Island Hopping Guadeloupe History

ISLAND HPPING

As with most of the islands of the Eastern Caribbean, the first settlers of which there is evidence were the Arawaks. In the late 1300’s, a century before the arrival of Columbus, the Arawaks were driven off by the fierce Caribs who sprang from the Rio Orinoco region of Venezuela, descendants of the Galibi who lived between the Rio Orinoco and the Amazon. The Caribs called the island Karukera, the Land of Beautiful Waters.

In 1493, on his second voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus stopped at the island of Hispaniola where the indigenous Ciguayo Indians warned the Admiral of All Oceans that there were ferocious cannibalistic tribes on the islands to the south. This did not deter the great discoverer as he set forth for Dominica, Marie-Galante and Guadeloupe where his crew were eventually able to take on fresh water on November 4, 1493. Columbus named the island Santa Maria de Guadeloupe de Estramadura, the name of a favorite monastery in Spain.

The Caribs ruled Guadeloupe for almost 1½ centuries after Columbus discovered the island, fighting off all visitors, including the Spanish who tried to settle the island to no avail. In 1605, three Spanish galleys were wrecked off Guadeloupe and all the crewmembers except one were slain. The sole survivor, a friar named Father Blasius from Flanders, was spared because he showed the Caribs how to make sails out of the linen cloth that had been part of the ship’s cargo. The good friar taught the Caribs to make a fore and aft spritsail, which pleased them as it saved them a tremendous amount of labor rowing their canoes. Father Blasius managed to escape one night by using one of his sails to carry his canoe to the passing British merchantman Henry Challons in the lee of Guadeloupe.

In 1635, French Cardinal Richelieu sent a party of settlers to Guadeloupe as the first step in settling the island. Known as the Compagnie des Îles d’Amérique, the settlers, under the leadership of Lt. Lienard de l’Olive, were successful in forming a colony on Guadeloupe in 1636 and reached a peace agreement with the Caribs. Soon massive sugar plantations were set up and slaves were being imported as the labor force for the French planters. The French plantations thrived and the slaves soon outnumbered the French colonists. Besides suffering from racial problems, the French had to contend with the British for control of Guadeloupe as well as a reign of terror during the years of the French Revolution when the French islanders were divided between Royalists and Republicans.

Between 1789 and 1848, slavery on Guadeloupe was abolished and reinstated several times. In 1794, France annexed Guadeloupe and battles broke out between Royalists and Revolutionaries with Britain aiding the Royalists. That same year France dispatched a black French nationalist, Victor Hugues, who arrived on Guadeloupe, armed the slaves, and killed more than 1,000 colonists ending British backed slavery. Hugues abolished slavery on the island and guillotined recalcitrant plantation owners. Some fled to Louisiana or into the hills of La Grand Terre where some of their descendants live to this day.

Napoleon entered the picture at the turn of the 19th century and sent representatives to Guadeloupe in 1802 to squelch hostilities and re-establish the pre-revolutionary government. Hugues, the Robespierre of the Isles, was relieved of his command and slavery was re-established and as a result Guadeloupe became one of the most prosperous islands in the West Indies just as Britain cast her jealous eye toward the Leeward Islands. In 1816, France was granted Guadeloupe, and 32 years later, Frenchman Victor Schoelcher led a successful fight to permanently abolish slavery in the French islands.

In 1834, England abolished slavery, but France did not do so until May 22, 1848, and the intervening years were filled with unrest and slave riots on Guadeloupe. During this period many French-owned slaves fled to the English islands and white French planters found themselves suppressing more and more slave uprisings. It became clear to the government of France that slavery was quickly becoming a thing of the past and despite heavy opposition from the planter’s, and thanks in no small part to the lobbying of Victor Schoelcher, the undersecretary to the Naval Minister in charge of the islands, slavery was abolished on March 4, 1848. However, the official decree was not signed until April 27, 1848, granting slave owners compensation for their losses, and stipulating that the abolition law would not be instituted in the French colonies for two months. Upon learning of the delay, slaves revolted on the French islands and the governments of these islands found themselves with no choice but to emancipate the slaves early, on May 22, 1848.

Plantation owners on Martinique found, like their British counterparts had a decade earlier, that they needed a new source of labor to work their fields. Between 1852 and 1884, thousands of indentured servants brought over from India became the primary source of Guadeloupe’s manpower. The 20th century brought a new source of revenue, tourism, which today is a large part of the economy of Guadeloupe.

In 1946, Guadeloupe became French Overseas Department and in 1974 Guadeloupe became a French Région, which is governed by a Prefect and several elected officials. It is interesting to note that at times the island is often too much like France, it’s not unusual to find the island involved with island-wide strikes that affect almost everybody, you’ll just have to grin and bear it.