250 years ago… |27 August 2020
Ste Anne Island (photo Tony Mathiot)
Today marks exactly 250 years since the first settlers arrived on our shores. TONY MATHIOT recounts the first chapter in the narrative of our history.
It must have been in the late morning of Monday August 27, 1770 that the Thélèmaque arrived 4˚ 36’S 55˚ 30’E and dropped her anchor off the coast of Ste Anne island – after a voyage of less than ten days from Ile De France (Mauritius)… No doubt the strong south easterly trade winds had given the boat speed and helped maintain its course across the tumultuous sea. Captain Leblanc Lécore and his 2nd Captain Faucin de Courcelle must have been glad to have arrived safely. They were actually heading for the Arabian coast. Twenty-eight passengers disembarked from the Thélèmaqueand stepped into a small rowing boat which landed them on the beach of Anse Cabot, on the North Coast of Ste Anne Island. They were 15 white men, 5 Indians, 7 African men and 1 African woman. An odd group of people certainly. Their names should be known. The white men were: Delaunay, Anselme, Berville, Drieux, Bernard, Lavigne, Jean-Jacques Boab et Michel Boab, Jean-Marie Fustel, Charles Aumont, Joseph Bonne Avoine, Jean Thomas Gorineau, Louis Verdière, Claude Givart and Larue. The African were: Miguel, Fernand, Ignace, Jouan, Le villers, Matatan, Matadoo and Marie: The Indians were: Charvy, Moutia, Cormara Mienate, Corinthe and Domingue. The Indians and the Africans were slaves. They were the first settlers in Seychelles. Their arrival came twenty-eight years after Captain Lazare Picault (1700-1748) landed at Anse Boileau (1742) and fourteen years after Captain Nicholas Morphey (1729-1774) had taken possession of the Seychelles in the name of King Louis XV (1710-1774) of France (1756). Little could this small group of people of different races have known that they would be subjected to the trials of hardship and the challenge of survival in the isolation of the vast Indian Ocean.
The land they came from was populated with about 20,000 inhabitants and economic and social development was gradually taking place, with an export trade that was bringing in substantial revenue.
The settlers arrived with their bundles of clothes, utensils and farming equipment, and the first of our food crops: maize, cassava, coffee and rice.
The settlement on Ste Anne was the ambitious scheme of a Frenchman, Henri Francois Charles Brayer du Barré who, it is legitimate to state, cannot be absolved from imputations of moral turpitude. He was one of those enterprising characters who would not scruple to get involved in any activity for pecuniary gain.
On May 12, 1770, Brayer du Barré arrived at Ile de France from France, claiming that for three and a half years he had managed the accounts of a military school lottery at Rouen. However, in the 18th century, no such school, of which there were a dozen, had ever been located at Rouen. In today’s terms Brayer du Barré would be called a ‘con-man’.
Using his wiles he succeeded in convincing the authorities at Ile de France that he could be the first one to establish a settlement in the Seychelles and thus preclude the possibility of the British getting the same idea. On August 12, 1770, Brayer du Barré received the authorisation from Governor Francois Julien du Dresnay, chevalier des Roches (1719-1786) and Intendent Pierre Poivre (1719-1786) of Ile de France and Ile Bourbon to create an establishment on Ste Anne Island. One must be reminded that this decision was taken in the context of a new Royal Government. In 1767, the Compagnie des Indes which had been administering Ile de France (since 1715) and Ile Bourbon (since 1665) was bankrupt as a consequence of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). Therefore, the Mascareigne islands were placed under the authority of the Minister de La Marine Cesar Gabriel de Choiseul, Duc de Praslin (1712-1785) and a governor and an intendent were appointed to govern the islands in different capacities. The authorisation document clearly stated that ‘Il est permis au sieur Brayer du Barré… d’y faire un établissement d’environ 30 hommes qui sera commandé par le sieur Delaunay et qu’il occupera à la coupe des bois à la construction et à la pêche, à la charge par lui d’approvisionner son établissement pour neuf mois de vivres et de lui fournir non seulement tous les outils nécessaires pour ces différents travaux mais encore…’ So, evidently right from the outset, the settlement was not meant to last for more than 9 months.
Long before a temporary occupation of the Seychelles was planned, there were two royal expeditions in the Indian Ocean. The first one was fitted out by Marc Joseph Marion Dufresne (1719-1772), a former captain of the Compagnie des Indes. He was given two ships, La Digue, under the command of Duchemin and La Curieuse under the command of Lamperaire. The objective of the expedition was to cut timber on Mahé and take back a cargo of tortoises. The expedition would last from September 17, 1768 to January 31, 1769. Curiously enough, on board the flute La Digue was Antoine Nicolas Benoit Gillot, a former officer in the Pondicherry regime and captain of Ile de France militia, who would later be sent to Seychelles in 1771 by Pierre Poivre to create the garden of spices at Anse Royale and who would later become the commandant of Seychelles from 1783 to 1786. During that 1768 expedition Gillot was responsible for the exploitation of timber, of which a large cargo was brought back to Ile de France. It was during that expedition that various islands in the Seychelles archipelago were renamed. These included La Digue and La Curieuse named after the two ships. Ile Moras (previously ile de palms) was renamed Praslin and lo and behold it was there that the coco de mer palms and nuts were discovered. They left a number of goats on the island to propagate. On November 20, 1768, the crew of La Curieuse unfurled the royal flag at what is now known as Anse Possession. At the base of the flagstaff, a plaque which proclaimed the acquisition of the island for the French crown was placed. On December 25, 1768, the crew of La Digue erected the Royal Flag near the Stone of Possession on Mahé. During that expedition the crew of La Digue went ashore on Ste Anne to look for coconuts and tortoises.
Four among the forty slaves who were under the command of Gillot escaped to hide on Mahé. In 1771, two of them were seen on Silhouette by Charles Oger aboard Heure du Berger.
The second expedition which was in 1769 was to find a direct route from Ile de France to India. On May 30, 1769, two ships left Ile de France – Heure du Berger commanded by Grenier and Vert Gallant under the command of Lieutenant Lafontaine. Aboard Heure du Berger was a French marine astronomer named Alexis-Marie de Rochon (1741-1817) who wanted to observe the passing of Venus across the sun on June 2 and needed to be on land by then. Unfortunately, his boat almost hit an unseen reef. The delay in finding their route caused Heure du Berger to arrive at Mahé on June 13, 1769. Consequently, Rochon missed the observation of the planet’s transit. He spent about three weeks on Mahé, where on July 3, 1769 he observed the reappearance of the first satellite of Jupiter – this must have alleviated his disappointment.
Ste Anne was a dense forest of timber trees and srewpines. Takamaka, bodamier, bois mapou, bois jaune, bois de fer were in abundance. The settlers moved further inland to find water at two rivers on the west side of the island. The island had been named in 1756 by Captain Nicolas Morphey – in honour of Anne, mother of Mary? Or in honour of his young deceased wife, Anne Houdman?
In December of 1770, Pierre Poivre sent two boats – Heure du Berger commanded by Duroslan and Etoile du Matin commanded by Labiollière – to see to the state of the settlement. Their instructions were to repatriate all the settlers if they wished to abandon the establishment. In his letter to Delaunay, he said ‘…don’t forget that you promised to send me coco de mer plants. Ensure that they are transported in such manner that they arrive here alive. If you could, send me some pigeons, doves and other curious birds from your island, you would do me a great pleasure but don’t send me blue hens which are evil beasts’.
Brayer du Barré was motivated by ardent ambitions. He wanted to recruit more slaves to extend his settlement. He was eager to establish a coconut oil industry, a fresh oil industry. He wanted to export salted fish and tortoise shell. In order for him to achieve this he requested for assistance from the colonial government. However, his integrity was being impugned by more than a few jealous businessmen. To countervail this, he had forty-eight signatories attest to his good conduct and moral uprightness.
In late 1771, the Mariannearrived in Seychelles with some sixty workers, mostly slaves. By then most of the settlers had moved over to Mahé. Aboard the boat was a certain Madame Larue accompanied by his nine-year-old son Pierre Le Moine. She was to attend to the medical needs of the inhabitants. The site where she chose to reside is named after her (Pointe Larue). Also accompanying the workers was a chaplain named Dumontanier who was to care for their spiritual needs. On December 1, 1771 he created the first parish and blessed the first chapel of St Antoine de Padua on Mahé. In 1771, Pierre Poivre who was nearing the end of his tenure as Intendent of Ile de France and Ile Bourbon, sent Gillot in Etoile du Matin to Seychelles to look for a suitable site on Mahé where a garden of spices could be created. Gillot was not cordially received by Delaunay who begrudged him the use of his slaves. Anyhow, Gillot returned to Ile de France on Nécessaire in March 1772, eager to tell Pierre Poivre of his choice of site. By now, the British were well aware that the islands of the Seychelles had been settled by the French. In August 1771, Lieutenant Lewis aboard the Eaglehad visited Ste Anne where he was warmly received by Delaunay who gave Lewis generous samples of various food crops that the settlement was cultivating (maize, rice, vegetables and tobacco).
Unbeknownst to Brayer du Barré his settlement was gradually being abandoned. The disgruntled whites and the rebellious slaves rejected Delaunay’s authority. The island’s natural resources were being plundered to sell to passing ships while the slaves were escaping into the mountainous woods. This was the state of affairs that the French naval officer and explorer Jean François de Gallaup, comte de Lapérouse (1741-1788) saw when he visited the Seychelles in his boat La Seine.
In July 1772 when Gillot and Pierre Hangard (1732-1812) arrived, a former soldier of the Compagnie des Indes arrived on Nécessaire,and they found the settlement on Ste Anne a complete utter mess. The new Governor-General Chevalier Charles Louis d’Arzac de Ternay (1723-1780) was horrified. He decided on immediate evacuation. On October 8, La Belle Poule commanded by Grenier was dispatched to Seychelles. He embarked most of the workers including Delaunay. Anselme was left in charge of a small group of about twenty workers in order to safeguard French interests. Pierre Hangard was allowed to take over the disintegrated settlement on Ste Anne. He proved to be a man with a stoutness of character and an indefatigable spirit. With a few slaves he managed to cultivate enough food to feed the entire population of inhabitants and to provide to passing ships. As for Gillot, he did not make much of a success with his ‘Jardin du Roy’. He subjected his few slaves to gross mistreatment and he was at constant loggerheads with Anselme.
Brayer du Barré was in financial straits. Every shipload of his from Seychelles was sold at Ile de France by his creditors. He resorted to inventing stories about discovering silver mines in Seychelles and requesting for finance moreover. He owed 174,000 livres to the Crown.There is no proof that Brayer du Barré ever set foot in Seychelles although he placed a notice in the Official Gazette of No 42 October 18, 1775 announcing that he intended to go to Seychelles. Rumour said that he was in Seychelles in July 1776 and that he left for India on May 18, 1777. That he spent ten months in Seychelles is indeed questionable but it was confirmed that he died at Pondicherry on June 3, 1777 – fourteen months before lieutenant Charles Routier de Romanville (1742-1792) arrived to establish a permanent settlement in Seychelles.
