Editing History of Martinique (section)

==1700–1788==
[[File:Vue du Fort Royal de la Martinique.jpeg|thumb|250px|right|Port Royal in the 1750s]]
In 1720, a French naval officer, [[Gabriel de Clieu]], procured a coffee plant seedling from the [[Jardin des Plantes|Royal Botanical Gardens]] in Paris and transported it to Martinique. He transplanted it on the slopes of [[Mount Pelée]] and was able to harvest his first crop in 1726, or shortly thereafter.<ref>see [[Gabriel de Clieu]] for more detail</ref> By 1736, the number of slaves in Martinique had risen to 60,000 people. In 1750, Saint Pierre had about 15,000 inhabitants, and Fort Royal only about 4,000.

During the [[Seven Years' War]] the British [[76th Regiment of Foot (1756)|76th Regiment of Foot]] under [[William Rufane]] [[Invasion of Martinique (1762)|captured Martinique]] in early 1762.<ref>{{citation |last=Gruber|first=Ira D.|title=Books and the British Army in the Age of the American Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PiEUCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA81
 |access-date=2018-08-09|date=2010-10-25|publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-0-8078-9940-3}}</ref>
Following [[Great Britain in the Seven Years' War|Britain's victory in the war]] there was a strong possibility the island would be annexed by them. However, the [[sugar trade]] made the island so valuable to the royal French government that at the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)]], which ended the Seven Years' War, they declined to regain Canada in order to regain Martinique and the neighboring island of [[Guadeloupe]]. During the British occupation, Marie Josèph Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, the future [[Empress Joséphine]] was born to a noble family living on [[Les Trois-Îlets]] across the bay from Fort Royal. Also, 1762 saw a [[yellow fever]] epidemic and in 1763 the French established separate governments for Martinique and Guadeloupe.

August 2, 1766 saw the birth of Saint-Pierre de Louis Delgrès, a mixed-race free black who would serve in the French army and fight the British in 1794, before becoming the leader of the unsuccessful resistance in [[Guadeloupe]] against General Richepance, whom [[Napoleon]] had sent to restore slavery to that colony. On August 13 (in either 1766 or 1767) a hurricane – apparently accompanied by an earthquake – struck the island; 600–1600 were killed.<ref>{{cite book|title=Nature|editor=Sir Norman Lockyer|date=1902|page= 152|volume=66|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wssKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA152}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Aspinall|first=Sir Algernon Edward |title=The Pocket Guide to the West Indies |publisher=E. Stanford|date=1907|page= 252|url=https://archive.org/details/pocketguidetowe00aspigoog}}</ref><ref name="rappa">[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/NWS-NHC-1995-47.pdf 1995: Rappaport, Edward N. and Fernandez-Partagas, Jose; "The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492–1994"], NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC-47, National Hurricane Center, 41 pp.</ref> Monsieur de la Pagerie, the father of the future Empress, was almost ruined. At the time, there were some 450 sugar mills in Martinique, and molasses was a major export. Four years later an earthquake shook the island. By 1774, when a decree ended indentured servitude for whites, there were some 18 to 19 million coffee trees on the island.

In 1779, the future [[Joséphine de Beauharnais]], first Empress of the French, sailed for France to meet her husband for the first time. In the following year the [[Great Hurricane of 1780]], one of the most damaging hurricanes in Western history, struck the island, killing 9000.<ref name="rappa"/> Over 100 French and Dutch merchantmen were lost.<ref>{{cite book|last=Marx|first=Robert F. |title=Shipwrecks in the Americas|publisher=Courier Dover Publications, p. 283.|year=1987|isbn=0-486-25514-X|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i0WjWPAvV4YC&pg=PA283}}</ref> In 1782, Admiral [[François Joseph Paul, marquis de Grasetilly, comte de Grasse|de Grasse]] sailed from Martinique to rendezvous with Spanish forces in order to attack [[Jamaica]]. The subsequent [[battle of the Saintes]] resulted in a massive defeat for the French at the hands of the [[Royal Navy]].