Fort-de-France Martinique
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The French colonial settlers in Martinique are peasants who had been attracted by propaganda promising fortune and a life under the sun.
The "volunteers" are indentured servants who have to work for their master for three years, after which they are promised their own land.
However, the tiring work and hot climate results in few of the workers surviving their three years, with the result that constant immigration is necessary for maintaining the workforce.
Still, under the directorship of Jacques Dyel du Parquet, Martinique's economy has developed as it exported products to France and the neighboring British and Dutch colonies.
The Sovereign council had been established in 1645 with several powers, among them the right to grant titles of nobility to families in the islands.
Cardinal Mazarin, a principal in the Company of the Isles of America, had little interest in colonial affairs and the company languished in the late 1640s.
It dissolves itself in 1651, selling its exploitation rights to various parties.
The du Parquet family buys the rights to Martinique, Grenada, and Saint Lucia for sixty thousand livres.
In the previous year, Father Jacques du Tetre had built a still for converting the waste from the sugarcane mills into molasses, which is to become a major export industry.
Du Parquet in 1654 allows two hundred and fifty Dutch Jews, who are fleeing Brazil following the Portuguese conquest, to settle Martinique, where they engage in the sugar trade.
This is by far the most sought after product in Europe and the crop soon become Martinique's biggest export.
After the death of du Parquet, his widow rules on behalf of his children until 1658, when Louis XIV resumes sovereignty over the island, paying an indemnity of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds to the du Parquet children.
At this time, Martinique's population numbers some five thousand settlers and a few surviving Carib Indians.
Martinique's population had numbered some five thousand settlers and a few surviving Carib indigenous people in 1658, when Louis XIV resumed sovereignty over the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Christophe.
French occupying forces in Martinique carry out the expulsion, or extermination, of the Caribs from the island in 1660.
...de Ruyter retires to French Martinique for repairs.
Roberts is alleged to have caught the Governor of Martinique, de Hurault, who was sailing aboard a man-of-war during this time.
Robert's ship pulls up next to the man-of-war pretending to be a French merchant ship, and offers information on the location of Captain Roberts before suddenly attacking it, spraying the warship with cannon and small arms fire, after which the pirates board it and take it over using pistols and cutlasses.
The Governor is caught and promptly hanged on the yardarm of the Royal Fortune. (Almost nothing is known of Governor de Hurault, other than that he served from 1717 to 1720.)
Roberts's depredations have almost brought seaborne trade in the West Indies to a standstill by the spring of 1721.
The Royal Fortune and the Good Fortune therefore set sail for West Africa.
Thomas Anstis, the commander of the Good Fortune, leaves Roberts in the night of April 18, and continues to raid shipping in the Caribbean.
The Royal Fortune continues towards Africa.
A French naval officer, Gabriel de Clieu, had procured a coffee plant seedling from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Paris in 1720 and transported it to Martinique.
Transplanting it on the slopes of Mount Pelée, he is able to harvest his first crop in 1726, or shortly thereafter.
Their large mission plantations include large local populations that work under the usual conditions of tropical colonial agriculture of the eighteenth century.
The Catholic Encyclopedia in 1908 says that missionaries occupying themselves personally in selling off the goods produced (an anomality for a religious order) "was allowed partly to provide for the current expenses of the mission, partly in order to protect the simple, childlike natives from the common plague of dishonest intermediaries."
Father Antoine La Vallette, Superior of the Martinique missions, has borrowed money to expand the large undeveloped resources of the colony, but on the outbreak of war with England, ships carrying goods of an estimated value of 2,000,000 livres are captured, and La Vallette suddenly goes bankrupt for a very large sum.
His creditors turn to the Jesuit procurator in Paris to demand payment, but he refuses responsibility for the debts of an independent mission—though he offers to negotiate for a settlement.
The creditors go to the courts and receive a favorable decision in 1760 obliging the Society to pay, and giving leave to distrain in the case of non-payment.
In addition, de Grasse is to rendezvous with fifteen thousand troops at Saint Domingue earmarked for the conquest by landing on Jamaica's north coast.
Rodney, on learning of this, sails from St Lucia in pursuit with thirty-six ships of the line the following day.
Action extends into the French colonies in the West Indies.
A British fleet successfully captures Martinique, ...
Napoleon plans to end the British blockade by invading and conquering Britain.
By 1805 his Armée d'Angleterre is one hundred and fifty thousand strong and encamped at Boulogne.
If this army can cross the English Channel, victory over the poorly trained and equipped militias is very likely.
The plan is that the French navy will escape from the British blockades of Toulon and Brest and threaten to attack the West Indies, thus drawing off the British defense of the Western Approaches.
The combined fleets will rendezvous at Martinique, then double back to Europe, land troops in Ireland to raise a rebellion, defeat the weakened British patrols in the Channel, and help transport the Armée d'Angleterre across the Straits of Dover.
Pierre de Villeneuve had sailed from Toulon on March 29, 1805, with eleven ships of the line, six frigates and two brigs.
He had evaded Admiral Nelson's blockading fleet and passed the Strait of Gibraltar on April 8.
At Cádiz he had driven off the British blockading squadron and had been joined by six Spanish ships of the line.
The combined fleet had sailed for the West Indies, reaching Martinique on May 12.