Rugby union in Martinique occasional games against sides from the other Caribbean islands. Most of its rugby contacts are either with them, or with France itself. Martinique competes in the NACRA Caribbean Championship, a tournament which includes Trinidad and Tobago, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Antigua and Guyana. Rugby union in Martinique Rugby union in Martinique is a minor, but growing sport. The Comité Territorial de Rugby de la Martinique is a committee under the umbrella of the French Rugby Federation which is the governing body for rugby union within French Guiana. The committee is not affiliated to the
Piracy in the Caribbean in Europe increasingly drove their plantation-based economies. The English had also expanded their dominion in the Caribbean and settled several new islands, including Bermuda in 1612, Antigua and Montserrat in 1632, and Eleuthera in the Bahamas in 1648, though these settlements began like all the others as relatively tiny communities that were not economically self-sufficient. The French also founded major new colonies on the sugar-growing islands of Guadeloupe in 1634 and Martinique in 1635 in the Lesser Antilles. However, the heart of French activity in the Caribbean in the 17th century remained Tortuga, the fortified island haven off the coast