Here is another one of those sugar plantation islands trying to cope without the original industry. For a change Guadeloupe stayed French and as a result the poverty rate is lower. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
As this stamp is from 1928, it shows a unique period in the islands history. The sugar industry was big business on Guadeloupe. Without slavery, the local blacks were not willing to keep working the plantations for the meager wages provided. So here we get to see a sugar mill from the period when Indian contract workers were brought in from the also French colony in India, Pondicherry. This was also suboptimal and the sugar industry is mainly gone from the island, which now relies on tourism for employment, and import/export to employ the former planters called bekes, and inevitably massive subsidies from France to keep the whole thing going.
Todays stamp is issue A11, a 5 Centimes stamp issued by the French colony of Guadeloupe in 1928. It was part of a long running 42 stamp issue in various denominations that showed scenes from the island. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.
Guadeloupe was home over time to several groups of Indians. When it was discovered by Christopher Columbus, it was occupied by Caribe Indians. They were not friendly to outsiders and wiped out several attempted colonies over the next 150 years. In the mid 17th century, a French private company, the Company of the Americas managed to get a settlement going. Though private, the company had important investors including Cardinal Richelieu and France had the power to appoint the colonial government. What followed was the mass importation of slaves from west Africa to work sugar cane plantations with the product exported. These planters, called bekes in the local creole dialect, were less than one percent of the population. These style companies are never the consistent moneymakers hoped for and Guadeloupe was sold to it’s governor, Charles Houel. He managed to get a fort built and banished the remaining Caribe Indians that had never been truly brought into the fold. The Caribe had replaced violently an earlier tribe of settlers and now it was their turn. Would it now be the French turn to be driven out?
France ended slavery in their empire in 1848. There was no effort either on the part of the freed slaves or from the French to see them returned to Africa. The plantations ground to a halt. In desperation, the planters brought in Indians, but few stayed beyond the short term contracts. In 1946, the new fragile French government declared colonies like Guadeloupe overseas departments and everyone on the island French citizens. You can guess what would be the next Guadeloupe export, it’s people. France responded by jumping up subsidies to the island to stem the flow of people out. The former planters found work in import businesses on a small island where most things had to be brought in. This insured their prosperity and the continued resentment of the black majority, who resent the cost of island living.
In 2009 there was a strike that turned into riots under the slogan this island is ours, not theirs, a racial reference. The rioting was so bad the airport had to close due to debris on the runway. The French gave in on salary demands and sent in 500 military police to restore order. The subsidies mean that Guadeloupe is far richer than nearby islands and so there in much inter island migration to Guadeloupe as the locals still head for France. The French have showed staying power, but the Africans are the real permanents. Unless a new indian tribe lands? Its happened before.
Well my drink is empty and so I will wait patiently until tomorow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.