• Magasins de la Compagnie des Indes à Pondichéry

    The Indian influences of Martinique

    After slavery was abolished in 1848, planters found themselves short of labor. Many former slaves refused to return to the plantations. To fill this gap, the French government organized the arrival of contract workers, mainly from India. This migration had a profound impact on the island, but its integration into society was a long process of acceptance.

    16 minutes

What remains of Indian immigration to Martinique?

A heritage much more present than you think

"India" is present in Martinique even if Guadeloupe, which has experienced Indian immigration almost twice as high (40,000 men and women against 25,000 for Martinique) than Martinique is much more "Indian" than Martinique. The Indians, for the sake of integration and not by renouncing their culture, sought to integrate into the population by marriage (mixed marriage, especially with the descendants of slaves), so many Indians have merged into the black population without one cannot speak of the extinction of the Indians of India in Martinique. They also opted for integration by name by choosing more French names and almost systematically giving French first names to their child (ren) born on the island. In addition, working in collaboration with Black Creoles, a real exchange of knowledge has taken place.

They will bring their dances, their dances, their songs, their spicy cuisines, and their popular deities such as Kaliammaï, Mariemen or Vishnu. More or less archaic Hindu temples abound in the countryside because Indianness is an essentially rural phenomenon in the West Indies.

Yes, Martinique is Indian!