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| © 2002 voyaz.com. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy Musée de la Photographie |
 Bertrand
François Mahé de Labourdonnais arrived in Isle de France
on the 4th of June 1735. He was to become the greatest governor of the
islands during the French period and left his print on the island. |
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Labourdonnais was a Breton from St Malo who, at only 36, had already had a lot experiences as a sailor and an officer of the French East India Company. He had also been successful on his own as a trader. He made his first trip on a ship when he was only ten in 1709 and by 1732 there were few places in the Indian Ocean, which he had not visited on his trading voyages. |
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| In 1732, he marries Marie-Anne Lebrun de la Franquerie. This proved to be an influential step for him, opening up the doors to his appointment as Governor of Isle de France. Although his marriage made him known to the establishment, it was the reports he wrote on the waste and inefficiency in the Company’s administration in general and the corruption and malpractice in the government in Pondicherry that finally played for his appointment. On November 1734 the French East Indies Company (F.E.I.C) appointed him governor of Bourbon and Isle de France. | |
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| Labourdonnais was a man of full energy and considerable vision. He worked hard, slept little, and expected as much form others. He also had a full understanding of commerce and had a vision of what he could achieve, given the strategic position of Isle de France especially in the light of struggle between France and Britain in the Indian Ocean. | |
| His first objective was to satisfy the immediate needs and interests of the islands and develop them into permanent and flourishing colonies. His second objective was to use their resources to meet the demands imposed by the broader strategic needs of France in the region. | |
| Right from the beginning, Bourbon was assigned an agricultural function given its already thriving coffee plantations. Isle de France, for its part, was to be a commercial port and a strategic naval base for the region. | |
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| Introduction
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| Dutch
in Mauritius
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| French
Period
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| Labourdonnais
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| Royal
Administration
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Revolution Period
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Napoleonic Period
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