POINTE-A-PITRE, Guadeloupe, Jan 26 DPA - Stone steps lead up to the spot where the white-coloured church of Petit-Canal reigns supreme. Slaves used to be bought and sold on this lane by white plantation owners.
"Les Marches des Esclaves" - the steps of the slaves - is the name given to the worn stone steps. People say slaves themselves built the 49 steps.
"This is based on legend," says tour guide Marie Moutou. "The history of slavery relies on the oral accounts handed down to the descendants."
Marie lives in Petit-Canal, a town in the north of Grande-Terre, one of the two main islands that comprise Guadeloupe. Grand Terre makes up the eastern wing of the French overseas department in the Caribbean.
Together with Basse-Terre, the western wing, the two islands form a shape like a butterfly. The islands are connected now by the Pont de la Gabarre bridge. A tourism itinerary highlighting slave trading, the Route de l'Esclave, wends its way through both islands.
The trading with slaves to work the coffee and sugar-cane fields reached its zenith under the French, who colonised Guadeloupe in 1635.
"In 1640 the French introduced massive numbers of slaves for the plantation economy," Marie said. Today, Guadeloupe's population numbers 400,000, with 90 per cent being black or mulatto.
Looking out from the Petit-Canal church one sees a small harbour.
Fishing boats are bobbing up and down at the docks.
In the middle of this idyllic scene of mango trees, bougainvillea and the glittering waters it is hard to imagine this place was once one of the most important slave-trading centres of the islands.
At the base of the Marches des Esclaves, there is a stone pedestal with the shape of a giant "ka" or hand-drum atop it. From the ka an eternal flame burns in memory of the countless unknown slaves who died in this land.
The monument was set up in 1994 in ceremonies marking the 200th anniversary of France's initial February 4, 1794, abolition of slavery in its colonies.
The ka is an instrument of African origin and is played to this day.
"For a long period, the sounds and rhythms of the hand-drums used to be in disfavour," Marie said. Today, their music is the soul of Guadeloupe.
In Petit-Canal the history of the trade in human beings is everywhere, even if nature is now slowly covering many traces.
One ruin is what remains of a former slave prison. Its walls, now being wrapped around by the powerful roots of a strangler fig, were declared a protected monument in 1991.
The Route de l'Esclave follows the national highway N1 onward to Basse-Terre and across the 50-metre-wide ocean inlet of Rivire Sale. The destination is Fort Louis Delgrs, which rises from a cliff on the southern tip of the Basse-Terre.
The massive edifice was built in the 17th century to defend the island against the English.
Delgrs is the island's national hero.
Everywhere there are statues of the resistance fighter who battled against the reintroduction of slavery by Napoleon in 1802.
Today, a new monument called "MmorialACTe" as well as a museum in the capital Pointe-a-Pitre recall the fate of the 300,000 slaves brought from Africa to Guadeloupe by the time slavery was finally abolished in May 1848.
The museum was opened in July 2015 on a site where the largest sugar-cane factory once stood - also a place where the work was carried out by forced labour.
