Léon Humblot

Léon Joseph Henry Humblot (born June 3, 1852 Nancy , France , † March 20, 1914 , Mitsamiouli , Grande Comore ) was a French botanist and natural scientist . He became Résident of Grande Comore and was also known as "Sultan blanc" (White Sultan).

Life

Léon Humblot was the son of a gardener from Place d'Alliance in Nancy. He worked in the family business with his big brother Eugène Humblot .

At the time of Patrice de Mac-Mahon's presidency , Humblot moved to the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris (Natural History Museum). The director of the museum, Edmond Frémy , was eager to replenish the museum's archives. Therefore, in 1878, he commissioned Humblot with a mission for botanical research in Madagascar . There he collected rare orchids, among other things . In 1880 he returned to France with extensive collections for the museum.

In 1881 he married Gabrielle Virginie Legros , the daughter of Charles Gabriel Legros , the notary of Épinay-sur-Orge and mayor of the place, and of Jenny Marie Levassor . Due to his success with the expedition to Madagascar, Humblot was commissioned with a study trip to the Comoros and the east coast of Africa. In 1883 he was commissioned by Jules Méline , then Minister of Agriculture . He arrived in Mayotte at the beginning of 1884 and on September 5, 1884, went on board the ship “Le Prophète” to Grande Comore (Ngazidja).

In the following year he signed a contract with the Sultan of Bambao , Said Ali bin Said Omar , in which he could subordinate all lands that he liked to the French state and employ workers as he saw fit, with a profit sharing of 10%. This was the beginning of a systematic subjugation of the islands, which until then had been fragmented by the rivalries of the small local sultanates (Bambao, Itsandra, Badjini etc.). In 1886 the French government imposed the Traités de Protectorat (Protectorate Treaties) in Grande Comore , in which his rights to the interests of the Comoros were recognized.

In 1889 he founded a Compagnie Coloniale, which quickly gained a foothold on all the islands of the archipelago and developed a whole network of agricultural operations (exploitations agricoles: coconut plantations, perfume plant plantations) and related production and trading operations, as well as controlling the entire economy of the Comoros : the "Système Humblot", which was favored by the nature of the territory and the passivity of the administration, formed the perfection and at the same time a caricature of colonialism.

From then on he received the title of "Sultan Blanc" as a local potentate and on November 17, 1889 also received the title of Résident with all the privileges of a Sultan.

However, he lost this title on June 5, 1896, when a career-conscious civil servant was sent to the Comoros by the French government.

At the end of his life, Humblot became less and less active and he preferred to stay in his home in Nyumbadju . On March 20, 1914, he died suddenly of an embolism at the age of 61; he is buried in Karthala . He had many descendants and some of his descendants still live in Mitsamiouli in the north of Grande Comore.

Designations

A species of heron in Madagascar ( Héron de Humblot Ardea humbloti ) and a flycatcher from the Karthala volcano (Humblotia flavirostris) were named after Humblot.

literature

• Jean-Louis Guebourg: La Grande Comore. Des sultan aux mercenaire. L'Harmattan 1994: 272. ISBN 2738422993
• Ali Madi Djoumoi: Léon Humblot: Le grand seigneur à la Grande Comore (1887-1912). L'Harmattan 2016: 154. ISBN 9782343079394
• Omar Mirali: Le sultan Saïd Ali et Léon Humblot à la Grande Comore (1884-1912) . 2015.

Web links

• worldcat.org
• global plants. jstor.org
• Contemporary drawings . comores-online.com