Month: October 2024

An article written by Raphaël Cheriau, historian

In 1881, the ‘Djamila’, a dhow flying the French flag, was captured by the British Navy off the coast of Zanzibar, along the western shores of Africa, with 94 slaves on board. The incident, far from being anecdotal in character, reflects the importance of the slave trade in this maritime space during the second half of the 19th century.

Despite the thriving character of the slave-trade in this region, little is known about this particular commerce, seemingly remaining in the shadow of the Atlantic trade. The lack of knowledge is due to the shortage of archives left by the activity in the Indian Ocean. Less well documented than its equivalent in the Atlantic, it is in fact virtually impossible to assess its the true scale. We have to be satisfied with approximate estimations of numbers. It is considered that between 800,000 and over 2 million women, men and children were the object of this slave trade along the coasts of East Africa during the 19th century as a whole.

As is reflected in the incident involving the ‘Djamila’, dhows from Zanzibar or Oman, those sailing ships equipped with one or two triangular sails, were for Europeans the incarnation of this “final trade.” It was easily forgotten that before the start of the abolition process, this “abject trade” had been dominated by Europeans in the early part of the century.

While the trade was condemned by the European colonial powers during its peak, it did not, however, decline until fairly late on. Indeed, it only saw a true decrease following the First World War, when trade in dates and pearls from Arabia collapsed under the effect of commercial globalisation.

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Since 1940, the Château Royal in Blois has had in its storerooms a set of 53 busts cast from former African captives, mostly enslaved on Mauritius island. The collection was brought together on the island in 1846 by Eugène de Froberville in the context of his “ethnographic study” of East Africa.

The exhibition “Faces of Ancestors. The Froberville Collection Returns to Mauritius” for the first time presents the collection, placed in its context thanks to a number of original documents. An exceptional testimony of the history of slavery, the exhibition, organised by the town council of Blois, has been devised by the administrators of the Château Royal in Blois and by Klara Boyer-Rossol, historian and the scientific curator of the event. The exhibition is organised in partnership with The Intercontinental Slavery Museum of Port-Louis (Mauritius island), and the Foundation for the Memory of Slavery.

The aim of the exhibition is to give a voice to the persons whose busts were cast, to cast a new light on the busts, freed from “racial science” and, on the contrary, to focus on the culture, experience and accounts of each person. Historical research has made it possible to identify the busts and partly trace the life stories of the individuals whose busts were cast. The exhibition is also a preliminary stage in the departure of the Froberville collection for Mauritius island, where it will be conserved at the Intercontinental Slavery Museum in Port Louis as from 2025.

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