Sainte-Anne

Sainte-Anne grew from a parish founded in 1691, when Capuchin monks served what was then a small fishing village; the first written sources mention a chapel near the site of today's church. English soldiers destroyed the settlement in 1759. With the growth of sugar and rum exports the port became the seat of the Admiralty in the 18th century, and the commune was formally established at the end of the 1830s.

Sugar shaped the town for two centuries. Between 1870 and 1940 there were thirty-four sugar works in the area, the densest concentration of sugar processors in Guadeloupe; the windmill of the Gissac estate, listed in 2009, is one of the few survivors. The 1928 hurricane destroyed almost everything, and the church was rebuilt in 1933 to plans by the architect Ali Tur; the town hall was completed around 1950, under the mayor Maurice Satineau.

When the sugar industry went into crisis, the town's reef-sheltered, palm-shaded beaches offered another living. The first hotels were built in 1970, and in the decades since Sainte-Anne has become one of the three largest seaside resorts in Guadeloupe, alongside Le Gosier and Saint-François, while remaining dependent on agriculture.

Sainte-Anne is at once a resort and an ordinary Creole town. Its church, dedicated to Saint Anne, stands on Place Schœlcher with a bust of the abolitionist Victor Schœlcher, as in many communes of the islands, and its bell tower was renovated in 2021.

The beaches are as much a part of local life as of tourism. The Plage du Bourg is known for family gatherings at weekends, and Bois-Jolan fills with local families on public holidays. Water sports, boat trips and diving draw visitors to La Caravelle and the reef, while the surfers go to Gros Sable on the exposed Helleux shore. Cycling has a following too, and the town has its own cycling club.

The people of the town are the Saintannais, and in Creole the town is Sentann'. As across Guadeloupe, French is the language of administration and school, Creole the language of everyday life, and English is understood in the tourist trade but not widely.

About 24,000 people lived in the commune in 2023, according to INSEE — a small rise since 2017, at a time when Guadeloupe's population as a whole was falling. The commune covers about 80 km² of the middle of Grande-Terre's south coast, and is counted as part of the Pointe-à-Pitre–Les Abymes urban area.

Besides the main bourg, the commune is made up of many hamlets and localities, Bois-Jolan and Douville among them. Sugar cane is still grown on the flat land, while the hilly Grands Fonds interior is given over to food crops and market gardening. Tourism is the other pillar, and two large holiday villages stand in the commune.

The beaches are busiest in the peak season from December to April and at weekends and on public holidays, when local families gather on the sand. Like the rest of the islands, the town lives with the high cost of living and recurring problems with an ageing water network.

Sainte-Anne eats like a fishing and farming town that turned to the beach. Along the Plage du Bourg, simple Creole and seafood restaurants serve grilled fish, court-bouillon de poisson — fish in a tomato and lime broth — and the colombo curry of chicken, goat or fish, a staple made with a spice blend brought by Indian labourers.

Accras de morue, salt-cod fritters, and boudin créole, a spiced blood sausage, are the usual starters, and bokit, a fried-bread sandwich, is the snack of the market and roadside stalls. Lolos, simple roadside eateries, grill fish and chicken to serve with rice and red beans, and are among the cheapest ways to eat.

The market is one of the places to buy spices and tropical fruit. Ti-punch — rhum agricole, cane syrup and lime — is the aperitif, made with the islands' agricultural rums, a reminder of the cane and rum that built the town.