Basse-Terre

Long before the French arrived, an Amerindian village of farmers and potters stood on the site of today's cathedral, drawn by the plentiful fresh water of its ravines and rivers; excavations have found burials, pottery and tools there. French colonists landed far from the site, at Pointe Allègre, in 1635, and after moves along the coast the governor Charles Houël built a fort on the rocky spur above the anchorage in 1649–50. Monks built a church, now Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and the town grew between the fort and the Rivière aux Herbes.

Around 1680 Capuchins built a chapel of Saint Francis across the river, and when English privateers burned Basse-Terre in 1691 and 1703 many residents moved to this second village. The British occupied the island from 1759 to 1763, and the town revived even after Pointe-à-Pitre was founded in 1764. In 1802 it saw the fighting between General Richepanse, sent by Napoleon to restore slavery, and the resistance of Louis Delgrès, who retreated to the fort on 20 May and abandoned it two days later.

The town recovered after 1870, became in 1913 the first in Guadeloupe to have electricity, and after the 1928 hurricane gained a courthouse, the departmental council building and a market by the architect Ali Tur. The port was built in 1961–64. In 1976 some 73,600 people were evacuated from 15 August to 18 November because of activity at the Soufrière; the phreatic eruption of 30 August caused no deaths, but some evacuees never returned, and the centre has lost residents ever since.

Basse-Terre is a town of administration and memory. The prefecture, the courts, the departmental council and the chamber of commerce are here, and many of its buildings are listed historic monuments, from the fort and the cathedral to Ali Tur's courthouse of 1934, and the town hall holds paintings by Georges Rohner celebrating the tercentenary of French rule.

The fort is the town's great symbol. Renamed several times across the centuries, it has borne the name of Louis Delgrès since 1989, honouring the resistance of 1802 against the restoration of slavery. The 1976 evacuation is part of local memory too: the film-maker Werner Herzog came to the evacuated island to film its deserted streets for La Soufrière.

The religious calendar still marks the year, with the festival of Carmel on 16 July in the town's oldest district and the patronal feast on 12 December. In carnival season, the Mardi Gras parade is held in Basse-Terre. The town is twinned with Pondicherry in India, and the Olympic sprinter Marie-José Pérec was born here.

About 9,400 people lived in the commune in 2023, according to INSEE, down by more than 6 per cent since 2017, and the urban unit around it, spread over seven communes, had about 48,000. For 20 years after 1976 residents moved from the centre to neighbouring communes such as Baillif, Saint-Claude and Gourbeyre.

The economy rests on the state and the department: as the capital, the town holds the main administrative offices, the courts and one of the largest hospitals in the islands. The mountainous commune has little room for large-scale farming, and only the Bologne rum distillery, shared with Baillif, remains significant. Unemployment in the town was over 40 per cent in 2017. Efforts to bring in more cruise passengers led to a new ferry terminal in 2015.

The volcano is a constant presence above the town. Like the rest of Guadeloupe, the town lives with a high cost of living, recurring water-supply problems from an ageing network, and the ever-present question of the Soufrière.

The town eats like the rest of Guadeloupe: Creole and generously spiced. The colombo curry of chicken, goat or fish, made with a spice blend brought by Indian labourers, is a staple, as is court-bouillon de poisson, fish in a tomato and lime broth. Accras de morue, salt-cod fritters, and boudin créole, a spiced blood sausage, are the classic starters.

The market built by Ali Tur in the 1930s, with its spice hall and clock of 1932, is the place for spices and tropical fruit, and bokit, a fried-bread sandwich, is the snack of the stalls. Lolos, simple roadside eateries, grill fish and chicken to serve with rice and red beans.

Rum is local here. The Bologne distillery, shared with the neighbouring commune of Baillif, is one of the jewels of local rum production, and ti-punch — rhum agricole, cane syrup and lime — is the ritual aperitif. At Christmas, shrubb, an orange-peel rum liqueur, joins it.