Robert Durand was a young French naval officer in his mid-twenties who kept a detailed journal during the 1731–1732 slaving voyage of the Diligent from Vannes to the West African port of Jakin and then to Martinique.
His journal is the documentary spine of Robert Harms's microhistory of the voyage — Harms credits Durand's first-voyage perspective with preserving procedural details that more experienced slavers would have passed over in silence. Durand went on to testify in the lawsuit against Captain Pierre Mary, was later promoted, conducted further Atlantic slaving voyages, and eventually died in wartime service. He is both the primary witness who makes the Diligent voyage recoverable and a figure whose career illustrates how a literate French maritime officer participated in and documented the Atlantic slave trade across decades.
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TimelineAcross the historical record.
- 1731
Naval Officer and Diarist, Voyage of the Diligent
Served as a young officer aboard the slave ship Diligent on its 1731–1732 voyage from Vannes to Jakin (West Africa) and Martinique; his journal of the voyage is the primary source for Robert Harms's reconstruction of the Atlantic slave trade at the micro level.