The names of the New Libres: pomp and derision
The deportation of African slaves to the New World involved not only atrocious physical suffering, but also psychological suffering, such as the loss of their African name and its symbolic significance (the name was often given in connection with the child's desired future, the destiny predicted for him or her). Aimé Césaire, in the play he dedicated to him, puts the following words into the mouth of King Christophe of Haiti: "Pierre, Paul, Jacques, Toussaint! These are the humiliating stamps with which they obliterated our names of truth. (...) Can you feel a man's pain at not knowing what his name is? What his name calls him to?
During the period of slavery, blacks were given Christian first names that could not be passed on to their descendants (Mary, Joseph, John, Paul, etc.). After abolition in the French West Indies in 1848, the New Freedmen had to be given Christian names. What's striking about these attributions is the often laughable, even contemptuous character of certain names, which can fully justify Césaire's assessment: humiliating stamps.
Certainly, many surnames, borrowed from Greco-Roman history and mythology, European literature and philosophy, can appear particularly gratifying. In Martinique, we can imagine a philosophy class with students bearing the names of Plato, Archimedes, Zeno, Democritus, Lucretius, Cicero, Leibnitz, or a "Homeric" encounter with the families Priam, Hector, Achilles, Ajax... The Old and New Testaments have their place: John the Baptist and Mary Saint are the most common surnames.
But there was another side to these name allocations: the gift of grotesque and ridiculous patronymics, linked to the physical or supposed moral character of the individuals: Grosse-Pièce, Gros-Désir, Jolicoeur, Macabre, Trouabal, Enretard... Creole was used to search for devaluing words, as were anagrams (Compère gives Erepmoc), or the facilities of the Calendar (names of months: Janvier, Mars; names of saints: Marc, feast names: Toussaint). It should be noted that the indentured workers who arrived after slavery in the 1850-55 period kept their African, Indian or Chinese names (N'Goala, M'Bassé, M'Quiby, Makéssa, Moutoussamy, Nayaradou, Yang-Ting, etc.).
Imposed and sometimes disrespectful surnames may have been at the root of certain back-to-Africa movements, at least in terms of surnames or first names. But African origins can refer to many places and peoples, to many different cultures and civilizations, which could not fail to mix on West Indian soil, which became their country through hard work, and their homeland through sweat and blood. The origins of the slaves are indeed multiple (Bambaras, Peuls, Wolof, Mandingue, Mondong, Arada, Aguia, Ibo, Nago, Mayoumbé, Kongo, Kaplaou, etc.). It's hard to find the needle in these haystacks that will help you unravel the mystery of your "ethnic genesis", especially as no-one has a single root.
Martinique: birthplace of personalities
Martinique is the birthplace of :
André Aliker, born on February 10, 1894 in Le Lamentin, Martinique, and murdered on January 12, 1934 in Case-Pilote. He was a militant communist journalist from Martinique. His death gave rise to the Martinique labor movement.
Marie-Alice André-Jaccoulet, born October 28, 1943 in Ducos and died January 11, 2009 in Fort-de-France, was a lawyer and writer, author of Figures et procès, le barreau de la Martinique de 1900 à 2000, collective work, Fondation Clément publishers (2002), De Solitude à Mélodie, published by Ibis Rouge in 2005, and Les Hommes d'hier dans nos rues d'aujourd'hui, published by Femmes Actuelles in 1986, collective work with Marie-Eugénie André, Danielle Marceline and others.
Jean Bernabé (1942-2017), agrégé de grammaire, docteur d'État, linguist and writer.
Cyrille Charles Auguste Bissette, born in Fort-Royal (now Fort-de-France) in 1795, died in Paris in 1858, Martinican politician and unofficial nephew of Joséphine de Beauharnais. Victor Schœlcher is well known, but the Martinican mulatto Cyrille Charles Auguste Bissette, Martinican politician and abolitionist, is much less so. However, Bissette was one of the main architects of the abolition of slavery in France. In 1816, Cyrille Bissette married Augustine Séverin, and in 1818 became a merchant in Fort-de-France. He took part in the suppression of the Carbet slave revolt in 1822. At the time, he was not yet involved in the fight against slavery. A staunch anti-slavery supporter in Martinique since 1823, he was elected deputy for Martinique in 1848 and from 1849 to 1851.
His father, Charles Borromée Bissette, was a free man of color from Le Marin. His mother, Élisabeth Mélanie Bellaine, was the freed natural daughter of Joseph-Gaspard Tascher de La Pagerie, father of Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie, known as Joséphine de Beauharnais. Born of mulatto parents, he was branded with a red-hot iron, took part in the fight for the immediate emancipation of slaves and was also a great figure of abolition.
In the early 1830s, as a true avant-gardist, he drew up a decree including the following points: "free and equal in rights without distinction of color" (art. 1), with all "family, civil and political rights, in the same way as other French citizens" (art. 2).
Free and compulsory schools for the civil and religious education of farmers were to be opened in all the communes of the various French colonies (art. 4).
This text helped to influence the mentality of the time, and also contributed to the creation of La Revue abolitionniste, also founded by Bissette. So as not to disprove the adage: "No man is king or queen in his own country", Bissette was not honored because, it was whispered behind the scenes, he got a little too close to the békés.
Aimé Césaire, writer and politician born in Basse-Pointe on June 26, 1913, died in Fort-de-France on April 17, 2008. Politician, mayor of Fort-de-France from 1945 to 2001, and founding writer of the negritude literary movement. Aimé Césaire began his school career at the Basse-Pointe elementary school, before attending the Lycée Schœlcher in Fort-de-France. After taking his baccalaureate, he entered the hypokhâgne class at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. With friends, he founded the newspaper L'Étudiant noir. He joined the Jeunesses Communistes in 1935, and in 1937 married the Martiniquan writer Suzanne Roussi. He published Cahier d'un retour au pays natal in 1939, when he returned to Martinique to teach literature at the Lycée Schœlcher. In reaction to the profound cultural alienation that existed in the country, the Césaire couple and other intellectuals, including René Ménil, Georges Gratiant and Aristide Maugée, founded the journal Tropiques in 1941. It was published, with some difficulty, under Vichy rule, with its local apostle Admiral Rober,t before being censored in 1943. While visiting Martinique, the Surrealist poet André Breton discovered the Cahier. Césaire rallied to surrealism and joined the PCF in December 1945. He obtained the departmentalization demanded by the Communist federation in 1946. In 1951, Césaire helped the "16 de Basse-Pointe" (workers accused without proof of the murder of a béké, and eventually acquitted by the Bordeaux Assize Court) by hiring them in the Fort-de-France municipal services. He broke with the French Communist Party in 1956, and founded the Parti Progressiste Martiniquais (PPM) in 1958. He retired from political life in 2001. He died on April 17, 2008 in Fort-de-France. Since May 31, 2022, the terminus of line 12 of the Paris metro has been named Aimé Césaire.
Patrick Chamoiseau, born December 3, 1953 in Fort-de-France, writer, author of novels, stories and essays, theorist of Creolité, winner of the 1992 Goncourt Prize for his novel Texaco.
Aimé Charles-Nicolas, born April 28, 1943 in Sainte-Luce, professor emeritus of medicine, medical psychology and psychiatry, author of : Les Cités européennes face à la drogue (1991), Crack et cannabis dans la Caraïbe : la roche et l'herbe (1998), Sida et toxicomanie : Répondre (2003).
Raphaël Confiant, born January 25, 1951 in Le Lorrain, writer, author of novels, stories and essays, theorist of Creolité, Prix Décembre, Prix Casa de las Americas, Prix Carbet, Prix littéraire des Caraïbes.
Louis Delgrès was born on August 2, 1766 in Saint-Pierre, and died on May 28, 1802 in Matouba, a commune of Guadeloupe, fighting racism and enslavement in the name of human dignity, justice and the "natural right to resist oppression" He is cited in the Paris Pantheon for his fight against Napoleon's re-introduction of slavery.
Christiane Eda-Pierre, born in Fort-de-France in 1932, died in 2020 in Deux-Sèvres, soprano singer.
Frantz Fanon born in Fort-de-France, Martinique in 1925, died in 1961 in Bethesda, USA. A writer and psychiatrist, he is a major figure in anti-colonialism. Fanon sought to analyze the psychological consequences of colonization for both the colonist and the colonized. In his best-known books, such as Les Damnés de la terre and Peau noire masques blancs, he analyzes the process of decolonization from sociological, philosophical and psychiatric angles. He argues that many of today's disorders are the result of past colonial traumas. These studies "justify" the mental, physical and sexual disorders caused by colonial violence. He asserts that many disorders today are the result of colonial traumas of yesteryear. He joined the FLN in Tunis, where he contributed to its central press organ, El Moudjahid.
He died in the United States on December 6, 1961, a few months before Algerian independence. He will be buried, as he wished, on Algerian soil.
The high school in Trinité, the library in Rivière-Pilote and an avenue in Fort-de-France bear his name. In Algeria, an avenue Frantz Fanon was inaugurated in Algiers in 1963. Frantz Fanon's memory is honored in Italy, Nigeria and the United States, where research centers are studying his work.
Sylvère Farraudière, born April 17, 1941 in Sainte-Marie. Writer, associate professor of physical sciences, honorary inspector of education, former DSDEN of Guyane, Martinique and Ardennes. Author of L'École aux Antilles françaises. Le rendez-vous manqué de la démocratie , published by L'Harmattan.
Solange Fitte-Duval born on August 25, 1921 and died in Fort-de-France on March 28, 2014. Communist Party activist, teacher at Saint-Esprit, founder of the Griots poetry association, founding member of the Union des Femmes de la Martinique, member of the Centre Martiniquais Animation Culturel (CMAC). The Tivoli elementary school in Fort-de-France, where she attended, bears her name.
Édouard Glissant, born in Sainte-Marie in 1928, died in Paris 15ᵉ in 2011. Novelist, poet and philosopher, he won the Prix Renaudot in 1958 for his novel La Lézarde. Co-founder in October 1967 of IME (Institut Martiniquais d'Études), a private high school, now Lycée de l'Union, académie de la Martinique.
Gilbert Gratiant: born on December 27, 1895 in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, and died in November 1985 in Paris, he was a teacher and poet, agrégé in English. He was Aimé Césaire's teacher and a pioneer of Creole-language literature.
Viktor Lazlo, pseudonym of writer, singer and former model Sonia Dronnier, born in Lorient on October 7, 1960, author of Les Passagers du siècle, published by Grasset in 2018. She has recorded 6 albums and appeared in the series Navarro, Sandra, princesse rebelle and Sœur Thérèse.com. In 2010, he won the Prix Charles Brisset for his first novel, La Femme qui pleure.
Serge Letchimy , born January 13, 1953 in Gros Morne, politician. He was mayor of Fort-de-France from 2001 to 2010, and member of parliament from 2007 to 2021. President of the Regional Council from 2010 to 2015. President of the Martinique Executive Council since July 2, 2021.
David Macaire, born in Nanterre, Hauts-de-Seine, on October 20, 1969, Dominican priest of Martinican origin. Succeeded Bishop Michel Méranville on March 7, 2015. Ordained on April 12, 2015 at Fort-de-France Cathedral as bishop, then archbishop of Saint-Pierre and Fort-de-France in Martinique.
Marcel Manville (Trinité 1922 -1998 Paris), Martinican lawyer and nationalist, friend and companion of Frantz Fanon.
Alfred Marie-Jeanne, born November 15, 1936 in Rivière-Pilote, retired teacher, politician, co-founder and former president of the MIM (Mouvement Indépendantiste Martiniquais). Mayor of Rivière-Pilote from 1971 to 2000, President of the Regional Council from 1998 to 2010, Member of Parliament for Martinique from 1997 to 2017 and President of the Executive Council from 2015 to 2021. Since 1971, he has waged a political battle whose compass has been the defense of popular interests and Martinique's sovereignty.
Monchoachi (pseudonym of André Pierre-Louis), born August 3, 1946 in Saint-Esprit. Writer, author of an original bilingual philosophical-poetic work in Creole-French. Awarded the Carbet de la Caraïbe prize for his body of work (2003), and the Max-Jacob prize for L'Espère-geste in 2003.
Professor Hippolyte Morestin born in Basse-Pointe on September 1ᵉʳ, 1869 and died on February 12, 1919 in Paris, maxillofacial and facial restoration surgeon at Val-de-Grâce, during the First World War. He repaired "broken faces". One of the world's most eminent surgeons, he is said to have transplanted Al Capone's face, and performed cosmetic surgery on Sarah Bernhardt's face. He is buried in Père Lachaise.
The Nardal sisters: Paulette, born in Le François in 1896 and died in 1985 in Fort-de-France, French writer and journalist. Jeanne, 1902-1993 in Le Lamentin, writer, philosopher, teacher and political essayist, considered with her sister Paulette to have laid the theoretical and philosophical foundations of the concept of négritude in the 1930s.
Xavier Orville, born in 1932, died in Case-Pilote in 2001. Spanish teacher, cultural advisor to Senegalese presidents Senghor and Diouf. He was head of the Mission d'action culturelle at the Rectorat des Antilles-Guyane and a lecturer. Author of original novels.
Euzhan Palcy, born January 13, 1958 in Gros-Morne, screenwriter, director of Rue Cases-Nègres (1983), Une saison blanche et sèche (1989). First black director to be produced by Hollywood studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Euzhan Palcy has been a member of the Comité National pour la Mémoire et l'Histoire de l'Esclavage CNMHE since 2013.
Roger Parsemain, born November 20, 1944 in François (Martinique), poet and writer.
Maud Petit, born November 15, 1971 in Paris, French politician of Martinique origin, deputy for the fourth constituency of Val-de-Marne since 2017.
Vincent Placoly , born in Le Marin in 1946 and died in 1992 in Fort-de-France, writer, political activist and literary pro-South American.
Lambert-Félix Prudent, born September 17, 1953 in Fort-de-France, linguist, university professor of language sciences.
Lumina Sophie Ruptus dite "Surprise", born November 5, 1848 in Le Vauclin, Martinique, her mother Marie Sophie dite Zulma was born under slavery and freed by the decree abolishing slavery. In 1849, they were given the family name Ruptus. Lumina had access to education and literature, read newspapers and took an interest in French politics on the island. She was an emblematic figure of the 1870 Insurrection in Martinique, known as the Insurrection du Sud. Lumina was educated, literate and interested in French politics on the island. For her active participation in the uprising, she was sentenced, along with nine other rebels, to forced labor for life, and deported to the penal colony of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in French Guiana, with no hope of returning home. She died there on September 15, 1879 at the age of 31. The Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni high school bears her name.
Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie, known as Joséphine de Beauharnais, Trois-Ilets 1763-29 May 1814 at Château de Malmaison, first wife of Emperor Napoleon I, Empress of the French.
Jeanne Wiltord, born April 4, 1941 in Fort-de-France psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, writer, member of the Association lacanienne internationale, author of Mais qu'est-ce que c'est donc un Noir? published in 2014.
Joseph Zobel, writer born in Rivière-Salée in 1915 and died in Alès in Garden 2006, author of La Rue Cases Nègres.
Contemporary historians
Édouard de Lépine (1932-2020), politician and historian. His abundant works, covering the fields of history and political reflection, include: La Crise de février 1935 à la Martinique, ed. L'Harmattan; Dix semaines qui ébranlèrent la Martinique, ed. Maisonneuve-Larose, 1999; Chalvet, février 1974, ed. Le Teneur, 2014.
Marie-Hélène Léotin, born in 1952, activist with the Asé Pléré Annou Lité movement. Author of La Révolution anti-esclavagiste de mai 1848 à la Martinique (APAL Production 1999); La Grève de janvier-février 1974 (APAL Production); Habiter le monde, Martinique 1946-2006, ed. Ibis Rouge 2008; Le François, trois siècles d'histoire (in collaboration with Roger Parsemain), ed. Désormeaux 1994.
Georges Bernard Mauvois (1949-2011), political activist and historian, is particularly interested in little-known episodes of resistance to slavery: Un complot d'esclaves, Martinique, 1831, éd. Les pluriels de Psyché, 1998; Les Marrons de la mer, éd. Karthala, 2018, Louis des Étages (1873-1925), Itinéraire d'un homme politique martiniquais, éd. Karthala, 1990. He was the editor of Chimen Libèté, Histoire des Antilles published by the Ligue d'Union Antillaise, a supplement to Jingha magazine, in 1977.
Armand Nicolas (1925-2022), historian and communist activist. Author of a three-volume History of Martinique (from the Arawaks to 1971), published by L'Harmattan. Helped publicize the events of May 22, 1848 and the Insurrection du Sud, with his two works La Révolution anti-esclavagiste de mai 1848 à la Martinique and L'Insurrection du Sud de septembre 1870 (supplement to Action magazine, FDF 1971).
Gilbert Pago, born in 1945, an activist with the Révolution Socialiste group, has contributed in particular to raising awareness of a long-obscured episode in the history of Martinique: the Grande Insurrection du Sud of September 1870. He has especially highlighted the role played by women in these events, devoting a book to one of the heroines of the Insurrection: L'Histoire tragique de Marie-Philomène Roptus, dite Lumina Sophie, dite Surprise (ed. Ibis Rouge 2009). Other works include: L'Insurrection de Martinique 1870/1871, ed. Syllepse 2011; Les Femmes et la liquidation du système esclavagiste à la Martinique, ed. Ibis Rouge, 1998.
Robert Saé, born 1948, political activist (CNCP, Conseil National des Comités Populaires) and history teacher. Has produced works on the history of Martinique for secondary schools, with a less conventional, non-"official" approach, without sacrificing the requirements of historical research.
Jean-Claude William (1943-2020) was a politician, lawyer at the Fort-de-France bar, professor emeritus of political science, dean and president of the Universités des Antilles et de la Guyane from 1994 to 1999. He has worked to popularize the history of Martinique and the Caribbean through his radio and television programs (L'Histoire en procès; Les Grandes figures de notre histoire). He contributed to the encyclopedia Historial volume 6 (1980) and is the author of a thesis entitled Métissage et comportements socio-politiques à la Martinique (1988).
Léo Elisabeth (1931-2016), Martinique's first agrégé d'histoire, doctor d'État, historian specializing in the issues of slavery, its abolition and anti-colonial struggles, having covered all fields of the great and small history of Martinique. He has devoted his life to disseminating knowledge of history to as many people as possible, first as a teacher at the Lycée Schoelcher, where he was the first to teach about the events of May 1848, then as Inspecteur pédagogique régional des Antilles et de la Guyane. Then, through numerous associations, notably the Société d'Histoire de la Martinique (president from 2003 to 2016) or the Association des Amis du Fort Saint-Louis (historical monument). His contributions to conferences, symposia and various journals(Annales des Antilles, Revue de la Société d'Histoire de la Martinique or Outre-Mers. Revue d'Histoire, etc.). He has contributed to a number of works, including textbooks for teaching history and geography in the Antilles-Guyane region, from primary school through to the final year of secondary school. He published La Société martiniquaise aux XVIIe et XVIIe siècles. 1664-1789 (2003), Le Grand livre de ma commune, mon histoire (2017). In collaboration with.
Creole writers
We can count Gilbert Gratiant, Marie-Thérèse Julien-Lung-Fou the first woman sculptor of Martinique, storyteller, Monchoachi, Raphaël Confiant, the publisher Jean-Marc Rosier alias Vilarson, Mauvois Georges E., Serghe Kéklard, Jean-Pierre Arsaye, Nicole Cage, Joby Bernabé, Mireille Houdin, Manuel Norvat, François Kichenassamy, Suzanne Dracius, Robert Nazaire, Jala, Daniel Berté.
Krey Matjè Kréyol Matinik Association (KM2)
Founding members are Georges de Vassoigne (deceased), Michel Réchou, Jean-François Liénafa, Roger Ébion, Éric Pézo, Daniel Boukman, Hugues Barthelery, Romain Bellay, Serge Restog, Georges-Henri Léotin, Térèz Léotin, Michaëlle Mavinga, certified Creole teacher, and Duranty, treasurer.
