TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93CT1693> <title> Martinique--History </title> <title> Guadeloupe--History </title> <title> French Guiana--History </title> <history> Compact ALMANAC--CIA Factbook South America French Guiana </history> <article> <source>CIA World Factbook</source> <hdr> History </hdr> <body> The first known indigenous inhabitants of French Guiana and the French Antilles were Arawak and Carib Indians. The Arawaks were among the dominant Indian nations in French Guiana and migrated to Martinique at the beginning of the Christian era. A peaceful people known for their pottery and other crafts, the Arawaks lived tranquilly in the French Antilles for some 1,000 years. Only about 100 Arawaks currently remain in French Guiana. They were supplanted by the warlike Caribs, whose migrations took them from the Amazon to the northeast shoulder of South America and on to the Antilles, where they were still arriving during the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Columbus sighted Guadeloupe in 1493, Martinique in 1493 or 1502, and the Guiana coast probably during his third voyage in 1498. The area was permanently settled by the French in the 17th century. The Caribs fled or were killed by the first European settlers of the Antilles in the 17th century. No Indian settlements remain in the French Antilles, and the Amerindian population in French Guiana consists of about 3,000 people belonging to six tribes. The term "Amerindians" is used to distinguish them from the East Indians who came to work the plantations following the abolition of slavery in 1848. The name "Martinique" is derived from an old Carib word meaning "island of flowers." Except for three short periods of British occupation, Martinique has been a French possession since 1635, when Belain D'Esnambuc took the island for France. The American colonies had close relations with Martinique and the French Antilles. With the advent of the Revolutionary War, Benjamin Franklin, on behalf of the Continental Congress on June 3, 1776, commissioned William Bingham of New York to represent the fledgling American Government in Martinique. In 1781, a French fleet, under the command of Admiral Comte de Grasse, sailed from Martinique to blockade British forces at Yorktown, thereby ensuring the victory of General Washington. Overlooking the bay from which de Grasse sailed was the plantation of the Tashcer de la Pagerie family, whose daughter, Josephine, was to become the first wife of Napoleon I and Empress of France. In 1902, Mt. Pelee erupted in the north of the island and, in a matter of minutes, killed 30,000 people. The eruption destroyed Saint-Pierre, the "Pearl of the Antilles," which was the island's largest town and commercial and cultural capital. U.S. Consul Thomas T. Prentis and his family were among those who perished in the disaster. Obtaining an emergency grant from the U.S. Congress, President Theodore Roosevelt immediately sent two U.S. Navy ships to provide relief, but there were few survivors. Today Saint-Pierre is a quiet tourist center with fewer than 7,000 residents. In 1940, following the Franco-German armistice, Martinique became semiautonomous under a high commission from Vichy France until 1943, when the Free French took control. Guadeloupe was known to its Indian inhabitants as Karukera, or "isle of good waters." Columbus named the island after the saint, Santa Maria de Guadeloupe de Estremadura; it was soon shortened to Guadeloupe. In 1635, Jean de Plessis and Charles Lienard took possession of the island in the name of the Compagnie des Iles d'Amerique. The first slaves were brought from Africa to work the plantations around 1650, and the first slave rebellion occurred in 1656. Guadeloupe was poorly administered in its early days and was a dependency of Martinique until 1775. In 1794, following a slave revolt and a short period of British occupation, Victor Hugues (nicknamed "The Terrible") arrived from the revolutionary government in Paris--complete with portable guillotine, which he used on a number of white planters--and proclaimed the abolition of slavery. In 1802, Napoleon reestablished slavery until 1848, when slavery was finally abolished in all French possessions, due in large measure to the work of the abolitionist National Assembly deputy from Guadeloupe and Martinique, Victor Schoelcher. Schoelcher's memory is commemorated by monuments, street names, and public parks in all corners of the French Antilles. Following the Napoleonic wars, Guadeloupe again settled into a plantation economy, but a significant portion of its agricultural economy was owned by large firms or absentee landlords. Unlike Martinique, where the white planting class had been preserved in part by the British occupation, many Guadeloupean planters had been killed or had fled from the revolutionary terror. The first French settlement in French Guiana was established in 1604, but the settlers fled the enervating climate and the terror of the Indians the following year. The first permanent settlement began in 1634, and in 1664, the town of Cayenne was established. Agricultural Jesuit settlements flourished in the succeeding years until the order was expelled from France in 1767. A badly planned and organized settlement in the region of Kourou perished in 1763. Following the abolition of slavery in 1848, the fragile plantation economy declined precipitously. The penal colony known as "Devil's Island" was established at Kourou in 1892, and some 70,000 prisoners were shipped to French Guiana before the colony's abolition in 1947. In 1964, Kourou was chosen as the site of the French (now Euro-French) space center, which has brought a substantial increase in population and relative prosperity to the immediate area. In 1977, the first of two settlements of Hmong (Meo) refugees from Indochina was established in the hilly forests at Cacao, southwest of Cayenne. A second Hmong settlement was started in 1979, in Javouhey near coastal Mana in the northern tip of the department. Current Political Conditions As integral parts of the French Republic, the political systems of the three French Caribbean departments essentially are extensions of those of metropolitan France. Just as each state in the United States will have a local branch of the Republican or Democratic Party, so each department has active arms of the French Socialist Party, the Gaullist RPR (Rassemblement pour la Republique), and the centrist UDF (Union de Ia Democratie Francaise). But politics in the French Caribbean departments also has a distinctly local flavor, and one finds indigenous political movements supporting everything from increased autonomy for the overseas departments to immediate independence from France. Although those political movements urging an immediate rupture with France garner only a small percentage of the vote in local elections, those parties favoring decentralization and greater recognition of the cultural and social specificity of the French Caribbean departments have enjoyed much greater electoral success. The political decentralization policies of the Mitterrand presidency have proven popular in the French Caribbean departments. These policies--which have led to increased local control over the departmental budget, long-term planning in areas of economic development and social allocations, and greater recognition of local cultural and social institutions, including "Antilleanization" of the local media--have relegated radical leftwing parties calling for immediate independence from France to the political sidelines. The extreme right National Front enjoys little support in the French Caribbean departments. In Martinique, elections are highly competitive, with the left and right each sending two deputies to the National Assembly. Aime Cesaire--the well-known poet, playwright, and leader of the Negritude movement, who broke with the Communist Party in 1956--is among the island's most respected political figures. He has served as mayor of Fort-de-France and deputy since 1946 and also is president of the regional council. His indigenous political movement, the PPM (Parti Progressiste Martiniquais), advocates political autonomy to counter growing economic and social assimilation of Martinique into France and is the most influential party on the island. With its power base in Fort-de-France, where one-third of the island's population lives, the PPM has forged a political alliance with the Socialist and Communist Parties. This has enabled the left to capture the regional council, where candidates are chosen by proportional representation, and elect the island's first PPM senator (Rudolph Desire). The older more established general council, whose members are chosen in cantonal elections, is in the hands of the right, resulting in an uneasy marriage between the island's two elective bodies. The radical proindependence parties, which urge their adherents to boycott the French national elections, nonetheless campaign actively for the local legislative bodies. Although two of their leaders have been elected to the general council, none of the extreme left movements was able to garner the necessary 5% of the vote for representation on the regional council. Only 55% of Martinique's eligible voters participate in national and local elections considerably below the 80% participation rate in metropolitan France. Politics in Guadeloupe often has taken a more violent twist, with radical proindependence groups, using bombs, not ballots, to make their point. After a series of terrorist incidents in the fall of 1986, leaders of the Caribbean Revolutionary Alliance (ARC) were arrested and sentenced to prison in Paris. Since those arrests, the island's major above-ground proindependence movement--the UPLG (Union pour la Liberation de la Guadeloupe)--has announced its intention to join the political fray, with plans to contest regional and general council elections. Previously, the party had urged supporters to abstain from voting. Although the island voted overwhelmingly for the right in the 1981 presidential elections, the general and regional councils are now firmly in the hands of the left. The Communist Party of Guadeloupe--whose adherents include the mayors of the capital, Basse-Terre, and the largest town and commercial center, Pointe-a-Pitre--has elected one deputy and one of the island's two senators. Socialist leader Frederic Jalton holds another seat as deputy, while the right, led by Secretary of State for French-speaking Communities Lucette Michaux-Chevry (RPR), sends two deputies to Paris. The department's political anomalies, French St. Martin and St. Barthelemy, generally send right-of-center officials to the legislative councils. While there has been talk of greater political autonomy for French St. Martin, there is little visible movement in that direction. Politics in French Guiana has a distinctly ethnic flair; the local Guianese Creole population, which holds power, expresses concern about the influx of Asians, Europeans, Brazilians, Surinamese, Haitians, and others who add to the department's colorful cultural mix. The newcomers--some legal, many others illegal--do not participate in the political process. Only 26,000 of approximately 90,000 residents are registered to vote. Of these, only about 15,000 cast their vote in legislative elections. Socialists control the general and regional councils and the mayor's office in the capital, Cayenne. The department's two deputies are split between the right (Paulin Brune, RPR) and the left (Elie Castor PS). Although proindependence forces captured three seats on the regional council in the 1983 elections, they faired poorly in the 1986 contests. The proindependence PNPG (Parti National Populaire Guyanais) captured only 3% of the vote, finishing behind the National Front--the ultra-rightwing party that enjoys some support among metropolitan French working at the space center. A dissident socialist group, Action Democratique Guyanais, captured four seats on the regional council in 1986, beating the UDF ticket led by Claude Ho-A-Chuck, which captured three spots. The Communist Party does not compete in local elections and won only 1% of the vote in the last presidential election. Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, January 1989. </body> </article> </text>