Women after colonization
The end of slavery will completely change the face of Martinique, which will no longer be an economy based on the exploitation of servile labor but on a colonial-type economy. Waves of immigration follow one another to fill the departures of former Black slaves from the fields. These new migrants are condemned to harsh working conditions, extreme poverty, and total dependence on their employers.
Beginning of the Creole woman
We define by the term Creole any person resulting from colonial immigration born in Martinique. The White settlers born in the West Indies often attributed the term "Creole" to themselves, a term which over time became more associated with the post-slavery Black population born on the island. Our vision and description of women were no longer the same. So, according to the descriptions we find at the time, the women born on the island no longer had anything to do with those who had arrived there a few centuries or decades ago.
The White Creole woman
Whites born in Martinique were no longer strictly speaking Europeans. They were Creole Whites (from the European lineage of settlers present in Martinique for sometimes several centuries and born on the island). The White Creole woman had a
dark complexion, a great delicacy of features, slender and flexible like a reed, she has graceful movements, a sparkling look and a frank smile. Kindness, gentleness, and sensitivity are united in her with an indolence and a carelessness which spread a disturbing charm over her whole person.
The Black Creole woman
In the same way as the White Creole woman, the Black Creole woman was no longer the African woman who had come as a slave to Martinique. She was physically slender and well-proportioned.
His limbs are clear and the facial features are more delicate, the nose less flattened, the lips smaller than in Africans. Her skin no longer has the color as Black as that of her ancestor, it is more satiny, the hair is even more woolly but of a softer wool.
The mixed race or Mulatto woman
Called “colored people”, Mulattoes or mestizos are the “intermediate class” between White and Black.
They offer all the nuances one can imagine between dark brown and light brown washed with yellow. In the same way, their hair varies: sometimes it is almost as frizzy as that of the negro, sometimes only slightly curly; more often it is intermediary.
Mixed-race people conflict with the two layers of the population. At the end of slavery and after the arrival of the recruits, they were the dominant class of the Martinican population with nearly 100,000 mixed race, 50,000 Blacks, 20,000 Whites, and 17,000 Indian or Chinese employees.