Saturday, May 16, 2009

The survivors of The Tromelin Island

Tromelin Island; French: Île Tromelin is a low, flat 0.8 square kilometres (200 acres) island in the Indian Ocean, about 350 kilometres (220 mi) east of Madagascar (Geographic coordinates 15°53′32″S 54°31′29″E . There are no harbours or anchorages and access by sea is difficult. The island has a 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) airstrip. It is a French territory. It is claimed by Mauritius and the Seychelles.



The famous French writer Irene Frain give us with this book : " Les Naufragés de L'Ile Tromelin " a wonderful and arounsing testimony of this dark period of the slaves trade .

The island was first recorded by a French navigator in 1722. In 1761 the French ship Utile, carrying slaves from Madagascar to Mauritius, ran onto the reefs of the island. The crew reached Madagascar in a raft, abandoning some 60 slaves on the desert island. Fifteen years later in 1776, the chevalier de Tromelin, (from whom the island takes its name) captain of the French warship La Dauphine, visited the island and rescued the survivors — seven women and an eight-month-old child. Tromelin Island was occupied by France in 1954 while it was part of Mauritius and it is claimed by Mauritius.

I cannot tell you i much i invite you to read this book.
the website : The Survivors of the Tremolin Island

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