Before Europeans reached the Indies, the area was settled by several of the aboriginal peoples from North, Central, and South America. Additional slave labor was brought in from Africa to work the sugar cane plantations. When slavery was ended in the French West Indies, through the efforts of Victor Schoelcher, indentured labor was brought in from India, the namesake of the islands. Eventually the sugar beet became the more efficient means of producing sugar, and the plantations have had to evolve. Some now produce such tropical fruit as bananas and pineapples, while other plantations stayed with cane and began to make rum instead of sugar.
Agricultural rum is aged in casks and has an alcohol content which varies considerably.
It is a liquor best consumed neat, perhaps as a digestif after your dinner. The rum there is quite good. The official home site of the Guadeloupean distillery we like to visit. The Web page gives a brief description of the process from cutting the cane to aging the rum. This commercial site promotes the author's book, but it is quite clearly a labor of love.