blacks were killed during these uprisings which lead to the dumping of rum and sugar from the Pirogue plantation into the nearby pond. Today this pond is known as "la mare au punch" (Punch pond) in memory of these tragic events.
The Guadeloupe archipelago is made up principally of the islands of Grande-Terre, Basse-Terre, Marie-Galante, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthelemy, Terre de Haut, Terre de Bas and Desirade. It is an overseas French department since 1946 and a single-department region since
1982. (In
2007 Saint Barthelemy and the French part of
Saint Martin both became separate administrative units, however it's expected that until
2012 that'll be represented in the French Parliament by Guadeloupe.) The three administrative counties of Marie Galante are Capesterre, Grand-Bourg and Saint Louis, constituted a county community (Communeauté des Communes) on January 8, 1994, the first one to be created in a French Overseas department.
Geography
With an area of 158.01 km² (61.01 sq mi), the island is comprised of three communes with a combined
1999 census population of 12,488 inhabitants. The island is more commonly known as "La grande galette" (Big Pancake) due to its round shape and almost flat surface (its highest peak, the hill Morne Constant, rises to 670 ft). Once counting over 106 sugar mills, it's also called the "Island of a hundred windmills", or the "Grande dependance" (the biggest island depending on Guadeloupe). The island is undulating substrate calcareous, sprinkled by the trade wind but such a subjected to the cyclones and the earthquakes.
The northern coast is characterized by a high cliff. A fault called the Bar separates the northern quarter from the remainder of the island. To the west beaches and mangroves extend along the Caribbean Sea. The rivers of Saint-Louis and the Vieux-Fort run out there after having crossed the insular plate since the heart of Marie-Galante. In the east and the south, the plate becomes dull to rock inclined towards a littoral plain. This one skirts the Atlantic from which it's protected by a coral barrier.
Economy
The colonial economy developed on the island the cultures of the tobacco, the indigo, the coffee and cotton. But as of the
17th century, the growers made cane with sugar a very important source of income. It was maintained to the
19th century and
20th century, adapting to the abolition of slavery and the great sugar crisis.
This culture of the cane, Marie-Gallant a nickname inherited: the island with the hundred mills. One counted in 1818 a little more than one hundred of mills, which made it possible to crush the cane. The juice which was drawn by it was transformed into sugar or rum. The mills were originally actuated by oxen, then windmills appeared since 1780, in their turn competed with by mills with vapor since
1883.
The 19th century saw disappearing the economic organization from Ancien Régime. Gradually, all the small sugar refineries were restructured in sugar factories. In
1885, five sites gathered the activity. In
1931, 18 sugar distilleries and four factories were in production. The large plantations made place with small farms, organized to the 20th century around co-operatives. But agriculture is subjected in all the French West Indies to a strong international competition. At the beginning of the
21st century, one sugar refinery (factory of Large Handle) and three distilleries (Bellevue, Rod, Poisson) remain with Marie-Gallant. The agricultural white rum which is produced there's the subject of a label of origin. The biological sugar production could also be a new axis of development, but the current context of stop of the European subsidies makes dubious the future agricultural and thus economic of Marie-Gallant and its inhabitants.
Old economy, one can still see many vestiges. This historical richness is development: some 70 turns including two restored mills (Mill of Bézard), colonial dwellings and old sugar refineries (Murat Dwelling). A network of paths makes it possible to the hikers to discover the island and its population.
Thus Marie-Gallant she in her turn knows, like the other islands of Guadeloupe, the economic change which the tourist activity allows. But the development of these services is based here on a policy of nature conservation and inheritance, whether it's precolombian, colonial or contemporary. Also, Marie Galante Airport is located on Pointe des Basses, halfway between Grand-Bourg and Capesterre.
Demography
Marie-Galante counted 30,000 inhabitants in
1946. Strongly marked by the massive exodus of its young people towards the main islands of Guadeloupe and mainland France, the island didn't count any more than 12,488 inhabitants in the 1999 census. This fall of the population is related to the slow anguish of the sugar economy for this period. The population density in
1999 was 79 persons per km².
Famous Marie-Galantais
- Constant of Aubigné, (1585–1647), was the governor, of Marie-Galante. His/her daughter Francoise d' Aubigné accompanied it. Several years afterwards, it was going to become Madam de Maintenon but, of its stay in the Antilles, will remain to him the nickname of Beautiful Indian.
- Charles-François Bonneville, (1803–?), was a mayor and adviser general of Grand-Bourg of 1854 to 1860. Also president of the Room of Agriculture, he's the craftsman of the revival of the culture of cotton long silk which he tries out on the Thibault dwelling.
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