![null [SEYCHELLES]. Memorandum for M. M. les Intéressés on the Concession requested...](https://cdn.drouot.com/d/image/lot?size=phare&path=33/116936/516a12744cebdb0fe3279133ee0eeb45)
Lot n° 131
Estimation :
5000 - 6000
EUR
[SEYCHELLES]. Memorandum for M. M. les Intéressés... - Lot 131 - Giquello
[SEYCHELLES]. Memorandum for M. M. les Intéressés on the Concession requested on the Isle of Seychelles. S.l.n.d. [1770-1780]. Manuscript in-folio (316 x 195 mm), mounted on tabs, of 16 pages, marbled half-calf with small vellum corners, spine decorated in the grotesque style, red title-piece (Modern binding in the old taste).
Manuscript from the second half of the 18th century, probably unpublished, detailing a project for a private company to exploit the archipelago.
Perfectly legible writing, on watermarked laid paper.
The beginnings of the colonization of the Seychelles (1756-1789).
The archipelago, known since the 9th century by Arab merchants, was officially discovered in the 1500s by Portuguese navigators, notably Vasco de Gama. In 1756, it became French thanks to an officer of the Royal Navy, Corneille Nicolas Morphey, who took possession of Mahé, the main island, which was immediately renamed Seychelle Island [sic] in honour of Moreau de Séchelles, Controller General of Finances under Louis XV.
The tropical climate and the geographical situation of the Seychelles (close to the island of France (Mauritius) and Bourbon (Reunion)) are major assets. There are plans to make it a stopover on the East India route, or even a trading post. The prospect of creating a prosperous colony and making considerable profits decided a French shipowner named Brayer du Barré to embark on the adventure: with the permission of the State, he founded the very first colony around 1770.
The avatars of the Brayer du Barré experience will leave indelible traces in the history of the colonization of the Mahé Islands. [...] Settling on a deserted island where one has to bring everything, organize everything, build everything, is certainly not an easy task. Especially if the purpose of the operation is to make a financial income [...]. It is all right to go there for a while to get wood, coconuts and turtles [...]. But from there to take root there... (Buttoud, pp. 94-95).
This very ambitious undertaking was however a failure. Three years later, the colony is at a standstill, but the foundations for the future colonization of the Seychelles are already laid. The colonization of the archipelago will take a new momentum in 1787 with the establishment of a real land use plan to rationalize the allocation of concessions (cf. Buttoud, p. 115).
The Seychelles: a paradise for financiers.
The manuscript is not dated but it was written before the French Revolution, i.e. at the time when the colonization of the Seychelles began slowly. It is quite possible that it is related to Brayer du Barré's enterprise, the first known private project for the colonization of the archipelago, but it could also be another unknown project, perhaps a few years earlier, which was not retained or which aborted.
The project is particularly motivated by the lure of profit (as for Brayer du Barré): the demand for the Isle Seychelles is also lucrative from two points of view; the costs will be simple, and the return double. The plan of the operation foresees, once the concession is obtained, the creation of a company of 15 shareholders and the division of the Seychelle Island (Mahé Island?) in as many parts (this information suggests that the island is still virgin of any concessions). The activities of the shareholders are said to be related to trade and the slave trade (pp. 5-15). The memorandum stipulates the acquisition by the aforementioned company of two ships on which would be embarked the 200 colonists that would be transported there from the first expedition, with the food and tools necessary for clearing and cultivation (this figure of 200 colonists is consistent with the population of the Seychelles before the Revolution, the island of Mahé counting in 1785 less than 160 people, and in 1789 close to 250, including more than 200 slaves; see Buttoud, p. 131): one of the ships was then sent to the African coast with 200,000 # to process 400 blacks and the other went to India, to Pondicherry or Bengal with 900,000 # to process goods for Europe.
We learn that the colonists will get horses at the Cape of Good Hope and at Muscat for the donkeys, Madagascar will get oxen of a prodigious size and strength, and that the colony will become in a short time very flourishing and will gather the most precious productions of the two Indies: cotton of a rare whiteness and fineness, indigo, coffee, spices, etc.
The manuscript appears to be unpublished, and there is no explicit mention of it in Fauvel's Unpublished Documents on the History of the Seychelles Islands anterior to 1810 (1909).
Manuscript of great interest for the history of the colonization of the Seychelles.
It comes from the library of Raymond Decary (1891-1973), administrator of the Colonies in Madagascar, with an ink stamp at the head of the first page.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue