Why go
This history is visible in more than monuments to abolition. Plantation sites record the system that emancipation ended; Fort-de-France's rebuilding speaks to a city repeatedly altered by disaster. The arrival of indentured workers from India also helps explain a part of Martinique's later cultural mix.
The full story
An earthquake in 1839 badly damaged Fort-Royal, later Fort-de-France, and Saint-Pierre. Rebuilding changed the towns' physical fabric even before the more famous disaster of the next century. The plantation system continued through these disruptions. In May 1848, a revolt that began after the imprisonment of an enslaved person at Le Prêcheur pressed the authorities to end slavery on Martinique. A French abolition decree had been issued in April, but local action brought emancipation before its commissioner arrived. Victor Schœlcher played an important part in the wider French abolition process, yet the island's own resistance belongs in the account too. Freedom did not settle questions of land and labor. Plantation owners later recruited indentured workers from India, and a smaller number of Chinese workers also came. The resulting communities became part of Martinique's social and cultural life. At former estates, the nineteenth century should be understood through both emancipation and the difficult economic arrangements that followed it.