Marie-Galante (, ) is one of the dependencies of Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France. Marie-Galante has a land area of . It had 11,528 inhabitants at the start of 2013, but by the start of 2018 the total was officially estimated to be 10,655, with a population density of .
Administration Marie-Galante is divided into three communes (with populations as of 1 January 2013): Grand-Bourg (5,564 residents), Capesterre-de-Marie-Galante (3,389) and Saint-Louis (2,575).
These three communes formed an intercommunal entity in 1994: the Community of Communes of Marie-Galante (). This is the oldest intercommunal structure of the overseas regions of France.
History
The Huecoids are the oldest known civilizations to have occupied Marie-Galante, followed by Arawaks, and then by the Island Caribs circa 850. The island was called Aichi by the Caribs and Touloukaera by the Arawaks.
Spanish exploration Marie-Galante was the second island encountered by Christopher Columbus during his second voyage, after Dominica. On 3 November 1493, he anchored at the islet now called in Grand-Bourg, and named the island in honor of the flagship (‘gallant Mary’) of the second voyage.
During his second voyage to the West Indies, he designated the first island he found as La Deseada, both islands were registered under Spanish sovereignty in the respective acts. According to L. Martinez de Isasti, a century after the encounter, the name is due to Captain Vasco Martin Cotillos who chose the name of his wife for the island.
French colonization On November 8, 1648, Governor Charles Houël du Petit Pré organized the first occupation: about fifty men lived near the site called Vieux Fort "Old Fort". Jacques de Boisseret bought the island back from the French Company of the Islands of America on September 4, 1649. In 1653, the Carib Indians slaughtered the few remaining colonists who had not surrendered to the harsh living conditions.
Sugarcane, which probably originated in India, had been imported to the West Indies by Christopher Columbus. As sugar became a commodity, it was cultivated in Guadeloupe from 1654 by deported Brazilian colonists who created the first sugar plantations equipped with small ox-powered mills to crush the cane.
In 1660, at Basse-Terre Chateau, a peace treaty was signed in which the Caribs authorized the French and British to settle on the islands of Dominica and Saint Vincent. With the island now at peace, the availability of mill technology was developing into a plantation-based economy by using enslaved Africans.
In 1664, Madame de Boisseret gave up her rights to Marie-Galante to the Company of the West Indies, and the island then had its first four ox-powered mills. In 1665, her son Monsieur de Boisseret de Temericourt became the island's governor. The map of the island he established carries his coat of arms. During the second half of the 17th century, the first enslaved people were brought from Africa to Marie-Galante to cultivate plantations. In 1671, 57% of the inhabitants were black. Jewish Dutch exiles from Brazil also settled, bringing new methods for the cultivation of cane sugar.
In 1676, a Dutch fleet abducted the population and plundered its facilities. After the repopulation of the island, its new inhabitants were attacked for the third time by the Dutch and by the British in 1690 and 1691. These raids, which resulted in the destruction of the mills, the refineries and the depopulation of the island, caused the Governor-General of Martinique to forbid the re-population of the island until 1696. The British retook the island from 1759 to 1763, during the Seven Years’ War.
Windmills were first seen in 1780. By 1830, 105 mills were put in place, half of which were still ox-drawn. Today, 72 mill towers are still standing. From November 1792 to 1794, Marie-Galante, which was Republican, separated itself from the royalist government of Guadeloupe. European enslavement of Africans was first abolished in 1794.
British occupation The British captured Guadeloupe, and with it Marie-Galante, la Désirade, and all Guadeloupe's dependencies, in April 1794. The Treaty of Amiens in 1802 restored them to France. With the restoration, the enslavement of Africans too was reinstated in 1802.
In March 1808 the Royal Navy took possession of Marie-Galante to stop French privateers using its port. In August a small French force attempted to recapture the island but the British garrison, consisting of Royal Marines, augmented by Sir Alexander Cochrane's first Colonial Marines, newly recruited from escaped enslaved Africans of the island, and by some troops from the 1st West India Regiment, defeated and captured the French. The British returned the island to France in 1815.Enslavement of Africans finally came to an end in 1848, thanks to the combined efforts of abolitionists, such as Victor Schœlcher, and repeated revolts of enslaved Africans.
Modern history The legislative elections of June 24 and June 25, 1849, the first time former enslaved Africans were permitted to vote, were disrupted by the bloody violence of protesters which had risen up out of the black majority in response to ballot-rigging orchestrated by wealthy white plantation owners. Many black people were killed during these uprisings which led to the dumping of rum and sugar from the Pirogue plantation into a nearby pond. Today this pond is known as (‘the Punch Pond’) in memory of these tragic events.
Guadeloupe (Grande-Terre and Basse-Terre), along with its dependencies (Marie-Galante, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy, Îles des Saintes and la Désirade), have been an overseas department since 1946 and a single-department overseas region since 1982. Within Marie-Galante the three communes are Capesterre-de-Marie-Galante, Grand-Bourg and Saint-Louis. Together, these were designated as an intercommunal entity on January 8, 1994, the first to be created in an overseas department. In 2007, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy each became an overseas collectivity, making them politically separate from Guadeloupe.
Steven Callahan, who was lost at sea in a small ( inside diameter) Avon life raft for 76 days, was found alive on April 21, 1982, off the coast of Marie-Galante by local fishermen Paulinus Williams, Jules Paquet and Jean-Louis Paquet, from neighbouring Guadeloupe.
Geography
Marie-Galante comprises three communes of France: Grand-Bourg, Capesterre-de-Marie-Galante, and Saint-Louis, Guadeloupe, with a combined 1999 census population of 12,488 inhabitants. The island is more commonly known as (‘the Big Biscuit’) due to its round shape and almost flat surface; its highest peak, the Morne Constant Hill, rises to 204 m. The island is undulating substrate calcareous, cooled by the trade winds and subject to cyclones and earthquakes.
The northern coast is characterized by a high cliff. A fault line called the "Bar" separates the northern quarter from the remainder of the island. To the west, beaches and mangroves extend along the Caribbean Sea. The rivers of Saint-Louis and the Vieux-Fort run through the plateau that sits at the centre of Marie-Galante. In the East and the South, the plateau descends sharply to a coastal plain skirting the Atlantic Ocean from which it is protected by a barrier coral reef.
Location Marie-Galante is located in the northern hemisphere, it belongs to the Caribbean (or Antilles) archipelago, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Earth's equator. It is located at 15°56' north latitude and 61°16' west longitude.
The island is about 6,200 km from mainland France, about 2,200 km southeast of Florida, about 580 km from the coast of South America (Venezuela) and, more specifically, with Guadeloupe, in the heart of the Lesser Antilles.
Topography, geology and hydrography The island of Marie-Galante is an elevated atoll resting on a rugged limestone substrate, located on the outer arc of the Caribbean plate. A fault called "la Barre" separates the northern quarter from the rest of the island. The north coast, facing Grande-Terre, is characterized by a high cliff, while the highest point, the Morne Constant (204 m altitude), is located to the east, in the territory of the municipality of Capesterre-de-Marie-Galante.
The island has one main islet:
l'îlet du Vieux-Fort or Vieux-Fort Islet.
Two rivers flow there after crossing the island's plateau from the heart of the island:
The Vieux-Fort River (the second most important river on the island) - located in the north in the territory of the commune of Saint-Louis, it flows from east to west of the island of Marie-Galante, flows into the Atlantic Ocean south of the place called Vieux-Fort, which was the first European settlement on the island,6 at the height of the Anse du Vieux-Fort. The Saint-Louis River (formerly the Saint-François River), 17.3 km long,Gérard Lafleur, KARTHALA Editions, 1992, 270 p is the main river on the island. It rises to about 160 meters above sea level, at a place called Nesmond, in Capesterre-de-Marie-Galante, and then crosses the island from east to west through its middle and separates the municipality of Saint-Louis to the north from that of Grand-Bourg to the south. This watercourse, fed by the waters of many small ravines and streams, flows into the Atlantic Ocean south of the town of Saint-Louis, at the northern boundary of the Folle-Anse marsh.
Climate Marie-Galante, like the rest of the Guadeloupe archipelago, enjoys a tropical climate tempered by the maritime influences and the trade winds to which it is subjected.
There are two seasons on Marie-Galante and the neighboring islands: a dry season locally called carême which runs from January to June, and a wet season locally called hivernage from July to December.
As for the temperature, with an average of 27 °C, there is little difference between the hottest months (from 25 °C to 32 °C) and the coldest (from 23 °C to 29 °C). Marie-Galante and its limestone plateaus can regularly suffer from severe droughts. The average seawater temperature is 28 °C.
Finally, the island is subject to hurricanes from May to November. These hurricanes form locally in the Antilles or off Cape Verde, in Africa, and drift in the trade winds from the east.
Landscape and environment In the north of the island the landscape is characterized by the presence of a limestone cliff. To the east and south, the plateau becomes "mornes" to slope towards a coastal plain. The latter borders the Atlantic Ocean, from which it is protected by a barrier reef, the cays. To the west of the island, opposite Basse-Terre, beaches and mangroves extend along the Caribbean Sea and a natural coastal wetland extends into the part corresponding to the Folle-Anse Bay.DEAL Guadeloupe et Région Guadeloupe, " », Médiathèque de la Région Guadeloupe, janvier 2012, p. 64 p
Marie-Galante is a biodiversity hotspot. Like the other Lesser Antilles, it emerged from the ocean less than five million years ago. This isolation has favored the emergence of a high rate of endemism. The archipelago was completely covered by forests before the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century. This arrival was accompanied by biological invasions and land clearing that had a serious impact on biodiversity.
Many species have disappeared from the island, and the natural environments of Marie-Galante are suffering somewhat from the retreat of the forest, the accelerated urbanization of recent years and the development of crops, especially sugar cane, all of which have reduced the importance of the forest and even caused it to disappear in some places. The cultivation of sugar cane has left its mark on the non-mountainous landscapes. The agriculture (mainly exporting) of sugar cane, alcohol (rum) continues to be strongly encouraged, to make it more "sustainable" and to stop its recession by Europe, the French State and the local authorities (Region and Department).
Fauna and Flora