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.
