British conquest bicentenary
Written by Editor Monday, 10 January 2011 10:03
The “Plan et Profil de la Montagne Longue” of 1790 shows the inaccessible Echelle Rock (far left of sketch) under the name “Morne Ecroulé” and the signal post or flag station (far right) on the part of the Long Mountain range ridges “facing the villages of Bois Pignolet and Notre Dame”(ISP report dixit), which are very accessible. Some ninety years later, in the 1880 map by Descubes, the name “Morne Jeannette” appears for the peak with a land concession under the name L’Echelle not far in the valley to the south. So, it must be some time after 1880 that the name “L’Echelle Rock” must have emerged to designate the inaccessible peak.
Photo and sketch from “Kaleidoscopic Conquest – Mauritius 1810” showing the position of Long Mountain in relation to neighbouring key positions in 1810 and in 2010
Confusions about the signal post on Long Mountain
People who are familiar with the history of the British Conquest of Isle de France, know that the French had a signal post on Long Mountain “from which every movement of the British army could be seen and signalled to the defending troops.”(1)
It is also known that the capture of the flag station, better still the skirmish at Rivière Sèche, the river crossing that was disputed by the British just below the flag station and where most of the casualties on both sides occurred, including the two British officers who fell, Col. Campbell and Major O’Keefe, were an essential part of the whole action of the 1st of December 1810. But they were by no means the decisive outcome of the day. The British troops had yet to force the way towards the capital and the capitulation of the enemy forces.
The capture of the signal post has so far been attributed to sepoys or Indian soldiers: “On 1st December a battalion of sepoys occupied Long Mountain at 7 a.m.” (2) “A body of sepoys now climbed to the top of Montagne Longue, which the French had neglected to occupy, and thence commanded the whole battle field.”(3) Further, Derek Hollingworth stated sepoys were“sent to attack the post and dislodge the French troops from Long Mountain.”(1) This triumph of the sepoys was strongly emphasized on Saturday 4 December 2010 on the occasion of the official launch at Long Mountain of a special issue of the trilingual magazine Indradhanush (184 pages) on the theme “The contributions of the Indians in the conquest and consolidation of the British rule in Mauritius”.
The issue and the launch of the magazine were in the context of the bicentenary celebration of the British conquest of Isle de France. Moreover, a report of the Indradhanush Sanskritic Parishad (ISP) was rendered public wherein it was emphasized that “James Prior, William D. Bolton, Albert Pitot, Pandit Atmaram, Auguste Toussaint, Derek Hollingworth, R.K. Boodhun, K. Hazareesingh, and B. Bissoondoyal, have said that there was a signal Post in the l’Echelle Rock Mountain, and the French soldiers stationed there were dislodged by the Sepoys.”(4)
No official sources warrant sepoys’ triumph
However, other accounts such as the one by Bayly (commented for the first time in ‘Kaleidoscope Conquest – Mauritius 1810”, CRIOS, launched on Friday 3 December 2010 at the National Library in Port Louis) suggest that it is the 12th regiment, composed of Europeans, that stormed the flag station. No mention of sepoys either in British first hand sources, or in the Decaen and Vandermaesen reports. This has been interpreted as a conspiracy of the West to silence the contribution of the sepoys.(5)
However, even if primary sources do not seem to warrant an outstanding involvement of the sepoys in storming the flag station, it is undeniable that the latter have magnificently contributed to the success of the 1810 British expedition on the whole, their battalions from Bombay, Madras and Bengal being well embedded and integrated in the overall strategy and tactics set in place by the colonial commanding body. (6)
The exact location of the flag station
Not only are there confusions about the battalion which captured the flag station, but on its exact location as well. Was it on Pieter Both or on L’Echelle Rock? In the account of “an officer who came on the expedition”, the place where the signal post was located is designated as “Pirebot” (Pieter Both): “At Pirebot, there was a signal station, from whence every movement of our army could be discerned.” (7)
Other sources designate the place as “L’Echelle Rock”, which is impossible as this peak is quite inaccessible. The following observation was made by a team of the ISP which successfully reached to the site where the signal post stood on Long Mountain: “The L’Echelle Rock which is the highest summit of the Long Mountain range is unattainable, because all around it there is stiff-cliff.”(4)
As a matter of fact, the signal post was neither on Pieter Both nor on L’Echelle Rock. It was actually on the western ridge of Long Mountain as shown in a plan of 1790.(8) It was definitely not on L’Echelle Rock which is the highest peak (named ‘Morne Ecroulé’ on the plan) shown on the left.
DODO
References
Derek Hollingworth, They Came to Mauritius, 1949
H.C.M. Austen, Sea Fights and Corsairs of the Indian Ocean, Port-Louis, 1934
Albert Pitot/Allister Macmillan, “Mauritius Illustrated”, 1914
Indradhanush Sanskritic Parishad, “Vestiges of 1810 discovered on L’Echelle Rock Mountain”, 2010
U. Bissoondoyal, “Selected Works of Basdeo Bissoondoyal, Volume V”, MGI, 1991
Marina Carter, CRIOS & others, “Kaleidoscopic Conquest-Mauritius 1810”, 2010
Account of the Conquest of Mauritius by An Officer who served on the Expedition, London, 1811.
Plan et Profil de la Montagne Longue, 21 janvier 1790
Drawing representing Sepoys in British conquered Mauritius. Only secondary sources mention the participation of Sepoys in the storming of the signal post on Long Mountain on 1st December 1810. Primary sources such as “Colonel Bayly’s Diary” or “Account of the Conquest of Mauritius” are mute on the subject
This map from the early 20th century, around 1913, shows “L’Echelle Rock”. It appears that the confusion related to the location of “a signal post on the l’Echelle Rock” first appeared in Derek Hollingworth’s “They Came To Mauritius”. He erroneously situates “the Echelle Rock, midway between Pieter Both mountain and the summit of Long Mountain”. To say that it is half way between Pieter Both and the summit of Long Mountain does not stand as the highest point of Long Mountain is L’Echelle Rock
