The island which comes to mind is a rock in Earth’s geologic scheme of things. It used to be described, along with its other sisters/brothers, as a link in the chain of islands, a connect in the archipelago.
Its size surpasses that of Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Barbados, Montserrat, Antigua, S. Kitt’s & Nevis and Anguilla. Martinique is to its south and measures 410 square miles.
Mount Pele, Martinique’s highest peak stands at 4,580 feet. In 2002, Martiniquans celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the eruption of Mount Pele.
It’s a vibrant community, that of Fort-de-France, its capital. This department of France, balances a population of approximately 436,000.
Black Memory, A Traveloguer & Cricket …
Still remaining at the outer regions of this find, I went to the site of Martinique Promotions Bureau clearly conscious of the old truth that appearances talk, undress. At the top of its site are the Puerto Rican flag, French flag, Brazilian flag and Canadian flag — Spanish, French and Portuguese linguistic connections. Instructively, there’s a direct, non-stop flight from Montreal to Fort-de-France http://www.martinique.org/ last visited 2010.
Those whom civilized Europe called Amerindians — Europe being ceaselessly in search of an India — planted and grew Heliconias, Orchids, bougainvilleas, poinsettias, roses, hibiscus, bromeliads and anthuriums on this Martinique. Affectionately, they called their island Matinino/Madinina, meaning Island Of The Flowers. Yes, those pre-Columbus peoples blessed with awesome hearts, minds steeped in sacred geometries and souls in sound, loved flowers — the islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Dominica belonged to them.
Pure ecosystems were in their care until separators of human and nature, those bands of nature-controllers arrived trafficking.
An Unassuming Love …
To the immediate north of my island of interest, stands a 61 square mile island called Marie-Galante with a population of just about 13,000. Surprisingly, people in my island of interest do not know much about this Marie-Galante. Here’s a superficial glimpse, which when dug, reveals.
“With an area of 158 km² (40 acres), it has three counties and 12,410 inhabitants. The Island is more commonly known as ‘La grande galette’ (Big Pancake) due to its round shape and almost flat surface (its highest peak, the hill Morne Constant, rises to 204m – 670 ft). Once counting over 106 sugar mills, it is also called the ‘Island of a hundred windmills’, or the ‘Grande dependence’ (the biggest island depending on Guadeloupe)” http://www.otmariegalante.com/authentique-gb.htm last visited 2010.
This Guadeloupe archipelago, that corridor of wind energy, has been maximized in prior times; a matter of economics, I would imagine, to environmentalists on my island of interest, eager to set up wind-farms for generating energy!
Still within this corridor is another island. I found this inscription significant, since its record marks Britain, Florida, Haiti, Jamaica, France, Spain, Havana and even New York — all wrapped and impacted in the execution of war as a means to trafficking and domination. They call it strategy. Battle Of The Saints.
“The battle occurred on 12 April [1782] off the Îles des Saintes, just south of Guadeloupe. Rodney, fighting with a decisive edge in ships and cannon, captured 5 of the line including de Grasse’s flagship the Ville-de-Paris.”
Steinberg Henry, An Unassuming Love, www.amazon.com …
Dominica has a rock on its west coast named after the said Rodney. Dominican historian, Lennox Honychurch runs it this way. “The name of a rocky point along the west coast north of Jimmit that is composed of fractured volcanic lava ejected from the Trois Pitons volcano. The French called it Pointe Tarreau after the Carib word, Tarreau, which was their name for both the place and the White Tailed Tropic-bird — Phaethon lepturus — that nests in the nearby cliffs. The British named it Rodney’s Rock following Admiral George Rodney’s victory at the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782” http://www.lennoxhonychurch.com/heritage.cfm?Id=201
The Battle Of The Saints narrative continues. “Rodney’s squadron, however, was so badly damaged and the convoy and the scattered remnants of de Grasse’s squadron safely reached Saint Domingue (except for 2 damaged ships of the line left behind before the battle, which were captured while attempting to rejoin). By the middle of May, 28 French ships of the line, 11 or 12 Spanish ships of the line, and the entire expeditionary force of 20,000 troops were assembled at Saint Domingue. Their commanders, Gálvez, Solano, and Commondore Vaudreuil (replacing the captured de Grasse) now were forced to decide what to do with this gigantic force before all the provisions of the colony were consumed. They decided to divide the troops among the Spanish and French Leeward Islands, to send Solano’s squadron back to Havana, the worst of Vaudreuil’s ships back to France as convoy escorts, and the pick of Vaudreuil’s squadron to North America to obtain provisions and matériel” http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/assess01.htm last visited 2010.
The Saints. If I were at Penville, north north-east Dominica in 1782, I might’ve seen, would’ve seen the battle Of The Saints, might’ve sketched a work of art or probably, just maybe have the truth about who won this battle. Those people have been trafficking violence long.
Both Marie-Galante and The Saints root in the ocean between Dominica and Guadeloupe. Just think of how the British felt to later have control of an island as colony between two French departments!
The department which is usually described as being to the north of my island of interest is named Guadeloupe and it’s 629 square miles with a population of just under 442,000. How did my island come to constitute such a sharp, tall and precipitous chunk of nature’s upheaval? There a 219 square miles difference between its two neighbors and it itself is said to be 290 square miles or there about. It use to be 305 when I was a child. I gather Marie-Galante and The Saints must be pieces of Dominica!
Furthermore, both the populations of Martinique and Guadeloupe are about six times that of my island of interest — my God, they could not ship as many to this savage landscape which carried in its height a mountain some one hundred seventy feet higher than Martinique’s Pele.
The three, in collaboration with their awesome majesty and natural beauty, hide stories of foibles; those humans buried in their forests, those taken by flooding rivers, those killed by hurricanes, those slipping down precipices, those tormented and many, many lost. We need acquaint ourselves with a history of silence, one that accompanies those who were sons and daughters with Mothers and ours who suffered horror in disappearances.
- Excerpt from Steinberg Henry’s “an Unassuming Love: Black Memory, A Traveloguer & Cricket” (Chapter 5, 2011). amazon.com —.
Great skill. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
This is a wonderful tribute to the islands and our sub-regional history. Thanks Stein!