Sugar mill Darboussier

Ownership of the municipality

Museums of France

All lime ovens, factories and factories in France

Crédit photo : Aristoi - Sous licence Creative Commons

Timeline

XIXe siècle

Époque contemporaine

1900

2000

1867-1869

Construction of plant

1907

Change of ownership

1928

Hurricane destruction

1980

Final closure

2006

Historic Monument Protection

10 mai 2015

Inauguration of the ACTe Memorial

Aujourd'hui

Heritage classified

The factory administrative building, former headquarters of SIAPAP (Box AP 175): registration by order of 20 April 2006

Key figures

Jean Darboussier - Trader and landowner	Founded the original dwelling in the 18th century.
Jean-François Cail - Industrial and co-founder	Provides machinery and buildings in 1867.
Ernest Souques - Co-founder and Director	Directed the factory until 1907.
François Hollande - President of the Republic	Inaugurated the ACTe Memorial in 2015.

Origin and history

The Darboussier sugar factory, located in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, was built between 1867 and 1869 by the Compagnie Sucrière de la Pointe-à-Pitre (CSPAP), founded by the industrialists Jean-François Cail and Ernest Souques. Placed on Jean Darboussier's former home-sucrerie, an 18th-century French merchant, she became the island's largest employer, reflecting the racial hierarchies of post-slavery Creole society. The factory operated in a closed circuit, controlling housing, shops and land set up in colonisation (servage system), while suffering global sugar crises (1885, 1895, 1902).

In 1907, Souques ceded the factory to its metropolitan creditors, forming the Société industrielle et agricole de Pointe-à-Pitre (SIAPAP). Destroyed by Hurricane Okeechobee in 1928, it was rebuilt in concrete, but closed permanently in 1980, leaving a wasteland of 10 hectares. The site, partially protected as a historical monument in 2006, has since 2015 been home to the ACTe Memorial, inaugurated by François Hollande, dedicated to the memory of slavery and the slave trade.

The architecture of the site combines 19th-century remains (brick and iron) and reconstructions of the 1940s, as the administrative building on two levels, marked by the SIAPAP logo. The latter, symbol of the industrial era, contrasts with the current memorial vocation of the place. The ACTe Memorial, by rehabilitating this wasteland, its industrial heritage and colonial history, while energizing a neighbourhood marked by post-closure economic decline.