To raise awareness of our history and heritage, events have been organized in collaboration with key partners, including institutions, NGOs, and individuals. Some of these activities include essay contests, conferences, drawing competitions, Signal Mountain hikes, capacity building, and discussion forums.

The Intercontinental Slavery Museum was fortunate to host many distinguished guests at these events, demonstrating everyone’s interest in the history, culture, and heritage of our country. A new perspective has been offered on this past, which over the years has taken different dimensions due to various social and cultural movements. As a museum, our role is to educate and present facts to the public without taking a position, allowing visitors to form their own opinions.

In 2022, as part of the International Museum Day commemoration, the Intercontinental Slavery Museum marked the bicentenary of Ratsitatane’s execution through a series of activities.

Ratsitatanina (known as “Ratsitatane”) was a noble-born general and the son of a distinguished advisor at the court of King Radama in Madagascar. In Madagascar, he was sentenced to death for allegedly attempting to attack King Radama in 1821. The “State Prisoner” arrived in Mauritius aboard the HMS Menai on January 3, 1822.

Ratsitatanina was imprisoned in the Bagne in Port-Louis, under loose surveillance for about six weeks. The “bagne” in the port area was primarily reserved for the imprisonment of state slaves, maroons, and apprentices. On the evening of Sunday, February 17, 1822, Ratsitatanina walked out through the prison gate and fled towards the mountains behind Port-Louis, where he was later joined by slaves and apprentices.

He was captured on February 21, 1822. Ratsitatanina and the other men who had joined him on the mountain were accused of plotting an uprising. After a trial, he and two other men, Kotovolo and Latulipe, were sentenced to death. On April 15, 1822, all three were beheaded in Plaine-Verte.

As part of the Tricentennial of the French occupation of Mauritius (1722-2022), the ISM intends to commemorate this event by hosting a temporary exhibition that recounts the harrowing journey of the first enslaved people to land in Mauritius. Two important dates are worth noting: June 13, 1722, when 30 slaves employed by the East India Company were brought from Bourbon, and December 8, 1722, when 65 slaves (27 men – 18 medium and small boys, 20 women, and girls) were brought from an initial trade on the Rubis from Madagascar.

“Barely a week later, 15 adult slaves and 4 children went maroon, and more than fifty of them escaped and planned to build a boat to return to their homeland.”

This contingent arrived aboard the Rubis from Madagascar. The Rubis (a 110-ton slave frigate) was built before 1714 in the shipyard of Le Havre, known for supplying several long-haul ships to the East India Company. From 1714 to 1719, the Rubis belonged to the Senegal Company, which passed it on to the East India Company. It made its last two expeditions and was disarmed and condemned on November 24, 1723, on the Island of Bourbon.

On October 7, 1722, from Saint-Paul, Bourbon Island, it was sent to Madagascar for the trade and returned to Bourbon Island with 65 Africans in the hold, which were disembarked on the Isle de France four days later.

In the context of the intercontinental nature of the ISM, it was crucial to demonstrate the close link between Bourbon Island and Isle de France, and everything that stems from it in terms of the impact of slavery, especially the Creole language. The cultural and ancestral ties between Madagascar and Bourbon Island & Isle de France are related to the trade and practices at the beginning of French colonization.