A History Lesson in Les Saintes, Guadeloupe

This morning we arrived on the island of Les Saintes, Guadeloupe, where it was already sunny and quite hot on our balcony at 7:30. Our shore excursion to Fort Napoleon was in the early afternoon, so we had to make sure we were prepared for the heat and humidity.

Les Saintes is on Terre-de-Haut, one of the smaller islands in the archipelago of Guadeloupe. In 2023 we visited Deshaies on the large island of Basse-Terre. They look surprisingly alike; walking through the town to meet our van transfer was very much like walking through Deshaies, but on a much smaller scale.

We were met at the tender pier by our guide, a former teacher who had studied and taught in England. He was obviously very knowledgeable as he took us through the museum at the fort. Fort Napoleon is on the highest peak of Terre-de-Haut, providing stunning views over the island and its neighbours, including Basse-Terre.

Fort Napoleon also maintains a botanical garden featuring many different species of succulents. The island has no natural water source, so the people and flora have always depended upon rainwater to survive. Now there is an underground pipe from Basse-Terre providing a consistent source of water. The botanical garden is paired with the Jardin Exotique de Monaco, with which they do regular plant exchanges. Not only do they grow protected plants, but the gardens are also home to about 50 large green iguanas, also protected species. We saw one sunning himself on top of one of the outbuildings.

Christopher Columbus was the first European to land on and name the islands of Guadeloupe in 1493 on his second voyage. The Spanish, however, failed to establish a strong settlement and the French took over forcibly, expelling any Spanish settlers left in 1625. Plantation agriculture was carried out under the French West Indies Company until annexation by France in 1674, and there was a booming industry in sugar cane that provided France with consistently huge profits.

The British captured the islands in the Seven Years' War, and in the Treaty of Paris of 1763, France chose to keep Guadeloupe and give up its colonies in Canada to Britain because they were getting so much more economic value from the islands.

The fort was built of wood by the French as Fort Louis between 1777 and 1779. It was renamed after Napoleon III in 1805 and destroyed by the British in 1809. After the Treaty of  Paris of 1814 once again gave Guadeloupe to the French, they began rebuilding with local volcanic stone. This took 24 years between 1816 and 1840. It was a very secure and fully functioning fortification, but was never used in battle.

Christmas decorations are already up
just before Advent starts.

There is a rough path around the fort, where you can see how it would have been a very useful lookout point and defense position.

After our walk around the rampart path to see these gorgeous views, we returned to the main building where we were offered refreshments of some local products - rum punch, fish rolls made with tuna, and finally a cake called Torment d'Amour, or torment of love.

Here in the French West Indies, rum is not made from molasses like it is in the former British colonies like Jamaica, but from sugar cane juice. The juice is distilled right after pressing and comes out as a clear liquid of 70-80% alcohol. The alcohol content is cut by adding spring water in small amounts until the alcohol level is about 50%. In order to make the rum punch, you take a bottle of this rum and add fruit like passionfruit or coconut and spices. Leave it out in the sun for about a week and, voilà, you have rum punch! We tasted a small cup of passionfruit rum punch and it was delicious, but quite potent.

As the main industry on Les Saintes is still fishing, women still prepare easy to pack and eat food for the men. The fish rolls contain whatever fish was abundant in the previous day's catch. In this instance it was tuna, mixed with local herbs and spices and rolled inside of a sheet of dough. It was very tasty.

And finally, the dessert. This is a small cake filled with fruit jam or coconut that the fishermen have traditionally taken with them. In the past when they were out for longer periods in boats that wouldn't hold up well in heavy seas, the men would get these cakes from their wives and eat only small amounts of them each day until they returned. Their wives at home would spend the time worrying, especially when the sailors were gone longer than expected. So the cakes were named 'torments of love' to reflect that worry. Great story and a delicious pastry. Apparently the recipe is available online. I may have to look it up and try it out myself.

After we had our refreshments we walked back down the hill to our transfer van and were driven back to town and the tender pier. As luck had it, a tender was there waiting so we hopped aboard. Here are a few photos of the waterfront from our ride back.

Sunset has been before 6:00 every night, so we've been in port or just leaving as it went down. Here's a photo of the afterglow of sunset with the tiny crescent moon above.

Our next port stop was Plymouth, Montserrat. We did not book a tour, but I had a spa appointment in the afternoon and a special dinner in the evening.