Carucairi

Carucairi, or Karukera, is an Indigenous name for Guadeloupe, an island group in the Lesser Antilles. The mountainous western island and lower eastern island are separated by a narrow channel. Rivers, forests and coastal waters supported the Indigenous inhabitants who knew it as the island of beautiful waters.

Columbus reached Guadeloupe in 1493, but French colonists did not establish a lasting settlement until 1635. Sugar and other plantation crops expanded through the forced labor of enslaved Africans brought across the Atlantic to the colony. During the French Revolution, Britain captured the island in 1794; French republican forces returned and publicly proclaimed the abolition of slavery. Freedom was then reversed when French authorities restored slavery in 1802, after fierce local armed resistance on the island.

The later city of Basse-Terre lies here.