Sculpture - esclavage - Madame DESBASSAYNS

Marie Anne Thérèse Ombline Desbassayns (3 July 1755 – 4 February 1846) was a French planter and

slave trade Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

r on the French island of La Réunion. She was one of the most prominent slave planters of the island after she was widowed in 1800 and until death, and played a significant role in the economy and slave industry of the colony. She became an important figure in the local folklore, and one of the most well-known figures of the history of the island.

Life

Ombline Desbassayns was born in Saint-Paul on La Réunion. In 1770, she married the planter Henri Paulin Panon Desbassayns (1732-1800) and became the mother of Philippe, Charles and Joseph Desbassayns. When she was widowed, she took over the business of her late spouse and enjoyed a long and successful career in managing and expanding the sugar and coffee plantation industry on the island with the help of slave labour.

Legacy

Desbassayns is not noted to have been cruel during her own lifetime - it was for example noted that she founded a hospital for the use of slave patients. After her death, Ombline Desbassayns came to be a symbol of the epoch of slavery on the island (slavery was abolished in 1848, only two years after her death), and it became common to reproach people who acted cruelly by saying that the epoch of Madame Desbassayns was long gone and cruel behaviour was no longer acceptable. A legend claimed that the volcano of

Piton de la Fournaise Piton de la Fournaise (; en, "Peak of the Furnace") is a shield volcano on the eastern side of Réunion island (a French overseas department and region) in the Indian Ocean. It is currently one of the most active volcanoes in the world, along ...

once erupted because Desbassayns had buried her sins in it. In local folklore, Ombline Desbassayns became associated with the demon witch '' Grand-mère Kalle''.Valérie Magdelaine-Andrianjafitrimo, « Histoire et mémoire : variations autour de l'ancestralité et de la filiation dans les romans francophones réunionnais et mauriciens », Revue de littérature comparée, no 318, 2006 (

References

* Le Fils à la patte, Jean-Louis Faurous * Île de la Réunion: regards croisés sur l'esclavage, 1794–1848. Benoît Jullien, CNH, 1998 1755 births 1846 deaths 18th-century French people French slave traders 19th-century French businesspeople French slave owners French planters 18th-century women landowners 19th-century women landowners 19th-century planters 19th-century slave traders 19th-century women farmers People from Réunion Women slave owners Women slave traders {{Réunion-bio-stub