glitter-graphics.comI'm like the girl next door... Well I live in a town near Paris, and I'm native of the french West Indies: Guadeloupe( my father's island) an Martinique (my mother's island)A BRIEF HISTORYChristopher Columbus landed on Guadeloupe on November 4, 1493. Though originally called Karukéra (Island of Beautiful Waters) by the Carib Indians, Columbus named the island after the famous sanctuary of Santa Maria de Guadalupe de Estremadura. Lacking gold and silver, the island was not of great interest to the Europeans until the17th century. For a brief period the Spanish had tried to settle Guadeloupe but were stopped by the ferocious Carib Indians. Then around 1635, the French began to colonize the island. With the institutionalization of slavery in 1644, the trade of spices, sugar, tobacco and rum prospered between France, Africa and the Antilles.Guadeloupe was officially annexed by the King of France in 1674. As the island prospered, it became the scene of great battles between the French and the British, who occupied it from 1759 to 1763. That year it was restored to France in exchange for all French rights to Canada. But the tug-of-war continued on and off until 1815, when the Treaty of Paris designated Guadeloupe as French. In 1848, thanks to the efforts of Victor Schoelcher, slavery was abolished. Guadeloupe was represented for the first time in the French Parliament in 1871. It became a French Départment on March 19, 1946.Columbus sighted Martinique in 1493, but did not go ashore until another voyage in 1502. At that time, the island was inhabited by the Carib Indians who had already exterminated the Arawaks. Columbus named the island Martinica in honor of St. Martin. The French arrived to claim the island and begin permanent settlement there in 1635. They began to cultivate sugar cane and import slaves from Africa. As forests were cleared to make room for sugar plantations, fierce battles with the Carib Indians ensued. With the treaty of 1660, the Caribs agreed to occupy only the Atlantic side of Martinique. This peace was short-lived, however, and they were exterminated or forced off the island shortly thereafter.In 1762, the English occupied the island, but returned it the following year in exchange for Canada. They invaded and held the island once again from 1794 to 1815, when it was returned to the French. In 1848, Victor Schoelcher, a French minister for overseas possessions, convinced the government to sign an Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery in the French West Indies. On March 8, 1902, came the most devastating natural disaster in Caribbean history; the Mont Pelée volcano erupted, destroying the city of St. Pierre and claiming the lives of all but one of its 30,000 inhabitants. As a result, the capital was permanently moved to Fort-de-France.The Carib indians were Native Americans and the Caribbean region was first to lay eyes on the “men from over the seaâ€. Inhabitants of the islands practiced purely oral traditions, writing was unknown to them. Their lifestyle and fragile social structures received a great blow and completely fell apart soon after their first contacts with the technologically more advanced Old World. Amerindian populations of the Greater Antilles began a rapid decline in as little as ten years after 1492, to disappear completely before the end of the century. New illnesses (flu, smallpox), battles, punishment expeditions, deportation, assimilation and slavery had a devastating effect on these cultures. Inhabitants of the Lesser Antilles managed to resist foreign influence for a longer period of time. They held their ground until well into the 19th century, but they too vanished forever from the islands’ history due to aggressive colonisationArawaks IdiansCarib IdianFrance, England and the United Provinces (the Netherlands) tried their best at converting the indigenous population to slavery, but soon opted for the solution they already practiced elsewhere when locals revealed to be a more difficult nut to crack. African slave trade had begun.The 19th century brought about the arrival of Indians and a small number of Chinese and Japanese, who were to settle in the lowest layer of society.
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