La voix de l’habitation dans le Voyage aux îles françaises de l’Amérique du père Labat

Abstract

Composed between 1716 and 1722, Fr Jean-Baptiste Labat’s Nouveau Voyage aux îles françaises de l’Amérique orchestrates a chronicle dedicated to the life of the habitation in the Antilles at the dawn of the century. Behind the voice of the slaves, depicted as characters lacking in any psychological depth, and the picaresque voice of a chronicler involved in numerous adventures, another voice can be heard : this is the voice of a habitation society, as it establishes itself as an autonomous economic and social unit. It is this curious polyphony, in which the voices of the slaves, the master and the habitation are intermingled, that this article proposes to consider. While Fr Labat normally turns a deaf ear to the slaves’ speech, every now and then he lends a more attentive ear to his slaves and hints at an unexpected additional voice, that of a new society.

Keywords

• chronicle
• ethos
• habitation
• Jean-Baptiste Labat
• slaves’ speech