Marie Galante

Marie-Galante
Village of Caspesterre.
Geography
Country	France
Archipelago	Guadeloupe
Location	Caribbean Sea
Contact	15 56 'N 61 16' W / 15.93, -61.27 15 56 'N 61 16' W / 15.93, -61.27
Area	158.01 km 2
Coast	84 km
Climax	Morne Constant (204 m)
Geology	Makatea
Administration
France
Region Overseas	Guadeloupe
Department	Guadeloupe
Demography
Population	12 000 hab. (2006)
Density	75.94 inhabitants / km 2
Largest city	Grand-Bourg
Other information
Discovery	Prehistory
Time Zone	UTC-4
Geolocation on the map: Guadeloupe Marie-Galante
Islands of France

Marie-Galante is part of the archipelago of Guadeloupe : it is located 30 km off the "mainland Guadeloupe. His area of 158 km ² is ^the 4th island of the French Antilles , just after the Martinique (1128 km ^2), the Basse-Terre (848 km ²⁾ and the Grande-Terre (586 km ^2).

Primarily agricultural, the island known as an activity of fishing and is gradually opening to tourism. Marie-Galante is a member country to the charter that promotes the coordinated action of the common component and enhances the local production. As in Guadeloupe , the official language is French and the local language, Creole.

Administration

Since the beginnings of colonization, Marie-Galante has always been linked administratively to the borough of Pointe--Pitre , apart from the revolutionary period of 1793-1794. She was a Republican when the rest of the archipelago was still a royalist.

In 1994 , three municipalities have formed a community of Commons , first created in a department overseas. Its county seat is Grand-Bourg , the other two being Common St. Louis and Capesterre de Marie-Galante.

Demographics

• Population:

Marie Galante had in 1946 , 30 000. Strongly influenced by the mass exodus of its young people to Guadeloupe and France , the island had more in 2006 than 12 000 inhabitants. This drop in population is due to the slow demise of the sugar economy during this period.

• List of Cities of Marie-Galante

Geography

Coastal Drive Marie Galante.

Some call Marie-Galante Great Galette because of its rounded form of 15 km in diameter. The island is a hilly limestone substrate, watered by the trade winds but also subject to hurricanes and earthquakes.

The north coast, facing the Grande-Terre , is characterized by a high cliff. A flaw called the bar separates the northeast quarter of the rest of the island. To the west, facing the Basse-Terre , beaches and mangroves extend along the Caribbean Sea. The rivers of St. Louis and the Old Fort sell it after crossing the island shelf from the heart of Marie-Galante. To the east and south, the plateau becomes bleak to switch to a steep coastal plain. It runs along the Atlantic which is protected by a coral reef , the cays.

Environment

Satellite image of Marie-Galante.

Old Fort islet off Marie-Galante.

A heritage animal and plant land has been degraded in response to human activities. Except in the west of coral fringing still shelter many marine species. They are poorly developed. To the west of the island, a bench coral is present in approximately 20 meters deep. Beds of flowering plants inhabit the sandy sea coasts , in batches.

History

In ^the third century , the Arawaks were installed on the island, they called Touloukara. The Caribbean occupied it in ^the ninth century and gave name to Aichi or Aulinagan, land cotton. The Indian population also grew cassava and had learned the use of medicinal plants. They also lived on fishing. Found in caves and the remains of their villages in ceramics , the petroglyphs and religious objects.

Then the island was baptized 3 November 1493 Maria Galanda during the second voyage of Columbus , thus taking the name of his caravel which would have addressed at Anse Ballet.

Fifty French settlers was installed in 1648 near the place called Old Fort , Governor Charles Houl. In 1653 , a second fort was built in Grand-Bourg. The population suffered from difficult living conditions and suffering the attacks of the Caribbean until 1660 , when a peace treaty was signed at Basseterre between natives and settlers.

During the second half of the ^seventeenth century , the first slaves were brought from Africa to Marie-Galante to cultivate plantations. In 1671 , Blacks constituted 57% of the population. Dutch Jews exiled from Brazil also settled, bringing their techniques of cane sugar.

In 1676 , a fleet of Dutch people took and plundered its facilities. After repopulation of the island's new inhabitants were attacked three times by the Dutch.

From 1692 to 1816 , English and French fought over the island five times. During this period, Marie-Galante was independent from 1792 to 1794. In 1790 , about 11,500 Galand, 9400 were slaves.

In 1838 a fire destroyed the Grand-Bourg, in 1843 , the island was hit by an earthquake.

Slave revolts and the French abolitionists led intervention in 1848. To Marie-Galante, the final abolition of slavery was celebrated for 3 days and 3 nights around the pool to punch for Housing Pirogue. But these events did not marked the end of colonial violence. In the parliamentary elections of 1849 , the police cracked down, in Morne Rouge, the freedmen who were opposed to organized fraud by large planters. It was not until 1920 that the descendants of slaves became the owners of a sugar to Marie-Galante.

In 1865 , a cyclone and cholera struck the island and its people. In 1902 , a second fire ravaged Grand-Bourg. Hurricane yet touched the island in 1928 and 1995.

In 1994 the charter of the country Marie-Galante is signed. The component members including the three municipalities of the island are committed by this charter to promote local production of the island and protect its ecological heritage by creating a protected north-east of the island in partnership with Association Amicale Ecolambda. Marie-Galante presents itself as a green country in the making.

On 24 January 2010 to 18 hours 43 minutes local time an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 occurred in Martinique. Its hypocenter is located approximately 60 km Marie-Galante, and 52 km from Saint-Franois in the north of Guadeloupe at a depth of 67 km. Seismologists, however, indicate that this earthquake has no connection with the earthquake of Haiti January 12 .

Economy & Culture

Bezard mill in the southern island

The colonial economy developed on the island cultures of tobacco , the indigo , the coffee and cotton. But from the ^seventeenth century , growers have made the cane a very important source of income. She kept the ^nineteenth century and ^twentieth century , adapting to the abolition of slavery and the great sugar crisis.

This cane, Marie-Galante has inherited a nickname: the island of a hundred mills. There were in 1818 a little over a hundred mills , which allowed to grind the cane. The juice that was shot was turned into sugar or rum. The mills were originally powered by oxen, and windmills appeared from 1780 , in turn compete with the steam mills from 1883.

The ^nineteenth century saw away the economic organization of the Old Regime. Gradually, all the little candies were restructured in sugar factories. In 1885 , 5 sites clustered activity. In 1931 , 18 distilleries and four sugar factories were in production. Large plantations have given way to small farms, organized ^twentieth century around cooperatives. But agriculture is subject in all the French Antilles to strong international competition. In the early twenty-first ^century , a mill (mill of Grande Anse) and three distilleries (Bellevue, Rod, Fish) remain to Marie-Galante. White agricultural rum produced there been an appellation of origin. It is classified AOC (59 ). Organic sugar production could also be a new axis of development, but the current stop EU subsidies renders uncertain the future of agriculture and hence economic Marie-Galante and its inhabitants.

In the old economy can still see many vestiges. This rich history is highlighted: some 70 laps, 2 restored mills (Mill Bzard), sweets and old colonial houses (Housing Murat). A network of trails allows hikers to explore the island and its people.

And Marie-Galante knows she in turn, like other islands of Guadeloupe, the economic transformation that allows the tourist industry. But the development of these services is based here on a policy of nature conservation and heritage, whether pre-Columbian, colonial or contemporary. The Marie-Galante and preserve a lifestyle picturesque combining modernity and authenticity. While the island has some of the most famous beaches of the archipelago, the hotel industry is discreet. However, international artists meet there every year at the Blues Festival Earth during the weekend of Pentecost.

Famous People

In 1645, Constant d'Aubign was governor, discreet, Marie-Galante. His daughter Francoise d'Aubigne was with him. Several years later she became Madame de Maintenon , but his stay in the Caribbean, it will remain the nickname of Beautiful Indian.

Charles-Franois Bonneville, born March 13, 1803 at Brancourt (Aisne) was mayor and general counsel of Grand Bourg from 1854 to 1860. Also Chairman of the Chamber of Agriculture, he was the architect of the revival of the silk cotton long he experiences Housing Thibault .

Guy Tirolien , 1917-1988, poet

Bibliography

• Marie-Galante, land of historic sugar, H. and D. Parisis, and B. Genet, preface by Alain Buffon, Ed.Parisis, 2005 (220 pages) ( ISBN 2-9526427-0-2 )
• Daily Life in Marie Galante, housing Thibault mill Hope, Philip and Jacqueline Nucho-Troplent. Editions L'Harmattan 2006

• Extract from the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert :

"Marie-Galante, sf (Gog.) island of America, belonging to France and is located upwind from those of Saintes, 18 miles north of Martinique, and at 3 or 4 of the tip of saline the mainland of Guadeloupe. This island is almost round & can be 18 miles in circumference, its sides are very steep in parts, but the mountains that cover the interior are less high than those of the high islands, including land produces sugar, coffee much quantity of cotton & corn & vegetables, it is not well provided with rivers except that this island is very pleasant. "

References

See also

Related articles

• Guadeloupe
• Intercommunalities of Guadeloupe
• French Antilles

External Links

• (En) Tourist portal of Marie-Galante
• (En) Tourist Marie-Galante

Islands of Guadeloupe
Inhabited islands	Basse-Terre Grande-Terre Dsirade Marie-Galante Terre-de-Bas Terre-de-Haut
Uninhabited islands	Iles de la Petite-Terre Caret Islet Islet du Gosier

• Portal insular world
• Portal Guadeloupe

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