The Weight of History

"To understand the French Caribbean today, you must understand that we carry history in our bodies," says Dr. Myriam Cottias, a historian at the Centre International de Recherches sur les Esclavages in Martinique. "Slavery wasn't just an economic system—it was an attempt to destroy human beings and recreate them as property. The fact that we exist today as full human beings is itself an act of resistance spanning generations."

The colonial period in the French Caribbean began in 1635 when Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc claimed Martinique for France, followed quickly by Guadeloupe. What followed were centuries of plantation slavery, one of history's most brutal systems of human exploitation, built on the labor of enslaved Africans who cultivated sugar, coffee, and other crops that enriched European powers.