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DISASTER IN A ‘PLURAL SOCIETY’: CYCLONES, DECOLONIZATION, AND MODERN AFRO-MAURITIAN IDENTITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2021

Robert M. Rouphail Open the ORCID record for Robert M. Rouphail [Opens in a new window]
Robert M. Rouphail*
Affiliation:
Susquehanna University
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Abstract

In February of 1960, the most powerful cyclone in Mauritian history, Carol, made landfall. In its wake, the British colonial state embarked on a reconstruction effort that would reshape the island for decades to come. This study examines how Afro-descendant Creole Mauritians understood Carol at the moment of its landfall and produced social meaning in the reconstruction efforts that followed. It sheds light in particular on the construction of cités, ‘cyclone-proof’ housing estates meant to permanently shelter those left homeless, at a moment when questions of racial coexistence defined debates over the end of empire. It shows that the building of the cités and the prospect of home ownership they allowed would become important touchstones in contemporary Afro-Mauritian notions of belonging and permanence in a society structured by racial exclusion. In so doing, this essay emphasizes the importance of the natural world to narratives of diasporic community in the southwest Indian Ocean.

Keywords

MauritiusIndian OceanEast Africaenvironmentracedecolonization
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 79 - 97
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Vijaya Teelock, Ramola Ramtohul, Sophie Le Chartier, Jim Brennan, Antoinette Burton, and Richard Allen for guidance and direction in conducting this research. Thank you also to the staff of Kolektif Rivier Nwar and to the residents of Cité La Mivoie. Debjani Bhattacharyya, Scott Knowles, Nic Ramos, and Laurie Wood provided incisive and generative comments, as did Claire Conklin Sabel, Ramah McKay, Projit Mukharjee, and the students of the Penn Disaster Working group. The careful and generous comments from the anonymous reviewers at the JAH made this piece that much clearer. Contact email: [email protected].

References

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4 Traditional histories of twentieth-century Mauritius, while important, tend to be almost exclusively political. See Simmons, A. S., Modern Mauritius: The Politics of Decolonization (Bloomington, IN, 1982)Google Scholar; Bowman, L., Mauritius: Democracy and Development in the Indian Ocean (London, 1991)Google Scholar; Hazareesingh, K., History of Indians in Mauritius (Ann Arbor, MI, 1975)Google Scholar; Selvon, S., A New Comprehensive History of Mauritius: From British Mauritius to the 21st Century (Scotts Valley, CA, 2012)Google Scholar.

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12 Alpers, ‘Recollecting Africa’, 84–5.

13 R. B. Allen, Slaves, Freedmen, and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius (Cambridge, 1999); R. B. Allen, ‘Capital, illegal slaves, indentured labourers and the creation of a sugar plantation economy in Mauritius, 1810–60’, Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, 36:2 (2008), 151–70; R. B. Allen, ‘The slender, sweet thread: sugar, capital and dependency in Mauritius, 1860–1936’, Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, 16:2 (1988),177–200; V. Teelock, Mauritian History: From Its Beginnings to Modern Times (Moka, Mauritius, 2001); V. Teelock, Bitter Sugar: Sugar and Slavery in 19th Century Mauritius (Moka, Mauritius, 1998); M. Carter, Lakshmi's Legacy: Testimonies of Indian Women in 19th Century Mauritius (Moka, Mauritius, 1995); M. Carter, Servants Sirdars and Settlers: Indians in Mauritius, 1834–1874 (Oxford, 1995).

14 P. Eisenlohr, Little India: Diaspora, Time, and Ethnolinguistic Belonging in Hindu Mauritius (Berkeley, 2008).

15 A. J. Christopher, ‘Ethnicity, community, and the census in Mauritius, 1830–1990’, The Geographical Journal, 158:1(1992), 67–54; and Boswell, Le Malaise Creole, 55.

16 D. Brixius, ‘From ethnobotany to emancipation: slaves, plant knowledge, and gardens on eighteen-century Isle de France’, History of Science, 58:1 (2020), 51–75; K. Seetah and R. Allen, ‘Interdisciplinary ripples across the Indian Ocean’, in K. Seetah (ed.), Connecting Continents: Archaeology and History in the Indian Ocean World (Athens, OH, 2018), 1–29; Vaughn, Making the Creole Island. With regard to other Indian Ocean islands, see Saša Čaval's analysis of longanis — a syncretic belief system amongst the enslaved — in Mauritius as it relates to the Seychelles and Comoros. Figures such as the ‘ti albert, lougaroup (both Mauritian iterations of werewolves), and om de bwa (a giant ‘man of the woods’) are common across the islands. S. Čaval, ‘Archaeology and religious syncretism in Mauritius’, in Seetah, Connecting Continents, 230–52.

17 Vaughn, Creating the Creole Island, 123–52.

18 Boswell, Le Malaise Creole, 140. Recent work has also shown the role that cyclones play in national Mauritian ‘memory’; see R. Walshe, G. Adamson, and I. Kelman, ‘Helices of disaster memory: how forgetting and remembering influence tropical cyclone response in Mauritius’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 50 (2020), 1–13.

19 Mauritius Truth and Justice Commission, Report of the Truth and Justice Commission (hereafter TJC Report), Volume III (Port Louis, Mauritius, 2011), 37; see testimony of respondent 6.

20 Mauritius National Archives (MNA) PB-50, letter to J. F. Trotter, Protector of Immigrants, ‘Petition of certain Indian proprietors of small houses at Rose Hill, re: the last cyclone’, 6 Mar. 1908; MNA PB-51/671-7/554, J. F. Trotter, ‘Medine Estate camp—defective huts’, 30 May 1908; MNA PB-51/716-8, J. F. Trotter, ‘Huts in defective condition’, 13 May 1908.

21 TJC interview 0H9/TC178, Piton, 25 Sept. 2010; transcript in author's possession.

22 R. Boswell, ‘Sega as voice-work in the Indian Ocean region’, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, 13:1 (2017), 92–110; B. Considine, ‘Priests, pirates, and opera singers: séga and European music in Mauritius, “the Little Paris of the Indian Ocean”’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Boston University, 2013).

23 C. Woods, Development Arrested: The Blues and Plantation Power in the Mississippi Delta (New York, 1998).

24 Excerpt from S. Lebrasse, ‘A cause sa siklon la’. Translation and transcription courtesy of Keemah Ganga of the Mauritius National Library (MNL). The song can be found among the unnumbered clippings and various historical paraphernalia compiled by MNL staff in the Lebrasse Collection folder.

25 Ibid.

26 The expression that the house was crushed ‘like an accordion’ was used by a number of people whom I interviewed about the effects of Carol.

27 ‘Sega’, L’Épée (Port Louis), 9 Mar. 1960. Translation by author.

28 P. Lenoir, ‘Ode au Morne’, in Nuite de séga: Échos & reflets de vieux ‘Morne’ (Port Louis, n.p., 1964), 10. Translation by author.

29 Ibid. 11.

30 B. Benedict, Mauritius: Problems of a Plural Society (London, 1965), 65.

31 T. H. Eriksen, ‘Creole culture and social change’, The Journal of Mauritius Studies, 1:2 (1986), 59–71; T. H. Eriksen, ‘Ethnicity versus nationalism’, Journal of Peace Research, 28:3 (1991), 263–78.

32 D. M. Anderson. ‘“Yours in struggle for majimbo”: nationalism and the party politics of decolonization in Kenya, 1955–64’, Journal of Contemporary History, 40:3 (2005), 547–64; J. Glassman, ‘“Sorting out the tribes”: the creation of racial identities in colonial Zanzibar's newspaper wars’, The Journal of African History, 41:3 (2000), 395–428; J. Willis and G. Gona, ‘Pwani C Kenya? memory, documents and secessionist politics in coastal Kenya’, African Affairs, 112:446 (2013), 48–71.

33 J. Glassman, ‘Creole nationalists and the search for nativist authenticity in twentieth-century Zanzibar: the limits of cosmopolitanism’, The Journal of African History, 55:2 (2014), 229–47. The quotation is drawn from Eisenlohr, Little India, 58–9.

34 Eisenlohr, Little India, 58–9. The argument of the political utility of Mauritian Creole as a national language — as opposed to English, Hindi, French, and Bohjpuri, all of which are spoke in Mauritius — is still contested in the national press. See R. Moneeram, ‘Language politics and the pragmatics of world economic trends’, Mauritius Times, 28 Dec. 2015; Harmon, J., Heritage Language and Identity Construction: A Study of Kreole Morisien (Moka, Mauritius, 2017)Google Scholar.

35 Teelock, Mauritian History, 301–25.

36 Allen, R. B., ‘Free women of colour and socio-economic marginality in Mauritius, 1767–1830’, Slavery & Abolition, 26:2 (2005), 181–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. Allen, ‘Landownership by persons of African and Asian descent’, in TJC Report, Volume II (Port Louis, Mauritius, 2011), 46–60.

37 Translation by author. In Mauritian Creole, the use of petit/’ti is a diminutive that is a marker of race, specifically Blackness. Here, ti nasyon is used to signify Blackness. Vinesh Hookomsing defines mazambik as ‘a derogatory term for a Mauritian of African descent’. But he also notes that ‘mazambik is phonetically distinct from the name of the country, Mozambik, though the two words are no doubt cognate.’ V. Hookoomsing, Diksyoner Kreol Moriysen (Paris, 1987), 43; see also TJC Report III, 567.

38 Rohatgi, R., Fighting Cane and Cannon: Abhimanyu Unnuth and the Case of World Literature in Mauritius (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 2014), 157Google Scholar.

39 ‘Les cobayes Mauriciens’, L’Épée, 18 Feb. 1959.

40 ‘Nous voulons d'un governement militaire’, L’Épée, 9 Mar. 1960.

41 ‘65,000 sans abri, sinistrés-martyres’, L’Épée, 24 Aug. 1960.

42 ‘Carol alias Godzilla’, L’Épée, 2 Mar. 1960.

43 Boswell, Malaise Creole, 137.

44 Indeed, the mere invocation of the dhobi would have likely registered as racialized term, as Creole politician Gaëtan Duval, introduced more formally in the following section, was known to invoke the term in reference to Indo-Mauritians.

45 ‘Une nouvelle aurore pour les Afro-Mauriciens’, L’Épée, 29 June 1960.

46 Zoreille is a term commonly used on neighboring La Réunion to refer to European-descendant peoples living on the island. I translate the terms here to ‘African’ for a number of reasons: the broader context of the article and, in particular, because of the use of ‘petit’ (or the Creolized ‘ti) before the word.

47 MNL Mauritius Legislative Council, Sessional Paper No. 8 of 1960, ‘Cyclone housing program’, 1–2.

48 See, for example, The National Archives of the UK (TNA) TNA CO 167/931/2, M. Aldred, ‘Report on estate housing, slum clearance, and town and regional planning in Mauritius’, 1946.

49 Ramgoolam, S., Our Struggle: 20th Century Mauritius (New Delhi, 1982), 104Google Scholar.

50 TNA CO 1036/704, J. Fulena, Secretary of Mauritius Intelligence Committee, ‘Cyclone Carol: intelligence report, 17 March, 1960’, 17 Mar. 1960.

51 Ibid.

52 In his own recounting of the aftermath of the storm, Duval noted his frustration with the speed with which the government responded to the catastrophe. See G. Duval, Une certaine idee de l’île Maurice (n.p, [1977?]), 47–9.

53 Primary amongst which was George Atkinson, the head of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) in the UK. He was an expert in tropical housing techniques designed to withstand cyclonic weather. He had previously worked in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. See the DSIR files in TNA DSIR 4/3478-3, and Chiang, J. H., A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture: Colonial Networks, Nature, and Technoscience (London, 2016), 163–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Jagatsingh, Report of the Mauritius Central Housing Authority, 2.

55 ‘Autor de “Project de reconstructions” après les cyclones’, L’Épée, 26 Dec. 1960.

56 TNA DSIR 4/3479, G. Atkinson, ‘Land proposals regarding sites owned by applicants’, 9 Apr. 1962.

57 Salvedra, T., ‘Balancing (re)distribution: Franco Mauritian landownership in the maintenance of an elite position’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 31:3 (2013), 503–21Google Scholar.

58 TNA DSIR 4/3484, J. P. J Browne, Controller, Central Housing Authority to G. Atkinson, ‘Memorandum CHA 9/64: arrears and legal actions’, 28 May 1963.

59 Ibid.

60 It should be noted here that residents of the cités did not immediately become landowners, but rather tenants on the land. Indeed, what would emerge in the decades following Carol until today was an uneven accumulation of wealth where homeownership was possible via initial state assistance, but land ownership was significantly more difficult, to a point where contemporary cité residents find it difficult to maintain residence on plots of newly-desirable cité land in rapidly-growing Mauritius. For more, see TJC Report III, 103–4.

61 TNA CO 1036/1245, R. Terrell, ‘Note of meeting with Dr. Ramgoolam’, 22 May 1964.

62 TJC Report III, 47. See testimony of respondent 26: ‘Duval (Gaëtan) finn bien okip nou’. Translation in original. In large part, however, many of the ‘foreign experts’ who saw themselves as apolitical technocrats grew increasingly frustrated with the political jockeying that was taking place amongst Mauritian politicians around the question of housing. See, for example, TNA CO 1036/704, J. Fulena, ‘Cyclone Carol: intelligence report, 17 March, 1960’, 17 Mar. 1960.

63 Roche, E., ‘Opinion’, in Forge, G. and Institut pour le Développement et Progrès, Enquete Social: La Vie Sociale dans les Cités CHA et EDC des Plaines Wilhems (Port Louis, Mauritius, 1970), 3Google Scholar.

64 Interview with Nichole Papeche, La Mivoie, 12 Feb. 2017. Transcript and recordings held by author. Subject waived offer of anonymity.

65 Interview with Dharamlall Chooroomoney, Quartre Bornes, 20 Dec. 2016. Interview notes held by author. Subject waived offer of anonymity.

66 Boswell, Malaise Creole, 140.

67 ‘Et maintenant, quoi?’, La Vie Catolique (Port Louis), 4 Feb. 1968.

68 Le Chartier, ‘La Mivoie’, 107. The houses in the kan (Mauritian Creole for camp, referring to the homes on the site where La Mivoie would ultimately be built) were ultimately unable to withstands the winds of cyclones and were often simply destroyed to be rebuilt again. See also TJC interview 0H9/AC/DJ129, Casenoyale, 28 June 2010; transcript in author's possession.

69 TJC Report III, testimony of respondent 28, 47.

70 TJC Report III, testimony of respondent 19, 47.

71 Interview with Fanfan Calfir and Ambrik Zaly, La Mivoie, 12 Feb. 2017. Transcript and recordings held by author. Subjects waived offer of anonymity.

72 Interview with Nichole Papeche, La Mivoie, 12 Feb. 2017. Subject waived offer of anonymity.

73 TJC Report III, testimony of respondent 26, 47.

74 TJC interview 0H9/TC178.

75 TJC Report III, testimony of respondent 6, 37. Around 2,000 extra homes were allotted for victims of Gervaise. The Gervaise extension was also directed by the CHA. M. Dawson, E. Slingsby, and R. N. Merrill, Main Report: Mauritius Shelter Assessment, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Housing Office (Washington, DC, 1978), 57.