Habitation Saint-Étienne or HSE is a distillery built to replace an old sugar mill more than 400 hectares on Gros Morne and Saint Joseph area.
History
Gros-Morne is a town in the north center of Martinique. It is located west of Sainte-Marie, Trinité and Le Robert, north of Lamentin, east of Saint-Joseph and Fonds-Saint-Denis and south of Marigot.
Gros-Morne owes its name to its topography. The town has its motto, "Aut Honor, Aut Nihl" (honor or nothing) and a coat of arms reproducing against a mountain background, a pineapple with coconut leaves and sugar cane twigs.
Gros-Morne was once populated by Carib Indians. Even after the arrival of the French, the Carib Indians who occupied the Atlantic part of the island continued to live there. When the French take an interest in this territory whose agricultural lands are prosperous, the war is fierce because the Indians fight fiercely refusing to leave their lands.
Thus from 1654 to 1658, the colonists carried out a real exterminantion of the natives. The survivors flee to Dominica and Saint-Vincent.
It was not until the end of the 17th century to see the region develop. Gros-Morne, which was then only a district, was attached to the parish of Trinité until 1743 when Gros Morne was then set up as a parish.
Several crops were planted, including cocoa, which made Gros Morne the island's "cocoa center", producing 1,400 tons in 1722, mainly for export.
During the Revolution, Gros-Morne found itself the capital of the island when in 1790, the Earl of Damas and his supporters of the campaign party took refuge there to face the party's attack on the city.
In 1837, Gros Morne was one of the 20 municipalities of Martinique.
The first Mayor of Gros-Morne is Louis-Guitteaud Dufourgeraux elected in 1837. Subsequently, another mayor will talk about him, it is Aristide Maugée elected in 1956. He was close to Aimé Césaire with whom he founded the review Tropiques.
Commune devoted from the start to agriculture, it is caricatured as being a commune of country people.
Economy
Like the city's logo symbolizing a pineapple, the economy of Gros-Morne is essentially focused on agriculture and agribusiness.
The main current crops are sugar cane, bananas and pineapples, to which are added a few food crops such as yams, various kinds of cabbage, carrots, radishes, lettuce and even tomatoes. Mention should be made of efforts to diversify agricultural activity towards horticulture and pig breeding.
Regarding the food industry, it all started in 1908 when Baron Daniel de Sommery decided to make the most of pineapple cultivation by setting up a cannery in the Dénel district. It is this same pineapple that we find on the logo of the company Royal S.A which will be the basic raw material of a company that will produce canned pineapple juice and canned pineapple slices.
Subsequently, all the tropical fruits of the island will be exploited in the form of juices, jams and jellies and sold wholesale in cans.
The only distillery still in operation in the town, the Habitation Saint-Étienne distillery produces various rums in a town that had around 20 small distilleries in 1920.
Neighborhoods
The municipality's main districts are 2 Terres, Bagatelle, Bas 2 Terres, Bois Lezard Calvaire, Cote d'Or, Croix Blanche, Croix Girin Croix Jubile, Croix Odillon, de Belle Terre, Denel Dessaint, Dominant, Dosithee, Dumaine Glotin, la Birot, la Fraicheur, la Nazaire la Tracee, la Vierge, les Flamboyants, Magnan Morne des Olives, Petite Lezarde, Poirier, Providence Rivière Lezarde 1, Rivière Lezarde 2, Rivière Pomme, Sinai and Tamarins.