Trace des Falaises (3d stage)

7 points of interest

• 

  

  Geology

  Trou a Man Koko

  Madame Coco's blowhole is a mythical place linked to the legend of Madame Coco's pact with Lucifer.

• 

  

  Area of relaxation

  Porte d'Enfer

  The Porte d'Enfer lagoon, with its protected stretch of water, its landscaped picnic area, is the only single opening to the sea accessible, albeit difficult, on this coast.

• 

  

  Geology

  Trou du Souffleur

  The Pointe de la Tortue and the Trou du Souffleur, spectacular sea-water blowholes in the coastal rock.
  Be careful, do not go near the edge !

• 

  

  Geology

  Pointe du Souffleur

  Pointe du Souffleur.

• 

  

  Geology

  Pointe "Tête à Boeuf"

  Pointe "Tête à Boeuf" is a shore fishing place well known to the cliff fishermen ; it also serves as a seamark to fishermen out to sea off the coast.

• 

  

  Geology

  Anse à la Barque

  L’Anse à la Barque: place-names and history. A network of trails, ponds and gullies.

• 

  

  The Slave Route

  Route de l'Esclave : La Mahaudière.

  The oldest sources of information about this dwelling date back to 1732. At that time, it was not a sugar farm: around 1770, Etienne Douillard Mahaudière's property was more of a huge cotton estate, with a large number of 'cases' for the slaves but very few industrial buildings. At that time, there were many cotton estates in this part of Grande-Terre. The property grew progressively and turned to the production of sugar, until the Revolution, when it was sequestered. Two hundred people then worked on the 'Lahaut' residence, as it was known at the time. In 1828, 147 slaves were employed to maintain the 465 hectares of the property.
  The owner was then Jean-Baptiste Douillard Mahaudière whose, name remains connected to a famous judicial matter.
  In October 1840, he was taken to court for the abusive sequestration of his slave Lucile, a seamstress.
  She was accused by her master of having poisoned his wife. Lucile was thrown into a cell measuring 5 square metres; it was only 1.20m high, so she could not stand upright. She was kept there for nearly two years in almost complete solitary confinement. Denounced to the law in an anonymous letter, Douillard Mahaudière had to answer for this crime before the Pointe-à-Pitre Assizes. The King's Prosecutor, himself a settler and owner in Guadeloupe, found himself torn between his role as magistrate and the interests of the community to which he belonged. Under pressure from the settlers, Douillard Mahaudière was declared not guilty and acquitted. The slave Lucile was sold.
  In the years following the abolition of slavery, the house slowly fell into disrepair. At the end of the nineteenth century, the conversion of its facilities made it into a large steam-powered distillery. The activity continued on the site until the beginning of the 1950s.