LES ORIGINES DE L'ILE BOURBON ET DE LA COLONISATION FRANÇAISE A MADAGASCAR
or
THE ORIGINS OF BOURBON ISLAND AND FRENCH COLONIZATION IN MADAGASCAR
by M. I. GUET
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p. 218-219
A question arises here of itself. In what proportion of the Bourbonnais population came from the bandits established on the island at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century?
The answer will show that if Mascarene maintained commercial relations with this type of sailors who were commonly called bandits [pirates], the number of these "repentants", later "amnestied", established and married on the Island, was very restricted for a long time.
The documents kept in the Colonial Archives indicate two in 1687 (and the time when the census of the island already shows 308 souls) nine, in 1695; three, in 1702; eleven, in 1705; (year when the census gives a total of 734 souls); seven, in 1706; and, coming from a single ship, one hundred and thirty-five, in 1720. This makes a total of one hundred and sixty-seven rogues introduced into Bourbon in the space of thirty-three years, and even then we cannot affirm, for the last one hundred and thirty-five, that all remained in the island and married there. There is no doubt, however, that there were a certain number of them. Because, as the brief extract below will prove, reproduced from an excellent memoir written in Bourbon, by the knight Sr. Banks, surveyor, the memory of the bandits was still very well preserved at that time on the island.
Several good families who knew that their first ancestor, having established roots in the colony, had this origin, did not consider it a stain to be concealed. It was the same in Saint-Domingue and in general in the French West Indies, where your buccaneers had more than once and successfully united their bravery and intrepidity with those of the colonial militias, for the defense of our possessions.
“A part of the bandits (said M. Banks), to whom the king had granted amnesty, withdrew there (to Bourbon). We welcomed them. There was no reason to repent of it. The gentleness of their morals, their probity, of which traces still remain, clearly prove that they were not fit for the state [piracy] they professed before, and into which they were only led by circumstances of the sequence of which we are not always the master.
The temporary stay or the establishment of the bandits in Bourbon therefore did not awaken any bloodthirsty or dramatic memories among the inhabitants.
There was, however, one exception. The fact is worth mentioning. He gave such good material to a thousand more or less true stories, among which we can include those of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, during his trip to the Indo-African islands, that we would perhaps like to know exactly how the things had happened.
In 1721, a bandit named Olivier Le Vasseur, known as La Buse (true bird of prey), captain and owner of a well-armed ship called the Victorious, already famous for his exploits, surprised in the harbor of Saint-Denis, in front of the cannons of the fort, a Portuguese ship coming from Goa, bringing back to Lisbon the knight of Eryceira, viceroy of the Indies, and the Archbishop of Goa. Upon returning to his capture, the bandit was kind enough to disembark these two persons and their suite in a row, as well as the crew of the captured ship.
The governor received these Portuguese as best he could and consoled them, by his eager welcome, for having been thus dispossessed without a fight of their vessel carrying sixty cannons. Later, after having accommodated them in Saint-Denis, he provided them with the means to repatriate.1
...
A few months later, the same rascal seized himself, similarly in the waters of the island, from a Dutch [Ostend or Flemish] ship called the City of Ostend. That was not all, in May 1721, at the same time and still in sight of the island, the Duchess of Noailles, ship of the [French] East India Company, plundered and burned by this La Buse.
The first two acts of violence had greatly upset the Bourbon government, because they could make the navigators think that it was in the power of the bandits, or at least that the surroundings were not safe.
But your third act filled you with the anger of the agents of the Company & Bourbon. If Le Vasseur did not then hear your threats made against him from the beach of Saint-Denis, it is because he did not want to hear them. The inhabitants were able to smile while witnessing the spectacle of the first two captures, because your victims were foreign ships. But the loss of the Duchess of Noailles was deeply felt by them, and they promised to avenge this crime dearly, if the opportunity ever presented itself.
However, we had the weakness (at least it seemed so) to pass the sponge on the conduct of the pirate and to include him and forty of his people in an amnesty which was granted to Bourbon, by a deliberation of the Superior Council of the , dated January 26, 1723); but on the condition "that the said John Cleyton and his people, nor that the said Captain La Buse and his people, will not commit any act of hostility, on pain of nullity of this present deliberation, and of being punished as pirates, they were caught.”
Le Vasseur, suspicious, perhaps not without reason, preferred not to take advantage of the amnesty. He continued the fruitful profession in which he had acquired such a fine reputation.
But, to continue his exploits, he had counted without a French ship, la Meduse, which came stationed in these areas, in order to ensure navigation between Bourbon and the coasts of Madagascar, where the trade was then actively carried out. for the benefit of our colony.
1 It was Captain Garnier de Fougeray, commanding the Triton, who brought them back to Lisbon. He had just renewed his possession of the Ile de France, as we will see later.
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L’ILE BOURBON PENDANT LA RÉGENCE - DESFORGES BOUCHER - LES DÉBUTS DU CAFÉ (1956)
BOURBON ISLAND DURING THE REGENCE - DESFORGES BOUCHER - THE BEGINNINGS OF COFFEE (1956)
by Albert LOUGNON, Docteur ès-Lettres
p. 165:
They intended to reach Sainte Marie de Madagascar where they flattered themselves of being supplied by a mixed race from Jamaica married to the daughter of a king of Antongil Bay21.
21 Declaration, reported by the Council of Pondicherry, of four Englishmen who had been victims of bandits in Guinea and whom the Virgin of Grace had taken on board during her passage to Anjouan, in 1720 (the Council of Pondicherry to the directors of the Company , February 18, 1721. AOMN, C2 72, fos 79 et seq.). According to a memorandum submitted to the French consul in Lisbon, on March 26, 1720, by Borelly, officer of the Portuguese royal navy (AOMN, C5 A, box 1), the mixed race in question would have built, not in Sainte-Marie itself, but on the mainland, in a place called Tellenare - Baie de Tintingue or Baie d'Antongil, thinks GRANDIDIER - a fortress of 44 pieces of cannon with a garrison of 250 men. “As he is absolutely strong in the country,” the memoir continues, “he has, when he pleases, all the provisions he needs to embark on the bandits. » Was it the famous Plantain, also from Jamaica and married to the granddaughter of a Sakalave king?
