Architecture and Slavery in the French Indian Ocean: Madagascar and the Mascarenes, 1643-1848

From the founding of Fort-Dauphin in 1643 to the abolition of slavery in the French territories in 1848, colonial and para-colonial architecture in Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands included the largest and costliest buildings in France’s premodern empire.This unique architecture was shaped by changing ideas of French identity, familiar imperial architectural and urbanistic forms, deliberately eclectic and cosmopolitan patronage, the exceptional ethnic diversity of the colony’s builders, and the fragile boundary between bondage and freedom that lay at the heart of French colonialism in the southern Indian Ocean. From modest projects that express a longing for French village life to classical baroque public buildings in the style of the Sun King and spacious private houses increasingly adapted to the local environment, architecture in Madagascar and the Mascarenes reflected a unique mix of metropolitan, colonial, and Indian and Malagasy forms and traditions.But buildings tell only ha