{"id":815,"date":"2012-02-11T09:18:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-11T09:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/?p=815"},"modified":"2012-03-16T22:21:05","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T22:21:05","slug":"last-voyage-of-le-coureur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/?p=815","title":{"rendered":"Last Voyage of Le Coureur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Voyage of Le Coureur<\/em><\/p>\n

The Wreck of a Slave Ship off the Mauritius Coast<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

View of the wreck site<\/p>\n

March 1821. Night had just fallen and there was a full moon. A small lugger\"\"<\/a> was waiting offshore to deliver a cargo of slaves to French colonists residing on the British colony of Mauritius. Unfortunately, the seas were rough, a cyclone having passed through the region only days earlier. Dorval, commanding the small vessel, was an experienced navigator but he could not risk bringing the ship in by day. His cargo \u2013 slaves acquired at Madagascar or Mozambique \u2013 was strictly illegal, the slave trade having been prohibited by laws sent out to the island from London some years previously. Dorval had to act with caution, and had left word that he would bring in his cargo at night, on 3rd<\/sup> March, choosing the date carefully so as to navigate across the dangerous reefs by the light of a full moon. A fire was lit on shore near the Pointe aux Feuilles, to indicate where Dorval should head to offload the slaves. Unfortunately, the voyage of the Coureur<\/em> was being tracked by the British navy who dispatched the schooner Henrietta<\/em>, under the command of Lieutenant Weatherly, to cruise off the eastern shores of Mauritius. Le Coureur<\/em> was spotted, and as Dorval entered the bay, the lugger crashed into the reefs and was wrecked.\u00a0 Was the rough sea to blame, or had Dorval panicked at the sight of the pursuing British schooner? The slaves were quickly disembarked and the ship was set ablaze to destroy any evidence of the slave trade. It is not known whether anyone lost their life in the shipwreck.<\/p>\n

Back on shore, the British authorities ordered a search to be made for the newly disembarked slaves and the lugger\u2019s crew, offering a reward of $1000. But this was one of many such investigations for which limited manpower was available. The lugger\u2019s captain, Dorval Letord escaped to the sister island of Bourbon [now known as R\u00e9union]. Eventually 41 of the hundred or so slaves believed to have been on board Le Coureur<\/em> were found. Unfortunately, this would not have meant an end to servitude for the hapless slaves. It was usual practice at this time to hand over \u2018liberated\u2019 slaves to new owners who would \u2018apprentice\u2019 them to various trades for periods of service as long as 14 years. In reality, their fate, at least for a decade or more, would not be so very different from that of other slaves on the island. Dorval would eventually return to Mauritius, turn King\u2019s Evidence, and supply much useful evidence about how the illegal slave trade was operated on the island.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the wreck of Le Coureur <\/em>a 50-ton, Mauritius built lugger, would lie undiscovered and unexplored for almost two centuries.<\/p>\n

The story of those dramatic events in March 1821 would begin their gradual return to public consciousness on 10th<\/sup> October 2004, when Mr A.V. Naiken, a diver at the Fish Farm of Mah\u00e9bourg off the south-eastern coast of Mauritius, spotted the outline of a shipwreck, and reported his find to the relevant authorities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The local underwater archaeologist Mr Yann von Arnim of the Mauritius Marine Conservation Society (MMCS) and the Mauritius Museums Council worked with Mr Ibrahim Ahmed Metwalli, a maritime archaeologist from the Department of Underwater Archaeology of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and Mr Nicolas Bigourdan, a French maritime archaeologist, to explore the wreck site in 2005 and 2006.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The key objectives of the archaeological campaign were to identify the wreck and retrieve any artefacts. The wooden hull was partially buried by ballast stones and sediment, which had helped to preserve it. Evidence of fire damage helped to indicate the identity of the ship as Le Coureur<\/em>. Items retrieved on site were also dated to the relevant time period for the construction and service of the lugger. The artefacts collected were handed over to the National History Museum at Mah\u00e9bourg and some can be seen on display at the exhibition named \u2018The wreck of Le Coureur, a testimony of the illegal slave trade\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Among the most interesting artefacts retrieved are those suggestive of the purpose of the lugger\u2019s last voyage \u2013 the slave trade. Some iron rings set in concrete might have been used to chain slaves. In addition, two lead disks were recovered with a hole at one edge which may have been worn by slaves as a medal or tag for identification purposes. Dorval himself later gave evidence that such tags or labels had been used in the slave trade between Madagascar, Mozambique and Mauritius.<\/p>\n

There is evidence of the tags worn by slaves on voyages in some depictions of the \u2018middle passage\u2019 across the Atlantic (see picture below).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These can be described as \u2018transfer tags\u2019 to distinguish them from those worn by slaves employed on particular works and which would have been used over a longer period of time [see the relevant article on slave tags recovered on Mauritius on this web site].<\/p>\n

Pictures of the wreck site \u00a9Yann Vann Arnim<\/p>\n

Text \u00a9Marina Carter<\/p>\n

For further information about Le Coureur<\/em> see:<\/p>\n

Guillaume Gouges, \u2018Sonder les ab\u00eemes de l\u2019\u00e9pave de Pointe-aux-Feuilles\u2019 Express<\/em> 22<\/p>\n

June 2005<\/p>\n

Cader Kalla \u2018Illegal slave trade\u2019 Weekend<\/em>,\u00a0 12 June 2005\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Interim Report of the Pointe aux Feuilles\u2019s Wreck (Mauritius): Le Coureur (1818),<\/p>\n

an illegal slave trader?\u2019 \u00a02008 www.mmcs-ngo.org<\/p>\n

Nathalie Rose \u2018Le Coureur entre deux eaux\u2019 Express<\/em> 5 June 2005<\/p>\n

———————————————————————————————–<\/p>\n

\u00a9 MauritiusMag<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Voyage of Le Coureur The Wreck of a Slave Ship off the Mauritius Coast View of the wreck site March 1821. Night had just fallen and there was a full moon. A small lugger was waiting offshore to deliver a cargo of slaves to French colonists residing on the British colony of Mauritius. Unfortunately,… Continue reading Last Voyage of Le Coureur<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[90],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-misc","tag-history-misc","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":826,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions\/826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiusmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}