Chapter 4 explores the regional situations of Atlantic and Indian Ocean courts, respectively. Within these lively and increasingly interconnected oceanic systems, the Antilles initially gained prominence for their sugar production, and the Mascarenes formed what one traveler called “the arsenal of our forces and the entrepôt of our commerce.” These transformations, however, prompted the migration of court users, from sailors to traders, to legal entrepôts. A unique convergence of colonial expertise, especially regarding cash-crop production and trade, and military skills, regarding colonial defense and imperial objectives, enabled the courts to remain, and grow, as entrepôts at the center of a global ancien régime empire.

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He’s “traveled throughout the world.” —Louise Aubert, twenty-eight, resident of Île Bourbon, describing the sailor Pitre Paul, about forty, whom she had seen in Paris and Île Bourbon on separate occasions, 18 July 17251 The prison doors will be open to him, if he is ever returned there for any other reason....