The records cover the period 1825 to 1915. They relate to the sugar trade and import merchanting in Mauritius, including in-letters, bills of lading, charter parties, invoices, account sales and disbursements accounts; to ships' agency work, in particular that of the Clan Line; to insurance matters, consisting of policies and claims; to marine casualties, notes of protest and particular and general average statements and survey reports. There is some detailed information about the employment of Indian migrant workers under contract to the sugar plantations [indentured labour] and the conditions relating to their welfare. There is also a census of enslaved people employed on the Pipon estates in 1826 ('Greffe de l'Enregistrement des Esclaves'). The vast majority of the collection however comprises business correspondence. Note that this collection is uncatalogued but there is a box list available. Some documents are in French but the majority are English language. Please contact archive staff for more information about ordering from this collection. A number of items are unfit for production due to conservation issues.

Related materials: comprising the predecessor Pipon Adam collection (1832-1915) are held at the Archives Departementales De La Reunion (https://www.departement974.fr/sites-culturels/index.php/Voir-details/511-13-J-Pipon-Adam.html), with a PDF catalogue to the collection located at: https://www.departement974.fr/sites-culturels/index.php/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9charger-document/511-13-J-Pipon-Adam.html For further context, see also "A short history of Mauritius / by P. J. Barnwell [and] A. Toussaint" and French version "L'administration française de l'île Maurice et ses archives (1721-1810)", located at: https://excerpts.numilog.com/books/9782744918674.pdf

Administrative / biographical background
At the beginning of the nineteenth century a Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Pipon, founded an import-export business in Mauritius. In 1817 Joachim Henri Adam (1793-1856) arrived in Mauritius from Rouen to take up work on a sugar estate; in 1825 he married Jean-Baptiste's daughter and joined the Pipon business thereafter. Henri Adam played a prominent part in the island campaign for an indemnity to owners of enslaved people emancipated under the Abolition Act of 1832. The firm, which for more than a century was one of the island's three most important firms of merchants and commission agents, traded successively under the names of F. Barbe and Adam (1829-1837); Henry Adam & Co (1837-1848); Pipon Bell & Co (1848-1863); Pipon Adam & Co (1863-1897); Adam & Co (1897-1945); and Adam & Co Ltd (1945-1969). The Adam family was important in local administration. Charles Felix Henri (fl.1830-1900) was a member of the Council of Government in the 1880s. His brother Louis Gustave (d.1894) established himself in Paris to watch over the European side of the business. In 1969 the business was sold to the Blyth, Greene, Jourdain and Company Group; a condition of the sale was that the Adam name should be kept. Both the Pipon and Adam families were involved in the production as well as in the marketing of sugar, the main export industry of Mauritius. Through a network of correspondents and agents the firm sold sugar, mostly on consignment, to Britain, France, India, Australia, Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Indo-China and South Africa: it imported rice and jute (gunny sacks) from Calcutta [Kolkata]; chemical fertilizers and machinery from Europe and guano from Peru; mules from Montevideo, and a great diversity of consumer goods. An important part of the company's operations from the late 1830s onwards was connected with the transport and allocation of Indian migrant workers under contract to the sugar plantations [indentured labour]. It was also active in the chartering market, acting as agent both for chartered vessels and for regular liners, notably the Clan Line. There was also an insurance business, the Mauritius Marine Insurance Company, which looked after the affairs of a number of international insurance companies as agent and claims assessor, besides representing the Bureau Veritas classification society in Mauritius. The records were acquired by the Museum in 1978 through Monsieur Maxime Adam, the senior member of the family.