The Ecomuseum of Martinique was created in 1993 by the Association of Promotion of Martinique and Protection of Popular Arts and Traditions (AMPATP in french). It wanted to collect, preserve heritage objects from Martinique in order to convey to the public and visitors to the island a retransmission of the island's past through objects.

The collection of objects has been initiated in four towns in the south of the island including Rivière-Pilote where is the museum. Then the municipality of Rivière-Pilote acquired a distillery approximately 900 square meters on the beach of Anse Figuier to exhibit collections.

The Ecomuseum presents varied collections from Amerindian prehistory to the present day through the beginnings of French colonialism and its economy focused on cotton, tobacco and indigo, slavery period and large crops of sugar cane, coffee, and cocoa, time of central manufacturies, and later, the advent of the banana economy.

In 1998, the Ecomuseum became a regional museum. The tour is limited to one hour per person or group.

It is free for students and is limited to groups of 40 people in the projection room.

The Sea Museum replaces the former Shell and Sea Museum, which was once located in the town of Le Diamant, inside the Écrin Bleu hotel. This small museum houses a collection of 2,000 shells from Martinique, other Caribbean islands, and from around the world.

It was the hotel owner who came up with the idea of showcasing his collection. Arriving in Martinique from Marseille at the age of 9, he developed a deep passion for the sea and began collecting shells at the age of 16.

With over 2,000 specimens in his possession, he decided to share them with the public. His goal? to highlight the wonders of the ocean floor, such as corals, sea urchins, fish, crustaceans, and starfish.

Plan for a 30 to 45-minute visit. There are no guided tours.

A gift shop is available on-site. You can leave with one or more of the 150 shells on offer, or choose from a selection of jewelry and handcrafted items made from shells and other marine treasures.

The museum was recently relocated to the town of Trois-Îlets, in the Village of Poterie.

Faced with the lack of data on the history of Martinique, the Conseil Régional of Martinique initiated the idea to begin to gather data on the history of the island in one place. On June 11th, 1985 the Museum of History and Ethnography was born.

This is the Bureau du Patrimoine (Heritage Office) that was assigned the task of collecting data to expose the museum, to educate the local population on its historic and ethnographic heritage through exhibitions and be a place of research and documentation for researchers. 

Once this work is finished, the Conseil Régional acquired in 1995 of a former military residence built in 1887 in a park of 2500 square meters on the edge of downtown.

In June 1999, the first tranche of the Museum of History and Ethnography, restored and furnished, opened its doors to the public.

Inside, it has a living room, a bathroom, a bedroom with animated wax figures in costume who recreate the interior of the bourgeois era. Photographs, paintings and prints and gallery of dolls represent creole manners. The room on the ground floor is the venue for exhibitions events.

The Prehistory and Archeology Museum of Martinique is a space dedicated to the West Indian prehistory and Carib Indian civilizations which populated Martinique, there is more that 4000 years. The building, a military building stewardship was acquired by the Conseil General of Martinique in 1968 which wanted to create a museum to promote the heritage of Martinique.

It was in 1971 that was formally established the prehistory and archeology museum art and popular traditions museum. In 1983, he became the Departmental Museum of Archaeology and Prehistory.

Like the Schoelcher Library, it is located in front of the Savane at Fort-de-France. It is now labeled "Museum of France".

For the 40th anniversary of the Museum, labeled "Museum of France", three original collections are available:

• A collection of nearly 2000 pieces of pre-Columbian archeology,
• A collection of jewelry Hispanic Colombia,
• A rich ethnographic collection.

The Maison de la Canne (House of Sugarcane), formerly known as the Sugarcane Museum, is housed in a former distillery. It traces the evolution of sugarcane over the past three centuries. Located in the Vatable district of Trois-Îlets, the museum spans more than two hectares.

The Maison de la Canne is the result of a research and archival project on Martinique’s sugar industry heritage, led by the Association Martiniquaise de la Maison de la Canne (AMMCA), with major contributions from teachers at Lycée Schoelcher.

The association aimed to preserve traces of Martinique’s sugar-producing past, which had suffered significant degradation of its plantation estates and the disappearance of central factories.

During your visit, you’ll learn more about the arrival of sugarcane in Martinique and its development through to its modern-day uses. When sugarcane was introduced to the French colonies, the entire economic and agricultural life revolved around this plant, which produced the sugar so prized on the tables of European nobility. Today, it remains a key crop, especially for the production of world-renowned rums.

Since 1991, the Regional Council—which supported the project—has been responsible for managing the museum, which has since attracted a large number of visitors.