It looks like a nice village with wooden houses and a thatched roof. But this is a museum of the slavery history located on Martinique. The savanna of slaves consists of 20 small huts, a museum, and small plantations.
It was established when a resident Gilbert Laroz decided to find out the story of his family. He immersed himself in history and learned a lot. So, he got a desire to tell everyone about life in Martinique before and after the settlement of Europeans.
Gilbert built a three-hectare village, where he tried to show the entire history of Martinique over the past 400 years. The huts seem very nice, even well maintained. Some of them depict the scenes of the local life, so you can stop next to them and examine in detail. There you can see terrible things, giving you the creeps: shackles for slaves, screaming and tied local people. But there also are things and rituals, ordinary for the inhabitants of Martinique for 400 years.
Go ahead, and you see a garden of medicinal plants behind the huts. The tour guides tell you which herbs the locals used for medicinal broths and which ones for food seasoning. You can even taste some dishes and take part in their cooking. You will be treated with bread and delicious cocoa. So, you can try what you have cooked.
The museum depicts not just difficulties in the locals’ lives, but also their joys. One of them is dances.
Gilbert Laroz established a museum to show the descendants of the terrible period in the history of Martinique. But he also wanted to pass on the traditions of the ancient peoples to future generations.