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The first people to flourish in Guadeloupe were the Arawak Amerindians before the Christ. Highly proficient fishermen, the Arawaks became extinct around the 9th century AD because of presence of the man-eating warriors of the Caraibes (Karibs), who still inhabit the island Caloucaéra. |
On his second journey, the fleet of Christopher Columbus landed on this island on November 3rd 1493 finally discovering it. He named the island as Guadeloupe after the image of Santa Maria de Guadalupe de Extremadura that he had seen in a Spanish monastery he had visited. It was an image of the Virgin Mary revered at Villuercas in Guadalupe, Extremadura.
Spanish showed little interest in these islands due to difficult living conditions. In the 17th century AD, French Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique sent explorers to take control of the island. Mostly farmers from Normandy, Bretagne and Charente settled here until 1635. The inhospitable conditions took a toll on the settlers and thus started the slave trade from Africa.
Farming was not very profitable in the beginning. Therefore, the Compagnie sold Guadeloupe to Charles Houël, who started the economic growth of the island with plantations of sugar, coffee and cocoa. The ownership of the island changed several hands and was owned by the Compagnie des Indes and King Louis XIV.
The island survived attacks by the Dutch and occupation by the British. As a part of the Seven Years' War, the British took control of the island from 1759 through 1763. Pointe-à-Pitre was established as the main city during this period. The importance of the island can be realized from the fact that a French territory in Canada was traded to Britain in return for control of Guadeloupe according to the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
Influenced by the French Revolution, the Convention in Paris voted for the prohibition of slavery on February 4th 1794. Victor Hugues was sent to Guadeloupe to control the implementation. Slavery was abolished during this turbulent time and within the year Britain had again occupied the island. Guadeloupe experienced the effects of the Reign of Terror from 1794 to 1798.
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Meanwhile Louis Delgrès, a mulatto officer, led an uprising in 1802. He along with 300 rebels chose to die rather than submit to the French army. Napoleon reinstated slavery when the French retook the island in 1802. The British forbid slavery in 1807 and at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. However, it was only on April 27th 1848, the French parliament voted for the Abolition Decreet, brought in by Viktor Schoelcher, the founder of the Société Abolitionniste. |
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The British again held the island for three years from 1810. It was ceded to Sweden in 1813 after the Napoleonic Wars. However, the Treaty of Paris in 1814 handed over the island to France again, though the British and Swedish did not fully acknowledge the secession. French control of the island was recognized in the Treaty of Vienna in 1815.
In 1848, when slavery was completely abolished in Guadeloupe, indentured servants were imported from India and China. The first indentured servants arrived in 1854. The pays to the workers, growing competition from the European sugar companies and a worldwide slump led to the economic downfall of many planters. In the second half of the 19th century, they lost their estates to big foreign companies.
Nevertheless, the economic crisis could not be stopped and there were severe social uproars and strikes. It was at this time that Guadeloupe voted for her first socialist parliamentarians – Légitimus and Achille-René Boisneuf. The Vichy government under Governor Sorin instituted a compulsory work program between 1940 and 1943. Not to get dependent on sugar only, plantations of bananas, pineapples and rice began after World War II. However, sugar and rum are still the main exports of Guadeloupe.
On March 19th 1946, Guadeloupe becomes a French Overseas Department. Like all the other French Departments, it is governed by a Prefect. The Prefect is assisted by two secretary-generals and two under-prefects one for the district of Pointe-à-Pitre and the other for the Northern Islands. Other French Caribbean islands were added to this Department.
In 1995, Guadeloupe became an observer in the Association of Caribbean States. On December 1st 1999, the presidents of the regions, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guyana, together defined a new development program for the Antilles-Guyana region in the “Déclaration de Basse-Terre”. In June 2000, the law of orientation for the French Oversea's departments has been voted.
Saint Martin and Saint Barth voted for their independence from Guadeloupe's administration and got French oversea communities of their own since the referendum held on December 07
