Invasion of Martinique (1674) Martinique, the headquarters of the French colonial venture in the Caribbean. The Dutch believed that the capture of Martinique would enable them to quickly conquer France's other island outposts and rebuild their own war-ravaged network of Caribbean plantations, giving them dominance of the entire Lesser Antilles island chain. To achieve these aims, the Dutch assembled a powerful invasion force under Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, widely regarded as the greatest naval commander of the age, whose crushing victories had driven the English out of the war. Under his commanded sailed a fleet of eighteen major warships including his 80-gun flagship "De
Music of Martinique the late 1960s. In the later part of the 20th century, biguine musicians like clarinet virtuoso Michel Godzom helped revolutionize the genre. In the 1970s, a wave of Haitian, mostly musicians, to Dominica and the French Antilles (Guadeloupe and Martinique) brought with them the kadans "(another word named for the genre compas)", a sophisticated form of music that quickly swept the island and helped unite all the former French colonies of the Caribbean by combining their cultural influences. These Haitians drew upon previous success from mini-jazz artists like Les Gentlemen, Les Leopards, and Les Vikings de Guadeloupe. Later in the