Marie-Galante is a small (158 km2 / 61 square miles) island about 30 km / 16 miles south of Guadeloupe. It is a dependency of Guadeloupe, a French overseas department.
It is known as the hundred mills island. Initially, a few ox-powered mills were used to extract sugar cane juice which then was used to make sugar or rhum. But with the introduction of windmills in 1780, this changed quickly. By 1830, there were more than one hundred windmills in use.
Nowadays however, only 72 mill towers are still standing, and it is rather difficult to find some of them. They might be on private property that make them inaccessible, others are overgrown and challenging to get to with a regular rental car. But some are well preserved and open to the public.
Prints and Licensing: All images are available as fine art prints and for licensing. Please contact me for more details.
As usual, excellent imagery illustrating your post! Even abandoned, you can see how they are used all over and in some countries, to this very day!