Geography and histoiry of Saint-François / Guadeloupe

Geographical situation

The territory of the municipality of Saint-François forms a kind of triangle at the easterly point of Grande-Terre. Its vertex is the long peninsula leading to the Pointe des Châteaux and the bases are the territories of the municipalities of Sainte-Anne and Le Moule.

From a geological point of view, the region of Saint-François is part of an area of calcerous tableland, with gentle hills and valleys with flat bottoms.
The southern coastal line shows several flat coves: Anse of Saint-François, Anse du Mancenillier, Anse Kahouanne...widely open to the ocean and sometimes bordered by now dried up marshland or salt marshes. The north-eastern coast to the Atlantic is more abrupt with sheer creeks: Baie-Olive or Anse à l'Eau.

Due to erosion by the sea or tectonic movements several huge island-blocks have been sepaerated from the cliffs at the Pointe des Châteaux. North of it you'll find several lagoons, often seperated from the open sea by rocky reefs or sandy bars that transform them into salt marshes.

The variety of of the landscapes along with the breathtaking view to the islands of La Désirade and Marie-Galante make this region very attractive for tourists.
The Islands of Petite-Terre, calcerous islands surrounded by coral reefs, ininhabitated and declared Natural Reservation, continue the territory of Saint-François.
As for the climate, the region of Saint-François is in a zone of little rainfall, rather dry and cooled by the Trade Winds. There is no permanent river.

The History of Saint-François

Archaeological excavations undertaken since 1995 at the Anse à la Gourde confirmed the hypothesis of the presence of Arawak Indians from 300 to 1400 after Christ.
But it was only in 1683 that the parrish of Châteaux was founded by the Capuchine Missionaries, who chose Saint-François as Saint Patron. It was the beginning of settlement in this region, where the number of inhabitants (4,570 in 1790), the size of the estates and the diversity of cultivation was below those of the neighboring parrishes. The inhabitants were mostly modest white settlers cultivating essentially cotton and employing a great number of slaves (4.3% of the total servile population in the colony).

During the confused period of the French Revolution and as a consequence of dechristianization under the government of Victor Hugues, the parrish was renamed "Egalité". She recovered her traditional name only in 1801.

During the following period of war between napoleonian France and Great Britain, Saint-François was several times object of military operations.

harvesting sugar cane At the period of "Restauration", the sugar cane farming already took 50% of the total cultivated surface and 36 sugar refineries using 41 mills (30 of which were windmills) were established. Other farming products were cotton (with 70 manufactures), food crops and manioc (8 manufactures). Thus Saint-François had become the 3rd parrish of Guadeloupe, as for her importance and wealth, behind Petit-Canal and Le Moule.

In the years before slavery abolition, a great number of slaves were freed and in 1835 three sugar refineries, 18 cotton manufactures and 8 food processing manufactures were property of the liberated. At the end of 1837, the first municipal institutions were set up, nevertheless excluding the freed slaves from the electoral rolls. Neither the establishment of the Republic, nor the abolition of slavery in 1848 changed these facts and under the "Second Empire" the municipal council was nominated by the governor.

Sugar cane farming became more and more important in the region, where cotton farming was almost abandonned. The biggest estate was Plantation Sainte Marthe, whose owners, the Pauvert family, also were of great political influence in the municipality.

Not even the cholera epidemic in 1865/66 in Guadeloupe and the great dryness of 1871 could affect the economy of Saint-François. The abolition of slavery rose the problem of how to get new workforces. The planters tried to keep the freed slaves on the farms by setting up rewarding systems, but at last they had to have recourse to foreign workers. These immigrated, coming primarily from India, soon represented 27% of the municipality's total population, that then was of 6,500 inhabitants. Thus Saint-François became the most important municipality of Guadeloupe.
The upper classes of Saint-François, headed by the owners of the Saint-Marthe plantation - the only steam driven plant on the territory of the municipality - dominated the social life in Guadeloupe. They also founded the tradition of race horse-breeding.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the social agitations and strikes severely affected the economy of Saint-François and highly contributed to the election of the first socialist Members of Parliament in 1910 (Légitimus and Boisneuf).
A hurricane in 1928 almost destroyed Saint-François. 80 dead and 200 wounded were counted. Some years later, the hurricane Hugo in 1989 will do great damages at its turn.

By 1930 the influence of the thus far leading families, headed by the Pauvert family, seemed to come to an end. Alexandre Macal became the new mayor in 1929 and for the first time several Indian names appeared in the political life of the municipality. Macal governed Saint-François until the fifties - with an interruption during World War II. His successor was Lucien Bernier, who presided over the destiny of the municipality for more than a quarter of the century and was also elected county councillor, senator, and chairman of the county council.

Since 1989, Ernest Moutoussamy (PPDG) - Member of Parliament and Mayor has been elected. Great efforts were initiated for the tourist development of the region, that is rich in attractive natural sites as, for instance, the Pointe des Châteaux. Nevertheless, the agricultural activity remains important, especially in the northern area of the municipality.

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