Beachcomber Magazine 03

TROMELIN TROMELIN THE ART OF MEMORY 70 T he roar of the waves against the reef, the sound of the mallets hammering in the nails drowning out the screams of the slaves being “locked” into the hold. On 31 July 1761, the frigate L’Utile crashed onto reefs hiding beneath the foaming surface. Captain Lafargue was in too much of a rush to deliver his cargo of unregistered “ebony”: 158 Malagasy slaves who had been taken on board at Foulpointe – a port in Madagascar which served as a trading post for LouisXV’s naval officers on route to the Indies. There weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone and Lafargue decided to offload some of his human cargo: the wreck would be their grave. Some other slaves managed as best they could to hang on to the lifeboats. 56 DAYS LATER ... An unbelievable raft arrived in Foul- pointe. Under the incredulous gaze of the squadron leader who was preparing to raise anchor to chase the English, 73 bedraggled sailors disembarked from the improvised, 12 metre-long raft on which they had been packed like sardines, after four days of dead reckoning navigation. And not a single Malagasy among them! They had been abandoned with what remained of the supplies on the Island of Sands, along with those who had survived the wreck and had managed to swim to the sandbar. A well, dug into the sand, provided them with a cloudy liquid: filthy water. Lieutenant Castellan, the only hero in this affair, who had constructed the raft, had promised Present during the expedition in November 2008, which lasted nearly 40 days, the illustrator Sylvain Savoia captured the story of the Forgotten Slaves of Tromelin in the graphic novel that bears the same name. Présent lors de l’expédition de novembre 2008, qui dura près de 40 jours, l’illustrateur Sylvain Savoia ressuscite l’aventure des esclaves oubliés de Tromelin dans sa BD du même nom.