French Caribbean Settlements: Guadeloupe's Subsidiary Status

Abstract

Abstract:This article presents Guadeloupe as a case study with a focus on its early settlement era (1635–1660), prior to the advent of the sugar industry. It is an often-overlooked period and locale within French Caribbean historiography, with little available literature in English. The colonization of Guadeloupe in 1635 was especially more chaotic and conflict ridden than that of St Christophe and Martinique, France's earliest settlements. The article further examines how Guadeloupe's unstable beginnings contributed to her sluggish economic development and undermined her status as a colony for more than a century after the arrival of the first French settlers.