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Apparitions · Ghosts of historical figures

Le Morne – the Mountain of the Runaways

When
1 February 1835 traditional date – cannot be verified
Where
Le Morne Brabant, Mauritius
Verdict
Legend

Legend says that in 1835 runaway slaves on Mauritius leapt from the cliffs of Le Morne at the sight of police – who had come to tell them they were free.

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-20.45°, 57.32° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

Le Morne Brabant is a 1,824-foot basalt massif at the southwestern tip of Mauritius, surrounded by a lagoon. Its steep slopes, full of caves and overhangs, made it a refuge in the 18th and early 19th centuries for maroons – people who had escaped slavery on the plantations. According to legend, after slavery was abolished on Mauritius on 1 February 1835, a police detachment was sent to the foot of the mountain to tell the runaways they were free. Seeing uniformed men approaching, however, the maroons thought they had come to capture them and send them back to the plantations. They chose to leap from the cliffs rather than return to chains. Since 1987, 1 February has been marked here as the anniversary of abolition, and below the mountain stands a Slave Route monument bearing a line by the poet Richard Sedley Assonne: “There were hundreds of them, but my people the maroons chose the kiss of death over the chains of slavery.” For many Mauritians of African descent Le Morne is a place of memory.

Witnesses

Oral tradition of Mauritians, especially Creoles; the story has been kept alive by poets and by activists for the memory of slavery. UNESCO's justification for inscribing Le Morne (2008).

Explanations and hypotheses

Historians have found no documents confirming a mass leap in 1835, and many details differ between versions. What is certain is that Le Morne was a maroon refuge and that the story became a symbol of resistance to slavery. It was as such a symbol, and as evidence of runaway communities, that the Le Morne Cultural Landscape was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2008. For many islanders it is a place of memory and mourning that calls for respect, not sensationalism.

Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.

Sources

  1. UNESCO World Heritage Centre – Le Morne Cultural Landscape
  2. Atlas Obscura – Slave Route Monument
  3. Rosabelle Boswell, Le Malaise Créole: Ethnic Identity in Mauritius (Berghahn Books, 2006)

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