Our Ancestors from Mauritius Paul Francis, 2010 This is the story of our ancestors who came from Mauritius. 1 Early Days Mauritius had been uninhabited prior to The story of our Mauritian ancestors the arrival of the first European settlers. th starts on the 9 of April 1729. After a Its dense forests had been roamed by five month journey from St Malo in dodos, their close relation the solitaire, France, the wooden sailing ship “Royal and by tortoises so large that eight Philip” was at last about to arrive in people could stand on the back of one. Mauritius (then known as the Ile de All these had, however, been wiped out France). On board were the first 30 by the Dutch, who had established a volunteer French settlers, on their way number of abortive colonies on the to new lives in the new colony. And island during the seventeenth century, amongst them was Jean Toussaint Jocet before abandoning the island in 1710. de la Porte, his wife Jeanne Thérèse They had left behind feral monkeys and Thomas, and their two young children, rats. Without natural predators, the rats aged three and five. had overrun the island and grown to the size of rabbits. The colony on Ile de France was only Native Forests of Mauritius. eight years old. It was a private sector colony – established by the French East In 1729, when Jean and Jeanne arrived, India Company to act as a base for their the colony had about 100 French settlers trading ships in the Indian Ocean. They (employees of the company), 100 had already settled the nearby island of soldiers, and several hundred black Bourbon (now called Reunion), but it slaves who had been brought over from had no good harbour. Mauritius, in Madagascar. Farming was well contrast, had two excellent harbours, established in a few places around the Port Royal (which is where Jean and his island. But people, even including the family arrived) and Port Louis (which is governor, lived in makeshift straw- where they spent most of their lives). roofed huts, and the main occupations were drinking, gambling and fighting. The French East India Company was Many slaves had run away into the engaged in a fierce commercial (and hinterland, and a few disgruntled occasionally violent) trade war against soldiers had joined them. These large the British and Dutch. The British were groups of fugitives occasionally based in India, and the Dutch had bases attacked outlying settlements. In 1728 at the Cape and at Batavia (Jakarta): the and again in 1734 the soldiers rebelled French felt that they too needed a secure against the governor. They objected to naval base of their own. They had being forced to farm, clear forests and therefore landed a small party on build huts. Mauritius in December 1721, and taken possession in the name of King Louis Jean was 37 years old and his wife 27. XV of France. The both came from the famous trading 2 port and pirate lair of Saint Malo, in Jean and Jeanne buried both of their Brittany, France. Jean had been an young children before they turned five. Ensign (a very junior naval officer), but They went on to have twelve more had volunteered to come in the very children, five of whom died before first batch of voluntary settlers (as reaching adulthood. Jacquette and opposed to company employees). He Charles had three children before soon started work as a pilot – sailing out Charles himself died in 1734, but only in a small boat to meet incoming sailing one of the children survived. Three ships, and guide them through the maze months later, she remarried an East of coral reefs that surrounded Mauritius India Company sailor from Paris, Louis and into the safe harbour within. This Cauvelet, with whom she had five more was no easy job – the French East India children, two of whom survived to company believed that the reefs were so adulthood. Louis too died young, in dangerous that they alone would 1742, but Jacquette herself lived to the prevent the British from attacking the ripe old age of 74, and lived to see her island. grandchildren grow up. In addition to the raids by escaped slaves, rebellions from the soldiers and constant depredations of the giant rats, a cyclone of extraordinary violence hit the island on 4th February 1731, followed by three days of heavy rain, which damaged every hut on the island and washed away most of the plantations. In 1735 the first really able governor, Bertrand François Mahé, Lord Labourdonnais arrived. He found, Soon after Jean and Jeanne arrived, the apparently, an island without governor decided to move the main commerce, the inhabitants discouraged settlement across to the other side of the and constantly fighting the escaped Island at Port Louis, which had more slaves. But over the next few years he favourable winds. It was here at Port tracked down and captured the slaves, Louis that Jean and Jeanne occupied a and established a fine harbor and model 235 acre concession close to town (it’s village at Port Louis, supplied with now a suburban cemetery) and set up clean water via an aqueduct. home. Most likely Jeanne would have supervised the slaves at home while Over the next thirty years, the colony Jean was working down at the port. thrived, the population rising from less than 1000 in 1729 to over 18,000 in 1767 Another ancestor, Jacquette Lelay had (3163 Europeans, 587 people of mixed also arrived in Mauritius by 1730, race, and over 15,000 black slaves). On accompanying her first husband, average about 30 East India Company Charles Dagron. They both came from ships each year would call in at the Port Louis, a small sea-port on the other islands on their way to or from India. At side of Brittany from St Malo. He was a Port Louis, a ship-building yard was barber, though its not known if he established, trained slaves built and actually practiced this trade in repaired ships. During the war of the Mauritius. Austrian Succession (1741-1748) and again during the Seven Years war Life was difficult and full of tragedies. (1756-1763), Mauritius-built ships 3 Jean Baptiste de Chazal Aime de Chazal Antoine Régis de Jeanne Brun Chazal Marie Margurite Baillard du Pinet Antoine Toussaint de Chazal Jean Charles Rene Corday Jean Toussaint Jocet Jean Jacquette Corday de La Porte Jeanne Thérèse Félicité Jocet de La Porte Edmond Joseph Jeanne Thérèse Antoine de Chazal Thomas Deschatellets Raymond Rivalz de Ginela Antoine Rivalz de Saint-Antoine Marie de la Poterie Charlotte Juliette Anne Rivalz de Saint- Antoine Louis Chasteigner de Jean Chasteigner de Saint-Mory de Paradis Paradis Anne de Chasteigner de Paradis Dumee Louis Joseph Cauvelet Anne Cauvelet Jacquette Lelay defeated English squadrons in Indian waters, saving France’s Indian colonies. Antoine de Rivalz de The profits were immense – between Saint-Antoine and the 1725 and 1759 the French East India company made a net profit of over 250 Royal Take-over. million Livres. In the early days, visitors to Mauritius were struck by the lack of class Jean became Lieutenant of the port, distinctions between the different presumably managing all the comings French settlers. This contrasted strongly and goings, both of warships and with the situation back in France, still merchant ships. Many of these ships decades away from the revolution, brought new settlers, including one who where lords feasted while peasants married his daughter Jeanne: starved. The most famous book set in Jean Corday, a ship master with the Mauritius, “Paul et Virginie”, by company and minor squire from the Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, drew a strong seaport of Lorient in Brittany, who contrast between the idyllic life close to married in 1747. nature in the islands and the diseased class-ridden life in France (the narrator And another who married Jacquette’s in the story is thought to be based on daughter Anne… Jean Jocet de la Porte). But even on the Louis Chasteigner de Saint-Mory de islands, class counted. Paradis, an East India Company marine originally from the little Antoine Rivalz de Saint-Antoine town of Amboise, on the Loire in benefited from this. He was aristocracy Central France, who arrived in 1755, – very very minor aristocracy, but he and married Anne Cauvelet three definitely came from a noble family in years later. the south of France. Born in . Carcassonne in 1739, he sailed to Mauritius on the ship “Prudent” in 4 1767, and was immediately appointed and two or three white overseers mostly to the governing council of the island. engaged in harvesting the giant Within a few months he had somehow tortoises that roamed the island, as a acquired vast plantations run by gangs source of meat for Mauritius. Antoine of slaves, and was one of the leading was to spend eight months on this magnates of the island. island, during which time his health was apparently shattered, he lost an eye But he was in for a rude surprise. At this and became deaf. point, Mauritius was owned not by the French Government, but privately by the French East India Company. But bankrupted by its losses in India during the seven years war, the company sold Mauritius to the French Throne, and on 14th July 1767, the new royal governor arrived from Paris to take command. His name was Daniel Dumas – a blunt and abrupt military veteran of the Canadian war, who was determined to take the unruly colonials in hand. Dumas was bitterly opposed by many Meanwhile back in Mauritius the of the old company magnates, power-struggle continued, and after a accustomed to having their own way.