Did you know François Leguat was basically our Rodriguan Robinson Crusoe?
Many people in Mauritius have heard the name François Leguat, especially because of the famous tortoise reserve in Rodrigues. But how many of us actually know who he was?
François Leguat was basically our Rodriguan Robinson Crusoe. Except his story was real, he was not alone, and his book was published in 1708, eleven years before Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe.
Leguat was a French Huguenot who fled religious persecution under Louis XIV. In 1690, he joined an expedition which planned to establish a Protestant colony on Bourbon, today Réunion. The proposed colony was supposed to be called “Eden”.
When they reached the Mascarenes, however, Bourbon was still occupied by the French. The captain did not want a confrontation, so he took them to the uninhabited island of Rodrigues instead.
On 16 May 1691, Leguat and seven other men were left there.
They were not exactly shipwreck survivors. They had volunteered to become colonists, although it is unclear whether they fully understood that their destination had been changed from Bourbon to Rodrigues.
The Rodrigues they encountered was completely different from the island we know today.
It still had extensive native vegetation, freshwater and enormous numbers of giant tortoises. Leguat described tortoises gathering in herds of thousands and showing almost no fear of humans.
There were also many birds that are now extinct, including the Rodrigues solitaire, a large flightless relative of the Mauritian dodo. Leguat described how these birds formed pairs, raised a single chick and used hard stones from their stomachs which the settlers found useful for sharpening knives.
The men built a small village of huts. The largest hut became a sort of town hall where they met, prayed and discussed how to organise their little community.
Their attempts at European-style farming mostly failed, but food was not a major problem. They survived on fish, shellfish, fruit, birds and tortoises.
In many ways, Rodrigues was probably the easiest part of their journey.
Their real problem was isolation. No other settlers arrived, no letters came from Europe and there were no women on the island. Leguat, who was already in his fifties, apparently would have preferred to remain. His younger companions eventually insisted that they leave.
They constructed a wooden boat using the limited tools and materials available to them. Their first attempt ended when the boat struck the reef. They managed to return to land, but one of the men died shortly afterwards.
On 21 May 1693, the seven survivors tried again.
They sailed approximately 560 kilometres across the open ocean in their homemade boat, with very limited navigational equipment. After about a week, they reached Mauritius.
They probably thought the worst was over.
Mauritius was then a small Dutch colony governed by Roelof Diodati. At first, the men were welcomed. However, they had brought a large piece of ambergris from Rodrigues. Ambergris was extremely valuable at the time because it was used in perfume.
Leguat later accused Diodati of trying to take it from them. Dutch records describe the dispute differently. The authorities also discovered that some of the men were considering taking a boat and escaping to Bourbon.
This was happening during the Nine Years’ War, when France and the Netherlands were enemies. Although the men were Protestant refugees who had fled France, the Dutch still regarded them as French nationals moving between strategically important colonies.
Five of them were arrested in January 1694.
They were eventually transferred to a small, exposed islet near Grand Port. Mauritian sources usually identify it as Île aux Fouquets, although some historians believe the actual “prison rock” may have been neighbouring Îlot Vacoas.
Unlike Rodrigues, the islet offered very little food, vegetation or protection. They remained there for roughly two years, suffering from illness, poor supplies and tropical weather.
One of them, Jean Testard, attempted to escape using a crude raft made from grass and other available materials. He disappeared. He may have reached the Mauritian mainland and died in the forest, but nobody knows exactly what happened to him.
In September 1696, the surviving prisoners were transported to Batavia, today Jakarta, where the Dutch East India Company had its Asian headquarters.
After examining their case, the authorities found them innocent.
Leguat and two companions finally reached Europe in June 1698.
He published his account ten years later, in 1708.
Records found in the Dutch East India Company archives confirmed many of the events. Fossils discovered on Rodrigues also confirmed the existence of animals that Leguat had described, including the strange solitaire.
His book is not completely reliable. Some sections may have been edited or expanded by another Huguenot writer, and Leguat expressed several prejudices typical of European writers of that period. However, the main journey, the settlement on Rodrigues and the imprisonment in Mauritius really happened.
Today, the François Leguat Reserve in Rodrigues is attempting to recreate part of the ecosystem he witnessed, using native vegetation and introduced giant tortoises to replace the ecological role of the extinct Rodriguan species.
So the next time you hear the name François Leguat or visit the tortoise reserve, remember that it is named after one of the first recorded inhabitants of Rodrigues, a religious refugee, explorer, amateur naturalist, boatbuilder and survivor of one of the strangest adventures in Mauritian history.
Sources:
https://archive.org/details/voyageoffrancois821legu
https://archive.org/details/voyageoffrancois832legu
https://nationalarchives.govmu.org/nationalarchives/?page_id=2021
https://www.francoisleguatreserve.com/
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-25/robinson-crusoe-is-published