History

Widespread demonstrations against Covid-19 restrictions take place on Guadeloupe and Martinique. While the protests begin over coronavirus curbs, they grow into calls to address longstanding issues in French territories, such as poverty and high unemployment.

There are also demonstrations over compensation for farm workers suffering from the effects of the insecticide chlordecone, widely used up to 1993 in both Guadeloupe and Martinique.

The French public health agency estimates that over 90% of the adult population of Martinique and Guadeloupe suffer from chlordecone poisoning. It has been linked to prostate, stomach and pancreatic cancer.

Violent protests follow a general strike over the cost of living. France offers Guadeloupe hundreds of millions of euros in new subsidies.

Campaign for secession flares up when pro-independence groups bomb hotels and government buildings

Becomes a French administrative region

La Soufriere volcano erupts causing half the island to be evacuated

Chooses to remain a French possession over independence

Becomes a French overseas department

Several British occupations and a brief period of nominal Swedish rule before the territory is restored to France in 1816.

French colonialists establish a settlement, wiping out the Carib population and bringing in African slaves to work on sugar plantations.

Visited by explorer Christopher Columbus but the Carib Indian inhabitants resist Spanish attempts to settle.

First inhabited by the Amerindian Arawak people, who are displaced by Carib Indians in 1000AD.