Le Morne and the maroons of Mauritius

People who escaped from French and then British plantations on Mauritius hid in the caves and cliffs of Le Morne Brabant, a mountain on the island's south-west tip. Oral tradition holds that when police climbed it in February 1835 to announce that slavery had ended, the maroons feared recapture and leapt to their deaths. Mauritius marks the end of slavery here every 1 February.