Editing Martinique (section)

===Pre-European contact and early colonial periods===
The island was occupied first by [[Arawak peoples|Arawaks]], then by [[Island Caribs|Caribs]]. The Arawaks came from Central America in the 1st century AD and the Caribs came from the Venezuelan coast around the 11th century.

[[Christopher Columbus]] charted Martinique (without landing) in 1493, during his second voyage, but Spain had little interest in the territory.<ref name="britannica1" /> Columbus landed during a later voyage, on 15 June 1502, after a 21-day [[trade wind]] [[Voyages of Christopher Columbus|passage]], his fastest ocean voyage.<ref name="britannica1" /><ref>Flint, Valerie I.J.. "Christopher Columbus". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 May. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-Columbus. Accessed 9 May 2025</ref> He spent three days there refilling his water casks, bathing and washing laundry.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Morison |first1=Samuel |title=Admiral of the Ocean Sea |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.185259 |date=1942 |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-316-58478-4 |pages=588–589}}</ref>

The Indigenous people Columbus encountered called Martinique "Matinino". He was told by Indigenous people of
San Salvador that "the island of Matinino was entirely populated by women on whom the Caribs descended at certain seasons of the year; and if these women bore sons they were entrusted to the father to bring up."<ref>''Columbus, Christopher, The Four Voyages''. Penguin Classics 1969. Translated by J. M. Cohen. p. 98.</ref>

In 1635, [[Spain]] formally ceded Martinique to [[France]] after 133 years of Spanish rule. On 15 September 1635, [[Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc]], French governor of the island of [[St. Kitts]], landed in the harbour of [[St. Pierre, Martinique|St. Pierre]] with 80 to 150 French settlers after being driven off St. Kitts by the English.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Family tree of Pierre BELAIN d'ESNAMBUC |url=https://en.geneastar.org/genealogy/belain/pierre-belain-d-esnambuc |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=Geneanet |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The statue of Belain d'Esnambuc in La Savane Park in the town of Fort-de-France, Martinique. {{!}} Royal Museums Greenwich |url=https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-1151726 |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=www.rmg.co.uk}}</ref> D'Esnambuc claimed Martinique for the French king [[Louis XIII]] and the French "[[Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique]]" (Company of the American Islands), and established the first European settlement at Fort Saint-Pierre (now St. Pierre).<ref name="britannica1" /> D'Esnambuc died in 1636, leaving the company and Martinique in the hands of his nephew, [[Jacques Dyel du Parquet]], who in 1637 became governor of the island.<ref name="britannica1" />

In 1636, in the first of many skirmishes, the Indigenous [[Kalinago]] rose against the settlers to drive them off the island.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=Tessa |title=The torrid zone: Caribbean colonization and cultural interaction in the long seventeenth century |date=2018 |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |isbn=978-1-61117-891-3 |editor-last=Roper |editor-first=L.H. |series=The Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World |location=Columbia |chapter=Kalinago Colonizers: Indigenous People and the Settlement of the Lesser Antilles}}</ref> The French repelled the natives and forced them to retreat to the eastern part of the island, on the Caravelle Peninsula in the region then known as the Capesterre. When the Caribs revolted against French rule in 1658, the governor [[Charles Houël du Petit Pré]] retaliated with war against them. Many were killed, and those who survived were taken captive and expelled from the island. Some Caribs fled to [[Dominica]] or [[Saint Vincent (island)|St. Vincent]], where the French agreed to leave them at peace.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}}

After the death of du Parquet in 1658, his widow [[Marie Bonnard du Parquet]] tried to govern Martinique, but dislike of her rule led King [[Louis XIV]] to take over the sovereignty of the island.<ref name="britannica1" /> In 1654, Dutch Jews expelled from Portuguese Brazil introduced sugar plantations worked by large numbers of enslaved Africans.<ref name="britannica1" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Martinique |url=https://www.jaimemontilla.com/martinique |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=jaimemontilla.com |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Glimpses into American Jewish History |url=https://personal.stevens.edu/~llevine/martinique_guad_part_30.pdf}}</ref>

In 1667, the [[Second Anglo-Dutch War]] spilled out into the Caribbean, with Britain [[Battle of Martinique (1667)|attacking]] the pro-Dutch French fleet in Martinique, virtually destroying it and further cementing British preeminence in the region.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_martinique_1667.html |title=Battle of Martinique, 25 June 1667 |access-date=10 July 2019 |archive-date=10 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190710012651/http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_martinique_1667.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707) - The Attack on the French Ships at Martinique, 6th July 1667 |url=https://www.rct.uk/collection/400086/the-attack-on-the-french-ships-at-martinique-6th-july-1667 |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=www.rct.uk |language=en}}</ref> In 1674, the Dutch [[Invasion of Martinique (1674)|attempted to conquer]] the island, but were repulsed.<ref name="britannica1" />

[[File:Martinique 1667.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|The [[Battle of Martinique (1667)|attack on the French ships]] at Martinique in 1667]]

Because there were few [[Catholic]] priests in the French Antilles, many of the earliest French settlers were [[Huguenots]] who sought religious freedom.<ref>{{cite web |title=Martinique — History and Culture |url=https://www.iexplore.com/articles/travel-guides/caribbean/martinique/history-and-culture |access-date=21 September 2020 |publisher=www.iexplore.com |archive-date=1 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301061300/https://www.iexplore.com/articles/travel-guides/caribbean/martinique/history-and-culture |url-status=live }}</ref> Others were transported there as a punishment for refusing to convert to Catholicism, many of them dying en route.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Baird |first=Charles |year=1885 |title=History of the Huguenot Emigration to America |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofhugueno00bair/mode/1up |location=New York |publisher=Dodd, Mead and Co. |page=226}}</ref> Those who survived were quite industrious and over time prospered, though the less fortunate were reduced to the status of indentured servants. Although edicts from King Louis XIV's court regularly came to the islands to suppress the [[Protestant]] "heretics", these were mostly ignored by island authorities until Louis XIV's [[Revocation of the Edict of Nantes|Edict of Revocation]] in 1685.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Huguenots in France |first=Samuel |last=Smiles |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26524/26524-h/26524-h.htm |access-date=2022-10-13 |via=Project Gutenberg |archive-date=5 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230305221729/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26524/26524-h/26524-h.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Huguenot Refuge |url=https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-huguenot-refuge/ |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=Musée protestant |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The period of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1661-1700) |url=https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-period-of-the-revocation-of-the-edict-of-nantes-1661-1700/ |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=Musée protestant |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Escape from Babylon {{!}} Christian History Magazine |url=https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/escape-from-babylon |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=Christian History Institute |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Levush |first=Ruth |date=2019-12-11 |title=Report on Right of Huguenots to French Citizenship {{!}} In Custodia Legis |url=https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2019/12/report-on-right-of-huguenots-to-french-citizenship/ |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=The Library of Congress}}</ref>

As many of the planters on Martinique were Huguenots suffering under the harsh strictures of the Revocation, they began plotting to emigrate from Martinique with many of their recently arrived brethren. Many of them were encouraged by the Catholics, who looked forward to their departure and the opportunities for seizing their property. By 1688, nearly all of Martinique's French Protestant population had escaped to the [[Province of New York|British American]] colonies or Protestant countries in Europe.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}} The policy decimated the population of Martinique and the rest of the French Antilles and set back their colonisation by decades, causing the French king to relax his policies in the region, which left the islands susceptible to British occupation over the next century.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/historyofhugueno00bair |title=History of the Huguenot Migration to America |year=1885 |pages=205–107 |location=New York |publisher=Dodd, Mead & Company}}</ref>