Abandoned slaves Tromelin Island

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Anatol
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Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:13 pm

Abandoned slaves Tromelin Island

Post by Anatol » Tue Jan 31, 2017 8:22 pm

Tromelin Island, or Île de Tromelin, is a low, flat, uninhabited island that is a part of the Îles Éparses (Scattered Islands) archipelago in the southwestern Indian Ocean, about 280 miles (450 km) east of Madagascar. On November 17, 1760, the retired French warship Utile sailed out of the harbor at Bayonne in southwestern France and headed for Mauritius or Île De France, as it was then called. In July 1761, the Utile reached Madagascar and dropped anchor to replenish supplies. At that time, France was in the midst of fighting the Seven Years' War with Great Britain, and the governor of Île de France was expecting an attack at any moment from India. Even though the governor had banned the import of slaves at the time, fearing food shortages if there was a siege, the captain of the Utile , Commander La Fargue, brought on board at least 150 Malagasy slaves anyway.
With its illegal cargo, the Utile then departed Madagascar and set sail east for Île de France. Sometime shortly thereafter, the ship was caught in a violent storm. Blown off course by the bad weather, the ship wrecked on the submerged coral reef which breaks ground as Tromelin Island. One of the contemporary gazettes described the shipwreck: “Traversing a host of dangers, most of the crew succeeded in reaching the island. Almost all were injured, maimed, and covered in bruises; they were specters rather than men.
At the beginning of their exile, the 122 survivors, sailors and slaves, salvaged wood from the wreck as well as whatever tools and supplies they could find. They built a forge and dug two wells, the “thick, white, milky liquid from the first proving to be toxic.” (ibid). At least, food proved not to be a problem. The survivors trapped and ate sea birds and caught one of the 500-kilo sea turtles that lived on the island.
Just two months after the wreck, the survivors managed to build a raft. The shipwreck victims named the raft “Providence;” however, the raft was not big enough to accommodate all the survivors. It could carry the Frenchmen, but it could not accommodate the 60 slaves. So, the French sailors boarded hopefully, arms around each other so they could all fit, with a small amount of food. About 60 men and women, all slaves, were left on the island, with a “writ testifying to their services” and a promise from the Frenchmen that they would return and rescue them. The Governor of the Ile de France was so angry a the captain of the Utile for disobeying him that he refused to send a ship to Tromelin Island to rescue the abandoned slavesThe governor of Île de France was an official of the French East India Company and had banned slave importation, and despite the pleas from the French gentlemen and sailors of the Utile and the arguments of several local dignitaries in favor of the rescue, he refused. After waiting in vain for rescue for two years, the desperate survivors built a raft, and 18 of them sailed for home. No one knows if they ever reached land. In 1773 or 1774, when the shipwreck victims were long forgotten, a passing ship spotted signs of life on Île des Sables. Upon this news, the new governor of Île de France—who was more humane than his predecessor, having been appointed by the King of France and not the French East India Company—dispatched the vessel Sauterelle to the rescue. But it failed in its attempts to approach the little coral island, surrounded by waters 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) deep. Two sailors headed for shore in a canoe but smashed up against a reef. One sailor managed to swim back to the ship, the other was left on the island. According to the women who were later finally rescued, the sailor and the last three male survivors then built a raft. The four men, with three of the women, sailed away from the island. They were never seen again. On November 29, 1776, the Chevalier de Tromelin commanded the corvette La Dauphine to the island and found there eight survivors of the wreck of the Utile : an eight-month-old baby boy, his mother and grandmother, and five other women. La Dauphine carried the women and baby back to Île de France, where they were questioned about their ordeal by French officials. The governor insisted that the castaways were not slaves but free people, since they had been bought illegally in the first place. He even adopted the family of three and named the baby boy Jacques Moïse. Sometime after the rescue, the island name of Île des Sables was changed to honor the Chevalier de Tromelin for his brave search and rescue efforts and, since then, the island has been called Île de Tromelin, or Tromelin Island.
TAAF 2017;1,55е.
http://www.randomhistory.com/tromelin-island.html
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aukepalmhof
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Re: Abandoned slaves Tromelin Island

Post by aukepalmhof » Fri Feb 03, 2017 8:44 pm


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