PIER M. LARSON

Madagascar, "as we could get no Malagash teacher, to take with us two slaves or servants
who could speak French and Malagash; and who would act as interpreters between us and
the Malgash-besides taking care of our luggage." With a slave, went the reasoning, one
might kill two irksome birds of travel-communication and the ponderousness of baggage-
with a single stone. "We petitioned his Ex. G. G. Hall," the acting governor of Mauritius,
Jones continued, "for two Govt. slaves, whom he gave us with the greatest pleasure and rice
for two months."19 Both Jones and his wife (who died soon after arrival in Madagascar) en-
joyed the services of these slaves. Thomas Bevan had also employed a slave named Joseph as
his interpreter, a man David Jones accused in 1818, shortly after Bevan's death, of poisoning
him (Jones).20
Government Blacks, in the servile employ of missionaries for both their translation
services and their sweat, were more precisely a legal category of persons variously known in
British colonies as apprentices, liberated Africans, or prize negroes.2' But legal niceties aside
missionaries found it difficult to name them other than as slaves, a term which apparently
captures the nature of their relationship to the men. Government Blacks had been captives
aboard vessels bound for the Mascarenes and surrounding territories, including the Cape
Colony. If intercepted by ships of the Royal Navy and condemned in courts of vice admi-
ralty at the Cape or in Mauritius as illegal slavers, these slave-trading vessels and their cargo
were forfeited to the crown. Such captives who arrived in colonial ports as slaves were then
typically indentured out on contracts of seven to fourteen years to private individuals or to
government, hence the term Government Blacks. At the termination of their indentures
they were to become legally free.22
Indentured translators such as Joseph continued to work for British missionaries in
Madagascar well after the clerics became fluent in Antananarivo's speech variety. What we
don't know is how long the translators continued to render linguistic services to the mission-
aries, or precisely how. When David Jones departed Madagascar in 1830 his erstwhile trans-
lator, Joseph, suddenly reappeared in Jones's communications with the British governor of
Mauritius. "In 1818 General Hall, then Acting Governor of the Mauritius, granted me a
Government slave, named Joseph, to assist me as an interpreter and to render me assistance
in the mission," Jones wrote to the secretary for the governor. He did not explain precisely
what he meant by "assistance in the mission."
I should like to have the instructions of His Excellency the Governor, whether I
am to take him back with me to the Mauritius or leave him here with his relations.
[Joseph had married a woman from Antananarivo and may have originated from
near the city.] He is now an old man about 50 or 60 years of age, and I do not think
he would be able to walk down to Tamatave. He has been, on the whole, a good
and useful servant; and if I return to the Mauritius before the end of this year, as I
intend, I should like him to remain, under oversight of my brother Missionaries, to
take charge of what I shall leave in the country. I shall be much obliged to you to
state the case to his Excellency: and please to let me know his instructions relative
thereto, which I shall attend to.23

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