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Who are the first inhabitants of Martinique?
Who gave the name of Martinique?
Martinique, on Martinican Creole Matinik or Matnik, (formerly called Iouanacaera or Jouanacaera ‘iguana island’ in the Caribbean language or Madinina by Native Americans) and called “the island of flowers”, is an island located in the Caribbean and more precisely in the archipelago of the Lesser Antilles.
The pre-Columbian period In Martinique, the oldest archaeological sites show the presence of Indians in the 1st century AD. The first inhabitants of Martinique are the Arawaks, who came from the Amazon.
Since the 500s BC. they were inhabited by Arawak Indians, Tainos. The Kalinagos would have taken them to the Greater Antilles, to Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, where they still lived when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492.