1815-1899
A slave insurrection in 1822 resulted in two dead and seven injured. The government condemned 19 slaves to death, 10 to the galleys, six to whipping, and eight to helping with the executions.
Martinique has suffered from earthquakes as well as hurricanes. In 1839, an earthquake believed to have measured 6.5 on the Richter scale killed some 400 to 700 people, caused severe damage in Saint Pierre, and almost totally destroyed Fort Royal. Fort Royal was rebuilt in wood, reducing the risk from earthquakes, but increasing the risk from fire. That same year, there were 495 sugar producers in Martinique, who produced some 25,900 tons of "white gold".
In February 1848, François Auguste Perrinon became head of the Committee of Colonists of Martinique. He was a member of the Commission for the abolition of slavery, led by Victor Schoelcher. On April 27, Schoelcher obtained a decree abolishing slavery in the French Empire. Perrinon was appointed Commissioner General of Martinique, and charged with the task of abolishing slavery there. However, he and the decree did not arrive in Martinique until June 3, by which time Governor Claude Rostoland had already abolished slavery. The imprisonment of a slave at Le Prêcheur had led to a slave revolt on May 20; two days later Rostoland, under duress, had abolished slavery on the island to quell the revolt. That same year, following the establishment of the Second Republic, Fort Royal became Fort-de-France.
In 1851 a law was passed authorizing the creation of two colonial banks with the authority to issue banknotes. This led to the founding of the Bank of Martinique in Saint Pierre, and the Bank of Guadeloupe. (These banks would merge in 1967 to form the present-day Banque des Antilles Française).
Indentured laborers from India started to arrive in Martinique in 1853. Plantation owners recruited the Indians to replace the slaves, who once free, had fled the plantations. This led to the creation of the small but continuing Indian community in Martinique. This immigration repeated on a smaller scale the importation of Indians to such British colonies as British Guiana and Trinidad and Tobago following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833. Towards the end of the century, 1000 Chinese also came as earlier they had come to Cuba.
The city government in 1857-58 cleared and filled the flood channel encircling Fort de France. The channel had become an open sewer and hence a health hazard. The filled-in channel, La Levee, marked the northern boundary of the city.
Martinique got its second enduring financial institution in 1863 when the Crédit Foncier Colonial opened its doors in Saint Pierre. Its objective was to make long-term loans for the construction or modernization of sugar factories. It replaced the Crédit Colonial, which had been established in 1860, but seems hardly to have gotten going.
In 1868 construction work on the Radoub Basin port facilities at Fort de France finally was completed. The improvements to the port would enable Fort de France better to compete in trade and commerce with Saint Pierre.
In 1870, rising racial tensions led to the short-lived insurrection in southern Martinique and proclamation in Fort-de-France of a Martiniquan Republic. The insurrection started with an altercation between a local béké (white) and a black tradesman. A crowd lynched the béke and during the insurrection many sugar factories were torched. The authorities restored order by temporarily imprisoning some 500 rebels in Martinique's forts. Seventy four were tried and found guilty, and the twelve principal leaders were shot to death. The authorities deported the rest to French Guiana or New Caledonia.
By this time sugar cane fields covered some 57% of Martinique's arable land. Unfortunately, falling prices for sugar forced many small sugar works to merge. Producers turned to rum production in an attempt to improve their fortunes.
When France established the Third Republic in 1871, the colonies, Martinique among them, gained representation in the National Assembly.
In 1887, after visiting Panama, Paul Gauguin spent some months with his friend Charles Laval, also a painter, in a cabin some two kilometers south of Saint Pierre. During this period Gauguin produced several paintings featuring Martinique. There is now a small Gauguin museum in Le Carbet that has reproductions of his Martinique paintings. That same year Harper's Weekly sent the author and translator Lafcadio Hearn to Martinique for a short visit; he ended up staying for some two years. After his return to the United States he would publish two books, one an account of his daily life in Martinique and the other the story of a slave.
By 1888, the population of Martinique had risen from about 163,000 people a decade earlier to 176,000. At the same time, natural disasters continued to plague the island. Much of Fort de France was devastated by a fire in 1890, and then the next year a hurricane killed some 400 people.
In the 1880s, the Paris architect Pierre-Henri Picq built the Schoelcher Library, an iron and glass structure that was exhibited in the Tuileries Gardens during the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. After the Exposition the building was shipped to Fort de France and reassembled there, the work being completed by 1893. Initially, the library contained the 10,000 books that Victor Schoelcher had donated to the island. Today it houses over 250,000 and stands as a tribute to the man who led the movement to abolish slavery in Martinique. In 1895, Picq also built the Saint-Louis Cathedral in Fort-de-France.
Read more about this topic: History Of Martinique