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Mahé de la Bourdonnais, Bertrand-François
Person
- Media metadata | Métadonnées multimédias
- has biography | a une biographie
-
French naval officer, colonial administrator and slave-owner in Ile de France (Mauritius) in the eighteenth century.
Son of a Saint-Malo shipowner, he began his seafaring career as a ship's boy. He then joined the Compagnie des Indes Orientales as a naval officer and took part in numerous commercial voyages in the Indian Ocean. A liberal-minded man, he also fitted out ships on his own account, trading in India and amassing a considerable fortune. Thanks to his contacts with Louis XV's ministers, he was appointed Governor General of the Isles of France and Bourbon in 1733. He took up his post in 1735 and held it until 1746. Determined to make the Mascareignes a bridgehead for the future conquest of India, he began by relying on the Ile de France, recently appropriated by the Kingdom of France (1721). He undertook extensive public works in Port-Louis, making it his capital and transforming it into a veritable seaport in just a few years. Mahé de La Bourdonnais met the labor needs of both islands by intensifying the slave trade, particularly on the East African coast. At the same time, he reinforced the tools of servile coercion, in particular the repression of marronnage, in order to preserve the colonial order in these new slave-owning societies. - was born | est né
- 16 February 1699
- died in | est mort par
- 10 November 1753
- has nationality | a la nationalité
- France
- has type | est de type
- depicted
- is current or former member of
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French East India Company
- is referred to by | est référencé par
- Bruno Maillard, « Monument à Mahé de la Bourdonnais, Saint-Denis », Cast in Stone
Linked resources
 Statue of François Mahé de la Bourdonnais, Saint-Denis de la Réunion |