The forgotten slaves of Tromelin Island
January 5, 2016 5:59 AM Subscribe
On July 31, 1760, L'Utile, a ship of the French East Indian Company loaded with an illegal cargo of about 160 Malagasy slaves, was shipwrecked on a barren, windswept islet now known as Tromelin Island, 500 km east of Madagascar. The French crew, with the help of the surviving Malagasy, built a makeshift boat and set sail for Madagascar two months later, leaving behind 60 Malagasy with three months’ provisions, a letter recognising their good conduct and the promise that someone would come back for them. Weeks passed, then months, then years. Since 2006, archeological teams have gone to Tromelin to examine the wreck site and learn about the lives of the marooned Malagasy: diary of the 2010 campaign.
At the outset of the 2013 season, [Malagasy archeologist] Rasoarifetra arranged a ceremony. She asked her ancestors for permission for the scientists to dig on their land, and explained that they were doing it not to destroy, but rather to understand. She poured a little rum into the sand at the northeast corner of the site — the corner that traditionally belongs to the ancestors. Then every team member took a sip.
Bonus: Les esclaves oubliés de l'île Tromelin, a French documentary.
At the outset of the 2013 season, [Malagasy archeologist] Rasoarifetra arranged a ceremony. She asked her ancestors for permission for the scientists to dig on their land, and explained that they were doing it not to destroy, but rather to understand. She poured a little rum into the sand at the northeast corner of the site — the corner that traditionally belongs to the ancestors. Then every team member took a sip.
Bonus: Les esclaves oubliés de l'île Tromelin, a French documentary.
Interesting that in the end, the only survivors on the island were women --- I wonder if there was any sort of parallel with Pitcairn Island, where the Bounty survivors ended up with a number of Polynesians.
That bunch started out more-or-less peaceful, but over time the Bounty crewmen and the Polynesian men who were shipwrecked with them killed each other off (mostly from fighting over who did what work and who got what woman), so that by the time the island was rediscovered there was only one man left alive, a white sailor, plus a bunch of women and kids.
posted by easily confused at 7:20 AM on January 5, 2016
That bunch started out more-or-less peaceful, but over time the Bounty crewmen and the Polynesian men who were shipwrecked with them killed each other off (mostly from fighting over who did what work and who got what woman), so that by the time the island was rediscovered there was only one man left alive, a white sailor, plus a bunch of women and kids.
posted by easily confused at 7:20 AM on January 5, 2016
I was just reading up on the Donner Party (referenced in some fiction I'm reading), and women disproportionately survived that disaster as well. The differences have been attributed to:
1. Gender roles with men engaged in more dangerous labor.
2. Women tend to have higher resistance to malnutrition.
One of the articles reports that, according to some accounts, men were more willing to risk attempts to escape the island via makeshift rafts, and the last adult men on the island made an attempt after the failed rescue.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:31 AM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
1. Gender roles with men engaged in more dangerous labor.
2. Women tend to have higher resistance to malnutrition.
One of the articles reports that, according to some accounts, men were more willing to risk attempts to escape the island via makeshift rafts, and the last adult men on the island made an attempt after the failed rescue.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:31 AM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
I loved this article in the Economist; the Archaeology magazine piece is a great companion, thank you.
I'm curious about Castellan’s motive for returning to the island to pick up the slaves he left behind. What motivated him? The Economist article gives the general impression it was some sort of decent motive to rescue them, either his honor at fulfilling a promise or general respect for other men. But those were slaves, and I wonder if instead the motive was to recover some valuable property that had been lost. It's a bit complicated because Castellan was the first officer, not the slave, and the slave trade was not allowed in that part of the world.
posted by Nelson at 8:31 AM on January 5, 2016
I'm curious about Castellan’s motive for returning to the island to pick up the slaves he left behind. What motivated him? The Economist article gives the general impression it was some sort of decent motive to rescue them, either his honor at fulfilling a promise or general respect for other men. But those were slaves, and I wonder if instead the motive was to recover some valuable property that had been lost. It's a bit complicated because Castellan was the first officer, not the slave, and the slave trade was not allowed in that part of the world.
posted by Nelson at 8:31 AM on January 5, 2016
It sounds like he made a promise and he meant to keep it. I'm sure there was a level of guilt as it also sounds like the slaves were the ones primarily involved in building the escape ship. Of course I'm assuming a lot, but as he campaigned for so many years to rescue them, I'm doubtful there was much chance of a monetary reward. Ostro's humanity comment, flippant as it may be, strikes me as also the desire to return.
I was also struck by the disgusting behavior of the majority of people in this story- refusing to return until the story was something of a legend. I'm glad they rescued the 7 that they did, but it isn't much of a redemptions for the 88 lost, many who literally gave their lives to save the people who wouldn't then return the favor.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:50 AM on January 5, 2016
I was also struck by the disgusting behavior of the majority of people in this story- refusing to return until the story was something of a legend. I'm glad they rescued the 7 that they did, but it isn't much of a redemptions for the 88 lost, many who literally gave their lives to save the people who wouldn't then return the favor.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:50 AM on January 5, 2016
I was also struck by the disgusting behavior of the majority of people in this story- refusing to return until the story was something of a legend.
I can only imagine that most of the people involved in the story had ended up so completely erasing any trace of empathy or belief in the humanity of slaves during their lifetimes that at that point they only regarded those lives as lost cargo. In the slave trade, you have to spend a lot of time convincing yourself that the slaves aren't worth consideration as human when you engage in the trade day in and day out. Tthat extended to everyone involved, even peripheral figures who were simply part of a society that traded in slaves, even if they weren't directly involved.
posted by deanc at 1:16 PM on January 5, 2016
I can only imagine that most of the people involved in the story had ended up so completely erasing any trace of empathy or belief in the humanity of slaves during their lifetimes that at that point they only regarded those lives as lost cargo. In the slave trade, you have to spend a lot of time convincing yourself that the slaves aren't worth consideration as human when you engage in the trade day in and day out. Tthat extended to everyone involved, even peripheral figures who were simply part of a society that traded in slaves, even if they weren't directly involved.
posted by deanc at 1:16 PM on January 5, 2016
So what is it with women and deserted islands? The same thing happened on Clipperton Island from 1914-1917; out of 100 Mexican settlers, only four women and seven children lived to be saved by a passing American ship. It's a gruesome story, too; the last man went mad, proclaimed himself king, and after months of terror was killed by the surviving women. Just days later they were rescued.
posted by math at 7:38 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by math at 7:38 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
In some of the cases where what happened is known (Pitcairn and Clipperton, for example), it seems a lot the men killed each other fighting over who got access to the limited number of women available --- the women tended to survive, because they were what all the men were fighting each other for. Being female wasn't a guarantee of survival, of course; they still faced starvation, rape and assault, childbirth, and all the labor needed to simply survive. They didn't, however, face nearly as much outright homicide as the males did. I'd guess that something similar happened on Tromelin.
In cases like that of the Donner Party, the men died more as a result of attempts to leave the group and find help: they tended to die from starvation or accidents or bad decisions, more than one-on-one violence.
Although who knows: if the Donner Party had been cut off for years like Pitcairn or Clipperton, maybe something similar would've resulted. The main differences were that the Donner Party was mostly a group of inter-related families (rather than unrelated adults), they were 'marooned' in that mountain pass for months not years, and they were under constant assault from the weather that had imprisoned them there --- they didn't have the leisure, for lack of a better word, for fighting each other that the various islanders had.
posted by easily confused at 9:36 PM on January 6, 2016
In cases like that of the Donner Party, the men died more as a result of attempts to leave the group and find help: they tended to die from starvation or accidents or bad decisions, more than one-on-one violence.
Although who knows: if the Donner Party had been cut off for years like Pitcairn or Clipperton, maybe something similar would've resulted. The main differences were that the Donner Party was mostly a group of inter-related families (rather than unrelated adults), they were 'marooned' in that mountain pass for months not years, and they were under constant assault from the weather that had imprisoned them there --- they didn't have the leisure, for lack of a better word, for fighting each other that the various islanders had.
posted by easily confused at 9:36 PM on January 6, 2016
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(It's a shame the boat didn't end up just a little smaller, so that they would have been forced to leave some white sailors behind as well. That probably would have done the trick.)
posted by ostro at 6:46 AM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]