In 1786, she entered a relationship with the then-governor Stanislas de Boufflers at the same time that he moved the capital of Senegal from Saint Louts to Gorée.
Pépin lived in the “golden age of the habitants, and her life illustrates how this class functioned as an intermediary group in Afro-European relations.
Among Anne’s five siblings was the trader Nicholas Pépin, a leading figure of the island and often acted as the spokesperson of Gorée in their dealings with the French authorities.
[1] She belonged to the leading figures of the signara community on Gorée Island, which played an important part in the French slave trade.
The only surviving description of her house was recorded by a Swiss botanist, Samuel Brunner (1790-1844), after attending a party Anne hosted in 1835, near the end of her life:The main salon with its two side rooms, was decorated as described above, quite spacious and illuminated by a chandelier and numerous wall-sconce.
The stories of Anne Pépin and other habitants like her illustrate how mixed-race signares were able to gain influence and act as intermediaries between Europeans and Africans.
Anne Pépin appears in Segu, a historical novel written by Maryse Condé, under the stereotypical traits of the beautiful aspiring noble lady but neglected signare.
She makes her first appearance in chapter 9, part I:As she lay on a mat on the balcony of her house on Gorée Island, Anne Pépin felt bored.
He had amassed enough money to marry his fair friend the Comtesse de Sabran; Anne still lay awake at night thinking about his ingratitude.
But now it was all over and here she was, abandoned on his chunk of basalt dumped in the sea off Cape Verde, the only French settlement in Africa apart from Saint-Louis at the mouth of the Senegal River.