 Excepting a period from 1802 to 1809 following signing of the Treaty of Amiens, Britain controlled the island for most of the time from 1794 to 1815, when it was traded back to France at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars.Martinique has remained a French possession since then.Despite the introduction of successful coffee plantations in the 1720s, with Martinique being the first area in the Western hemisphere where coffee was introduced , as sugar prices declined in the early 1800s, the planter class lost political influence.