La sédition de Beaufort à la Martinique (1646) : Les colons face au pouvoir de la Compagnie, du gouverneur et de la métropole

Abstract

It was amidst a troubled context that a rebellion led by Beaufort broke out in Martinique in 1646. The French West Indies had plunged into a serious dispute between the supporters of the king’s new lieutenant general for the islands, Patrocle de Thoisy, and those of the former governor of Saint-Christophe, Philippe de Poincy, who had rebelled against the king’s orders. In 1646, the inhabitants of the Prêcheur district of Martinique rose up and expressed their demands in a long text addressed to the acting governor of the island, La Pierrière. This document, named Articles des séditieux présentés au sieur de la Pierrière by the authors of the time, shows their attitudes towards the metropole, and their views about the behaviour of a colonial establishment.