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The Patriarch - Louis
31st October 1759,
Bordeaux, France - 10th January 1820, Kingston, Jamaica
The name Vendryes first
appears in a marriage record in Peyrusse (in modern Aveyron, France). A
marriage is recorded between Jean deVendrias, of Toirac (in modern Lot)
and Jeanne Cavallac on 5th February 1445.
In the seventeenth
century we find Jean-Francois Vendryes (1668-1722), a high official in
Bordeaux under Louis XIV, the Sun King. His name was Latinised, as was
the practice in those days in official documents, to "Joannes Vandrier".
Jean-Francois married Marie Poncet in 1698 and they produced no less
than a dozen children. Two of those twelve may have gone to Dominique.
One of the brothers who
remained in France, Jean-Pierre, married Marguerite Pradines in 1735,
they also produced a dozen children including Jean-Baptiste who became a
Parliamentary Lawyer in Bordeaux. He married Mlle Foucauld (no first
name found) and produced only one child, Louis, in 1759; Louis' mother
died in 1759, possibly giving birth to him. Jean-Baptiste later married a Mlle Curaule
and had ten more children,
but we can stop there as our interest is with Louis. Jean-Baptiste died
in 1797; though we have no record of how he met his death at 61 we
cannot discount a meeting with Monsieur le Guillotine as the Reign of
Terror was still very much under way. At the same time 61 was not an
unusual age to die naturally in those days.
At 18, with his father's
assistance, Louis put together a shipload of goods to sail to the newly
founded United States of America. Readers may know that the French,
being at war with the English, had helped the United States in their
fight for Independence. However, luck was not with Louis for, as his
ship left the mouth of the river Garonne, it was taken by the British
and "all was lost". Louis escaped and returned home to Bordeaux.
A modern Google map shows
Bordeaux, and where the River Garonne enters the Atlantic Ocean:
View Larger Map
He then
went on to work for the admiralty in Versailles. In about 1787 he
was sent to Port-au-Prince as Paymaster to the Navy. This was the
very same year that it became obvious that there was going to be
some sort of civil unrest. Though much of the Aristocracy and their
circle tended to disregard the fomenting dissatisfaction, we can
imagine that many with the ability to "pull strings" would have
tried to leave the country. At the same time, Louis' departure on
this date may have been mere coincidence as leaving France for St Domingue at that
point was surely a case of "out of the frying pan, into the fire."
On 16th September 1788 he married
Marie Jacqueline Antoinette Adam (b Port-au-Prince, St Domingue 1770 d
Kingston, Ja Feb 1830) in Port-au-Prince. Marie Antoinette was
the daughter of Pierre Michel Adam (1744-1794) and Louise Amable nee Guillot
1750-1794).
Their first child Ivanhoe was born in 1790. We have no other
information on Ivanhoe which is not surprising, given the place and
time: the Haitian Revolution was just beginning.
Louis moved his family to
Philadelphia shortly thereafter, where two children were born, Louis
Francis Alexander was born 5th November, 1792 and
Catherine
Elizabeth Constance on
13th May 1794. We have Francis' date of birth from his baptism in
Philadelphia one year later so it is possible he was born in St Domingue.
Louis was recalled to Haiti in 1795 and, on or around this time, his wife
and young family relocated to Jamaica. Another child, Pierre Michel
Marie, was apparently born about this time. History records that at this time
there was an uneasy "ceasefire" between the French and Toissant's armies
to fight a common enemy, the Spanish; this may well have been why Louis
returned to Haiti. He would not however have risked the safety of his
family. He was back and forth between his
duties in Port-au-Prince and his family in Kingston and three more
children were born in Kingston between 1795 and 1820: Pierre Charles
Marie Henry b. September 1798,
Charles
St. Omer b. February 1806, Marie Catherine Victoire Noemi b. 1810.
In 1820 he left Haiti for good and
joined his wife and children in Jamaica. For the first time in over a
century France and England were at peace.
Louis is described in Jamaica as being a merchant though as he was still
back and forth to St Domingue, much of his "merchandise" was
likely
the spoils of war.
We must
note here that two other children were baptised in Kingston in January 1907,
Charles Pierre and Louise Jeanne, born in St Domingue. They are referred to as the
children of Marie Louise Sanitte, "free mulatress, servant of Louis
Vendryes", very probably Marie Antoinette's lady's maid. Louis and Marie Antoinette stood as godparents. This was the same date that Catherine Elizabeth Constance and
Charles St Omer were baptised.
It seems odd that
Catherine Elizabeth was baptised at 13 years old, even given the
circumstances of the day. Why was she not baptised in Philadelphia as
was the younger Louis or even at the same time as Henry? It almost
sounds a if she was not with the rest of the family. Also there is the
very American sounding name rather than French which may have been the
result of a desire to fit into the young United States (at the same time
the French naming convention prevailed in Jamaica for another three
generations). Was she left in
Philadelphia to be schooled or is it possible she was adopted by Louis
and Marie Antoinette?
We know that Louis was
Commissaire de Marine at
the time that the
French and Haitian Revolutions were taking place against a backdrop of
the very protracted "Second Hundred Years War" between England and France. We also need to
remember the important role the French Navy had played in the American War of
Independence and that the major ship building facility in this
part of the world was in Philadelphia, then the Capital of the new
United States. In fact hundreds, if not more, Dominique refugees ended up
there. Because of his position Louis would likely have been familiar with this
city and it made sense for
him to take his family there for safety, particularly as scores of other
families were going. For the same reason, as
Kingston Harbour was the stronghold of the British Navy in the region;
both during the American War of Independence and, almost immediately
after, the Napoleonic Wars; he could not have considered Jamaica any
earlier. In fact we wonder how he was able to bring his family here
in 1795 as at that time Nelson's high-tech look-out of telescopes and
signal mirrors half way up the Blue Mountains kept keen watch on
Kingston Harbour and they would surely have loved to capture
a senior French official. We imagine he must have come and gone from one of the numerous
coves that pirates had used centuries earlier.... or drug
smugglers centuries after. However Jamaica was a lot closer than Philadelphia and could be
reached by sail in less than two days with a return trip of about three days,
and would have been even faster in the new sail and steam ships which
the French navy owned at the time.
For us to
get even an idea of Louis' life we need to read at least the very basics
on
"The Second Hundred Years War" (1689-1815),
The French Revolution,
The Haitian
Revolution and
the Napoleonic Wars. Louis was not a Naval Officer but
was Commissaire
de la Marine et des Colonies par brevet de Sa Majesté Très Chrétienne (Commissioner
of the Navy and the Colonies by order of His Most Christian Majesty),
in today's language he would be a senior civil servant. He had some
charge of the French Navy in this part of the world and because of that,
his social background and living in St Domingue, all these wars would
have greatly affected his life.
While
there is much left to be determined about Louis, we would greatly
appreciate if anyone reading this could answer either of two questions.
1) Was Louis the father of Mlle Sanitte's children? and 2) Was Catherine
Elizabeth Constance the birth child of Louis and Marie Antoinette?
A picture, taken by me, of Kingston
Harbour
from a location close to Nelson's look-out |
NASA map of Port-au-Prince |
The Philadelphia Shipyard still exists |
Louis most probably drove a Corvette
which in the late 18th century went under both sail and steam |
A Naval Battle off
Port-au-Prince in 1806 by Nicholas Pocock
Here is an amazing
animated history map released into the public domain by it's creator
Esemono. Click on the map to see more details:
A fairly comprehensive family tree has
been done, starting from 1668. Should you
wish a copy please email us. For privacy, no one under 75 is identified
by name and no one under 18 is included on the tree.
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