The Maroon Legend of Le Morne Mountain in Mauritius
This article explores the story of an important Maroon legend that took place on Le Morne Mountain in the South-West of the main island of Mauritius. Two hundred years ago, Mauritius became known as an important “stopover” in the eastern slave trade, due to the bravery of a large group of maroons who managed to escape slavery from the base of Le Morne Mountain. Their heroic actions of resistance became known around the world as “The Maroon Republic,” which inspired similar maroon movements in other countries and regions. Le Morne Mountain, which is also home to an incredible biodiversity, was able to provide shelter to these maroons during the early 19th Century. Le Morne Mountain was declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, for its role in maroonage.
Through this article you’ll learn about the unofficial version of this Maroon Legend, and why we propose it was a massacre, and not a mass-suicide. I’ll also share with you about my own role in the protection of this legacy, and what it means to connect with the Maroon archetype for our world in transformation.
Note to the reader: This article may be longer than the usual Medium articles. I hope, however, that you’ll make the time to read it till the very end — and if you appreciate it, share it further!
Historical Context of Maroonage in Mauritius
Mauritius is a small tropical island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, often called the pearl of the Indian Ocean. Mauritius does not inhabit indigenous people. Everyone who came to live here came here either by force, circumstance, or choice.
The first slaves that were brought to Mauritius were indigenous people from Indonesia, captured by Dutch colonizers around 1598, and brought here as slaves to work the land for growing sugarcane. Dutch colonization of Mauritius started officially in 1638. However, this experiment was short-lived due to the resistance by maroons who outnumbered the Dutch. We could say that maroonage on the Island of Mauritius started in the Dutch period of occupation, which is confirmed by the archives of Mauritius. The Dutch left the Island in 1710, when the situation with the maroons became unmanageable, after which the former slaves and maroons who stayed behind could live in relative ‘freedom’ for a couple of years.
The French officially colonized Mauritius in September 1715, and took many indigenous people from Madagascar, mainland Africa, India, and Southeast Asia to work as slaves in Mauritius. This was done under the command of Guillaume Dufresne d’Arsel ‘en route’ to India. He named the island “Isle de France.”
The French lost “Isle de France” to the British in 1810, which became official by the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Although the British officially abolished slavery in 1833 (which came into effect in 1834), it still continued illegally for about 30 or more years in Mauritius. This violence has left deep scars on Mauritian society, similar to other colonized places around the world.
The Maroon Legend of Le Morne Mountain
In 2007, I encountered an important Maroon Legend tied to Le Morne Mountain shortly after relocating to Mauritius from Australia. I had moved to a small village near the mountain, and upon learning of my legal expertise, locals sought my help to review the draft Management Plan for the Le Morne Cultural Landscape’s UNESCO World Heritage nomination. Public feedback was solicited for a limited period.
Mr. Karl Lamarque, the founder of Platform Patriotik Pou Sov Le Morne and one of the Maroon heritage keepers, approached me with concerns about the draft Management Plan. He expressed his worry that the plan failed to properly protect the cultural heritage of the Maroon and slave descendants of Mauritius. Of particular concern was the omission of key archaeological sites, including three former slave villages, and the exclusion of vital oral knowledge about the Maroon Legend. Furthermore, the plan did not address the threats posed by corporate interests looking to develop the area with golf courses, luxury villas, hotels, and resorts.
Since the French colonization of Mauritius, slaves were brought to the island to work the sugarcane fields, inheriting the brutal legacy of Dutch occupation. The area surrounding Le Morne Mountain was infamous for the violence inflicted on the enslaved population. Slaves were housed in ‘slave villages’ or ‘slave camps,’ where they lived under constant threat of torture and death. They were forbidden to speak their native languages or practice their cultural and spiritual customs.
Through interviews with descendants of slaves and Maroons, we learned of unimaginable cruelties. Pregnant slave women were buried alive with their bellies cut open, their babies torn from their wombs. There were also horrific accounts of slaves being crucified and hanged to dry on the beaches of Le Morne, their bodies left as a warning to anyone resisting the slave keepers.
One of our most profound interviews was with Marie Marguerite Dony, a descendant of slaves born in the former slave village of Trou Chenilles. Over the course of many conversations with Marie and others like her, we gained deep insights into the legacy of the Maroons.
At the beginning of the 19th century, a large group of Maroons near Le Morne Mountain escaped enslavement by climbing to the top of the mountain and finding refuge in caves and other hidden spots. To reach the top, they had to navigate the perilous V-Gap, a narrow cleft between two parts of the mountain, which was a dangerous and life-threatening task.
Around 1850, a massacre took place at the summit of Le Morne Mountain, which has since become the source of legends. It is still debated whether this was a massacre or a mass suicide. The following story, shared in the first person from the perspective of a ‘Maroon Queen,’ seeks to reconcile the various elements of what we uncovered through our interviews with Maroon and slave descendants from Le Morne, Cotteau Raffin, and La Gaulette.
The Maroon Queen and the Massacre
My heart is pounding. We’re trapped. Death is imminent. Danger is closing in. The air is thickening. It’s so hard to breathe. Why must it end like this, after all we’ve fought for? Will any of us survive? What about the children? We were so close — our freedom in sight.
Why couldn’t he accept it? I’m not his woman. I’ll never be his wife. Jealousy and betrayal — does it ever stop? I am a queen for our people. We fought hard for our freedom. We’re the last ones here, surviving in the caves of the mountain. I sent him away. He tried to force himself on me — insisting, threatening.
“There will be consequences!” He shouts
He was one of us. How could he do this? Betray his own people — for what? Or was it the others, the ones living at the base? Did they betray us?
The fires at night were risky, but how else could we communicate with those below and send up our food via the ropes?
Doesn’t he get it? If we lose the battle at the top, the base will never be free. Now we’re trapped, betrayed by our own. He, too, was tortured. That stupid ambition of his. I warned him never to disclose the path to our Free Place.
“Clang!” More gunshots.
Screams of terror and pain pierce our hearts. They’re closing in.
NOoooo, not the children! These innocent souls — they’ve endured so much already. Don’t let it end like this.
The gunmen’s voices add to the horror — shouting angrily, filled with hatred and contempt. Some even laugh, taking pleasure in their revenge. Shouting victory. We’re trapped like captured animals. There’s no way out. Soon, we’ll be trophies for their stupid hunt.
For years, they tried to break our resistance — to break our souls, our bonds, our spirits. To erase who we are by shaming our ancestors. But we know who we are. Nobody can own us. Our spirits are free. This is the Maroon Republic!
More gunshots. More screams. I look at the other mothers as we desperately try to shield our children from what’s coming.
We’re silent and numb, waiting in terror. We all know — death is imminent. Our hearts beat as one as our eyes connect. Time stands still.
Our people are brave. They fight hard. But we are outnumbered. Our weapons are no match for their guns.
I hear the betrayer’s voice. He shouts my name, then laughs. Shouting that it’s all my fault. That they’ll die because of me — my punishment for refusing him.
Death takes us one by one, our final refuge from this tortured life. We fought so hard for the promise of freedom, only to have it stolen again by brutal force.
I close my eyes and pray silently, May the children of this place one day know the promise of the Maroon Republic — a life of freedom and justice. May they know the truth of what we fought for, and who they are.
“NO! Not the children! Not our children! Spare them! They’re innocent!!!” Mothers scream, pleading desperately with the gunmen.
The stench of blood, torture, and terror is sickening. What crime did we commit by fighting for our freedom?
Some of our men are nailed to a makeshift cross on top of the mountain. Others lie lifeless at its base. The brutality of the gunmen knows no limits — just like their desire to own and control us.
I am the last one standing. Chained again. Kept by force, so I must watch it all. Our children’s lives tossed away — thrown from the mountain.
“Jump, or we’ll kill you,” they shout.
How will they justify the hundreds of dead bodies at the base of the mountain? How many more lies will they spin to protect their cruelty?
It’s my time now.
A white-winged bird with her long, graceful tail flies near me, as my ancestors welcome me home on the other side.
I promise to return. The promise of a Maroon never dies.
Two Conflicting Versions of the Maroon Legend
When I began working with Mr. Lamarque in 2007, it was to help protect the legacy of the Maroons in Mauritius and to ensure that their truth — what really happened — could finally be known to the world.
The official version of the fate of the Maroons of Le Morne Mountain is still told as a mass suicide, rather than a massacre. Even today, children in Mauritius are taught this version in school. The difference is vital, and I’ll explain why.
The official story of the Maroon Legend claims that after slavery was abolished, English soldiers climbed to the top of Le Morne Mountain to share the good news with the Maroons, assuring them it was safe to come out of hiding. According to this version, upon seeing the soldiers, the Maroons — fearing recapture — leaped to their deaths in a mass suicide.
However, our research reveals a different reality. It was not English soldiers who ascended the mountain that day, but former French slave owners. These men had taken control of the mountain’s base and had long sought a way to capture the Maroons.
Several descendants of slaves and Maroons shared with us a different account — one of betrayal. According to their testimonies, a dispute over a woman led one of the Maroons to reveal the secret trail to their hiding places. Once discovered, the Maroons were tortured, thrown off the cliffs, or forced to jump.
A reference to this act of betrayal was cited in Le Mauricien on 18 February 1853 and later analyzed by Karl Bakker and Prof. François Odendaal in their article:
“It is at the top of the mountain, on a sloping plateau where the maroons are believed to have stayed in small dwellings or caves, where they survived by raiding livestock and produce from colonial farms below and drinking from rivulets above, and from where some may also have escaped in small crafts by exiting the coral reef through two strategic gaps, in this manner hoping to reach Madagascar and Africa (‘home’ to some) beyond. In the literature there is reference to the so called ‘maroon republic’ on Le Morne Mountain that provided the runaway slaves with a place where they were out of bondage and where they formed a new communality. Over time, once the secret of the passage was betrayed, confrontations occurred on the summit between maroons and masters, as well as colonial militia — various accounts tell how trapped maroons would hurl themselves from the cliffs of Le Morne rather than being recaptured, in the desperate but heroic act of escape from oppression to obtain ‘freedom’.” (Bakker & Odendaal, 2008, p. 229). The authors also mention the version of the English soldiers, and do not draw conclusions about which version is correct.
Furthermore, the Maroons were known to have maintained contact with the enslaved people at the base of the mountain. They were well aware of the reality on the ground, making the official story of English soldiers arriving with good news highly implausible.
This raises the question: Was the mass suicide version of the Maroon Legend deliberately fabricated by former authorities to conceal the truth?
Two key facts suggest this possibility:
- Illegal slavery in Mauritius continued for at least 30 years after its official abolition.
- French colonizers and former slave owners still held significant power in the country.
By promoting the narrative of a mass suicide rather than a massacre, the English were portrayed as the good guys, while the ongoing illegal enslavement — often involving French landowners — remained concealed from history.
Mr. Lamarque and I informed the Mauritian government in 2008 about the inconsistencies between these two different versions regarding the cause of death of the maroons. We urged the authorities to at least begin by telling people both versions of this legend. Especially, if the version of the English soldiers is known not to be true. Our requests have not yet been honored.
Several slave descendants confided in us that had they known that this was a massacre and not a mass suicide, it would have made a vital difference to their lives. Especially to realize how they descend from men and women who did not fear the ‘white’ people, and fought for their freedom until the very end.
Honoring the Maroon Legacy
During the public input period for the completion of the draft Le Morne Management Plan 2007, I compiled all our research into an official input report, signed by Mr. Lamarque and local stakeholders, which he then submitted to the authorities.
Mr. Lamarque and I also worked ‘unofficially’ with Prof. Francois Odendaal during this period. Prof. Odendaal and his team had been assigned the task of preparing the official inscription file, with an updated Management Plan for Le Morne Cultural Landscape, which they submitted to UNESCO in 2008. As part of this work, we also showed the archeologists (who had to collect evidence for the inscription case), where to find remnants of the former slave villages. We knew of these locations based on our interviews with local slave and maroon descendants, who were born in those former villages and grew up there. The evidence collected became critical for the inscription of Le Morne as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which had been missing at earlier attempts of inscription.
Descendants of the slaves continued to live in the former slave villages around Le Morne Mountain until the mid-1900s. Their ancestors had been given rights to this land for living there after slavery was abolished. Several of the elders who were born and grew up in these former slave villages, explained to us about their forceful removal from this land mid-1900, by the actions of the descendants of the former French colonizers. In other words, although slavery was officially abolished in 1835, the treatment of ongoing forced displacement was not. Formal healing and reconciliation still need to take place in Mauritius to address and heal these deeply seated issues of injustice.
I continued my pro-bono work in support of the maroon heritage until mid-2016. This included the documentation of the oral history of the Maroon Legend, in accordance with the knowledge of the slave and maroon descendants, advocacy for resolving key land ownership issues that impacted the cultural heritage protection of important slave villages that form part of Le Morne Cultural Landscape, as well as advocacy for the promised opening of the slave heritage trails.
UNESCO World Heritage Listing for Le Morne Cultural Landscape
In July 2008, Le Morne Cultural Landscape became officially enlisted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On the website of UNESCO, it is mentioned that:
“Le Morne Cultural Landscape is an exceptional testimony to maroonage or resistance to slavery in terms of the mountain being used as a fortress to shelter escaped slaves, with physical and oral evidence to support that use. Le Morne represents maroonage and its impact, which existed in many places around the world, but which was demonstrated so effectively on Le Morne mountain. It is a symbol of slaves’ fight for freedom, their suffering, and their sacrifice, all of which have relevance beyond its geographical location, to the countries from which the slaves came — in particular the African mainland, Madagascar, India, and South-east Asia- and represented by the Creole people of Mauritius and their shared memories and oral traditions.”
Le Morne Cultural Landscape is today one of the most important UNESCO World Heritage Sites on Maroonage and the resistance to slavery and oppression. Thanks to the tremendous courage, bravery, strategy and skillfulness of the maroons who fought against slavery and oppression, since the early days of colonization.
Opening of the Public Slave Heritage Trails
After the inscription of Le Morne as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the public was promised that important heritage trails would be opened for the public, connecting the base and the top of the mountain. These trails had been blocked since the onset of slavery in Mauritius. When Mr. Lamarque and I learned how the promised opening of the slave heritage trails was undermined by private ownership interests, we decided to raise public awareness (once again).
Public access for walking the slave heritage trails from the base to the top of the mountain is an essential component of the healing and remembrance of the slave and maroon legacies. It took nine more years of campaigning, petitioning, and coalition-building to get this issue resolved.
The main private landowner at the base of Le Morne Mountain claimed that one of the slave trails crossed his land. Meanwhile, the authorities had not (yet) used a small portion of State land closely situated near the slave village Trou Chenilles, for public access that could open the trail. Even though this portion of State land was indicated on the second State Conservation report of February 2016, which could enable the required public access for opening the slave heritage trails.
We informed the authorities of this first in 2015 via a petition with signatures of 200 people, after which several letters were sent via our coalition to the press to inform the public of the issues at hand when matters were still not resolved. The authorities finally decided to use this State land access to open the heritage trails in July 2016. The symbolic reconnection between the base of the mountain and the top is essential for the collective healing of all that took place here.
What happened in Mauritius serves as a reminder that the deeper transformations of the underlying slave-mastery archetypes, and the archetypal patterns of domination, are not yet resolved in our world and cultures today. This work has to be taken up by each new generation, for the human world to finally become a place of freedom for all.
The Archetype of the Maroon for Our World Today
The flower in this photo is Trochetia boutoniana, also known as “Boucle d’Oreille” (earring flower), because of its bell-shaped form. Since 1992, it has been the national flower of Mauritius and was named in honor of the French botanist Louis Bouton. A unique strand of this endemic flower grows only on the slopes and summit of Le Morne Mountain. I was told by a botanist that this flower can only live in the wild on Le Morne Mountain. If it is removed and replanted elsewhere, it dies.
This rare flower teaches us a profound lesson: true freedom, like the flower, can only flourish when it remains rooted in the principles of our interdependence. The Maroon archetype offers many vital lessons for co-creating a free, just, peaceful, and thrivable world for all. The Maroons, in their resistance to oppression, remind us that freedom cannot arise from domination, betrayal, or separation.
We are all born free. Our freedom is innate, yet so often, we act in ways that contradict this birthright. The Maroon legacy continues today in standing up against harm, division, and exploitation and by healing the wounds of the past. It calls us to transform the root causes of patterns of violence, division, and oppression, which continue to shape our world and societies today.
The Maroon archetype offers us a code for liberating the chains of enslavement and division. In the spirit of the Maroon, we recognize our inherent strength and freedom. We understand that nothing and no one can change our fundamental nature or our birthright to life.
The Maroon Republic is a reminder of the courage we all possess to challenge and dismantle systems of separation, oppression, and harm. It reminds us that true freedom begins by liberating our minds and ending the master-slave dynamics that the Maroons so bravely fought against.
Thank you for taking the time to read and learn about this vital Maroon legacy. To support this cause, please share this article and give a “clap of hands” if it resonates with you.
Acknowledgments
My sincere gratitude and acknowledgment to Mr. Karl Lamarque, and the other maroon and slave descendants in Mauritius who have kept this heritage safe, and in line with the values it represents, as well as Prof. Francois Odendaal for all this important work that led to Le Morne Cultural Landscape becoming an UNESCO World Heritage Site. My acknowledgment and sincere thanks also to Dr. Kurt Barnes for his contributions to an earlier version of this article, and for all his work for the Maroon heritage.
The original article, on which this article is based, was written in 2016 by Anneloes Smitsman and Kurt Barnes, as “The Fall and the Maroon Queen,” which has since been updated under the current title.
References
- Bakker, K.A. and Odendaal, F. (2008). Managing heritage in a contested space: the case of Le Morne Cultural Landscape in Mauritius. SAJAH, 23, pp. 225–244.
- De l’Estrac, J.C. (2004). Mauriciens — Enfants de Mille Races au temps de l’île de France. Mauritius.
- Le Morne Heritage Trust Fund (LMHTF) & Ministry of Arts and Culture. (2014). Le Morne Cultural Landscape Management Plan. 1. Integrated Management Plan 2014–2019.
- Mauritian Archeology. Stanford University. Source: https://sites.stanford.edu/MauritianArchaeology/history
- Peerthum, S. (2006). The historical significance of Le Morne. L’Express, 31 January 2006.
- UNESCO. World Heritage List — Le Morne Cultural Landscape. Source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1259
