Women under colonization and slavery
During colonization and after the end of the Carib Indians, the population was exclusively Black and White. Be careful, however, as it was very segmented and hierarchical. The more white blood an individual had (pure blood), the more advantages and freedoms he enjoyed. We went back more than 6 generations to classify the population. So the base was 256.
If a person had 256 white parts (great-grandparents of their great-grandparents), they were White. Below, she was "half-blood" and encouraged to continue her union with the Whites. Then, we find the mamelouc (1 Black great-grandparent), the quarteron (1 Black grandparent), or the mestizo or the Mulatto (1 Black parent), then the capre or the griffe, kid of a Mulatto with a Black and finally the Black.
The settler's wife: the wife of elite society
A slave trade?
At the start of colonization, the population of European origin was almost exclusively male. Women did not arrive in large numbers until after the Carib Indians had been driven from the land. They are essentially orphans and prostitutes who were sent to Martinique in a phenomenon which has been called the “White women trade” by French feminist associations. The goal was to obtain wives for nobles (cadets), sailors, sailors, soldiers, traders, workers, hired (White working 3 years on a plantation), or the needy sent by force to Martinique.
Between 1680 and 1685, 250 White girls were sent to Martinique by Versailles. At the request of these new inhabitants of Martinique, the ship captains brought in addition to their cargo a group of women, "poor creatures" disposed by persuasion to emigrate to find a husband. Sources differ on whether they were voluntary or forced to expatriate. The only requirement of the settlers was that these women be well. They wanted to work with the confidence that these women were worthy of not stealing the goods they had accumulated so far.
On their arrival on the island, they were, like any merchandise, presented on a platform and were the object of an auction (auction sale). The highest bidder won. They were assigned individually. Very soon after the adjudication, the nuptial blessing took place. From these unions came fruitful lines. Although these "transactions" have long been denied, they did exist!
Some settlers refused this market and preferred to go directly to mainland France to look for a worthy companion from the French nobility. This is the case of Colonel François de Collart, who left for France to marry an heiress of the noble family of Sainte-Marthe de Poitou. The Europeans living in Martinique were not all French.
They could also be Flemish, Scottish, Dutch, or English. Thus, Joséphine de Beauharnais (see below) had origins in Orleans, Normandy, Nantes, Paris, and England. At the time, unions between Black men and White women were almost non-existent. Only at the beginning of colonization, we could count a few marriages between Europeans and Mulattoes.
The “White women trade” did not last long because many men preferred the Creoles, with whom they had in common being born on the island. They therefore turned to women slaves or freemen of color. Thus, from 1685, the sending of White girls to the French colonies was only carried out towards Saint Domingue. In addition to Black Creole women, White Creole felt that there were enough Creole or European girls and widows locally. The numerical balance between men and women in the White population was not going to be established until the end of the 18th century, thanks to local births.
Passive life?
Contrary to the idea conveyed, European White women and Creole White women did not have a passive life. They weren't just progenitors as you might think. These women were stay-at-home mothers, wives, nannies, merchants, teachers, actresses or organizers of shows, bakery owners, annuitants, and sometimes even plantation mistresses. They were not automatically rich either. Some had the most modest living conditions, they had either just arrived from metropolitan France or were not married.
They were forced to work to meet their nutritional needs. Married women were not left. They also worked and sometimes held merchant positions, especially in the towns of Saint Pierre and Fort Royal (the former name of Fort-de-France). The merchants locally sold raw materials or even locally manufactured goods (dresses, confectionery, liqueurs). She was in low numbers in the transatlantic trade.
When they arrived in Martinique, the women did not have the guarantee of marrying a colonist living there, or even of being able to return to mainland France because it required to have the return costs for the long transatlantic journey. They therefore had to work to meet their needs. They integrated the house of the landowners by living on the plantation and working there either as servants, seamstresses, or nannies. Regarding the latter profession, they preferred the Blacks who had "a more regular diet and were less impressionable".
Women could inherit management of their plantations from their husbands when they died. They therefore had to be able to manage the plantation at any time, while having their role as mothers to assume. As for their relationship with the slaves, one would have thought that the women would have had a more flexible behavior with the slaves, but it was not. They behaved like their late husbands and tortured men and women alike for inappropriate behavior on the plantation.
There was no sorority (brotherhood of women) either; the female slaves suffered the same punishments as the men. Some, however, wanted the liberation of their slaves and wrote it down in their wills, but the policy of the time was not favorable to this. Young, they went to school where classes were given by Sisters from metropolitan France. From an early age, they were taught all the basics to be future good wives and stay-at-home moms.
The teaching was more religious than theoretical. Prayer held the same place as learning to read and write. Indeed, at the time being, a mother was not only educating her child, but also transmitting religious teachings to him, and that was a task incumbent on White Creole women.
Joséphine de Beauharnais: from Creole to Napoleon's wife
Joséphine de Beauharnais was born on June 23, 1763 in Trois-Ilets in Martinique under the name of Marie-Josèphe-Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie. She was the daughter of a rich family of planters, both also born in Martinique. At the age of 16, she was sent to France, where she married shortly after Alexandre de Beauharnais, a friend of the family. She gets closer to the French nobility, her family being part of the very old nobility.
Deceived and humiliated by a fickle husband, they separate, and Josephus-Rose finds himself alone with her two children in 1794. Her ex-husband is guillotined, and she manages to escape and save her children. Now poor and widowed, however, she bounced back quickly. Mondaine and passionate about fashion and toiletries, she delighted in the most prominent ladies' salons of the good society of the Directory.
She met Napoleon Bonaparte when she was 32 years old, via Barras, with whom she was the mistress... Madly in love with Joséphine, whom he called by this name because it had never been used by her other lovers, they married on March 9, 1796. Napoleon left the army of Italy thanks to the connections of his wife, Joséphine, known to be an insatiable sexual and outstanding seductress cheats on him with a captain of hussars. She then puts herself at the service of her husband, who wants to conquer power, starting with the coup d'etat of Brumaire.
The couple is consecrated during the coronation at Notre-Dame. Civil marriage is reinforced by a religious ceremony the night before the coronation. Unable to give Napoleon the heir he needed, she must resolve to divorce for reasons of state on December 16, 1809. She retains the title of Empress of the French, inherits the Élysée Palace and the Château de la Malmaison located in Rueil-Malmaison. She will end her fulfilling life there as a mother and grandmother, also receiving many visits from European crowned heads.
Napoleon, who had retained all his affection for her, will continue to visit her and even to help her financially following several debts.
She died on May 29, 1814, at the age of 50 from pneumonia.