We, the people of Seychelles… |05 November 2022
The names of the first white settlers
So begins the preamble to the constitution of Seychelles. But exactly who are we? How did we become inhabitants of an archipelago hidden in the expanse of the Indian Ocean? How did we become Seychellois Creole? On behalf of the National Museum of History, TONY MATHIOT attempts to unravel a historical conundrum that has mystified foreigners since the mid-19th century.
In 1609, the English expedition found our islands uninhabited. It was in 1770 that the first 28 settlers from Ile de France arrived to establish themselves on Ste Anne.
The first Seychellois creole must have been Marie-Jeanne, the daughter of Pierre Hangard (1732-1812) a former soldier of the Compagnie des Indes and his African concubine named Annette. On May 22, 1785 she was married to Jean-Marie Le Beuze by the chaplain aboard the ship Marquis de Castries. Their first child, Jean Pierre Le Beuze was born on February 12, 1790. A Seychellois Creole. However, African children had been born in Seychelles some years before. On September 2, 1787, a chaplain aboard Amphitrite had united in Holy Wedlock an African couple, slaves of Lambert of Anse à la Mouche, legitimizing 5 children born out of wedlock. In 1791, during the administration of Louis Jean-Baptiste Philogène de Malavois (1748-1825) the population of Seychelles was 572 inhabitants (65 whites, 20 free Africans, 487 slaves). It must be noted that the promise of 108 acres of land to new settlers contained in the Malavois Laws of 1787 lured many whites from Isle de France and Ile Bourbon to Seychelles. Most of them brought along their slaves and in violation of Article 6 of the Code Noire, more than a few of them had children with their slaves who would become the first generation of Seychellois creoles and the founding families of some of today’s generation. Likewise, white families were having children by the scores: on August 1, 1801 Catherine Larcher was born on La Digue which had been first inhabited in 1798 by a group of white deportees from Ile Bourbon. On October 20, 1802 Nicolas Petrousse was born at Anse Boileau. On February 10, 1804 Marie Silvie Mathiot was born on Mahé. On August 20, 1805 Louis Leonard Hoareau was born on Mahé. On July 8, 1806 Pierre-Laurence was born on Mahé. By then, many family names of European origin that have since then been perpetuated by births over more than a century were arriving in Seychelles: Esparon, Mellon, Mondon, Tirant, Doffay, Gonthier…as were ships coming with more cargoes of African slaves from Mozambique: On January 27, 1807, L’amazone arrived with a hundred slaves, on April 4, 1807 Courrier des Seychelles brought 140 slaves. That same year Marianne left Mahé in February and returned a few months later with sixty-five slaves. On April 25, 1809 L’Etoile arrived with 150 slaves. In 1807, the population census showed that there were 231 white settlers including 71 men, 47 women, 56 boys and 57 girls. The 104 creoles or mulattoes included 17 men, 36 women, 25 boys and 26 girls. There were 2,414 slaves. Clearly, at the outset of the 19th century miscegenation was creating the melting pot of races that would come to define the Seychellois creole people of the 20th century. Miscegenation and the promiscuity of the French settlers who were mostly bachelors can legitimately be attributed as the fundamental factors in the making of the Seychellois creole people. In 1810, the year before the British arrived to take possession of the Seychelles, the population had risen to 3,467 inhabitants (317 whites, 135 free Africans and 3015 slaves). In 1811, the first British Commissioner, Bartholomew Sullivan appointed Joseph Andre Lablache, Commissioner of Civil Status, in charge of the register of births, marriage and deaths. Fortunately, Article 6 of the Capitulation Treaty of May 17, 1794 stipulated that all papers and documents should be preserved. Understandably, until then miscegenation took place only between the black slave woman and her white master which invariably resulted in the births of metisse children who would themselves later in life at puberty cohabit with either white or African suitors and produce creole children thus perpetuating this métissage custom. In the 1820s there was much whaling activity in the Indian Ocean. Sperm whales abounded in the Seychelles bank especially in the vicinity of Bird Island and Denis Island where a breeding ground attracted whales from the Antarctic. Records thus show that between 1823 and 1836, 82 American and British whale ships called at Mahé for provisions. No doubt, more than few crew members of those whaling vessels must have sought comfort from the Seychelloise creoles with whom they surely must have fathered children, methods of contraception being non-existent at that time.
On February 1, 1835, the day of Abolition of Slavery in British colonies, 6,521 slaves were emancipated from a total population of 7,500 inhabitants. They were 1,122 Creole men, 1,109 Creole women, 2,890 Mozambican men, 1,034 Mozambican women, and 84 Malagasy men, 198 Malagasy women, 2 Malayan men, 1 Malayan woman, 21 Indian men, 17 Indian women and 43 esclaves de class inconnue. So there must have been some 979 whites then. In 1850, a small group of south Indian tamil merchants arrived in Seychelles from Mauritius. Their children would become the first generation of Indo-creoles of Seychelles. A decade later, the population began to undergo an exponential growth both attributable to births and to the arrival of more Africans. Despite and in defiance of the abolition of slavery the illegal and lucrative slave was still being carried out by Arab ships. From 1861 and 1874 a total of 2,816 liberated African Slaves were rescued by ships of the Royal Navy who intercepted those Arab dhows on their way to Zanzibar and confiscated their human cargoes. Those liberated Africans would also become the founding families of some of today’s generation. The coming into being of the Seychellois people was a process of permutation of such mindboggling proportions that with the passing of each half century there was a transformation in the demographic panorama of Seychelles. In 1886, the Vicar Apostolic of Seychelles, Mgr. Syphorien Mouard (1828-1899) was intrigued by the population of Seychelles. In his journal he wrote: ‘Elle se compose de quatre races bien distinctes, savoir: Les blancs. Ils sont Francais ou Anglais pour la plupart. Les premiers sont assez nombreux. Les seconds se reduisent exclusivement a quelques employés du gouvernment avec leur familles. Les noirs ceux-ci sont Malgaches ou Mozambiques, c’est-a-dire originaire de Madagascar ou de la Côte Africaine sur le canal Mozambique. Ils forment deux classes. La première comprend les esclaves affranchise en 1838, la seconde, les esclaves capturés sur les Arabes par les Frégates Anglaises et amménes aux Seychelles dans ces dernières années. Les Creoles. Ceux-ci se divisent aussi en deux classes: la première comprend ceux don’t le teint n’est ni blanc ni noir. Ils sont issus d’unions contractées entre noir et blanc. La seconde comprendre les enfants des noirs nés aux Seychelles. Ceux-ci repudient absolument leur origine Africain. Les Indiens. Ils sont un petit nombre, mais ils forment une puissance aux Seychelles par leur richesse et leur commerce. Ils viennent presque tous des Côte de Coromandel et de Malabar: aussi sont-ils pour cette raison designés sous le nom de Malabar. Je n’ai pas de documents sous les yeux pour établir une proportion numerique exacte entre les diffrentes races, mais les blancs ne paraissant pas avoir augmenté depuis 1814 et les Indiens étant en fort petit nombre, il est evident que les noirs et les Creoles ont sur les autre races une superiorité presque absorbante’. Further on his journal, Mgr. Mouard’s ethnological observation was a hymn to our mid-19th century creole identify. ‘La grande variété des races dont se compose la population Seychellois’ he wrote ‘indique assez la variété des caractères’. Indeed, one can legitimately assume that the disposition and temperament of the Seychellois people then could have been attributed to some hereditary strain as well as to social factors like poverty and hardship. During Mgr. Mouard’s episcopacy (1882-1888) the population was just above 14,000. In 1899, a couple of hundreds of indentured labourers from Madras were recruited to build roads around Mahé. While most returned to India, some chose to stay where they found employment on coconut estates. In 1891, there were 200 British Indians in Seychelles. In 1901, this number increased to 335. Indians born in Seychelles were estimated to be about 50. In 1891, there were 45 Chinese immigrants in Seychelles. In the population census of 1901, a category of people was classed as the ‘British Population’ and it numbered 17,698. This referred to two groups of people: those of British nationalities who were a minority and the natives of Seychelles, the Seychellois Creole who totalled to no less than 16,563. The colonial report of 1901 stated that ‘it would certainly have been invidious to classify the natives of Seychelles according to colour’. This means that by the time Seychelles separated from Mauritius and achieved Colonial Status in 1903 ‘we’ had become a fait accomplit – in other words it would have been impossible and unrealistic to divide us into ethnic groups. From then on, miscegenation in all its diversities continued as the natural way of procreation. In 1947, the Colonial Report stated that ‘Births out of wedlock are unduly high, and a large proportion of such children never know a father.’ Therefore, one can deduce that certain social factors have certainly contributed to the evolution of our ‘creolité’, sexual promiscuity not being the least of them. It is known that since the early 1930s the suburbs of Victoria abounded in brothels where crews of visiting ships of the British Royal Navy and other nationalities were accommodated by Seychelloise of easy virtues. One can only imagine how many offsprings resulted in those brief encounters during so many decades until the early 1980s. Plus, we can only speculate about the various nationalities involved. These are moral aspects of our ‘creolité’ that we cannot exclude from consideration. It is common knowledge that as from 1955 Japanese tuna vessels operating off the Amirantes regularly called in Port Victoria for provisions. Later, Spanish fishing vessels also arrived. In a place like the Seychelles, the anticipation of seafarers are no secret. In the early 1950s, unprotected sex resulted in making venereal disease a country-wide scourge. After medical authorities had recorded 927 cases of gonorrhea and 221 cases of syphilis (of which there were 17 deaths) the government was compelled to introduce the veneral ordinance which helped in curbing the spread of the disease. In 1960, the population of Seychelles had increased to 41,425 inhabitants. This figure included Indians who comprised 82 heads of families with 275 dependents and Chinese who comprised 93 heads with 191 dependents. Indo-Seychellois? Sino- Seychellois? During the last 3 decades a whole gamut of exotic races have added new traits and characteristics on account of interbreeding with Seychellois men and Seychelloise women. Races which hitherto were unknown or even alien to our ‘melting pot’. In the mid-1980s scores of students obtained scholarships in the Soviet Union, East Germany, Cuba, China, Czechoslovakia and even Bulgaria. More than a few returned to Seychelles with their spouses or suitors with whom they eventually had children.
Today, 252 years after our islands were first inhabited by 3 distinctive races (French, African and Indians) we claim ourselves to be ‘THE’ Seychellois people. Besides the fact that it is conspicuously clear that we are descendants of the whites and the blacks, 40% of us, Seychellois creoles have no independent racial identity and we are not deducible from the racial components of which we are the products – and may this be the elusive answer to the question of our creole identity!
We are Mulatoes, Eurasians, Quadroons, and Octoroons. Our names are European: Adam, MacGraw, Bristol, De La Fontaine, Johnstone…, African: Kante, Ongingo, Ondiek, Diallo, Sylla, Mumuni, Obrieze…and creole: Hoareau, Payette, Labrosse, Camille. As for the descendants of Marie-Jeanne and Jean-Marie Le Beuze, one of their granddaughters, Marie Georgette married Edouard Le Fevre of Normandy. Today, the Le Fevre family resides on their large property at St Louis.
We, the people of Seychelles aware and proud that as descendants of different races we have learnt to live together as one Nation under God and can serve as an example for a harmonious multi-racial harmony.
And Patrick victor sings:
‘O! O! O! Seselwa
Leve e sant lespwar
Pour sa later ki pour ou…’
