two full-length portraits of a very young man, dated 24 August 1865
another, in bust form, dating from July 1871
Very little is known about him, in fact nothing at all: all the clues to his existence are based on these three images and a brief description of an Indian immigrant who arrived in Réunion in 1861 on board the ship Canova, along with a number of other indentured labourers recruited to work on the island, which was then in the midst of a sugar boom.
Our mysterious Indian is listed as a native of Yanam, and a tailor by trade. He was only 17 years old.
That's it.
Oh, yes: in the memoir Mortier de Trévise wrote in 1891, he mentions the list of servants he met at his brother-in-law's house, Habitation des Casernes, in Saint-Pierre, during his first visit to the island in 1861. Bouchiana's name appears on the list.
Reconstruction of the ship Canova, a magnificent model located in the Canabady estate (between Le Tampon and Saint-Pierre) on the site of the former Mon Caprice estate, which belonged to the Kerveguen dynasty and was bought by a descendant of a hired man.
As early as 1861, Boutchiana appears in the list of household servants cited by Mortier de Trévise :
"Finally, I must mention Eugénie, the mulatto housekeeper who looked after my brother-in-law as a child, and Victorine, the old woman, as Emma called her and still calls her nénène.
At the stable is Morin, an old black man who has been a coachman forever and is very skilful.
and Péroumal, Indian, also a good coachman.
In the pantry Lazère, Indian, good servant.
Madrouka looked after me well during my illness.
Baraka was at my service for eleven years + in Paris.
Bouchiana, married, lives in India after having been in the service of my brother-in-law for several years. "
Watercolour by MORTIER DE TREVISE "les Casernes - Quartier Saint-Pierre - Île Bourbon" 1861. Credit IHOI
Is that Boutchiana lying nonchalantly in the foreground, next to the grazing goats?
This symbolises the role of the Governor: he is the direct representative of the King of France, Charles X, via his Ministry of the Navy and the Colonies.
Would he be the leader of the troupe of domestic pawns?
Detail of a watercolour by DUMAS Jean-Baptiste (1792-1849), 1827, annotated "Governor's pawn".
Mortier de Trévise's enumeration shows that the domestic staff working in the barracks had nothing to envy that of a large European house: a dozen servants showed great financial ease in the eyes of contemporaries. Twenty or so, and you're in the category of the very rich.
For the Kerveguens, having two coachmen was already a luxury.
It should be noted that Morin, the first coachman mentioned, is referred to as a "former black", which means that he was a slave in the family before 1848. If he was already working as a coachman before the French emancipation from slavery, then he must have been somewhat remunerated from time to time, as he belonged to the category of "talented" slaves. The fact that Péroumal, a hired Indian, was also a coachman perhaps indicates that the oldest trained the other? No doubt not without difficulty, or rivalry, as the new recruits generally did not appreciate having to depend to a greater or lesser extent on freedmen, i.e. former slaves.
In any case, Mortier specifies these distinctions in his brief enumeration, which indicates that the subtle hierarchy among all the workers subject to the master of the estate was very important, and did not always make social life very simple.
The recruiting landlords employed the same tactics as in the days of slavery: mixing the populations of workers in order to avoid organised groupings as much as possible.
This magnificent period photo shows the couple living in Metropolitan France, surrounded by their servants: out of 13 adults, 11 are servants, which is no mean feat.
"Félix Nadar and his wife Ernestine surrounded by their employees and servants in their hermitage in the Sénart forest" (1887-1894). Credit Gallica
"Indian repatriates on the "Natal", unidentified photographer, 1900. Credit IHOI
Here is the account given by Louis Maillard, a colonial engineer who was stationed for several years on Reunion Island (Bourbon), in his Notes sur l'île de La Réunion, Bourbon, published in Paris in 1863:
"The mixture of races and castes, in the slaves of Bourbon, contributed much to the tranquillity of the country. As the Cafres and Malagasies generally had little in common with the Indians and Malays, and all the latter were considered to be of an inferior race by the Creole slaves, there was a continual antagonism between them which hardly allowed any of them to hatch any disastrous plans unless they were denounced by the others".
For domestics, the engagists preferred very young boys, which was the case for Bouchiana when he arrived: barely seventeen years old. He was therefore a minor.
Who accompanied him on the boat across the Indian Ocean? Did he have authorisation from a parent or grandparent?
This was the case for Zéganadin, son of Pavalé, aged 15 when he arrived on board the Félix on 28 April 1862, and hired as a domestic servant with the consent of his uncle Ramassamy, or Moutoukichenin, aged 14, a domestic servant who came on board with the consent of his uncle Covindin.
That said, we need to be sure of the family relationship...
AZEMA Constant (1828-1877), "Indian child, young domestic servant", Credit Musée des Arts décoratifs de l'océan Indien, 18P1.7_PHO.2012.2274.70a
1 is the considerable number of domestic servants on the island, far more, proportionally, than in the French colonial metropolis. In 1887, for example, out of a total population of 163,881, there were around 5,500 domestic servants throughout the island and 2,000 caretakers; there were also 15,000 labourers.
Table taken from Jean Régis Ramsamy-Nadarassin's doctoral thesis in contemporary history, Les travailleurs indiens sous contrat, 1848-1948, Entre le retour programmé et le début des intégrations, tome 1, Université de La Réunion, 2012.
3 is the salary: the employees of the Kerveguen family are paid in Kerveguen: coins from Austria, which had just been demonetised and which Gabriel Le Coat de Kerveguen had imported, with the authorisation of the local authorities, from 1859;
These 220,000 coins were in circulation at the forced rate of 1 franc, worth 0.86 in silver.
In fact, the quantity of cash circulating in the French colony, as in the other colonies for that matter, was not sufficient. For example, when Cail - a major French industrial company manufacturing steam engines and all kinds of sugar-making equipment - was planning to build central factories on Reunion Island, it was hampered in its objective by the embarrassment caused by the lack of currency: "the shortage of currency has become extreme; it is causing the most serious difficulties for the payment of salaries on the farms and for all payments; at every moment we are stopped by the impossibility of obtaining the necessary change".
Reverse and obverse of a "kerveguen" coin circulating on the island between 1859 and 1879.
Portrait of Boutchiana, by Hippolyte Charles Napoléon Mortier, the Duke of Trevise
His activities seem to have been those of a personal valet, for if we find him at Coupvray, the Mortier de Trévise estate, in 1871, it is because he had followed his boss, Denis-André de Kerveguen, on one of his trips to France.
If this is the case, Bouchiana looked after his boss's clothes and linen, helped him to dress, ran errands for him, and assisted him with the small activities of daily life at home and on outings. So he has a certain amount of trust from his master.
Recruitment booklet, 1901. Collection of the Archives Départementales de La Réunion
As for the duration of his enlistment, it is not known exactly: in principle, newly recruited conscripts sign for a period of five years, which may or may not be renewed.
Bouchiana was recruited in 1861, and in 1871 we can see that he was still in the service of Denis-André Le Coat de Kerveguen; but in 1891 Mortier de Trévise tells us that he had returned to India, and was married. He therefore remained in the family's service for at least ten years, and probably even longer, the time it took him to amass enough money to return to India with a comfortable standard of living.
Unfortunately, this was not the case for many of the indentured servants who returned to India, via Pondicherry, at the end of their contract, with hardly any savings, worn out and weakened by the hard work in the fields.
The regulations governing indentured servants stipulated that the return of indentured servants was to be at the expense of the State, or in reality the master, who in fact deducted a sum from the indentured servant's salary to cover any such costs. A register had to be kept by the colonial administration to record these returns.
While these registers are present in the archives of Mauritius, they are very rare and incomplete for the neighbouring island of Réunion. We have not found Bouchiana's name before 1891. Did he marry in Réunion? Or in India?
A researcher from Réunion, Jean Régis Ramsamy, has calculated that between 1851 and 1882, there were 62,683 entries of Indian workers, and 23,683 repatriations.
However, the number of deaths must be taken into account:
- either during the ocean crossing,
- or, even more so, on the cane plantations, where the work was exhausting and the workers were often ill-treated.
26,220 people died, i.e. 39.7% of entries.
Prosper EVE
Nouveaux propos sur les femmes à Bourbon/ La Réunion, XVIIe-XXe siècle, Surya éditions, 2015
Mareike KÖNIG
« La domesticité en Europe », Encyclopédie d'histoire numérique de l'Europe [online]
ISSN 2677-6588, uploaded 06/22/20
David NORTHRUP
"Indentured Indians in the French Antilles" (
In: Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer, tome 87, n°326-327, 1rst semester 2000. Les Juifs et la mer, under the direction of Richard Ayoun. pp. 245-271.
Société de plantation, histoire & mémoires de l'esclavage à La Réunion
Article on Indian engagement in 19th century in Réunion island
Jean Régis RAMSAMY
"Les travailleurs indiens sous contrat à La Réunion" PhD thesis, Université de La Réunion, 2012
Louis MAILLARD
Notes sur l'île de la Réunion, (Bourbon). Paris, Dentu, 1862