PROMIScuous TRANSLATION: WORKING THE WORD AT ANTANANARIVO

conversed with Malagasy speaking slaves on Mauritian sugar estates and studied publica-
tions and manuscripts in Malagasy speech varieties previously compiled by Catholic mis-
sionaries and administrators in the colonial islands.12 But more specifically, for nearly two
years before his arrival at Antananarivo, Jones enjoyed the services of an enslaved interpreter
named Joseph. Joseph was a "Government Black" (see below) of Malagasy origin who had
been allocated to the use of the missionary in 1818 by the governor of Mauritius.3 Slaves
are sparingly-mentioned in missionaries' communications with the LMS headquarters in
London, but they were indispensable to the earliest evangelizing efforts of LMS personnel,
which required translation services. Recourse to native translators was "very desirable at first,
before [one] can learn the language," David Bogue had lectured his missionary students at
Gosport.14 Those instructions were heeded by Jones, with the real-life twist that his inter-
preter was to be a slave adept at working among the principle languages of the islands of the
western Indian Ocean (French and Malagasy).
Most politically subaltern Malagasy of slave and free status at colonial Mauritius were
multilingual and comprised a valuable resource to Europeans on every kind of mission to
Madagascar.'5 Nearly every British envoy from Mauritius traveling to Madagascar was pro-
vided by the colonial government with enslaved interpreters who could translate between
Malagasy and French and/or English. Some of these slaves were even of "Mozambique"
or east African birth. East Africans picked up Malagasy speech varieties either on their land
journey through Madagascar to the Mascarenes or in the Mascarenes themselves, where
Malagasy served as a contact language.'6 We know of these interpreting bondmen in part
because of their tendency to flee their masters.
"Received Lamoora," wrote British ambassador Robert Lyall from Antananarivo on
October 5, 1828, "a Malgash slave, belonging to the Government of the Mauritius, who
ran away from Mr. Bennet at Tamatave, from Mr. Griffiths. Had him put in irons, and on
the 6th ordered him twenty lashes with a small whip."'7 In the business of slave keeping and
discipline, British missionaries were no exception. Mr. Bennet was a visiting LMS mission-
ary sent to inspect the work of his colleagues at Antananarivo. Like Jones, the Governor of
Mauritius had supplied him with a multilingual slave. David Griffiths had been responsible
for recapturing Mr. Bennet's truant bondman, Lamoora, at Tamatave, hauling him more
than 200 kilometers back to Imerina, and handing him over to the British ambassador,
Robert Lyall, for whipping. This vignette of slave linguistic service, flight, and recapture was
not something either Bennet or Griffiths reported to LMS directors in London, or Griffiths
to his friends and supporters in Wales. There were certain realities a missionary had to enter
into when he worked in the western Indian Ocean, it seemed, and these were best kept in
the hush from the Evangelical communities in Britain.'8
Let us return to David Jones and his slave Joseph. "It was thought just & neces-
sary," explained Jones referring to himself and his wife on their first journey together to

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