Nestled between St. Lucia and Dominica, the French West Indies' isle of Martinique serves up the best that the Caribbean has to offer in a manner that is tres, tres French. Martinique is a master at showing off her European roots while remaining true to the Caribbean's laid back, "no problem" attitude.
» Martinique General Information
Area: 1,100 sq km (425 sq miles)
Capital: Fort-de-France
Currency: Euro
GNI per capita: US$14,727 (UN, 2003)
Language: French, French Creole patois, some English
New Year's Day; Good Friday; Easter; Easter Monday; Ascension; Pentecost Monday; Labour Day; Victory Day (8 May); Slavery Abolition Day (22 May); Bastille Day (14 July); Schoelcher Day (21 July); Assumption (15 Aug); All Saints Day; Armistice; Christmas.
› Visas
US and Canadian citizens can stay up to three months by showing proof of citizenship. Citizens of the European Union (EU) need an official identity card, valid passport or French carte de séjour. Citizens of most other foreign countries, including Australia, need a valid passport and a visa for France. A roundtrip or onward ticket is officially required of visitors.
» Martinique History
Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover Martinique in 1502, on his fourth and last New World voyage. The island was not actually colonised by Europeans until 1635, when Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc landed with a hundred French settlers. They cleared forests to grow sugar cane, thus increasing tensions with the native Caribs, and in 1660 those Caribs who had survived the fighting were forcibly removed from the island. Black slaves were brought from Africa to work in the sugar plantations, as authorised by King Louis XIII in 1642, an action referred to as "La Traite des Noirs".
Between 1794 and 1815, there was a strong British interest in Martinique, with control of the island changing several times within that period. Slavery was abolished under British rule, but reinstated after 1802, when the Treaty of Amiens gave Martinique back to France, and Napoléon Bonaparte allowed slavery again. Slavery was not officially abolished until 1848, with Victor Schoelcher’s law. All slaves became French citizens.
Martinique’s then capital, Saint-Pierre, which was widely considered to be the most cultured town in the West Indies, was destroyed in 1902, by a blast from the volcano Mont Pelée. All 28,000 inhabitants were killed with the exception of two (or possibly three) residents, and the town had to be completely rebuilt, although it lost both the status of capital, that title now belonging to Fort-de-France, and its cultural reputation.
In 1946, Martinique obtained the position of a French department, due mainly to Aimé Césaire's campaign as mayor, and in 1974 it gained more autonomy with the regional status the island was able to enjoy.
