In the 17th century, travellers remarked on the fertility of the island’s soil. The planting of subsistence crops and then coffee and sugar plantations divided up the land into rural farms.
Crop farming and livestock breeding in the 17th century
The first settlers in the 17th century received little help from the Campagnie française des Indes orientales and had to grow their own food crops. They grew maize, rice, fruit and vegetables, tobacco and sugar cane and bred pigs, kids and cows.
Coffee: “a new source of wealth in Bourbon”
From 1715, the Compagnie encouraged islanders to develop a plantation economy based on the use of slave labour. This agricultural and commercial activity led to changes in the landscape, with the introduction of farms, storage areas and transport.
The Maison Rouge estate is one of the large coffee plantation residences built on the island in the 18th century.
The “coffee” period was succeeded, after 1810, by the sugar era.
History and archaeology: combining data
The oldest known rural and agricultural remains date back to the 18th century on the site of the Route des premiers Français, where a complex of buildings was constructed on farmland.
On the site of the Bassin Vital, in Vieux Saint-Paul, surveys and test pits have identified an equipped agricultural area.
In Cap Champagne, in Boucan-Canot, the various structural remains of a rural settlement have been uncovered.
To learn more about plantation society on Réunion, visit the website created by the Musée historique de Villèle.
