Martinique Queens Martinique Queens Martinique Queens is a national beauty pageant responsible for selecting Martinique's representatives to the International pageants. This pageant is not related to "Miss Martinique" where the winner traditionally competes at Miss France contest. Miss Martinique pageant has been known since 1957, unrelated as above specified to Martinique Queens, when the island competed at the Miss Universe pageant. Since 1984 the island joins Miss France contest as overseas department of the country. In 1985 it boycotts to the Miss Universe pageant, because of the pageant does allow that island competing in a national competition as a region. Miss Martinique
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