t The Réserve Naturelle de la Caravelle, a protected area on the picturesque peninsula
t The Réserve Naturelle de la Caravelle, a protected area on the picturesque peninsula
Experience Martinique
Often referred to as the Isle of Flowers from its pre-Columbian name, Martinique served as an inspiration for the post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin, who visited in 1887. It’s easy to see why. The landscapes of this French Caribbean island are beautiful and dramatic, particularly in the lush and mountainous north. Around a fifth of the island’s 400,000-strong population live in the capital Fort-de-France.
Martinique’s colonial past followed a similar pattern to Guadeloupe’s. "Discovered" by Columbus, it was claimed by the French in 1635, and, after various struggles with the British, became French for good in 1815. Martinique’s plantation economy was based on slave labor. Slavery was declared illegal on the island and elsewhere in the French West Indies in the late 1700s, but was reinstituted by Napoléon Bonaparte and continued until 1848. Napoleon’s empress Joséphine was born and spent her childhood on Martinique. The biggest event in the island’s history was the eruption of Mont Pelée in 1902, which destroyed the town of Saint-Pierre, killing some 30,000 people.
Nowadays, Martinique is an overseas département of France, with a Franco/Caribbean creole culture. As well as tourism, banana farming and rum (or rhum in French) production are important aspects of the economy. Rum bottles here carry the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée designation, more commonly applied to fine wine.