Soufriere district

Soufrière is one of the ten districts into which Saint Lucia is divided, a small island country located in the Lesser Antilles, in the waters of the Caribbean Sea. In 1736 it became the first city founded by French settlers in the country, most of whom came from the island of Martinique.

Photograph by Soufrière with the Pitons Mountains as a background.

With the arrival of the French, slaves from sub-Saharan Africa also arrived, who were forced to work in cotton and tobacco crops and later in the harvest. Slavery was formally abolished in 1838, but much of the black community continued to work under deplorable conditions on the plantations of the hacendados. Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie spent most of her childhood in Soufrière, who after a few years would marry Napoleon Bonaparte and become Empress of France. Other famous residents have been George Frederick Lawrence Charles, former Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, and Dr. Beausoliel, the island's first physician.

In 1955 a fire destroyed half of the district capital and in 1980 Hurricane Allen caused serious damage to the district.

Currently the population of Soufriere is barely 7,665 people according to the 2001 census and most of them are concentrated in the district capital. Among its tourist attractions, the Diamond Botanical Gardens (famous for their mineral baths) and the ferry to the city of Castries, capital of the country, stand out.