A part of the French West Indies Antilles , Martinique is an overseas department and region and a single territorial collectivity of the French Republic. The currency in use is the euro. Martinique has a land area of 1, km 2 sq mi and a population of , inhabitants as of January Virtually the entire population speaks both French the sole official language and Martinican Creole.
The island was occupied first by Arawaks , then by Caribs. Christopher Columbus charted Martinique without landing in , during his second voyage, but Spain had little interest in the territory. The Indigenous people Columbus encountered called Martinique "Matinino".
He was told by Indigenous people of San Salvador that "the island of Matinino was entirely populated by women on whom the Caribs descended at certain seasons of the year; and if these women bore sons they were entrusted to the father to bring up. Kitts , landed in the harbour of St. Pierre with 80 to French settlers after being driven off St. Kitts by the English. In , in the first of many skirmishes, the Indigenous Kalinago rose against the settlers to drive them off the island.
Many were killed, and those who survived were taken captive and expelled from the island. Some Caribs fled to Dominica or St. Vincent , where the French agreed to leave them at peace. After the death of du Parquet in , his widow Marie Bonnard du Parquet tried to govern Martinique, but dislike of her rule led King Louis XIV to take over the sovereignty of the island.
In , the Second Anglo-Dutch War spilled out into the Caribbean, with Britain attacking the pro-Dutch French fleet in Martinique, virtually destroying it and further cementing British preeminence in the region. Because there were few Catholic priests in the French Antilles, many of the earliest French settlers were Huguenots who sought religious freedom. As many of the planters on Martinique were Huguenots suffering under the harsh strictures of the Revocation, they began plotting to emigrate from Martinique with many of their recently arrived brethren.
