The bronze statue of Victor Schoelcher stands in the centre of the town that bears his name. Schoelcher was the French politician most responsible for the abolition of slavery in France's overseas territories in 1848 — his Emancipation Decree freed approximately 250,000 enslaved people across the French Caribbean. The statue shows him with one arm raised, and it occupies a central roundabout that doubles as the informal town square.
It is not a spectacular monument, but the context makes it worth a brief stop — a town that named itself after a French politician who ensured the freedom of its ancestors, and then erected a statue to remind itself why. Schoelcher's name appears on dozens of streets, schools, and buildings throughout Martinique.