HOW DOMINICA HELPED TO SAVE GUADELOUPE AND MARTINIQUE DURING

WORLD WAR TWO

BY IRVING ANDRE

The German invasion of France in 1940 and the collapse of the much heralded and
seemingly impregnable Maginot Line precipitated a crisis in France which reverberated in its far
flung colonial empire. With the signing of the Armistice in June 1940, French general Henri Pétain
established the Vichy government whose avowals of strict neutrality in the unfolding German
conquest belied the fact that it clandestinely provided political and military support to the Nazis.
This support effectively divided France into two ideological camps; those who supported Pétain's
Vichy government and those who proclaimed their allegiance to French general Charles de
Gaulle, the most public defender of the French Republic.
GUADELOUPE

Within France's West-Indian empire, loyalties were split between supporters of Pétain
and de Gaulle. Christopher Columbus had made the butterfly shaped island known to Europeans
in 1493. Over the following four hundred and fifty years, European colonial powers had wrestled
each other for control over the island. The Spanish tried to establish settlements on three
occasions between 1515 and 1523, but the Kalinago people thwarted them on each occasion.
They succeeded on a fourth attempt but a group of French settlers led by a merchant called
Pierre Belain d' Esnambuc drove them away.
In 1635, two Frenchmen, Leonard de l'Olivie and Jean du Plessis d'Ossonville, established
a larger colony which took firm root on the island after the colonists defeated the Kalinagos in
1640. Thereafter, the rudiments of a settled community sprang up to a point where in 1674, the
French incorporated Guadeloupe as part of its domain.

By the early eighteenth century, the French introduced sugar plantations on Guadeloupe,
an industry which resulted in the importation of African slaves and ushered in an era of great
prosperity for the French planters and their intermediaries. Attracted by this sparkling gem in

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the French imperial diadem, the British occupied Guadeloupe in 1759 during the Seven Year War
with France. The ensuing Treaty of Paris in 1763 settled the vexing question about the return of
French property seized by the British during the war. The latter included Guadeloupe and French
Canada, an area which was more than one thousand times the size of Guadeloupe. In the
ensuing negotiations both countries decided that the beautiful butterfly with its profitable
plantations was more valuable than the French's Canadian territories described by the French
philosopher, Francois Marie Arouet, (Voltaire), as "quelques arpents de neige" (a few feet of
snow). The French therefore clung to their prized possession. Plantation owners in Jamaica and
Barbados breathed a collective sigh of relief since they did not relish the prospect of competition
from their counterparts in Guadeloupe.
Over the following century, the question of the plight of the African slaves determined
the contours of the island's history. The slaves rebelled during the 1789 French revolution. The
French quashed the rebellions with unmitigated brutality in Guadeloupe and ignoring shouts of
"Liberté, Fraternité and Equalité," quickly restored slavery. In 1801 another slave uprising led to
a limited success but unlike their Haitian counterparts, the newly freed slaves did not demand
liberty but instead asserted their loyalty to France. Napoleon Bonaparte, who in 1801 made
Martiniquan widower, Marie Josephine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, the Empress of France, sent
a contingent of soldiers to reestablish control over Guadeloupe. That created a conflict where
republican soldiers who had fought to eliminate class privilege in France ferociously battled
newly liberated French slaves to reassert the odious system of slavery. The French soldiers
prevailed and exacted a savage revenge against the vanquished. However, hundreds of slaves
committed suicide at Matouba, just as Black soldiers in the West-Indies Regiment would hurl
themselves over a precipice at the Cabrits in 1802, rather than surrender to the colonial forces
that would later massacre their comrades.
During the 1848 revolution in France, Victor Schoelcher abolished slavery by public
proclamation and slavery was ostensibly outlawed in Guadeloupe. In the ensuing decades
however, King Sugar Cane reigned supreme, the ex-slaves toiled in near abject poverty and
Guadeloupe's commerce and government continued to be effectively run by White colonials
from France.

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 GUADELOUPE AND WORLD WAR ONE

By the 20th century, many descendants of African slaves in Guadeloupe considered

themselves French in name and language only. They had access to a French education but
colonial bureaucrats occupied the most senior positions on the island. French expatriates
maintained a stranglehold on the economy while most local Guadeloupeans eked out a
precarious living by working on sugar plantations or in the sugar factories that dominated the
island. Still, their loyalties were decidedly French. Indeed, Guadeloupeans and Martiniquans
never lost an opportunity to pay what Richard Burton has described as the "blood tax" or l'import
de sang by enlisting en masse in both world wars. During World War One, 11,021
Guadeloupeans were mobilized of whom 8,700 were involved in combat, with many seeing
action in Verdun and at the Somme.1 Some 1,470 paid the ultimate price of assimilation which
was to sacrifice their lives for la mèré patrie. Many veterans who survived returned to the island
and established themselves in some of the professions and in middle positions in the colonial
bureaucracy.

On September 14, 1939, the French government subordinated the Governor of

Guadeloupe to Vichy sympathizer Admiral Georges Robert, the High Commissioner for the
Republic in the Antilles and Commander in Chief for the Western Atlantic Theatre. With Pétain's
decision in 1940 to negotiate with the Germans, Guadeloupe Governor Constant Sorin publicly
declared in the General Council that he would not collaborate with the Germans. Alarmed,
Admiral Robert dispatched Admiral Rouyer and the battleship Jeanne d'Arc to Point-a-Pitre to
ensure Guadeloupe's loyalty to the Vichy regime. On June 19, 1940, the General Council
approved a resolution favouring allegiance to Free France. On July 21, 1942, Admiral Rouyer,
the president of the Council, arrested Paul Valentino and dispatched him to the penal colony on
the Illes du Salut in French Guiana.

1
Eric Jennings, "Monuments to Frenchness?” page 562.

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 Thereafter the die was cast. In an about face Sorin prosecuted all the mayors and
"Conseillers Généraux" of Marie Galante. The Vichy regime subjected indigenous Guadeloupeans
to a regime of ultra-conservativism and anti-Semitism, marinated in the anti-Black racism which
had blighted Guadeloupe and Martinique society since the advent of plantation slavery. Vichyite
laws stripped people of colour not born of a French father of their French citizenship and
excluded them from public office.2 Added to this was an unprecedented degree of repression
and indeed racial cleansing which precipitated an exodus to Dominica and the nearby British
island territories.
In addition to these measures were a number of capricious acts that desecrated the
memory of Guadeloupean veterans who had fought valiantly in World War One and in many
cases, had died for France. One of these veterans who had survived was Ramire Rosan, born in
Morne-à-l'Eau who enlisted in the 23rd. Regiment of the Colonial Infantry and fought in the
Battle of the Somme. Rosan received four medals for his bravery including the Légion D'honneur
in 1996.
Rosan's distinguished military career was merely one among many. Guadeloupe has a
proud military tradition. Indeed, American Harry Franck visited Guadeloupe after World War
One and observed that: "Soldiers and ex-soldiers with varying degrees of African complexions
stalk about in their horizon-blue or colonial khaki, a string of medals gleaming on their chest.
Negroes in Napoleon III beards stroll along the shaded edge of the streets with a certain Latin
dignity befitting such adornment, even when it is accompanied by bare feet."3 Guadeloupeans
also erected a number of monuments around the island honouring the sacrifices of these
soldiers. According to Eric Jennings, "monuments aux morts de la Grande Guerre, of which
modern-day visitors will find at least one in nearly every Guadeloupean village and hamlet
commemorate not only culture but the face of Guadeloupe itself beginning in 1925 when the
first war memorial was finally unveiled in Pointe-à-Pitre."4 These monuments, Jennings added,

2
Stephen J. Randall and Graeme Stewart Mount, The Caribbean Basin: an international history (London,
U.K:Routledge, 1998) page 80.
3
Harry Franck, Roaming through the West Indies (New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1920), page 445.
4
Eric Jennings, "Monuments to Frenchness?" The Memory of the Great War and the Politics of Guadeloupe's
Identity, 1914-1945," French Historical Studies, Volume 21, Number 1, (Fall 1988), pages 551 at 575.

4
"were designed as assimilationist bridges between Guadeloupean and metropolitan
allegiances."5

The Vichy regime paid little or no regard to the sacrifice of Black French soldiers in World
War One. For example, in October 1941, it razed the World War One memorial in Trois Rivieres
causing veterans to seek to preserve the remaining monuments on the island.20 Not
surprisingly, many of those who fled to Dominica were World War One veterans or their
relatives who regarded the fight against the Germans during that war as part of their proud
family tradition.

With the deportation of Valentino, the Vichy regime instituted a set of measures that
forced residents of Guadeloupe to seek sanctuary in a number of islands including Dominica. On
August 19, 1940, Vichy laws banned secret societies such as Masonic Temples and confiscated
their properties. On October 11, Pétain proclaimed his plan for "National Revolution" which
substituted the time-honoured principles of liberty, equality and fraternity for the more ominous
values of "Work, Family and Fatherland." Sorin regarded these principles as buzz works for a
cleansing of the realm and replaced hundreds of local Black government officials with White
Frenchmen who were Vichy sympathizers.

Reports from many of the refugees who travelled to Dominica reveal the extent of these
repressive measures. French sailors pretended that they wished to flee to Dominica to join the
Free French Forces and following arrangements to facilitate their escape, arrested those who
were prepared to assist them. Mayors were replaced by European Frenchmen and Creoles who
favoured the Vichy government. Managers of factories were replaced by European Frenchmen
and Germans. When local engineers and labourers applied for work in the local industry they
were told that all the posts were reserved for European Frenchmen and supporters of the Vichy
regime. The Vichy government prohibited the national celebration of the 14th of July and instead
ordered the people to observe the Feast of the Burning of Jeanne D'Arc by the English as a day
of mourning.

5
Ibid, page 588. 20 Ibid, 552.

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It also imposed onerous financial obligations on the residents of Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Dorleon Loyal, who fled to Dominica in January 1942 to join the Free French Forces, complained
that the government of Guadeloupe was making repeated appeals to the people for money
ostensibly to relieve poverty in France or to care for the victims of the war. In one telegram,
General Brevie, the Secretary of State for the French Colonies, thanked the Governor of
Guadeloupe for the gift of 300,000 francs from the people of Guadeloupe for the benefit of the
victims of aerial bombing in Paris.

Those who resisted these measures were interned at Fort Napoleon, held on the Jeanne
d'Arc or were taken to the penal colony in French Guiana. On May 1, 1942, Governor Sorin
initiated a "fight against vagabondage" and decreed that all Guadeloupeans should carry a
passbook for easy identification.
A letter from the Pointe-à-Pitre Superintendent of Police, dated October 6, 1940,
addressed to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, gave a grave assessment of life in Vichy
controlled Guadeloupe during the period. The Superintendent stated that "Monsieur Loret, an
Inspector of the Sureté and Monsieur Desgranges, a Notary, prevent us from expressing any
opinion which they consider to be Pro-British." He observed further that "we are absolutely
forbidden under threat of imprisonment to listen to your Broadcasts." He lamented to Churchill
that the local Bishop, Genou, Professor Denis Blanche and merchant Monsieur Hanne, "revile
you no less in their broadcasts on the radio." The government, the superintendent observed,
dismissed "the entire female staff and 25% of the male staff of government and other offices
and large stores."

The Vichy regime in Guadeloupe took effective control of the local press within months
of its ascendancy. Under the editorship of P. Rossignol, "L'Informateur de la Guadeloupe"
became the defacto official organ of the regime with regular appeals by Marshall Pétain to
Frenchmen. The situation was no different at "Le Miroir de la Guadeloupe," edited by Arsene
Nazaire. At the offices of "Nouvelliste de la Guadeloupe," editor A. de Montaigne maintained a
constant barrage of Nazi propaganda in 1940 including articles suggesting that America was
supportive of the Nazi cause.

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 These publications made no mention of the hardship that was forced upon the
Guadeloupean people. Food was scarce. Many Guadeloupeans faced severe malnutrition. Wood
became so scarce that many Guadeloupeans had no option but to bury their dead in white sheets
given the unavailability of wood to build coffins.6 The police superintendent suggested that to
alleviate the hardship in Guadeloupe, a local merchant should be given a licence from the
Dominica government to import 40,000 coconuts from Dominica.

Translations of messages from the Vichy regime's "Journal Official" and cables published
in Guadeloupe between April 26 and May 30, 1941, reveal the hold of Vichy propaganda on
sectors of Guadeloupe's local population. One noted that one fifth of the
White population of Gabon was in concentration camps of General de Gaulle. Another
proclaimed that Britain imposed the war on France while Marshal Henri Pétain proclaimed in
one speech that: "We are at the turn of our history - you must follow me on the way to honour
and National interest."

In the weeks following the signing of the Armistice between Germany and France,
surveillance reports filtered to Dominica about the deteriorating situation in Guadeloupe. A
secret letter by Magistrate Charlesworth Ross to the Administrator of Dominica dated July 4,
1940, noted the following:

1. There have recently been signs of friction between the landed proprietors and upper,
wealthier classes and the mass of the people.

2. Internment and prosecution of the Italian colony (about 250) who were dealers in gold
in Pointe-à-Pitre.

3. Spread of resentment against the Syrians who, in a relatively short period, have achieved
commercial eminence in the community.

6
Alice Cherki, Franz Fanon: A Portrait. Translated by Nadia Benabid (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press,
2006), page 9.

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Ross advised the Administrator that lookouts were being kept at Capuchin, Vieille Case and above
his quarters where more was visible than those at the Cabrits. He warned that an "influx of
undesirables into the Northern District may be expected."

But it would not be undesirables who in the ensuing months flocked to Dominica. An
advertisement for the recruitment of nurses in Guadeloupe, for example, listed that the
applicants must be of French origin, must provide a statement concerning secret societies they
belong to, proof of their French nationality and more significantly, "their non-descendance from
the Jewish race."

Other groups felt the sting of the Vichy government's new xenophobic policies. Many
Frenchmen were convicted of "subversive propaganda" and interned at Fort Napoleon in the
Saintes. More significantly, the Vichy regime expelled a number of non-French residents from
Guadeloupe who had been convicted of relatively minor offences. The Official Gazette of
Guadeloupe, dated July 18, 1942, listed a number of Dominicans who were expelled for petty
offences including:

• Victor Christophe Thomas born on December 8, 1914 at Grand Bay who resided at
Capesterre.

• Elsie Elizee, born on December 24, 1912 in St. Patrick who resided at Capesterre.

• Leonese Pacquette, born on August 29, 1906 in Pointe Michel.

• Edwards Pierre, born on August 31, 1910 in the parish of St. Patrick.

• Matthieu Thomas, born on December 7, 1918 at Grand Bay.

• Birmingham Anicet, born on April 21, 1913 who resided at St. Claude.

• Pherelys Joseph, alias Wilfred Coucouye, born on February 16, 1888 in the parish of St.
Pierre.

• Rufus Brunie (alias Alexander Brownie), born on December 27, 1907 at Roseau.

• Obel Seramoun of the Parish of St. Patrick.

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 • Maria Anne Williams of the Parish of St. Patrick.

The deportations did not end there. An official decree dated July 20, 1942 disclosed the
expulsion of destitute Dominicans from Guadeloupe. These include Anicet Birmingham, born on
April 21, 1913 and Charles Henriette from Marigot who was born on July 18, 1922. The two were
first detained at Fort Richepane, Basseterre, before being deported to Dominica.
But it is not only destitute Dominicans or those who had been convicted of minor
offences in Guadeloupe who faced deportation by the Vichy regime. Reports of Dominican
residents in Guadeloupe suggested that foreigners, more particularly Dominicans without
passports or those without a Certificate of Identity, were expelled from the island. Those who
became unemployed because of the closure of businesses or factories faced a similar fate.
Indeed, with the closure of the Capesterre Sugar Factory after the ascendancy of the Vichy
regime in Guadeloupe, some 500 Dominicans employed at the factory were thrown out of work
and the majority were forced to return to Dominica.

Confronted by the precariousness of their situation a few Dominicans and their West-
Indian compatriots wrote to the Dominican authorities about the situation in Guadeloupe.
Dominican dentist Randolph Weekes and tailors A.C. Bellot and G. Mondesire, wrote a letter with
Antiguan and Grenadian residents in Guadeloupe to the Administrator of Dominica on July 26,
1940, describing the situation which confronted them. They noted that the Consul no longer
had the authority to sign passports or to act officially in any way. Consequently, they had no legal
means of either leaving Guadeloupe or remaining on the island given that they lacked valid
passports and thereby could not obtain Certificates of Identity. They lamented that: "British
people in this country are most uneasy and fearful, not knowing what further steps may be taken
against them later." Weekes was later arrested for making friends in Guadeloupe listen to BBC
after being reported by a Jeanne D'Arc spy on December 21, 1940 and held at the fort in

9
Basseterre for ten days.7 He was escorted to a plane on January 6, 1941 and then flown to
Antigua.

It is ironic that while the Vichy regime in Guadeloupe was deporting Dominicans to their
island, their French counterparts were voluntarily fleeing Guadeloupe to avoid repression and to
join the Free French Forces of General de Gaulle. Another factor motivated the hordes of
refugees from Guadeloupe and Martinique who commandeered every conceivable floating
contraption to flee to the welcoming shores of Dominica. By 1940 Governor Sorin prohibited
the cutting down of all fruit trees to make the colony more self-sufficient. A U.S. Naval blockade
of the two French islands stanched the flow of virtually all consumer goods to the islands with
the result that they experienced severe food shortages. A trading vessel, the St. Dominique, left
Fort-de-France in July 1940 for Cayenne and Paramaribo for 1,300 tons of foodstuffs and
clothing. Similarly, the "Duc d'Aumale" left Fort-de-France on July 26, 1940 for St. Domingo to
pick up a load of cargo consisting of 500 oxen, 100 horses and mules and 200 tons of foodstuffs.
These sources of imports proved insufficient to curb the pangs of hunger that afflicted thousands
of Guadeloupeans, forcing them to travel, largely by canoe, to what may have seemed to be a
green paradise on the southern side of the Guadeloupe Channel.

The steady trickle of refugees to Dominica increased to a flood in 1942 and 1943. With
the help of the Americans, Paul Valentino returned to Guadeloupe in 1943 and on April 20,
organized a group of approximately 60 persons who stormed a police station in the town of Port
Louis. The French police repelled a second attack on Basseterre on May 2, 1943. They opened
fire on the protesters, wounding many and killing a seventeen year old, Serge Balguy. Hunted by
the Vichy authorities Valentino fled to Dominica on June 3 or 4, 1943 where he remained until
July 9, 1943. On June 24, even while in Dominica, Valentino organized a massive public
demonstration of support for General de Gaulle in Guadeloupe which ultimately hastened the
departure of Admiral Robert in July 1943.

7
Dominica Chronicle, January 18, 1941, page 5.

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 MARTINIQUE AT THE START OF WORLD WAR TWO

Martinique's colonial history mirrored that of its sister island except for the fact that
historically, the French regarded it as more Parisian than Guadeloupe. The intense identification
with the French mainland evident among the descendants of the Martinique planter class was
partly nurtured, no doubt, by the marriage of Marie Josephine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, the
eldest daughter of an impoverished Martiniquan plantation owner who became Empress of
France in 1801, to Napoleon Bonaparte in the late eighteenth century. But this identification
with France was not limited to the descendants of the White planter class. It was also evident
among Black Martiniquans within the period. For example, in Claude McKay’s Banjo, a novel
about the bohemian life in Marseilles during the 1920s, a Black student from Martinique noted
proudly that: "We are proud of the Empress in Martinique. Down there the best people are very
distinguished and speak a pure French, not anything like this vulgar Marseilles French."8
Additionally, Martinique had a larger White population than Guadeloupe and a larger
planter class whose descendants, by the twentieth century, clung tenaciously to the old planter
class elitism and prejudice that had buttressed their domination over the Black slaves since the
seventeenth century. The remnants of this class wielded considerable influence in the early
decades of the twentieth century prompting English traveler, Patrick Fermor to note in his book,
The Traveller's Tree that: "This ultra-conservative minority whose background is one of centuries
of slave-owning, privilege, blazon, the church and cousinage was almost inevitably pro-Pétain
during the war."9 Unlike Guadeloupe, remnants of this class and their allies controlled the
Martinique Governing Council with the result that they passed a resolution, following the fall of
the French government in 1940, supporting the Vichy government.

Martinique differed from Guadeloupe in one major respect. While the White planter class
in Martinique had always been greater than that of Guadeloupe, Martinique had developed from
the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a large coloured class who in taste, values and
loyalty to France, were the same as members of the planter class. Indeed, there developed in

8
Claude McKay, Banjo (New York: Hope McKay Virtue, 1957), page 199.
9
Patrick Fermor, The Traveller's Tree (London: Penguin Books, 1984), page 42.

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Martinique, as in many of the British West-Indies colonies, a bewildering array of gradations of
"White" with those who were the fairest in complexion generally occupying the highest positions
on the social ladder while the darkest complexioned individuals languished at the bottom. This
national paranoia about who had the minutest trace of "white blood" is evident in the various
categories in which people were loosely placed based on their complexion. These include the
following: noir, blanc, zoreille, zoreille noir, beké, or beké pays, beke-goyave capre and capresse,
chabin and chabine, couli and eschappee-couli, mulatre and mulatresse.

These minute divisions did not mitigate the panoply of repressive measures that
Governor Sorin instituted in Guadeloupe. The island had a rich intellectual tradition what with
men like poet Aimé Césaire, the philosopher, poet and teacher whose students included future
psychiatrist Franz Fanon who joined the throngs of Martiniquans fleeing to Dominica in 1943.
This tradition was swept aside in the tidal wave of repression and recrimination following the
ascendancy of the Vichy regime in France. Césaire, although founding a literary magazine,
Tropiques, with Martiniquans René Ménil and Aristide Maugee, contended with intense press
censorship given that his emerging Afrocentric philosophy clashed with the Nazi philosophy of
an Aryan master race.

Despite this Afrocentric tradition in Martinique and indeed Guadeloupe, the Black
population in both islands remained loyal to the French Republic. The Republic had a tradition
of granting its Black colonial citizens a semblance of equality compared to the treatment of
Blacks by the British. During World War One, some 20,000 Martiniquans travelled to France to
fight. These troops did not experience the intense racial segregation which Black West- Indian
troops experienced during the war. Indeed, many Black French soldiers achieved the rank of
Colonel during World War One. Black members of the colonial bureaucracy such as Adolphe Félix
Eboué from French Guiana, rose to the rank of Governor of Guadeloupe between 1936 and 1938
and then as Governor of French Equatorial Africa. Eboué became the only governor in all of
France's colonies to declare his support of General de Gaulle's Free French Forces after the fall
of France in June 1940.

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 The existence of a bedrock of Afrocentrism in Martinique meant that support for the
Vichy regime was largely confined to the French expatriates, the descendants of the old planter
class and highbrow wealthy Martiniquans. As a result, Martinique was subjected to the full
panoply of repressive measures designed to keep the local Martiniquan population in a state of
virtual thraldom.

A memo submitted by the Dominica Superintendent of Police to the Administrator of

Dominica dated July 6th, 1941, gave a bleak picture of conditions within Martinique during the
period, based on statements given by Martiniquan refugees who arrived in Dominica. All heads
of government departments were German. No persons were allowed to own radios let alone
listen to broadcasts from the BBC. The Vichy administration controlled all the newspapers.
There was no High Court; the police summarily arrested persons deemed undesirable and
dispatched them to prison. Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss witnessed a Kafkaesque trial in
Fort-de-France in the early 1940s and described the racial prejudicial that permeated it: "One
day I entered the Cour D'assises which was in session; this was to be my first and last ever visit
to a tribunal. A peasant was on trial for having bitten off a piece of someone's ear during a
fight...In only five minutes, the irascible [B]lack man was condemned to eight years in jail."10

Exacerbating these hardships were the shortages which plagued the Martiniquan people
following the ascendancy of the Vichy regime on the island. By July 1941, all stores and shops in
Fort-de-France were closed with the exception of five small shops and a drug store. Staples such
as rice, matches, flour and tobacco were unobtainable. The local population was reduced to
subsisting on what they could grow themselves. Admiral Rouyer constantly organized functions
and cynically extorted money from estate owners, business owners and local government
officials to send to France in support of the Vichy regime.

The repressive measures in Martinique were more intense for the added reason that
Martinique was the administrative centre of French colonialism in the West-Indies. A number of
ships of the French navy including the battle cruiser, the Emile Bertin and oil tankers Barham,
Meautrix, Valle, Le Mycom, Lymosienne and Bauxcoux, were anchored off the shores of

10
Noted in Eric Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2001), page 93.

13
Martinique. The largest, an aircraft carrier named the Bearn, had been sent to the U.S. during
the Nazi invasion of France to transport over 106 fighter aircraft ordered by the pre-Vichy French
government. With the fall of France in 1940, the Bearn sought sanctuary in Martinique along
with two battleships.

There were other reasons why the Vichy regime did not tolerate any dissent in
Martinique. In June 1940, the French cruiser, Emile Bertin, arrived in Martinique carrying 286
tons of gold bullion from the Bank of France. Originally destined to Canada for safekeeping, the
shipment was diverted to Martinique with the signing of the armistice with Germany. Admiral
Robert hid this gold in Fort Desaix and at various secret locations in Martinique. Having
Martinique aligned to Britain would constitute a colossal disaster to Pétain, something to be
avoided at all costs.

The presence of the Bearn and the Vichy regime in Martinique had implications that
helped trigger an exodus of refugees to St. Lucia and Dominica. The carrier and its cargo posed a
potential threat to British and American shipping in the Atlantic. This threat increased when
Admiral Robert, the French High Commissioner for the French Antilles, rejected American and
British offers of "protection." In 1940, the Americans shelved two plans for an assault on
Martinique after Admiral Robert agreed that the two French islands would not be used as
submarine bases to threaten American interests including the Panama Canal.

In November 1942, the Americans recruited paratroopers from the Frying Pan Area of
Fort Benning, Georgia, to form the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion at Fort Kobbe in the
Panama Canal Zone. Five months later the Americans imposed a naval blockade on the islands
causing massive food shortages and the departure of hundreds of Martiniquans to Dominica.
During this period the 551st. Battalion trained in jungle warfare for a possible invasion of
Martinique. On May 13, 1943, the U.S. government put the battalion on full alert for a possible
invasion of Martinique largely because the Vichy government in France was allowing the island
to be used as a supply station for Nazi U-boat submarines operating in the Caribbean. But for the
fall of the Vichy government in July 1943, the US would have invaded the island.

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 On June 18, 1943, Fort-de-France mayor Victor Sévère spurred the local population to
demonstrate against the Vichy administration. Six days later, 15,000 Martiniquans demonstrated
in Fort-de-France on the anniversary of the collapse of France and the signing of the Armistice.
Led by Sévère, they assembled at the home of Emmanuel Rimbaud, the former president of the
Chamber of Commerce and marched through the Savannah until they met up with another
demonstration in front of the Fort Royal Club. The huge gathering then started singing Le
Marseilliaise followed by frenzied shouts of "Vive de Gaulle". Gendarmes who had been sent to
disperse the crowd stood by nervously, taking no action. Members of the crowd laid wreaths at
the war memorial. The gendarmes arrested one youth when he started shouting "Mort au
Bouche." The pro-Vichy Director of the Post Office and Telegraph Service, Poimiroo, hauled down
the French tri-colour flying half-mast over the post office as a sign of mourning and trampled it.

For a few moments, pandemonium reigned supreme. The gendarmes decided to

intervene and arrested Sévère and Rimbaud. Thousands of demonstrators then took matters into
their own hands and demonstrated for two days. Significantly, the head of the gendarmes in
Martinique, Colonel Quenarnell, ordered all his men to remain in their barracks during the
demonstrations. Confronted by a near total breakdown of law and order and the threat of
national revolt, Admiral Robert released Sévère and Rimbaud and later dismissed Poimiroo.

By the summer of 1943, the writing was on the wall for the Vichy regime in Martinique.
In May, spectators at a football match in Basseterre shouted “Vive le goal! Vive la France!!”
whenever a team scored a goal. On June 28, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Martinique,
Monseigneur Varin de la Burnelière, solemnly advised the High Commissioner: "Admiral, vous
etes vaineu. Je vous conseille de déposer les armes pour n'avoir pas a en user inutilement." 11

Admiral Robert declined the bishop's request. The latter reportedly threatened to throw
himself between the Vichy forces and those seeking to overthrow the Vichy regime. Fortunately,
Varin de la Burnelière did not have to carry out on his threat. On June 30, 1943, Robert contacted

11
"Admiral, you are lucky. I would advise you to drop your weapons so as not to use them unnecessarily." Noted
in Charlesworth Ross, “Letter from Guadeloupe,” Star, March 4, 1967, at page 9.

15
the U.S. to send a representative to replace the Vichy administration in Martinique. A
Martiniquan delegation travelled to Dominica on July 2, 1943 to advise Colonel
Perrel of Martinique's embracement of de Gaulle's Free France and to request the appointment
of a new governor. With this development, the exodus of French refugees to Dominica slowly
ground to a halt.

THE REFUGEES

While the vast majority of refugees listed their desire to join the Free French Forces as
their justification for fleeing to Dominica, there were a multiplicity of reasons why many sought
refuge on the island. Undoubtedly, discriminatory policies of the Vichy regime caused hundreds
of persons to flee their island. However, growing hardship occasioned by loss of employment
and food shortages contributed to the flight of many persons to Dominica.

This exodus was not altogether spontaneous. The agents of Colonel Perrel, a confidante
of General de Gaulle based in St. Lucia and later Dominica, surreptitiously spread the word
among residents of Guadeloupe and Martinique that those desirous of joining the Free French
Forces could travel to Dominica and declare that they desired to join the Free French Forces.
Marie Galante resident, Theophile Salcho, who arrived in Dominica on August 13, 1941, stated
that for two months he heard about the pro de Gaulle activities in Dominica and hinted that
there were publications circulating in Marie Galante about these activities. Secondly, Salcho
referred to the work of agent Jacques Helft in enlisting men for the Free French Forces. The fact
that virtually all the persons who arrived in Dominica indicated that their intention for doing so
was to join the de Gaulle forces confirms that the departure from the French islands was due, to
a significant degree, to the activities of Colonel Perrel's agents.

Jaques Alfred Helft, a White Frenchman living in Guadeloupe, travelled to Dominica on

February 17, 1941, presumably on a reconnaissance mission and left for St. Lucia, where his
principal, Colonel Perrel was based, on March 28, 1941. A Parisian, Helft came to Guadeloupe
after World War One where he secured employment in the island's export industry. During
World War Two, he joined the French Army and attained the rank of sergeant before being taken
prisoner by the Germans on June 20, 1940 while fighting in the Vosges Mountains. He escaped

16
from the prison camp at Ludwigshafen near Manheim and made his way to Marseilles and
eventually Guadeloupe. Under cover of being a journalist for newspapers such as Paris Soir,
L'Intransigeant and Le Detective Helft won Guadeloupe residents over to the Free French Forces.
The Dominican authorities were rather suspicious of Helft. The Governor of the Windward
Islands sent a telegram to the Secretary of State for the Colonies requesting the services of an
intelligence officer from Trinidad to interrogate Helft.

The following chapter reproduces the narratives of many of these refugees, a majority of
whom expressed a desire to join the Free French Forces. They spanned the spectrum from
unemployed labourers, factory workers, journalists, health care professionals and business
owners. They included Dominicans resident in Guadeloupe, men like Roger Dejean and Pierre
Vigilant, originally from La Plaine. There was also 21 year old Francis Bique from Vieux Habitant
in Guadeloupe. He fled after being conscripted and landed at Cottage on May 17, 1943 and
settled in Glanvillia, Portsmouth, where he resided until his death, at age 88, in January 2011.

There were also Czech nationals Oscar Hendrych and Jan Zemek who travelled to
Dominica. Among the arrivants were Belgian nationals Reserve Captain Robert L. Mees and his
son, Sergeant Serge. The latter would later return to Guadeloupe after the war and would
become the Belgium Consul to Guadeloupe in the 1960s. They would be mobilised by their
government in 1941 along with Father A. Demets and Father Valere Van Ackere, two Belgian
Roman Catholic priests then stationed in Dominica.12 Conscript Joseph Emile Perroni also fled
from Martinique after a first failed attempt. He had first attempted to travel to Dominica after
the signing of the Armistice but was recaptured, court-martialed and sentenced to three
months imprisonment. Upon release he was warned that he would be shot if he attempted to
leave again. But the pull of family history beckoned him. His grandfather had been killed
fighting the Germans during World War One as well as two uncles. On July 19, 1942, he left
Grande Riviere with two fishermen and arrived in Scotts Head the same day.

Among the earliest arrivants was the brother-in-law of Lebanese merchant Ayoub Dib
and Syrians Abdul Karim, Azziz Joseph, Nicholas Jannous Maissor and Macchour Georges who

12
Both later served for a number of years in Dominica.

17
fled Guadeloupe following the persecution of their community after Syria fell to the Free French
Forces in 1941. George was allowed to remain in Dominica, a decision which many residents of
Marigot would come to regret in the ensuing years. Twenty-three year old Guadeloupe native,
Maurice Bambuck, a former dentist student at the Association Generale Des Etudiants en
Chirurgie Deut ire de France, returned to Guadeloupe after leaving France because he was told
that the Germans did not want coloured people in France. He fled to Dominica after being denied
the opportunity to continue his studies in France because the Vichy regime believed him to be a
de Gaulle sympathizer. Journalist, broadcaster and former law student, Charles Gerard Kiavue
also travelled to Dominica from Guadeloupe after being denied permission to go to France to
complete his law studies.

It is ironic that Kiavue and a few other fellow journalists fled Guadeloupe and Martinique
because of the growing evidence of racial intolerance in their respective islands and the belief
that such discriminatory practices did not exist in the British colonies. In November 1941, an
incident demonstrated the ugly side of race relations in the British West-Indian islands and the
prejudice which some Black West-Indian journalists had to contend with. On November 13, 1941,
11 West-Indian journalists arrived in Bermuda on their way to tour England at the invitation of
the British government. The five White editors among the group were cleared and sent on their
way to their hotel without any difficulty. The seven Black journalists who had confirmed bookings
at the Windsor hotel, were told that the hotel was filled up. The stranded editors included
Garnet G. Gordon from the Voice of St. Lucia, H.T. Wilson from the Antigua Magnet, C.A.L. Gale
from the Barbados Advocate, F.H. Cole from the Barbados Recorder and R. H. Harewood from
the Demerara Daily Chronicle. But for the intervention of the White manager of the Marine Hotel
in Barbados, the seven Black West-Indian editors would have returned to their respective
colonies. Ironically, they had no similar difficulties in securing hotel accommodation in Ottawa,
Canada, or in New York.13

Other Frenchmen arrived in Dominica after enduring repression and hardship for which
they had become unwilling victims. Taverny Edward, Marajo Etienne, Marajo Papius and Marajo

13
The Dominica Chronicle, November 26, 1941,page 3.

18
Calixte fled Grand Riviere, Martinique, in May 1942 after 30-100 Gendarmes, armed with
revolvers, rifles with fixed bayonets and machine guns, descended on their village, smashing
houses, assaulting residents and taking others to Fort-de-France for interrogation and
imprisonment. The actions of the gendarmes were in retaliation to events at a public meeting in
the village two days earlier, when the village residents disrupted a public meeting chaired by two
White Nazi agitators with cries of "Vive L'Angleterre" and "Vive Americain."

Among those travelling to Dominica to join the Free French Forces were a number of
young veterans who had fought the Germans in Europe. They included Guadeloupeans Sully
Clairboy who had seen action at Sedan where the Germans, with the aid of the Luftwaffe, had
defeated the French army which ultimately led to the fall of France. Georges Raymond Marie
fought in the motorized units at Grand Ville, Félix Philsbert Lancy fought with the 21st. Battalion
at the frontier in the Marne, Armentin Alfred who saw active service at Veepe and Labray
Eleuther fought the Germans in the Secteur Postale No. 318. There were veterans of World War
One for whom an alliance with the Germans was a repudiation of all what they had fought for
and what many of their compatriots had died for. One of these, 44 year-old Guadeloupe native,
Sexia Gourde, had seen active service at Salonik, Mondidier and Sainquantin and had attained
the rank of sergeant. Upon arrival in Dominica, he told the police authorities: "I have left my wife
and my two children and come to fight once again to place my country once again on her own
footing." French veteran Roger Smith who fought the Germans on the Belgian frontier and who
endured a ferocious German bombardment at Dunkerque, finally made his way to his island,
Guadeloupe, in March 1941, where he remained until September 20, 1941 when he paid a boat
owner the small fortune of 1500 francs to be taken to Dominica.

There were other notable individuals among the refugees who fled Guadeloupe and
Martinique during the period. Eighteen-year-old Franz Fanon, who would later qualify as a
psychiatrist and write such seminal works as The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skins, White
Masks, left Martinique in January 1943 on the day of his brother's wedding, carrying two bolts
of cloth stolen from his father's closet to be sold to cover the cost of paying a smuggler for the

19
trip to Dominica.14 Among the refugees was Guadeloupean journalist and dentist Joseph Limouza
who had earlier refused to write articles in "Le Mirroir de Guadeloupe" in support of the Vichy
government. He fled Guadeloupe after telling Admiral Rouyer that not a single coloured man in
Guadeloupe supported the Germans because of what Hitler had written about them in his
autobiography, Mien Kampf.

Also seeking sanctuary was Pierre Weill, a Frenchman of Jewish ancestry who arrived in
Dominica with well over 90,000 francs. There was also Gaulbert Albert Bogerbe who fled after
he and 16 soldiers deserted the French army following a fight with White soldiers. Among the
refugees were Etienne Denis Bienvenie, Joseph Sapor and Hypolite Desroches who, with the
assistance of a Dominican named Casimir, swam two miles out to sea at Trois Riviere,
Guadeloupe, boarded a barge called the "Admiral Darlan" and set sail for Dominica. There was
businesswoman Odette Pitat, owner of the largest bakery in Capesterre, who arrived in Dominica
on June 3rd 1942 with 4000 francs and three dollars in local currency. In a report to the
Dominican Administrator, J.S. Neill, Pitat made a poignant plea:

I am a free woman who wants nothing because my money enables me to

live at my house very comfortably and to pay for all my needs. It is not a
mere whim that has caused me to come to Dominica. In the name of my
country which is suffering, a population that is suffering, I come to ask for
help and deliverance for my little country. For protection for those who live
in this torture; protection for those who have false protection; for those who
have no protection; for those who have been for so long under a despotic
and arbitrary rule... The Guadeloupean people can no longer continue to
suffer.

Dominicans summoned their generosity and placed it at the feet of fatigued and
beleaguered seafarers who loomed through the fog and mist, haggard from the battering of
tempestuous swells, haunted by the silhouettes of French gendarmes, until they espied a
sanctuary of rivers and mountains, valleys and villages, the twin peaks hovering over Vieille Case,
the black sands and umbrella shaped coconut fronds of Anse-de-Mai, or the village fortress of
Grand Bay. Sheer desperation prompted many to commandeer every floating contraption

14
Alice Cherki, Franz Fanon: A Portrait. Translated by Nadia Benabid (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press,
2006), page 10.

20
available or to pay exorbitant sums to make the treacherous crossing across the Guadeloupe and
Martinique channels for the green mountainous sanctuary which beckoned. They landed on the
beaches at Vieille Case, Belle Hall, Anse-de-Mai, Capuchin, Cottage, Calibishie and Grand Bay at
all hours of the day and night. Typically, with the help of local residents they made their way to
the nearest local police station. There they were interviewed and their statements translated
into English. The authorities arranged for their food and accommodation and in the vast majority
of cases, their eventual passage to Trinidad, the U.S. or Britain.

From Trinidad, the Free French Forces travelled to England or the US. Many of the French
recruits who travelled to the U.S. were trained at Fort Dix, New Jersey and also New Orleans. The
distinguished Martiniquan film director, Euzhan Palcy, produced a documentary on these island
French soldiers and their wartime exploits, called "The Veterans' Journey."15 Those who trained
at Fort Dix, became known as the Magnificent First French Devils who were given a heroes'
welcome in Harlem in 1943. While wearing the U.S. Army uniform with the armband of the Free
French Forces proudly displayed, they distinguished themselves on every battlefield in Europe,
including the bloody battles on the slopes of Monte Cassino on the road to Rome where 25,000
Germans perished. Their compatriots who trained in England and Africa similarly acquitted
themselves very well and made an extraordinary contribution to the war effort.16 On June 25th
2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy belatedly conferred the French Legion of Honour on the
Free French Forces from Guadeloupe and Martinique.

15
A graduate of the Sorbonne, Palcy directed a number of films such as A Dry White Season, Ruby Bridges(1998),
"The Killing Yard" about the Attica Prison riot and the 2007 film, Les Mariées de l'isle Bourbon (The Brides of
Bourbon Island) and a three part documentary in 1994 entitled Aime Cesaire, A Voice for History. She was the first
Black director produced by a Hollywood studio. She has received a number of awards for her work including the
Silver Lion Award at the 1983 Venice Film Festival, the Orson Wells Special Achievement Award in 1989, the Prix de
Jeuness at the 1993 Milan Film Festival, the Knight in National
Order of Merit in 1994 from President Francois Mitterand, the Knight in the Legion of Honour from President
Jacques Chirac and in 2009, the National Order of Merit from President Sarkozy.
16
A May 2010 BBC documentary revealed that British and American commanders, including General Eisenhower's
Chief of Staff, Major General Walter Bedell Smith and British General Frederick Morgan of the Allied
Command instructed General de Gaulle to cleanse the Second Armoured Division which liberated Paris of all Black
soldiers. At the time Black soldiers comprised two thirds of all Free French Forces.

21
 It should be noted that even before arriving on the welcoming shores of Dominica, many
refugees benefitted from the generosity and courage of Dominicans residing in Guadeloupe and
Martinique. An unknown number of refugees made the crossing on Dominican canoes whose
owners had surreptitiously travelled to the two French islands to exchange coconuts and other
agricultural produce for rum and other French products. One Dominican, Chesterfield Rolle, who
owned a sloop called "Sainte Sauveur", was arrested in Guadeloupe on November 11, 1940, after
providing safe passage to two members of the crew of the Jeanne d'Arc who fled to Dominica on
November 8, 1940. He was subsequently imprisoned and fined the then astronomical sum of
twenty pounds for assisting the two "deserters."

But the contribution to the French islands was not confined to assisting persons who
were fleeing Vichy persecution or those desirous of joining the Free French Forces. Dominicans
played a significant role in ameliorating the hardship in the two French islands caused by food
and fuel shortages. A brisk smuggling trade developed between Dominica and its French
neighbours to an extent that in December 1941, the Dominica Superintendent of Police observed
in a letter to the Acting Administrator of Dominica that this trade was increasing at "an alarming
rate" to a point where it has developed into a "Free Trade" between Martinique and Scotts Head
on one hand and Marie Galante and the Northern District on the other. The Acting
Superintendent complained that motor tires, gasoline, tooth paste, thread and cotton piece
goods from Dominica were being traded for rum from the French islands. This trade had
increased so quickly that it necessitated the hiring of twelve new constables.

Dominica therefore became the lifeline not only for the refugees but also for those they
left behind. The vast majority of these refugees found the sanctuary they sought following their
arrival in Dominica. They received the food and accommodation that they lacked in the French
islands. They also received safe passage to other destinations on their way to join the Free French
Army. But their presence in Dominica, as discussed later, would ultimately exact a significant toll
on the island, inducing a great deal of hardship and indeed suffering on the Dominican people.

22
OFFICIAL REACTION IN GUADELOUPE AND MARTINIQUE TO THE FLIGHT OF REFUGEES

The accounts of many of the French refugees reveal that the Vichy authorities were painfully
aware of this hemorrhage to Dominica and St. Lucia. In May 1942, the government of
Guadeloupe published a statement on the question of the departures to Dominica:17

Je n'ignore pas qu'un certain nombre de jeunes Guadeloupéens ont quitté la

Guadeloupe pour une île anglaise voisine. Les raisons qui les ont amenés à
s'enfuir ne sont pas toujours des plus honorables et très rares sont ceux qui
ont agi par patriotisme, croyant servir la France et leur petite patrie. Il n'y a
donc pas lieu de s'inquiéter outre mesure de ces départs. Mais il est bon
que la population soit renseignée et sache, d'ores et déjà, que ceux qui sont
partis ne reviendront plus en Guadeloupe. La cause est entendue pour eux.
Ils ont émigré dé-finitivement. Ils comprendront vite... Car la patrie
comprend le village natal, le cimetière où dorment ceux que l'on a chéris de
leur vivant, les parents, les amis...

In March 1943 Admiral Robert echoed similar sentiments in a secret message to Yves Nicol, the
governor of Martinique: 33

Je vous ai entretenu...de l'accroissement dangereux du nombre de départs

clandestins vers les possessions britanniques voisines. Des mesures
administratives peuvent être prises (enlèvement pendant las nuit des agrès,
voiles, etc.), mais le renforcement de la surveillance sera plus efficace.

The Vichystes tried desperately to transform Guadeloupe and Martinique into a prison from
which virtually no one could escape. Regular patrols scanned the beaches and waters of the two

17
Eric T. Jennings, "La Dissidence Aux Antilles (1940-1943) Vingtième Siècle." Revue d'histoire, No. 68,
October-November, 2000, 55 at 60. English translation: "I am aware that a certain number of young
Guadeloupeans have left Guadeloupe for the neighbouring English island. Their reasons for fleeing are
not always the most honourable and very few of them have acted out of patriotism, thinking that they are
serving France and their little homeland. Therefore, there is no need to worry about these departures. But it is
good that the population is informed and that they know, once and for all, that those who have left will no longer
return to Guadeloupe. They have emigrated for good. They will quickly understand...because their country
includes their native town, the cemetery where their loved ones are buried, parents and friends..." 33 Ibid. "I have
discussed the dangerous increase in the number of illegal departures to the neighbouring British colonies with
you. Official measures can be taken (detention during the night, armed guards) but the reinforcement of
surveillance will be more effective."

23
islands. Spies kept watch on fishermen or on the residents of coastal villages close to Dominica
and St. Lucia.
Those caught trying to escape their island prison or enabling others to do so faced stiff
punishment. The case of Dominican boat owner Chesterfield Rolle was merely the tip of the
iceberg. Others were paid to betray the de Gaullists who worked in close association with
Colonel Perrel. Fishermen were prevented from venturing beyond the coastal waters of
Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Periodically, the Vichy security authorities dispatched a small group of agents to
Dominica and St. Lucia to discover details of aid given to persons escaping from Guadeloupe. On
October 21, 1942, one such group led by Agent Jacquot of the Surete left Pointe-à-Pitre in a
sailing boat with 5 others bound for Dominica. It landed early on Saturday, October 17, 1942 at
Vieille Case. Five of the agents were reported to have been paid one thousand eight hundred
francs while the Dominican who had accompanied them reportedly received twenty-two
thousand francs. The report from the Consular Shipping Advisor in Pointe-à-Pitre to the U.S.
Naval Observer in Martinique indicated that Jacquet, a creole, had been promised a promotion
and an undisclosed sum of money if successful. The reconnaissance mission was meant to
uncover those who aided Guadeloupe refugees to leave the island and the methods employed
to do so. The party spent a few hours in Dominica, speaking to various locals and returned to
Pointe-à-Pitre later on Saturday.

CONCLUSION

The contribution of black soldiers, whether from England, France or Africa, to the defeat
of Nazi Germany and their allies, have not been fully documented nor acknowledged. Indeed,
when Charles De Gaulle was allowed by the Allied Forces to march triumphantly into France in
1945, he reportedly excluded African soldiers who contributed greatly to the success of the
French forces in the liberation of France. With time, this historical myopia or mischief will be
corrected to ensure that those who contributed to the war effort will receive due recognition,
irrespective of their race or island of origin.

24
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