On Floréal 30 of the year x (May 20, 1802), Bonaparte decided with serious consequences. By re-establishing slavery in the Antilles in the Mascarenes, the future Emperor intends to reaffirm the authority of France in its overseas colonies marked by its independence uprisings such as in Saint-Domingue which are fiercely coveted by the English. He would have preferred the status quo but the First Consul, who cherishes the hope of reconstituting a colonial empire in the Americas, above all wanted to be pragmatic. In Reunion Island, the news of the return of old practices repealed by the French Revolution was received with enthusiasm and even allowed its rallying to the new regime which it had nevertheless received rather coldly at the start.
Between Reunion and the Kingdom of France, it is first of all the story of a timid meeting that will quickly transform into an exciting adventure and which continues today. Named Bourbon in homage to the dynasty that reigned at the time, the island took off with the arrival of Count Bertrand-François Mahé de la Bourdonnais who occupied his post as governor-general of the Mascarenes from 1735. Under his administration, installed in Port-Louis (Ile de France, currently Mauritius), the agricultural production of the territory is largely developed, and strives to militarize the two islands for which he is responsible. Bourbonnais society of this period is based on a single postulate, “the white man is superior to the black native”, and excessively hierarchical. Big owners, small owners, freedmen, free workers, poor whites, and slaves live together in a very codified society that lives on contempt and jealousy of the other.
Mahé de la Bourdonnais is aware that the entire basis of his power rests on maintaining the practice of slavery which conditions life on the island. While promoting his trade, he created black and Creole militias to chase away the English who were eyeing the possessions of France, and white militias who ferociously pursued the "maroons", and these escaped slaves who took refuge in the mountains. The city of Saint-Denis soon became the cultural and business center of a turbulent island ruled by an aristocracy very proud of its prerogatives and who did not intend to give up anything. Even if it means compromising yourself.
Upheavals on Bourbon Island
When the Revolution broke out in 1789, Bourbon Island had 61,300 inhabitants for 10,000 whites, a thousand freedmen, and some 50,000 slaves. The events experienced in Paris will not be the same in Bourbon where a wind of freedom is blowing. This is an opportunity for the island to rebel against the “Parisian yoke”. We create municipalities without really waiting for the green light from anyone, we elect deputies from both sides of the Mascarenes and we even attempt coups against the central power which has great difficulty in curbing these revolts.
The creation of the Colonial Assembly is intended to be a “good father of the family”. But behind the abolition of titles of nobility, the adoption of the tricolor flag (1791), and the new name of the island, now Réunion, the new administrators remained resolutely conservative and rejected any notion of egalitarianism. The Declaration of Human Rights boils down above all to the freedom of whites, even of the Free (where there are many sans-culottes), and of blacks always forced to stay in the fields. The abolition of slavery by the Convention in July 1793 crystallized all the passions on this island, especially since the decree did not provide for any compensation for the owners, much less decide what should happen to the liberated populations.
Tensions between the bourgeois, nobles, and proletarians gradually increased, giving way to the spread of racism which spread throughout the island. Thus, in February 1792, women of color married to white men were simply asked to go and sit elsewhere. Outcry: the Colonial Assembly does not intend to give in to the injunctions of the Society of Friends of Blacks and they hasten to imprison the leaders, who are declared “suspicious” and who are quickly expelled. In Bourbon, the vote remains white, mixed marriages are prohibited to eradicate miscegenation at its source and the military companies of the “Free” must all have white officers at their heads. Moreover, if you look closely, the egalitarian associations fight more for the mixed race than the slaves of whom they pay little attention. And precisely, the Colonial Assembly obtained a reprieve from the metropolis so as not to apply the decree of abolition (which would not be official and put in place until a year later) and welcomed a significant number of emigrants who were fleeing the abuses of revolutionaries and their guillotine.
Reunion Island is indeed led by Count Jean-Baptiste Vigoureux Duplessis (1736-1825), a dim-witted royalist who constantly compromises with one or other of the factions to better buy social peace. However, he cannot prevent revolutionary clubs from mushrooming, nor stem their growing influence on the island. Sans-culottism, "the cottages", will wreak havoc, and a victim, Duplessis, who is dismissed in April 1794 for having given asylum to the vice-admiral of Saint-Félix, guilty of being too aristocratic. The man had been helped in his escape by Joseph de Villèle who also knew the joys of prison. This Toulouse man would later mark the history of the island and France alongside Charles this regime, the overthrow and death of Robespierre, the inspiration for this “Terror” which bloodied the republic. The sans-culotte societies which flourished throughout the island then declined and disappeared from Reunion in January 1796.
Far from the tumult of Paris, the island acts in total autonomy from the metropolis. She adopted the revolutionary floral calendar with her fingertips and partially confiscated Church property. The new governor Philippe-Antoine Jacob de Cordemoy is closely linked to the consular period of Reunion Island. Following the increase in the price of grain and taxes, inflation which caused an economic crisis, and numerous insurrections broke out (March-April 1798) and threatened the precarious calm that prevailed on the island. The arrival in June 1796 of two commissioners (Baco de la Chapelle and Pierre Burnel), mandated by the Directory to emancipate the slaves, provoked riots and the immediate re-embarkation of the two officials, pushed into their boat after having been received a few hours at City Hall.
Philippe-Antoine Jacob de Cordemoy is a man of experience, a military officer who excelled during the Seven Years' War when he was just nineteen years old. He expels the Jacobins, the anti-slavery activists from the island but has difficulty stopping the general discontent. At the end of March 1798, an armed group hunted the tax collector of Saint-Pierre. Capital of the aristocratic south, the city went into sedition, accused of wanting to make a pact with the English. On February 13, 1799, the National Guard of Saint-Denis rose and, during a theatrical performance, the entire room did not hesitate to shout: “Long live the king, long live the pretender! » The royalists organize themselves, create a party, and decide that it is time for Reunion to gain its independence... time for France to regain its legitimate monarch. The repression, on a scale rarely equaled on the island, will result in executions from cannons. It is out of leniency that the “blacks in chains” are allowed to give a burial to the scraps of flesh that are spread out on the ground. It will take a trade agreement with the Ile de France and the Americans (officially at war with Paris) for tempers to calm down.
Bonaparte's decisions
Brumaire's coup d'état was not known to the people of Reunion until weeks later. The strange atmosphere reigns on the island in the hands of planters and royalists, who hesitate on the attitude to have towards General Bonaparte who overthrew the Directory. For many, the hero of the Egyptian campaign is considered "the friend of the blacks" and rightly suspected of wanting to repeal a practice over which the Colonial Assembly was keen to keep control. The supporters of the king, who hold the reins of the administration, are themselves divided between two factions: one which still wishes independence and the other which advocates putting itself under British protectorate. Although besieged by the soldiers of His Gracious Majesty, the military governor of Port-Louis, General Anne de Maurès de Malartic, warned the First Consul of the plans for commercial treaties with the United States, which pushed the supporters of independence to separate from France. His death in July 1800 and his replacement by General François-Louis Magallon de la Morlière did not help the situation. The decision is made to relax the rules of slavery in the name of economic interests. Reunion Island shudders and fears that the situation will degenerate like in Santo Domingo. The Assembly sends an ultimatum to Bonaparte and asks him to choose the repeal of a decree which stipulates that warehouse slaves must be paid and the conservation of the colonies. A rebellion breaks out and its leaders are deported.
The Peace of Amiens ended up putting out the fire and the First Consul sent a letter to the Reunion Islanders confirming that slavery would not be abolished. Armed with the document, the island then joined forces with the future Napoleon I and developed its trade in cloves and soon sugar cane. “Be happy and peaceful, faithful and well-deserving colonies of the Fatherland. Whatever the inconsiderate decrees which caused your alarm, their inconsideration alone was enough to determine their nullity […]. The essentially conservative regime which has made you prosper since your origin will be maintained and without modification” declares Denis Decrès, Minister of the Navy and Colonies.
General Charles Decaen, son of the French Revolution, and hero of the Battle of Hohenlinden, shone alongside other officers like Kléber or Moreau, participated in the Vendée campaigns, and attracted the sympathy of the First Consul who was probably appointed to the French Indies before bringing him to the Mascarenes where he will be helped in his task by the prefect Louis Leger. In 1803 he replaced Magallon who was transferred to Réunion to assist him in this task where he would be in charge of enforcing consular law on the two sister islands. It was also he who had the two agents of the Directory who came to deliver the decree abolishing slavery evacuated. The colonists are wary of him and Decaen, with a second who has the ascendancy over the first. However, triangular trade will never be as flourishing as under his management: in 1808, there were 65,000 slaves across the entire island. And as one of Bonaparte’s ministers wrote, “We must carefully maintain the distance of colors under which colonial existence rests.” A code is established to legislate on local slavery but at what cost for the rich planters who lose autonomy and the “small Creoles too close to the blacks, put under surveillance and on file”?
Manumissions become regulated and more difficult to obtain, the companies of chestnut hunters are reconstituted, the Free can no longer inherit a white man or make him inherit and any abandoned child will be automatically considered a slave. The “Decaen dictatorship” annoys (including the corsairs commanded by the Breton Robert Surcouf, who will later abandon it) but, as slavery is maintained, no one thinks of flinching.
A new organization
The assemblies were dissolved in 1803, the municipalities were repealed and replaced by commune councils "having the simple task of indicating useful improvements for their localities", while the military arsenal of the island was quickly reinforced. Franco-British rivalries have not disappeared in this part of the Indian Ocean. Decaen must face a problem with the supply of weapons to the mainland which is taking too long to deliver ammunition essential to the security of the island. Taxes increase and planters criticize the governorate for favoring the Ile de France. “The syrups could only be distilled in Port-Louis, on the pretext that the manufacture of Bourbon rums and arracks was harmful to the guild industry of the neighboring island. Bourbon had become the farm of the Ile de France” summarized a history textbook in 1883.
It is in this context that, on January 1, 1806, Nicolas Ernault de Rignac, Baron des Bruslys, arrived. This Corrézien comes from a wealthy background well introduced to the aristocratic circles of the Ancien Régime and full of ambitions. His marriage to a rich heiress from Réunion brought him a considerable fortune and five children. During Emperor's Day, August 15, the people of Reunion learned that the new governor had decided to rename the former Bourbon after Bonaparte Island. However, the festivities will soon be spoiled after the English decide to join in the ceremonies by boarding a ship full of various goods in the harbor of Saint-Denis.
The first hitch to years of civil peace was only disrupted by bad weather such as the March hurricane which destroyed, in a few hours, a majority of the island's coffee trees. Atmospheric calamities multiply, accompanied by a drought which causes thousands of slaves to die of hunger. To make matters worse, the British decided to plant their flag in Cape Town, South Africa (1805). Proximity that makes Ernault de Rignac fear the worst.
English ships attempted to land on the coasts on various occasions in 1809, at Saint-Gilles, Sainte-Rose (bombarded by the frigate Néréide, commanded by Captain Corbett who was killed in combat in September 1810), Saint-Benoît, etc. but remain rejected each time. The war is not far away. In Cape Town, we understood that Bonaparte Island was poorly defended and that it was here that we could strike a major blow in the belly of the First Empire. War becomes inevitable with the objective for the English of seizing the Ile de France in the short term.
In September 1809, tensions rose a notch with the capture and brief occupation of Saint Paul by the British who pillaged and burned the city. There is total confusion on the island and, from Port-Louis, Decaen struggles to save what seems inevitable from day to day. Ernault de Rignac des Bruslys is incapable of making a decision. He rejects any idea of capitulation. On September 25, while the war council was deliberating, he locked himself in his apartments. A tragedy plays out in the torpor of the tropics. Ernault de Rignac attempted suicide for the first time with gunpowder which burned him horribly. The second time is good: he cuts his carotid artery. When the officers finally manage to break down the door, they find the governor in his chair, a pool of blood at his feet, and a note: “I do not want to be a traitor to my country; I do not want to sacrifice inhabitants to the useless defense of this open island. According to the effects that I see of the hatred or the ambition of a few individuals attached to a revolutionary sect, death awaits me on the scaffold... I prefer to give it to myself. »
Governor-General Decaen notifies Paris, which receives the death certificate of its governor. Napoleon is frightened. The reports are multiplying on his desk. The island is in bad shape and the victim of a hellish blockade. He is busy fighting against the Austrians and cannot intervene. Bonaparte Island is an abandoned rock. Colonel Jean-Chrysostôme Bruneteau de Sainte-Suzanne is appointed to succeed de Rignac with the mission “to land where he can”. He reached Saint-Denis the following October 8 and found the island authorities in complete disarray. He dismissed, transferred officers, and recruited young Creoles who he assembled into armed battalions responsible for reinforcing the defense lines. Desertions are numerous, with pay not arriving or sometimes very late. The slaves are freed by the English and have fun in the masters' houses. Bonaparte Island is in the grip of anarchy.
On July 6, 1810, the Battle of Saint-Denis began. The last chapter of the end of the imperial presence in the Mascarenes. For the British, it was about taking the city in pincers. Twenty ships flying the Union Jack flag appeared all around the island with 5,000 men on board. Commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Keating, they disembarked at Grande-Chaloupe, at Rivière des Rainies, and headed towards Saint-Denis. At the same time, they reached Sainte-Marie despite the surf and seized it very quickly. The island of Rodrigues fell a few months ago. The ultimate confrontation will take place on the Redoute plateau. The English received numerous reinforcements and, facing them, barely two hundred French soldiers, two-thirds of whom came from the National Guard. The resistance is heroic, the massacre of these tropical grunts will go down in the annals of the history of Bonaparte Island.
The colonel of Sainte-Suzanne must sign a capitulation agreement in Saint-Joseph. The officers saluted his bravery and allowed Jean-Chrysostôme Bruneteau to return to France where he completed his military career before taking his own life in 1830. What remains is France's only major naval victory at Grand Port, which will be inscribed on the Arc de Triumph, “a battle which begins four to four and […] which ends in victorious chaos thanks to the maneuvers of Pierre Bouvet de la Maisonneuve. »
The return of the lily flowers
On December 3, it is the turn of the Ile de France to fall. Decaen has exhausted all military resources at his disposal. Robert Townsend Farquhar takes over as head of the new administration. He hates Napoleon, "the Corsican ogre", and hastens to rename the island which returns to its original name of Bourbon. On December 28, he called on all the colonists of the two sister islands “to take an oath of loyalty, obedience, and submission to the King of England and the British government.” The national guards have deserted, and the Anglophile party hastens to rally the new occupiers who will hold out for five years in the Mascarenes with a governor who shares power with a lieutenant governor. The first measures taken by Governor Robert Townsend Farquhar will reassure the Bourbonnais of their decision. Nothing changes. Slavery is maintained just like religious freedom, the best blacks rounded up to supply the native companies in Jamaica and the revolts firmly put down, parties follow balls.
But behind the seduction operation, is another reality. The British behaved like “tenants” and were content to carry on with current affairs until the Treaty of Paris on May 30, 1814. France recovered the island of Reunion. The Fleurdelysé flag is raised before the news arrives of Napoleon's return from the island of Elba. Athanase-Hyacinthe Bouvet de Lozier (whose father held the same position between 1752 and 1753), appointed head of the island, remained faithful to the Bourbon regime, refusing to recognize the “usurper” who still had his followers in the Mascarenes. A few deportations will quickly put an end to any new revolt, even before the Battle of Waterloo. A defeat that would spell the end of French power in the Indian Ocean and the loss of the Isle of France to the British.
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