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4 - Enslaved People as Knowledge Carriers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2024

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Summary

In its central position, Chapter 4, with its focus on enslaved people, brings together all the aspects discussed in Chapters 2, 3, 5, and 6. It highlights the importance of the enslaved people in Mauritius, both for their labour and as sources of plant knowledge. Making an important contribution to the history of slavery and natural history, it serves as a link between the chapters on staple crops (Chapters 2 and 3) and those on commercial crops (Chapters 5 and 6), because it elaborates on both types of crops in relation to slavery. In particular, Chapter 4 reveals the disconnects of knowledge circulation. It seeks to explain what happened when new and unknown crops were introduced and knowledge of their cultivation or preparation techniques was lacking or faulty. Lastly, this chapter focuses on the Bengali slave gardener, Charles Rama. His knowledge of cultivation earned him praise from French actors, and he was later freed because of it. In the same way, the chapter examines the work of the enslaved gardener Hilaire, who initiated and tested the new grafting methods that were adopted by European-trained naturalists in the island. These two cases not only highlight the importance of the enslaved people’s knowledge, but more importantly, they reveal the shortcomings of European plant knowledge within the creolising processes.

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Chapter
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Creolised Science
Knowledge in the Eighteenth-Century Indo-Pacific
, pp. 118 - 155
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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