La Desirade became a dependency of Guadeloupe in 1648, and the French put it to grim use. Les Galets, the small bay at the island's western tip facing the Pointe des Chateaux, became a place of exile. Criminals from Grande-Terre were shipped there, along with nobles who had fallen out of favor in the metropole. In the eighteenth century, a leper hospital was established at Baie-Mahault on the eastern end. The patients endured harsh conditions in a facility that operated for over 150 years before finally closing in 1952. Cotton plantations were established, pirates used the island as a staging ground for raids on Spanish shipping, and smugglers made it a base for the liquor trade. For centuries, La Desirade was the place the Caribbean sent the people it did not want.

The central square in Beausejour carries an unusual name: Place du Maire Mendiant, the Begging Mayor's Square. It honors Joseph Daney de Marcillac, a former mayor who, after a devastating fire destroyed much of the village in 1922, traveled across Guadeloupe going door to door, begging for funds and building materials to rebuild the island's two primary schools. When the great cyclone of 1928 struck, he did it again. The square is small, just a few dozen meters across, but it holds the island's identity in concentrated form: the church of Notre-Dame du Bon-Secours with its altar carved from locally grown pear wood, a bust of the abolitionist Victor Schoelcher, cannons, a monument to fishermen lost at sea, and the town hall designed in the style of architect Ali Tur. Fishing remains the island's economic backbone. Every August 16, a model boat called Le Veteran is carried from the church through the streets in a procession honoring the sailors who did not come home.

Geologists visit La Desirade to study rocks that predate most of the Caribbean. The beach at Pointe Double draws researchers who come to examine basalt and composite formations that give the coastline a striking, multi-colored appearance. The island even has its own lapidary, transforming local stones into jewelry. Above the beaches, the arid plateau of La Montagne supports vegetation that is surprisingly diverse despite the thin soil: gaiac trees, mapou, cashew trees, and a protected cactus species called the tete a l'Anglais, named for its resemblance to the bearskin hats of the Queen's Guards. The Lesser Antillean iguana, increasingly rare elsewhere, still thrives here. So do agoutis, glossy tropical rodents with orange-brown fur, and a local robin called a bicloitin that is found almost nowhere else.

Trade winds hammer La Desirade relentlessly, which in 1993 became an advantage rather than a hardship. The island's first wind farm, installed along the Souffleur stretch, featured 20 turbines of 25 kilowatts each with a revolutionary feature: they could fold flat when cyclones approached, a technique tested for the first time on the island. Those original turbines have since been replaced by six larger, quieter models producing 275 kilowatts each. A second wind farm on the heights of Baie-Mahault added 35 more turbines. Together, the farms generate 3.8 megawatts of electricity, far more than the island's 1,600 residents can use. The surplus flows to mainland Guadeloupe through a submarine cable, making tiny La Desirade a net energy exporter.

Seven miles from La Desirade, two small islets called Petite Terre sit surrounded by coral reefs and clear water. Terre de Bas and Terre de Haut are separated by a lagoon just two hundred yards across. In 1974, the lighthouse keeper and his family, the last human residents, left after the lighthouse was automated. Before them, as many as fifty people had lived there. Now the islets belong to the iguanas. Iguana delicatissima, native to the Lesser Antilles and endangered elsewhere, has an undisturbed colony here, along with Least Terns, American Oystercatchers, and sandpipers. Green sea turtles and loggerhead turtles come ashore to nest. The islets became a national nature reserve in 1998, and tourism is regulated by the National Office of Forests in partnership with the Desiradian association Ti Te. Access is limited. The iguanas have the run of the place.