Crossings

In 1770 Madeleine’s mistress, Anne Despense de la Loge, brought the adolescent Madeleine to Lorient, France, as her servant. Their voyage took them through Isle de France (Mauritius), where the French navy was preparing for war against the British. There, she sold or traded Madeleine to a colonial family from Isle Bourbon, Charles and Marie Anne Routier, despite French Free Soil laws that should have prevented the transfer, gift, or sale. Madeleine’s status as an Indian, rather than an African, made her slave status ambiguous at a time when French policy was increasingly tying African descent to slavery. The Routiers’ colonial wealth was founded in their parents’ service to the French East India Company and the expanding use of slave labor in island plantations.