Trip 43 — Réunion Walk
Prologue
Friday, 25 October 2024
Half of a pair of roughly egg-shaped islands 400 miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, Réunion likely takes its name in recognition of a meeting connected to the storming of the Tuileries Palace in Paris in 1792. The island had been known as Isle Bourbon since 1649, and revolutionaries were eager to wipe the name of the dynasty off the map. In the 19th century, the island was briefly named for Napoleon and then the Bourbons again, but it has been Réunion since 1848.
The year 1848 is also when slavery was abolished in the colony; France's progress in this matter lagged behind that of neighboring, British-owned Mauritius, where it was ended in 1835. Réunion's slaves were brought in largely to tend to the sugar plantations, which required round-the-clock attention to the boiling cauldrons and steam engines during the harvest seasons.
Born in 1786, Furcy was claimed as a slave for 47 years. His mother, Madeleine, had been born in India and sold and resold via contracts of dubious legitimacy. Their struggles are laid out against the ever-changing political and civil attitudes in Sue Peabody's book "Madeleine's Children."
Madeleine served the Routier family beginning with their journey from mainland France to Isle Bourbon via Isle de France (now Mauritius) in 1772. She was brought along primarily to care for the pregnant Marie Anne Routier, who gave birth to Eugénie aboard the Brune. Furcy's father was most likely Charles Routier; it was common for masters to have relations with their slaves.
As part of the distribution of Marie Anne's property after her death in 1808, Furcy became attached to Eugénie and her husband, Joseph Lory. Joseph was a conniving, heartless businessman; if there'd been a TV program in 1809 called "French Greed," they'd have done a special on him.
Marie Anne had freed Madeleine in 1789 but never told her; as a result, she was owed 19 years of back pay. Madeleine offered to trade those wages for Furcy's freedom, and Joseph Lory swindled her out of both: Taking advantage of her inability to read, he had her sign a document — in front of his own notary and lawyer — in which she acknowledged receipt of the full back pay. In reality, the wages he paid were a mere year's worth, given in a combination of corn and the equivalent of about $175, and the oral promise of Furcy's freedom was never fulfilled; Joseph listed Furcy as his slave on his annual census until 1833.
Furcy petitioned for his freedom for the first time in 1817, claiming, among other things, that Indians couldn't be taken as slaves and that the Free Soil law conferred freedom on anyone who stepped onto mainland France. His mother shouldn't have been a slave, and he shouldn't have been one, either. One day, when Joseph wasn't around, Furcy walked out of the Lorys' Saint-Denis townhouse and deemed himself a free man. He was almost immediately arrested and jailed for nearly a year, after which he was sent to Mauritius to work the Lorys' sugar fields on that island.
The legal justification for Furcy's freedom got lost in the French Revolution, the continually rewritten laws and definitions, and the distance between the mainland and the colonies: Finding someone to take the time to properly interpret the rules and to know which ones were in effect in specific years proved to be almost impossible. The petitions by Furcy and his sister, Constance, in 1817 supposedly resulted in denials, along with an appeal in 1818, but there is no record that such hearings and rulings ever took place. It wasn't until 1843 that Furcy was finally ruled a free man retroactively. He was awarded a pittance from the Lorys and, in a moment of belated compassion, Eugénie Lory, whose birth his mother had assisted in the waters near Africa, tripled the payment.
Furcy was merely trying to make himself whole within the rules of the time; he didn't act out of any kind of higher calling. He even owned slaves as a free man. He set up a candy shop in Port Louis, Mauritius, became a landowner, and had a family. His life and efforts are celebrated today: In 2015 the Rue de la Compagnie in Saint-Denis was renamed Lavnu Furcy (Furcy Avenue in the Kreyol language), Kaf Malbar's song "Furcy's Gold" urges us to "keep Furcy in our mind....Our children must know our history," and historians such as Sue Peabody have worked tirelessly to give us a complete story by navigating through ancient documents, conflicting accounts, and red tape — even now, only proven family members may view original records on Mauritius.
Réunion's simple shape hides a wild interior. The roads heading up from the coast are a jumble of squiggles on the map — this is some extremely steep terrain. The Piton de la Fournaise, in the southeast, still coughs up lava every few years. The inland Mafate villages, settled by escaped slaves and occupying a caldera of the inactive Piton des Neiges volcano, are so hemmed in that they can be reached only by a vertiginous hike or by helicopter.
Réunion remains a French department, which makes the trips between Paris and Réunion the world's longest domestic flights. I'll be stopping off in Mauritius for a couple of days first, to see what's become of Furcy's candy store and the hills where he spent his last days in 1856. Madeleine's journey from France took six months; Air Mauritius does it in 11 hours, presumably usually without an onboard birth.
"L'or de Furcy"
(Kreyol lyrics are in the 13th comment down)
Go on to day 1
