Sculpture of Madame Desbassayns. Marco Ah-Khiem.
Vill\u00e8le museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIf the dark legend of Madame Desbassayns developed so easily after 1970, despite the exaggerated and implausible character of the accusations made, it was because the period was propitious to its dissemination. The 1960s saw the birth of a political movement focused on identity, which denounced the limitations of departmentalisation (Reunion becoming a French department), adopted in 1946 as a move to decolonise Reunion. The movement claimed the status of autonomous region for the island <\/span>. The electoral elements at stake were obvious: extolling the memory of past suffering, generated by the servile structure of the society and of colonisation, at the origin of existing inequalities and discriminations. The 1960s was also a decade during which historians were greatly influenced by Marxism, a process reflected in the emphasis on economic factors and social antagonisms.<\/p>\nIn this context, the history of Reunion was practically reduced to that of slavery: slavery was seen as a starting point, closely associated with the notion of the search for roots, the duty of memory and the cult of ancestors. Consequently, oral accounts given by the descendants of slaves were presented as privileged, even sacred, historical documents.<\/p>\n
The large number of works or articles devoted to slavery is revealing of the interest in and popularity of the topic by researchers and members of the public during that period <\/span>. As from the 1970s, Madame Desbassayns was also the object of studies or articles which reactivated the dark legend of her as an authoritarian woman devoid of humanity. Storytellers, singers and other local artists who talked about her generally believed they were expressing the reality of the person concerned. In actual fact, deliberately or unconsciously, they nourished, amplified and spread her legend. Today, any woman who, rightly or wrongly, is criticised for being too authoritarian in her professional capacity, is systematically assimilated with the person of Madame Desbassayns.
\nAll this is largely due to an over-simplification of the society based on slavery, with, on the one hand, the black population, continually chained up and beaten, and on the other hand the \u2018Gros Blancs<\/em>\u2019 (rich white people), necessarily evil, with\u00a0Madame Desbassayns presented as the archetype. In fact, it is now recognised that she was not the owner of the island’s largest fortune, since as from the 1830s, hers was largely overshadowed by that of Gabriel Le Coat de Kerv\u00e9guen (1800-1860), who possessed more slaves than she did. We also know that during that period everyone on Reunion island who could afford to do so, whether they were white, of mixed race or black, possessed slaves, sometimes just a small handful, who worked the land or were employed as domestic staff. The effect of giving her the implicit role of scapegoat results in the tendency to forget all the other lesser-known slave-owners and absolving their descendants of any possible exactions committed by their ancestors.
\nIt is as though, in the absence of any liberator the likes of Toussaint Louverture on Haiti, it is Madame Desbassayns who, by crystallising all resent around her person, has the role of assembling the descendants of slaves in Reunion and perpetuating the memory of slavery.<\/p>\nSecond Providence or torturer of slaves?<\/h3>\n
It is still possible that new elements may be discovered, but, to this day, there exists no convincing argument in favour of one or other of these two theories. A critical examination of extremely diverse documents that we consulted shows that she was a daughter of her period, both product and actor of a certain type of society <\/span>. The economics of her estate depended on slavery, an inhuman and highly reprehensible practice, but which was, at the time perfectly legal and strictly regulated.<\/p>\nLike the majority of company directors who, yesterday or today, are seldom philanthropists, her aim was to take full advantage of the system, while at the same time improving its efficiency. Each of her actions or facets of her character naturally gave rise to all sorts of interpretations and representations in the 19th and 20th centuries, reflecting the mentalities and values of the periods in question and giving rise to legends anchored in the imagination of a large number of people on Reunion Island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246,"parent":1904,"menu_order":10,"template":"","class_list":["post-1905","documentaire","type-documentaire","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/documentaire\/1905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/documentaire"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/documentaire"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/documentaire\/1904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}