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On Tuesday morning, August 22, 2023, like many others, I learned of the death of Jean-Pierre Sainton. It was just a few hours after the publication of post 6 in the series on colorism, which concludes, among other things, with his analyses taken from Couleur et société en contexte post-esclavagiste, which I highly recommended reading.
Beyond the human being and the historian we are losing, I am reminded of his brilliant analytical eye and of all his ongoing research, which will remain unfinished, yet so essential to our Caribbean societies, as evidenced by his already published works. Reading La décolonisation improbable, for example, was like a revelation. At last, I had a clear understanding of the post-slavery political and social context of our societies, and of contemporary social and ideological constructs in the French Caribbean!
In 2021, we published a double article, the result of our joint research on the Galion géreurs as part of the Rézo program. He had written to me – in reference to our approach to the family and sociable relational system, the methodological crossover and the use of people’s genealogy to link individual history and groups – « I feel that this article should be a landmark » and he concluded with « Don’t be afraid to make it known. » I didn’t really have any fears, I was just waiting for an opportune moment to show its interest beyond a simple publication announcement. I had forgotten that time doesn’t wait, it rushes by and sometimes surprises us brutally.
So today, as a form of tribute, I’m sharing with you, from my perspective, this research that was close to his heart, and, through it, a little of the Jean-Pierre I’ve known, of what I owe him.
I joined the Rézo program directed by Jean-Pierre Sainton in 2015. This research program was based on a collaborative database. I love databases and was interested in the collaborative concept because I find it useful in knowledge production; but I was struggling to motivate myself and make sense of my participation, as I’m an eighteenth-century specialist while the main researchers involved in the project were working on the contemporary period.
One day in December 2017, we had a chat with Jean-Pierre about the research he was doing into the world of work at Le Galion in the 1920s. He had drawn up an organization diagram of the factory’s social hierarchies, inventoried the staff list and collected elements of the Réjon-Tisserand family history. He wondered about the social fabric and how upward mobility was achieved. Initially, he wanted to work on the « higher functions » of the factory, as for the farm workers, a long preliminary identification work would be necessary. It was during this discussion that we realized that we could do something together: he from his fine qualitative analyses and his outstanding knowledge of the period and space under study, me from the collection and processing of data in database form, my knowledge of the social structures of the slavery period and my good ability to trace genealogies over a long period of time and back to earlier periods. He shared his photos and synthesis notes of the main archive to be studied and let me discover them. I was enthusiastic!
Nothing is ever simple in research, starting with access to tools! But no matter, in the absence of easy access to the collaborative database, I quickly fell back on an Excel spreadsheet that I structured along the same lines, simplifying it. While Jean-Pierre pursued his qualitative study of the archives, I established a database of executives at the Galion factory. We alternated between e-mail exchanges and working sessions to review our respective progress and define future directions.
2018 was the year of data collection. I began by looking for the dates and places of birth of the factory’s executives, then set about finding the main civil status details of the overseers [géreurs and économes], and finally traced their genealogies. Jean-Pierre compared what we found, checked for possible errors, looked at possible aberrations, and suggested directions.
In March 2019, I sent him a first portrait based on my research, that of Hayot Mansuéla; his encouraging message prompted me to follow up with another of Camille Blaisemont, whose remarkable profile in the history of the Galion factory he had by this stage perfectly identified. Jean-Pierre shared his hypotheses and observations based on the archives he had consulted, and sent me anything that might help me, as no specialist of the period, to identify the social figure of the géreur on whom he was focusing: a note on the function of the géreur, a first draft of the characteristics of the members of the corpus…
We presented our paper at the seminar on October 30, and it was well received. All that remained was to complete and refine the research in preparation for submission of the paper for publication. We agreed on a plan: Jean-Pierre would give the introduction and deal with the first part on the social figure of the plantation géreur, his place and function, his constant concern to manage the availability of arms. In the second part, I would present the origins and profiles of the Galion géreurs, their family backgrounds, their career paths, where they lived, their social contacts… In the third part, we will combine our data to present two remarkable cases: the archetypal géreur, Camille Blaisemont, and Hayot Mansuela, the « negro » géreur.
In March 2020, once again, Jean-Pierre had kindly asked me about the progress of my writing. He had finished. Me, a bad student, was late! After a fruitful work session, I was back at it again, determined to come up with something that would live up to his analysis, or at least try to. I proposed enriching the database with the salaries, bonuses, promotions or downgrades of the managers, in order to track their career paths within the factory. I shared with him my feeling that my section was missing a portrait of a poor White, which he encouraged me to do. When I shared with him my analyses of the plantation’s correspondence, he confirmed, qualified, completed and gave me elements to refine my understanding. By July 2020, we had each written the basis for the final article. In December, he contacted me again to put together the paper incorporating our two contributions, in order to begin the editorial process.
Jean-Pierre was unquestionably the elder, the seasoned historian, the one from whom there was much to learn, particularly about the conceptual framework of current research. I was fully aware of this; although I knew my skills, I was still a young researcher and felt small in front of him. However, he was always tactful in the way he set out his thoughts, proposed a field of possibilities or guided me in my approach. He treated my questions and proposals with consideration. When a choice had to be made, we exchanged ideas to reach agreement. I remember the blissful satisfaction I felt a few days before the seminar, when I realized that my data processing showed some elements of the recruitment policy for géreurs linked to family and social background; it gave me the feeling that, at last, I was the one contributing something to Jean-Pierre!
It was in February 2021, when I read the part of his paper that he had sent me for my opinion, that I fully realized my true joy at this collaboration and wrote him so: « I admire the clarity of your words, and the finesse of your analyses. (It’s so motivating to work with a researcher of your stature, thank you!) I hope to become a researcher capable of producing the same in a few years’ time. Until then, I’ve done as much as I can… » and to sent him a few spotted typos and remarks for the principle, to honor everything he was passing on to me through this project.
A few days later, he offered me a great paragraph on a conceptual approach to topology for the opening of my part. Right up to the end, he gave me the benefit of his experience and erudition! In March, the finalized article followed the usual process: delivery of the paper, comments from the proofreaders, modifications to be made, validation, final approval, drafting of an abstract, choice of keywords… In August, everything went to press for publication in October.
I like this study of the Galion géreurs because I believe it illustrates the added value that joint research and analysis can bring. I also like it because it fits in with the study of the social constructions of post-slavery transitions; it gives substance to the perpetuation of structures over a long period of time, while highlighting the new social transformations at work in the Galion factory. I still like it because it leaves many interesting questions unanswered, and invites further research.
Jean-Pierre had other publications in the pipeline resulting from his research into the history of Le Galion; this publication was a gateway to a much richer and more detailed analysis of social history. From our very first conversation, and several times during this research, he had told me how convinced he was that the land history of the plantation and the study of property transfers should be linked to this social study.
I’m deeply saddened to have to talk to you about all this under these circumstances, and at the same time, I’m deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to get to know Jean-Pierre, to have worked alongside him and to have had this wonderful experience that he generously offered me through our work together.
May we keep preciously what Jean-Pierre Sainton has passed on to us.
The study on the Galion géreurs is a French reading available in open accesse, and can be accessed via the links below.
Part 1 Les géreurs du domaine sucrier du Galion (Martinique) durant l’entre-deux-guerres
Part 2 Prosopographie des géreurs du Galion au début du XXe siècle
Résumé : Des premières décennies après l’abolition de l’esclavage aux années 1960 qui voient la fin de la société d’habitation tardive, la figure du géreur d’habitation a dominé l’univers social antillais du monde sucrier. La contribution revient sur les contours de ce groupe social, observé au cours de la période de l’entre-deux-guerres, période charnière de la fabrication sociale antillaise, à partir d’une étude rigoureuse des fonds d’archives du domaine du Galion, en croisant l’exégèse classique des sources et l’approche qualitative par les réseaux. Cette étude constitue un point d’étape dans l’écriture d’une histoire sociale antillaise. Les deux articles qui ont conjugué les recherches de Jean-Pierre Sainton et de Jessica Pierre-Louis, livrent les premiers résultats de l’analyse : Qui étaient les géreurs de ce grand domaine sucrier qui dominait alors tout le corps social trinitéen ? De quel milieu social provenaient-ils ? Quelle était la nature de leurs rapports au sein du groupe ? Comment se positionnaient-ils entre leurs employeurs usiniers et les travailleurs des habitations ? Que nous apporte ce type de croisement méthodologique dans l’élaboration d’une sociologie historique antillaise ?
Mots-clés : Histoire sociale,réseaux, travail, géreurs, habitation, usine, Galion, Trinité, Martinique, Antilles, entre deux guerres.
Tan Listwa 