Glorieuses, the islands the Seychelles once claimed
By Julien Durup a student of the Seychelles History
« Glorieuses islands » is comprised of Grande Glorieuse, Ile aux Crabes and IIe du Lys (Petite Glorieuse). It is situated in the north of the Mozambique Canal and the north point of Madagascar and south of Aldabra. This little archipelago is now part of the fifth district of France’s “Terres australes et antarctiques françaises » . It is administered by an administrator based at Saint Pierre, La Réunion.
For some historians, the Glorieuses was named after the Glorieux, the ship of Jean-Baptiste D’après de Mannevilette, when he was surveying the coast of Madagascar in 1753. Others said that it was named “Iles Glorieuses” in honour of the French July Revolution of 1830.
However, both hypotheses cannot be accepted because the island was named Glorioso very early on by the Portuguese. It was discovered by the Spanish Captain Juan de Nova who was at the service of the Portuguese.
Juan de Nova was born in 1460 in Galicia in the Kingdom of Castille and died in 1509 in Kochi, India. In 1501, he commanded the third Portuguese expedition to India and he went on a second mission in 1505. During his first mission one member his crew was the Italian Amerigo Vespucci.
The Glorieuses were frequented by the pirates and stayed unhabited until 1873 when Pierre Marie Ohier of France, a proprietor of La Baie Oliere, Mahé, Seychelles, established himself on the island. He was married to Julie Anne Phylia Spurs of Mahé, Seychelles. Ohier recruited all Seychellois labourers, but mostly fishermen, for his project in exploiting turtles and salt fish and he left the island after seven years of occupation. Many Seychellois died there and there is still a Seychellois cemetery on the Island.
Since 1973, France has had a military presence on the island.
In 1880, there was another Frenchman, Hippolyte Calteau, a proprietor from Anse Soliel at Mahé in the Seychelles. Calteau was born in La Réunion and married in the Seychelles on 26 July 1873 to Marguerite Josephine Bouquie. Calteaux, who had visited the island in 1897, decided to develop the coconut industry and later he exploited the guano which was in abundance on ile du Lys.
During the start of his occupation of the Island he proudly floated the ‘tricolor’. He later faced the British who wanted to move him out of the island. The stubborn Calteaux refused to budge. He informed France of the British intention and the French authorities responded by sending “Le Pimauguet”, a man-of-war under the command of Captain Richard, which arrived on the island on the 23rd August 1892.
Four years later, on the 6th August 1896, the French promulgated a law notifying foreign governments’ that “Madagascar and dependencies” are French colonies. On 31 October 1897, France officially took possession of Glorieuse, Europa and Juan de Nova.
Calteau was also a slaver. His ship, the Gazelle, a 15 ton lugger commanded by Captain Hermitte , was later under another captain when it was seized and burned by the British Navy at Anjouan and her crew taken to Zanzibar for trial.
France wanted to extend her territorial gains by letting Aldabra and Cosmoledo Islands to French citizens in the Seychelles. But the British were quick to respond. Rear-Admiral Robert Kenedy sent a gun boat, the Redbreast, from Mahé to take Thomas Risely Griffith, the Administrator of the Seychelles,with the Union Jack and flagstaffs to be erected on the islands as a sign of British possession.
After making his fortune, the intelligent Calteaux retired in 1907 to his native La Réunion. Then the concession of Glorieuses was given to the Société des iles Malgaches, headed by a Seychellois Captain Louis Edward Lanier, based in Nosy Bé (Great Island), French Nossi Bé, with a branch at Union Vale, Mahé, Seychelles.
In 1921, during his visit to the islands the French Captain LeBegue, on the Bellatrix , reported that all the inhabitants were Seychellois and that they have planted 6,000 coconut trees, and the production of copra was 36 tons as well as 60 tons of maize per year.
In 1945, the islands were rented to the same company under the management of Jules Sauzier, his wife and children. Later his brother, Gaston, replaced him. During the time of Jules, the labour force was increased by 10 men and 10 women, all Malagasy, and the production of copra increased to 80 tons.
The exploitation of the islands closed in 1958 and Seychellois workers were moved out. However, those who were born there can still claim French nationality. André Chrisotome who claimed that he was born there had difficulty to prove his identity when he was married at Mahé in 1961. Sadly ,our Civil Status records mentioned only a few who died there when Calteau managed the islands. As this is notre histoire commune could France provide us with all the records relating to births and death of all Seychellois?
In 1959 after the closure of Glorieuses, Captain Camille Savy (the brother of Harry Savy the lessee of Aldabra) set sailed to Glorieuses on the Argo from Mahé to poach turtles because of the scarcity of turtles on Aldabra.
The Seychelles’ claim to Glorieuses came in after the Letters Patent of 12 July 1897 which was among the last steps of separation of the Seychelles from Mauritius. The separation was instigated by Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, the Governor of Mauritius (1871-1874).
In 1897, the Seychelles’ authorities sent a list of claimed islands to be part of the territory of the Seychelles. Among the list of nine islands there were Ile du Sable (Tromelin) and Glorieuses. The claim was justified as all the nine islands were run and managed by Seychellois labour force. Three years later after the Seychelles’ claim “Glorieuses was put on the list of dependencies of Mauritius on flimsy ground that they had been described as such in an English geography book of 1849 and later in a Mauritius surveyor report of 1863-1864.(McAteer: 2000. p.286)”
