Tromelin Island Malagasy Castaways Survive
In 1761, the French East India Company ship Utile wrecked on the tiny, treeless sand spit now called Tromelin Island, leaving around 60 enslaved Malagasy people stranded after the 122 sailors built a boat from the wreck and sailed away, promising to return. On an island battered by constant winds and storms, with only one hand-dug well for brackish water, the castaways kept a single fire burning for 15 years using wood from the wreck, built low shelters and a lookout from coral blocks and beach rock, and survived on seabirds, turtles, and fish.
They repaired a few salvaged copper cooking pots again and again and even made clothing from woven feathers as most of their companions died in the first months. When Ensign Jacques Marie Boudin de Tromelin-Lanuguy finally arrived with the French corvette Dauphine in 1776, he found only seven women and an eight-month-old child still alive and took them to Mauritius, where authorities declared them free.