The Memories of Shipmates: Claims to Freedom in Mauritius, 1830-1835 Jane Hooper Associate Professor, Department of History and Art History, George Mason University, U.S.A
On December 19, 1834, a man named Lafleur, aged 26, entered the office of the Protector of Slaves for Mauritius. He claimed he should be given his freedom, on account of being illegally enslaved more than a decade earlier. To back his claim, Lafleur listed several people he knew on the island who had been transported on the same ship from Africa to Seychelles, and then to Mauritius. He provided the British with these individuals’ African or “country” names, along with the names they were called in Mauritius and the names of their enslavers. Lafleur was not alone in coming before the slave protector with such claims; dozens of others came to the office in search of freedom in the years leading up to emancipation. Such appeals were unsurprising, given that illegal slaving had been widespread throughout the western Indian Ocean during the early nineteenth century. More striking was the claimants’ ability to provide details about the lives of their shipmates, including names, familial relations, residences, and shifting circumstances over the decade that they had resided in the Mascarenes. This presentation seeks to examine several detailed testimonies preserved in British records for insight into memories of enslavement, the development of diasporic identities in the Mascarenes, and, ultimately, how people successfully advocated for increased autonomy. Historians of the trans-Atlantic slave trade have argued for the significance of shipmate bonds for people who endured the Middle Passage and established communities in the Americas. Such bonds provided support for those seeking to enter marriages, engage in acts of resistance, and build communities in the Americas. Unsurprisingly, such bonds, and associated memories of captivity and forced transportation, were equally powerful in the Indian Ocean world. Regional circumstances, however, would influence the meaning of such relationships, particularly considering the proximity of the Mascarenes to Madagascar and East Africa, the variety of “Middle Passages” that existed within the Indian Ocean, and the free people of color who were also slave owners on the islands. As Lafleur’s example reveals, however, such relationships provided invaluable support for those seeking to protest their conditions of servitude during the period of amelioration in British Mauritius.
New Directions in ‘Local’ Historiographies of Slavery in Mauritius
Vijaya Teelock - former Associate Professor of History, University of Mauritius and Founder, Centre for Research on Slavery and Indenture, Republic of Mauritius
For some years, there have been calls for more attention to be paid to scholarly research and writing emanating from the ‘ex-slave societies’. This paper will examine where ‘local’ (term used, often in a derogatory manner), production of historical knowledge has reached in selected regions. It will also examine whether this ‘local’ historiography has had any impact on Anglo-American academic writing and whether there are thematic differences or different scholarly directions between the two historiographies.
Creating a Public Database of Slaving Voyages Across the Indian Ocean and Asia
Matthew S. Hopper - Professor of History, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, U.S.A
In March 2023, with the support of The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Digital Projects for the Public Production Grant, a team of researchers, began a three-year project to add Indian Ocean slaving voyages to SlaveVoyages.org. The project aims to integrate the Indian Ocean into the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database and create a public database of slaving voyages across the Indian Ocean and Asia more fully. The project team is led by Daniel Domingues along with Jane Hooper, Richard Allen, and Matthew Hopper. The project will catalog slaving voyages from East and Southeast Africa and Madagascar to the Mascarenes, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia, as well as European slave trading from Africa to East and Southeast Asia, and the trafficking of enslaved peoples from Asia to the Cape of Good Hope and beyond. Working with the existing framework of SlaveVoyages, which has historically focused on the Atlantic and Inter-American slave trades, presents opportunities and challenges. The team believes that including the Indian Ocean and Asia on the SlaveVoyages website is crucial in demonstrating the global extent and consequences of transoceanic slave trading. However, the team also acknowledges the complexities and challenges of doing so. This paper reports on the team’s progress, reflects on the challenges encountered to present, and invites conference participants to collaborate on the project.
4 сен 2023
