Sweet Liberty: The Final Days of Slavery in Martinique

From its founding, Martinique played an integral role in France's Atlantic empire. Established in the mid—seventeenth century as a colonial outpost against Spanish and English dominance in the Caribbean, the island was transformed by the increase in European demand for sugar, coffee, and indigo. Like other colonial subjects, Martinicans met the labor needs of cash—crop cultivation by establishing plantations worked by enslaved Africans and by adopting the rigidly hierarchical social structu...