Joseph Napoleon Sebastien Sarda Garriga

Joseph Napoleon Sebastien Sarda Garriga known as Sarda-Garriga , wire of Gauderi Sarda and Marie Scrubland, was born the December 18th 1808 with Pézilla-the-River (the Eastern Pyrenees).

The young man makes career in the administration of finances and is characterized by his republican ideas. In 1841, it marries Eve Louise Poncelet of Mauvoir, widow of the Viscount of Lodin, of which it will have a child.

In 1848, Victor Schoelcher, member of the provisional government appoints it general police chief of the Republic to the Réunion to apply at it the decree of the abolition of the Esclavage.

It arrives at the Réunion, the October 13rd 1848. The Parliament of the owners of the North of the island asks him to defer the application of the decree at the end of the sugar campaign. Sarda-Garriga refuses and promulgates the decree of abolition the October 18th. The October 22nd, the members of the Parliament separate without expressing resistance. The October 24th, Sarda-Garriga receives a delegation of slaves and makes compulsory for very freed the possession from a work contract. Mid-November mid-December, Sarda Garriga undertakes a round of explanation in the island, in order to reassure main and slaves and to exhort the population with calm and work. Concluding its mission, he issues the abolition of the Esclavage the December 20th.

The February 17th 1849, it marries in second weddings Mrs. Clément, widow of the director of the Currencies of Paris.

Statement of its functions, it leaves the Réunion the May 12th 1850 aboard frigate “the white Queen”.

In December 1851, it is indicated as general police chief of the Guyana. Opposed to the policy of Napoleon III, it returns in France at the beginning of 1853.

He dies the September 8th 1877 with Mesnil-on-the Estrée in the the Eure.

Charged with applying with the Meeting the decree of the provisional government of February 1848 which abolished slavery in the French colonies, Sarda Garriga, with let us not doubt it, the support of the government reactionary resulting from the French elections of April 1848, indeed extremely well fulfilled its mission: to prevent that intrinsic violence with colonialism and the slave system is not turned over against the Masters of yesterday, while preserving their economic interests and the superiority of their social status. " The Republic wanted to make your happiness by giving you freedom (…). Owners and workers (in other words, former Masters and former slaves) train from now on only one family of which all the members must enters themselves aider" (proclamation of Sarda " With the travailleurs" , of December 20th, 1848). One could not be cynical any more, when it is known that in same time the Police chief of the Republic, obliged the " new affranchis" become citizens, but of the citizens of second order (so much so that the word " sitoyen" will become a pejorative word in Creole), to sign a work contract in their former Master become their owner, or else they would be famous vagrants and jetés in prison. And this whole in their asking to be patient if their owner could not pay the wages due to them. Result, the former slaves will leave as a crowd, with the risk of the prison, the " habitations" (plantations) where their former Masters continued for the majority to treat them also badly before before December 20th. In their vast majority they will suffer during generations (for those at least of them which had a descent) in most dreadful misery which is.

Proof that the descendants of the Masters and their trustworthy knew to recognize with their right value the merits of Sarda, it did not miss the homages with the Meeting: a college and many streets bear its name. But the slaves had been notched by an abolition which had taken into account only the interest of the Masters. An abolition become historically inescapable, since the majority of the countries of Latin America - with the notable exception of Brazil - had abolished slavery between 1811 and 1831, and that two years later it was the turn of the British colonies. It is the memory of the slaves réunionnais, so imperfectly released by Sarda Gariga in 1848, which the poet-singer-maloyer defends réunionnais Danyel Waro in one of his more beautiful poems, Foutan fonnker (“caustic poem”) in which it denounces the devastations of the slave system that the company réunionnaise continues to cart: “wine désanm the pokor”, on December 20th remains to be made.

External bonds

HTTP: /ile-bourbon.net/gouverneur/SardaGarriga.htm Sarda Garriga
HTTP: /www.reunionweb.org/decouverte/histoire/abolition-esclavage promulguation the abolition of slavery to the Meeting

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