01/02/2025
1835, the year when freedom was more important than salvation. Since the Dutch era, slavery was introduced in Mauritius, until the British put an end on it. Slaves from various countries such as Mozambique or Madagascar, have faced cruelties, and experienced agonies in the hands of the colonists, those evil owners, who only knew wealth in the name of exploitation.
During the French era, with "Code Noir", being a slave was the worst luck ever in our society. Some of the rules from Code Noir were:
Art.27: The slave who strikes his master, his mistress or their children, with contusion or effusion of blood, or in the face, shall be punished with death.
Art.32: The fugitive slave absent for a month counting from the day when his master has denounced him to justice, shall have his ears cut, and be marked with a fleur de lys on one of hus shoulders.
The list of rules went on! Slaves could not go out at night in some estates. They could not marry an owner. Even their children of below age had to work for their masters. Punishments like thorn collars, whipping, chain attachments, cutting of ear, were common in many estates. And without forgetting traitors among themselves who helped popular slave hunters like Christine Bulle, alias Madame La Victoire.
We remember a few of those thousand slaves, such as Diamamouve, Beevarangue, Beemanique, Sans-Souci, and others.