1.1. Antigua and Barbuda
=> Arthur Thellusson, son of Lord Rendlesham and grandson of Peter Thellusson, born into a Geneva banking family, who had bought the original Brodsworth Hall estate in South Yorkshire (GB) in 1790, married the daughter of Antigua slave owner Sir Christopher Bethell-Codrington.
=> In her book A Small Place (1988), the Antiguan writer Jamaica Kincaid indicts the Antiguan government, the tourist industry and Antigua’s British colonial legacy by saying:
«Have you ever wondered to yourself why it is that all people like me seem to have learned from you is how to imprison and murder each other, how to govern badly, and how to take the wealth of your country and place it in Swiss bank accounts? Have you ever wondered why it is that all we seem to have learned from you is how to corrupt our societies and how to be tyrants? You will have to accept that this is mostly your fault.»
=> Hans Conrad Hottinger (Hottinguer) (1764–1841) from Zurich started in the textile (indiennes) business in Mulhouse, then went into banking, learning his trade with Passavant and de Candolle in Geneva. During the «terror» of the French Revolution, he left Paris for the USA, where he stayed for three years. In 1793, he married Martha Eliza Redwood (1774–1830) from Newport (Rhode Island) and was thus related to a family which had been in the sugar and plantation business between England, New England, Africa, and the Caribbean since the 17th century. Their trading empire began with a sugar plantation called Cassada Garden on Antigua. Jean-Henri Hottinguer (1803-1866) took over his father’s business in Paris, and the «Maison Hottinguer» became one of the most important international commercial enterprises, specialising in trade with cotton and other colonial commodities.
=> Hans Conrad Hottinger’s business partner was Denis de Rougemont (1759–1839) from Saint-Aubin and Neuchâtel, banker, Prussian financial agent, major Banque de France shareholder and real estate owner in Paris and Berne. He bought the Hôtel DuPeyrou in Neuchâtel in 1816. In 1837, his son Abraham Denis Alfred de Rougemont (1802–1868), who was a good friend of Heinrich Escher’s (1776–1853), bought Schadau Castle and the adjoining large estate in Thun BE and had the Castle rebuilt in a style inspired by Tudor gothic and Loire castles. His other son, Rodolphe Emile Adolphe de Rougement (1805–1844), had bought castle Chartreuse on the opposite bank of the Aare river in Thun in 1831. The de Rougement family were related to the de Pourtalès and the de Pury families of Neuchâtel with their close ties to the transatlantic slavery system.
1.2 Bahamas
=> Marx Rütimeyer (b. 1647) from Vinelz (Canton of Berne) worked as a goldminer in the Bahamas and died there.
=> In 1718, Captain Woodes Rogers (1679-1732) accompanied 250 Swiss, Huguenot, and German Palatinate farmers on an expedition to settle the Bahamas. Together with 100 foot-soldiers, they sailed from London to New Providence on the 460-ton East Indiaman «Delicia».
1.3 Barbados
=> In 1677, Swiss medical doctor Felix Christian Spoerri (1615-1680) from Zurich wrote a detailed description of Barbados («Americanische Reiss-Beschreibung nach den Caribes Insslen, und Neu-Engelland»), which he had visited in 1661 and 1662, including the slavery economy, which produced sugar, tobacco, cotton, and indigo.
=> In his travelogue «Bericht des Grafen Karl von Zinzendorf über seine handelspolitische Studienreise durch die Schweiz 1764», the Austrian count describes the commercial activities of the Ammann banking and merchant company from Schaffhausen (N Switzerland), which traded in cotton, indigo, sugar, and tobacco. The first quality cotton came from Curaçao and Berbice, but from the latter there were no more imports because «the colony has been ruined». From that cotton, the Toggenburg textile industry (today Canton of St.Gallen) produced muslin fabrics. Curaçao cotton was very rare: a ship that transported 60 bales from Saint Domingue only carried 6 from Curaçao. The second quality variety came from Martinique and Saint-Domingue and was transported to Switzerland via Marseilles, Lyon, Belfort and Basel. The third (and worst) quality cotton came from Barbados. Nearly 1000 bags of cotton were imported by Ammann every year and were processed in the Toggenburg and Glarus area. In the second half of the 18th century, 35% of the cotton it delivered into the Zurich, Berne/Aargau, Toggenburg, and Appenzell areas were from Berbice or Essequibo. The Ammann company did business with such slave trading firms as Schalch & Cie., Hegner, Gier & Cie., Pelloutier, Petitpierres, Tourton & Baur, and Bourcards. From Schalch & Cie alone, Ammann received in six years deliveries of indigo worth 600,000 guilders. The archive of Johann Jakob Amman (1699–1777) and his son Johann Heinrich (1722–1794) has been handed down to the Frey family and – being a private archive – is still not accessible. Industrial magnate Hermann Frey (1844–1928) was a board member of the «Bank in Schaffhausen», which merged into the «Schweizerische Bankverein» and later UBS. The banking house «Ammann» was liquidated as late as 1921.
=> 1719-1734, the city state of Berne as well as the Berne-based banking houses of «Malacrida» and «Samuel Müller» held shares in the speculative South Sea Company. With 253,000 £, Berne was the biggest single investor. The South Sea Company had slave deposits on Barbados, and all in all, it shipped 20,000 slaves from Africa to the New World.
=> In 1767, Peter Thelluson (1737-1797), a Swiss banker, entrepreneur and slave-owner from Geneva, acquired a share in the slaver «Liberty», which transported 227 enslaved Africans from West Africa to Barbados. 45 died during the Middle Passage.
=> After 1800, Anton Schulthess from a Zurich merchant and banking family served as captain in the British Royal-African-Corps in Barbados. In 1814, his elder brother, Colonel Paravicin Schulthess (1757-1843), applied to the British ambassador for a death certificate for his brother, who had apparently deceased some years earlier.
1.4 Dominica
=> Jean-Antoine Bertrand (1726-1780) from the City of Geneva became a merchant in Dominica in 1764, his brother Charles (born 1716) followed him in 1775. Together they bought properties in St. Patrick and St. David Parishes, including an estate in Grand Bay which they called «Geneva» after the family’s former home in Switzerland. In 1791, an insurrection known as «New Year’s Day Revolt» occurred, in which slaves from Geneva most probably participated. The rebels asked for three days to work on their provision grounds, an increase from the customary day and a half. In 1820, the plantation was co-owned by a Charles Bertrand and Charles Court and had 253 slaves (138 females, 115 males).
1.5 Grenada
=> The Peschiers were Huguenots from the south of France who settled in Geneva. Pierre Peschier (1688–1766) was a pharmacist with links to England. His son Jean (b. 1735) settled in Grenada, possibly as a member of the British military, where he married Rose de Belgens from a family rich plantation owners. His younger brother Henri (b. 1741) joined him later, and, financed by their brother Jean Antoine, who still lived in Geneva, the two Peschier brothers acquired a plantation of 192 acres called Bonne Chance with at least 80 slaves. They paid 12,600 livres for it. The brothers also became merchants in the capital and chief port of St.George’s. Henri (Henry) then decided to emigrate to Trinidad, where he arrived in 1781 with some slaves.
=> Paul Coulon (1731 – 1820) from Neuchâtel (NW Switzerland), together with Jacques Louis Pourtalès (1722–1814) from Neuchâtel and Johann Jakob Thurneysen (1729–1784) from Bâle, owned the plantations Bellair (coffee and cocoa), Mont Saint–Jean (coffee), La Conférence (sugar), Clavier, and Larcher. Until 1797, they produced sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton with about 100 to 200 slaves on each plantation. The plantations were administered by François und Pierre de Meuron from Neuchâtel. One of them married a woman qualified in the racist terminology of the island a «quarteronne», daughter of white father and a mulatto mother and took her home with him to Neuchâtel.
=> François Aimé Louis Dumoulin (1753-1834) from Vevey (Canton of Berne/Vaud) left Switzerland at the age of 20 for the Caribbean and lived on Grenada 1773–1783. He worked as a painter, secretary to the governor of the island, and merchant. In 1778, he was pressed into the English army of Governor MacCartney.
=> Laurenz Vonwiller (1759–1825) from the City of St.Gallen (NE Switzerland) migrated to Grenada around 1790, probably to try and bring back profitability to three plantations owned by the Swiss Johann Jakob Thurneysen and Jacques-Louis Pourtalès since 1770. In Grenada, where he felt very much at home, Vonwiller married twice (1790 and 1797). For his role in the 1795 revolt of the French Creoles against British rule, he was tried for treason and imprisoned 1798–1800 He attempted to go back to St.Gallen with his wife and was said to have been refused entry. He then returned to Grenada, where he died in 1825. His son Georg Ludwig (1793–1835) moved to Trinidad, where he «imported» a female slave in 1822. He married Gabrielle d’Ey, and they had four children: Georg Heinrich (born 1824 in Grenada), Franz Adolf (b. 1826), Andreas (b. 1833). and Louise Maria Anna (b. 1834).
=> In 1759, Ulrich de Gaspard Vonwiller (1735–1808) from St.Gallen founded – under his name – a textile company, which produced fustians, linen and muslin textiles and which he steered through the troubled years of the French Revolution until his death in 1808. The Vonwillers were a family with numerous global and colonial ramifications: Laurenz Vonwiller (1759–1825) emigrated to Grenada around 1790, probably to bring back profitability to three plantations in the hands of Thurneysen and Pourtalès since 1770. His son Georg Ludwig Vonwiller (1793–1835) moved to Trinidad, where he owned a least one female slave and had four children. David Vonwiller (1794–1856) was engaged in the commerce of cotton products in Italy and in 1824 founded «Züblin & Vonwiller» in Naples. The Züblins, too, were in many ways a colonially relevant family. In 1760, already one year after its creation, Ulrich de Gaspard Vonwiller’s company traded extensively with France, which re-exported the textile products from St.Gallen to its colonies in the West Indies and North America. In 1771, Ulrich de Gaspard Vonwiller produced the first embroideries, probably worked with gold threads. When in 1808, the company’s founder died, his son Johann Joachim Vonwiller (1764–1835) took over. From 1825 onwards, the Vonwiller Company strengthened its ties with North America, the West Indies and Central America. Under Johann Joachim Vonwiller’s son Ulrich Vonwiller, trade relations were established via Vienna and Triest with Turkey and later, via Alexandria, Beirut and Constantinople, with Persia. After the outbreak of the US Civil War, the company turned to new commercial horizons in Africa and the Philippines. In 1909, the company (now called Hoffmann, Huber & Co), which had «turned St.Gallen into a suburb of New York», was renamed «Union AG» and reached its zenith. After the collapse of the embroidery boom following WWI and the Great Depression, «Union AG» managed to recover after WWII. In 1930, Doris Lily Heer-Huber gave the large plot of land on «Rosenberg» hill north of the city centre to the city of St.Gallen. She had inherited it from her great-uncle colonel Paul Kirchhofer (1825–1903), who was the son of Paulus Kirchhofer-Vonwiller (1792-1867), a former partner in the Vonwiller company. Johann Joachim Vonwiller (1764–1835) had married his daughter Anna Magdalena to Paulus Kirchhofer, whom he had brought back from Verona on account of his good reputation, and made him a partner in the firm. The City of St.Gallen used the said plot of land in 1963 to establish the campus of the University of St.Gallen. The University today specialises in business administration, economics, law, international affairs, and computer science. «Union AG» exists to this day and considers itself «the world’s oldest embroidery company». In 2024, it took over Isidor Scheffknecht (ISCO), a Lustenau (Austria) company with a 100 years› tradition in textiles.
=> The banking company «Marcuard, Beuther & Cie.» from Berne were creditors of a trading house active on St. Eustacius, Grenada und Saint-Domingue.
=> Jean Henri (1792-1873) worked on St. Eustacius for the merchant house and shipowners of «Fabry & Sugnin». He later returned to Switzerland (Canton of Vaud), from where he continued his St. Eustacius business activities. He cooperated with Samuel Chollet and his cousin Louis Chollet from Moudon (then Berne, today Canton of Vaud).
=> Jean David Fatio and Richard Besanquet from Vevey (Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland) were owners of coffee and cocoa plantations, including their slaves, on Grenada and transmitted their knowledge of the cocoa and chocolate business to Switzerland.
=> François Aimé Louis Dumoulin (1753-1834) from Vevey (Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland) was a merchant who went to England in 1772 and from there to Grenada, where he painted and produced plans in the service of the governor.
=> Théophile Cazenove (1708–1760) from a Geneva family of Huguenots settled in London in the mid-eighteenth century with his son Jean Henri, a merchant who was naturalised in 1762. Jean Henri (John Henry) Cazenove (1737– 1817) operated as a merchant dealing with the French and English East India Company, building a large connection to Lisbon, as well as drawing on connections in France and Amsterdam. He became involved in finance at an early stage, dealing in government stock and later securing business on behalf of the US government, distributing dividend payments to English holders of US securities. In 1772, he was involved in supplying bonds to the owner of Bacolet plantation on Grenada, one of the most profitable Grenada sugar estates with over 30 slaves. John Henry Cazenove was a merchant and director of the East India Company, probably in the 1760s. In 1767, his brother Charles Cazenove (1735-1790) left for Bengal by order of the Danish East India Company. In 1768 he appeared there as the «chief of the Danish factory» (trading post).
=> The UK Slave Register 1813–1834 has 280 slaves in the hands of owners named Cazenove, Cazeneuve, Casenave, Casnave, etc. in Grenada, Trinidad, and Mauritius.
=> In 1768, Peter Thelluson (1737-1797), a Swiss banker and entrepreneur from Geneva, set up as a merchant banker in London. He acquired a share in the 330 acres sugar estate Conference in Grenada with 155 enslaved people, when the former owner failed to pay his debts. In 1772, he lent money to the owner of Bacolet Estate, a 384 acres sugar plantation, partly secured on 101 enslaved people who lived upon the property. Thelluson amassed a huge fortune, a great part of which came from money related to the slavery economy: He undertook widespread lending of money in the Caribbean, as the Grenadines, Guadeloupe and Martinique. He traded in goods used in the slave trade and in colonial goods as well (slave-produced sugar and coffee). He was involved in slave-trading itself and in close contact with Liverpool slave-traders. He owned the slave ship «Lottery», which in 1765/66 sailed from London to Grenada via the Windward Coast, Cape Mount and Bassa with 211/172 slaves. He was also active in the beads and cowry trade, a commodity often used as currency in the slave trade. Peter Thelluson’s son Peter Isaac Thelluson (1761-1808) was probably brought into the family merchant house at the early age of 15, and he was later a known associate of slavers and global traders. He was a director of the Bank of England (1787–1806).
1.6 Guyana (Guiana): Dutch/English colonies «Demerara», «Essequibo», and «Berbice»
For the chapters on Guyana, especially on the colony of Berbice, I owe a great deal to the profound knowledge and the persistent research activities of Dr. Klaus Stuckert, researcher and former lecturer on Caribbean literature (Wetzikon ZH, Switzerland). Klaus Stuckert passed away on 31st October 2022. May he rest in peace! His contributions to colonial research will live on.
=> In his travelogue «Bericht des Grafen Karl von Zinzendorf über seine handelspolitische Studienreise durch die Schweiz 1764», the Austrian count describes the commercial activities of the Ammann banking and merchant company from Schaffhausen (N Switzerland), which traded in cotton, indigo, sugar, and tobacco. The first quality cotton came from Curaçao and Berbice, but from the latter there were no more imports because «the colony has been ruined». From that cotton, the Toggenburg textile industry (today Canton of St.Gallen) produced muslin fabrics. Curaçao cotton was very rare: a ship that transported 60 bales from Saint Domingue only carried 6 from Curaçao. The second quality variety came from Martinique and Saint-Domingue and was transported to Switzerland via Marseilles, Lyon, Belfort and Basel. The third (and worst) quality cotton came from Barbados. Nearly 1000 bags of cotton were imported by Ammann every year and were processed in the Toggenburg and Glarus area. In the second half of the 18th century, 35% of the cotton delivered into the Zurich, Berne/Aargau, Toggenburg, and Appenzell areas by the Ammann company was from Berbice or Essequibo. The Ammann company did business with such slave trading firms as Schalch & Cie., Hegner, Gier & Cie., Pelloutier, Petitpierres, Tourton & Baur, and Bourcards. From Schalch & Cie alone, Ammann received in six years deliveries of indigo worth 600,000 guilders. The archive of Johann Jakob Amman (1699–1777) and his son Johann Heinrich (1722–1794) has been handed down to the Frey family and – being a private archive – is still nor accessible. Industrial magnate Hermann Frey (1844–1928) was a board member of the «Bank in Schaffhausen», which merged into the «Schweizerische Bankverein» and later UBS. The banking house «Ammann» was liquidated as late as 1921.
=> During the continental blockade, a large-scale embargo against British trade decreed by Napoleon and valid for Switzerland, too, the Zurich authorities in 1810 published a list of colonial goods which would be subject to this embargo. among them were: long-fibre cotton from Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and Demerara, cotton from the Levant imported across the sea and imported overland.
=> The Faesch family from Bâle held shares in plantations in Essequibo and Demerrara.
=> Charles-Marc-Louis de Mellet (1759–1811) from Vevey in the Canton of Berne/Vaud (W Switzerland) entered the military service of the Dutch in the Swiss Regiment May in 1780. In 1781, he became ensign in the regiment de Grenier-Wallons, which he left again in 1784. Until 1785, he was co-owner of the plantation Rotterdam (with 15,000 cotton trees) on the Caribbean coast west of the River Demarara. 1795, he was appointed by the governor commander of all the troops in Demerara and Essequibo and leader of the expedition against the revolting runaway slaves on the west bank of the Demerara River. At one point, the situation of the de Mellet expedition became so desperate that they decided to ask for help from Berbice and Suriname. During the counter-offensive, insurgents were mostly shot, woman and children taken prisoner. Resistance was finally broken and the trials began. 13 rebels were broken on the wheel, and the ringleader was burned at the stake while his flesh was pinched out with red-hot tongs. Major Louis de Mellet received a ten-year tax exemption and resigned from his position of again in October. After a stay in Switzerland and Holland, he embarked for Demerara again with the 4th Batallion of Light Infantry, whose lieutenant-colonel he was. He was made prisoner by the British fleet and detained in London until peace was signed in 1803. Back in Holland, he made a steep career in the army and in politics. His brother Jean-Samuel de Mellet (1766–1793) served the French in Saint-Domingue.
1.6.1 Berbice
=> Around 1760, the sugar plantation De Vreede in Berbice was managed by Jan Vincent Mittelholzer from Geneva (probably originally from the Appenzell area). The plantation belonged to (Hendrik) Christiaan Mittelholzer. One «C. Mittelholzer» is mentioned as taking part in the bloody fight against the rebellious slaves of 1763 («But Mittelholzer shouted No! No!, took his sabre and cut off the Negro’s hand.») In 1818, another plantation (St. Lust, 10000 acres) was partly in the hands of one Christoffel Mittelholzer of the company «van Helder en Mittelholzer». Maria Mittelholzer (1780–1830) was probably Christoffel’s sister. She married Willem Helder in 1802. Earlier on, mention is made of one Henrietta Elizabeth Caroline Mittelholzer. From the Mittelholzer family came the famous author Edgar Mittelholzer (1909–1965).
=> David Benjamin Bourgeois (1750-1809, aka «L’Américain») from Lausanne (Canton of Berne/Vaud) emigrated to Berbice in 1770. In 1791, his first child, Jeanne Marie, was born, out of wedlock. His mother was probably a black slave called Sara. In 1800, in the colony of Demerara, he begat another child, again with a black woman. That son was called Louis Henri Bourgeois (1800-1834), who, without his mother, followed his father back to Switzerland, where he first became a member of the cantonal legislature and then of the cantonal government.
=> Jan Frederik (Jean Frédéric) Colier (1711– after 1777) from Neuchâtel was the third governour of the Dutch colony of Berbice («Sociëteit van Berbice») 1749-1755. His was appointed at the age of 37, and his annual income as governor was 1500 guilders. In 1757, already out of office, he criticised the fact that most of the builders or owners of plantations did not come in person to select and cultivate the farmland, but left it to strange and incompetent people. Before his time in Berbice, he had apparently worked for the Dutch in Suriname for five years, and afterwards he was involved in the provisoning administration of the British Army.
=> Jean Huguenin (1685–1740) from Le Locle (Canton of Neuchâtel) moved to Holland with Swiss troops. His son Jean Roulof Huguenin (1731-1764) became ensign in the regiment Douglas, a military unit which had been sent to Berbice to suppress the slave rising of 1763. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Douglas was a Scotsman at the service of the Dutch army and the second in command in the expedition against the rebellious slaves. Huguenin died in Berbice and is buried in Fort Nassau.
=> Jean Pierre Galiffe (1767-1847) from a Geneva family of Huguenots (mother Naville, grandmother Thelluson) was First Lieutenant in a Swiss regiment at the service of the French, which belonged to Jacques-André, Marquis Lullin de Châteauvieux (1728 – 1816). Later he served in the Dutch and in the British army. He became captain the 60th Regiment and spent 10 years in the British colonies in the Americas. He took part in the «expedition» to Suriname in 1804. Towards the end of his career, he was military commander of Halifax (Nova Scotia), of the Bermudas (1821–1824), and then of Berbice (British Guyana), before returning to Geneva, where he entered politics.
=> In 1762, a «rehearsal» for the great Berbice Slave Rebellion of 1763 took place on plantation Goed Land en Goed Fortuin, which were owned by Laurens Kunckler, colonial councilman and militia captain. This was a period of starvation and disease, because Berbice had been in the grip of a major fever epidemic since the mid-1750s. To make matters worse, Dutch supply ships loaded arrived less often, as the Seven Years War (1757-63) disrupted Caribbean and transatlantic shipping. As a consequence, hungry slaves faced hard-driving planters and overseers who were set to reach their production quotas. On the first Saturday in July 1762 plantation owner Kunckler was headed to a meeting of the governing council of the colony. It functioned as the executive arm of the colony and its criminal court. Once Kunckler, the only European on the plantation, was gone, his slaves seized the opportunity. On Monday most of them failed to report for work. The rebels raided the plantation house and were able to seize weapons. They set off upriver with their canoes. The mastermind behind this small-scale rebellion was «bomba» Adam, Kunckler’s surrogate when absent. Only a handful of slaves refused to join Adam and his rebels, among them Kunkler’s enslaved mistress. Company soldiers, creole slaves and Amerindians were called in, and after a series of skirmishes, the rehearsal-rebellion was put down.Only two fugitives were caught alive: Coffij (one of the newly bought slaves from the ship Unity) in mid-August and, a month later, Antoinette. The court declared Antoinette innocent (she had been forced to come along). Coffij was sentenced to be tied «to a cross, to be broken alive from his feet up», his body and severed head displayed underneath the gallows «until the birds and air have consumed it».
=> Plantation Helvetia had been owned or administered since 1737 and until after the Berbice Rebellion by members of the St.Gallen families Kunckler, Rietmann, Schlumpf, Högger, and Scherer, as well as the French-Huguenot Dutchman René David de Gennes. On the large coffee and cotton plantation lived an enslaved woman called Charmante. On 26th February 1763, plantation overseer Johannes Meijer accused Charmante and another woman (of Amerindian origin) of trying to poison him. Meijer ordered his «bomba» (driver) Prins and two other slaves, Boeseroen and Coridon, to string the two women up and beat them. When Charmante warned that her fellow sufferer was close to death, the overseer ordered to stop the flogging. However, it was too late to save the indigenous woman’s life. The next day, colonial officials arrived to investigate the case, and the report submitted to governor Van Hoogenheim stated that Meijer had violated an unwritten rule which forbade beating slaves around the head and neck. Van Hoogenheim probably never read that report, because the great Berbice Slave Rebellion broke out that very day, February 27th. On Helvetia, the plantation manager was killed returning from church.
=> In 1740, Thomas (Tobias) Ott (1703–1742) from a Schaffhausen family, son of Hans Georg (1685–1739) and Anna Barbara Holländer (1668-1747), was director of plantation «Slingeland» on Rio Berbice, situated close to other plantations with Swiss backgrounds («Helvetia», «Zubly Lust», «Hubersburg»). His brother Johann(Hans) Georg Ott (1709–1751) also lived in Berbice for some time and died in Copenhagen. A 1743 document in Amsterdam’s City Archive probably contains the details of the succession concerning plantation «Slingeland» among members of the Ott family in Schaffhausen: widow Anna Barbara, brother Johann Georg (1685–1739), brother Melchior (1691–1733), brother Christoffel (*1706), and nephew Johann Wilhelm (1725–1809).
=> In 1763, the great Berbice Slave Rebellion shook the Dutch colony. In its dimension and (initial success) it is certainly comparable to the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804, and it is still commemorated today in modern Guyana as a major anti-colonial struggle (23rd February as «Guayanese Republic Day», monument on the Square of the Revolution in Georgetown). The uprising was so well set up that, although the rebels› plans had been betrayed, the plantations between plantation Antonia and Peereboom joined in, either voluntarily, or after of the arrival of people like Coffy and Accarra from Lelienburg, Atta from Altenklingen and Cossael of Oosterleek. There are numerous Swiss links to the rebellion: 1) Laurens Kunckler on plantation Helvetia had hidden his silver and gold and given his furniture to Amerindians for safekeeping. 2) Some of the plantations involved in the rebellion had a Swiss context: Oosterleek (manager Christian Mittelholzer killed), Mon Repos and Roosenburgh (property of the Pool family), Altenklingen (managed in 1763 by Salomon Slater, probably from the St.Gallen family Schlatter), Essendam (property of Pool family, where the plantation manager was killed returning from church), De Peerebom (Ambrosius Zubli, organiser of the defence, arriving by boat together with Johann George, shot and beheaded by the rebels), Helvetia (slaves Fortuin and Prins as leaders of the rising, co-ownership of Leonard Sellon and Jean Jacques Hogguer), De Prosperiteit, Zion, and Rusthof (owner or manager Ambrosius Zubli, suicide of the overseer, places of origin of many witnesses questioned after the rebellion), and Zwitserland (property of widow Hosch). 3) Louis Henri de Fourgeod (1708-1779) from Bussigny-près-Lausanne (Canton of Berne/Vaud, W-Switzerland), then in the rank of a Dutch captain, took part in the campaign to suppress the rebellion. The Dutch governor Van Hoogenheim noted that he hoped Colonel Fourgeoud would ensure «that I am not molested by his men in my own house». It is not clear whether the soldiers came to steal food or to rape the women, or both. 4) An account of the rebellion was published in Dutch, French and German newspapers in the form of a letter from Curaçao by Jan Abrahan Charbon (born after 1743) from a family from Treytorrens (Payerne, Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland), dated 12th May, 1763. In the letter, Charbon told the story of the rebellion, of fights against the former slaves, and of himself being caught by the rebels. He reported how he was used as an intermediary between Coffy, the leader of the rebellion, who offered peace against a partition of the colony into an African South and a European North, and the Dutch governor of the colony, van Hoogenheim. Significantly, the French newspaper «Nouvelles extraordinaires de divers endroits» followed up the news item from Berbice with one from British North America, where the first attack of Pontiac’s Rebellion had taken place on Pennsylvania soil. Colonel William Clapham had been killed, but soldiers were being mobilised against the «savages». The Berbice Rebellion lasted from February 1763 to spring 1764, and the insurgents managed to keep control of the southern part of the colony for a year. Reinforcements arrived from Suriname, Barbados, Sint Eustatius, and from Holland (3 vessels carrying 1,100 volunteer soldiers), and in the spring of 1764, with the help of British and French troops, the rebellion was brutally suppressed. The Dutch questioned close to 900 people in 1764. Many witnesses came from plantations Helvetia, Zwitserland, Zublis Lust, Prosperiteit, God ziet alles, La Providence, Langendaal, Vigilante, Altenklingen, Rosendael, den Arend, and Essendam. 40 Europeans had been killed by the insurgents, over 1000 slaves lost their lives, every third plantation had been destroyed. In 1764, 80% of the enslaved population were back on their plantations.
=> In 1762, two years after her husband Paulus Zubli (1709–1760) had died, Cornelia Gertrud Verste(e)r (1733–1800) married Adriaan Gillissen (1716–1763) on plantation Zubli’s Lust. Adriaan Gillissen, owner of plantations Zubli’s Lust and Geertruid, was involved in the Berbice slave revolt, trying to organise the defence against the rebellious slaves and writing a controversial eye-witness account of it. He died on plantation Dageraad. In 1763, Landlord Caspar Tobias Zollikofer of Altenklingen, on behalf of his wife Elisabetha Zublin and of his sister-in-law Cornelia Gertrud Verste(e)r, Paulus Zublin’s widow living in Rio Berbice, and by virtue of her authorisation of 22 April 1761, renounced all inheritance claims on the house at Brühlgasse St.Gallen, left by the father or the father-in-law respectively of the two women, in favour of Ambrosi Zublin (Jr.), brother or brother-in-law respectively of the said Elisabetha Zublin and Gertrud Verste(e)r.
=> Paulus Zubli jun (1756–1790) was a son of Paulus Zubli (1709–1760) and Cornelia Gertrud Verste(e)r (1733–1800). In 1790, he was registered as administrator and director of cotton, coffee, and cocoa plantation Schepmoed. This plantation was first mentioned in 1766, when the area was surveyed, but apparently established only later. It then belonged to widow Gillissen (Cornelia Gertrud Versteer had married again: Adriaan Gillissen, who had died 1763). In 1771, Schepmoed belonged to «J. Pool and Wed. Gillissen», with «Wed. Gillissen» registered as administrator and director. «J.Pool» (from a family from Bever in the Canton of Graubünden) were among the biggest plantation owners in Berbice. In 1785, Paulus Zubli jun. was still registered as director of Schepmoed. In 1790, when Paulus Zubli jun died on his voyage back to Europe, owners of Schepmoed were still «J. Pool and Wed. Gillissen», but Cornelia Gertrud Versteer-Zubli-Gillissen seems to have left the colony already in 1776, following her daughter Johanna Louisa and her son Abraham to Holland. After abolition, on 22nd January 1836, the Pool heirs were compensated £6437 7s 3d for the «loss» of their enslaved Schepmoed workforce of 124.
=> Ambrosius Züblin (1725–1763), brother of Paulus Züblin (1709–1760), was born in St.Gallen and emigrated to Berbice, where he became director of plantations De Prosperiteit, Zion and Rusthof. He was killed in the Berbice Slave Rebellion, which started on plantation de Peereboom. On 8th October 1763, St.Gallen’s city council decided to ring the church bells in commemoration of Ambrosius Züblin’s death in Berbice. That Ambrosius‹ 9-year-old niece and goddaughter Johanna Louisa (1754–1796), daughter of Paulus Züblin and born on Züblis Lust, was killed in the slave rebellion, too, is probably a legend. Document show that she died in 1796 in Doesburg, Holland. In 1777, she and her brother Abraham Züblin renewed their St.Gallen citizenship. Johanna Magdalena Züblin (1750–1784), Johanna Louisa’s sister, was born on plantation Züblis Lust, too. She married Johannes Georg Zollikofer (1751–1809) from Bürglen in the Canton of Thurgau and died on the family castle of Altenklingen.
=> In August 1772, Emanuel Correvon(t) (died before 1798) from a Swiss family (either from Geneva or the Canton of Berne/Vaud) left for Berbice and was mentioned in a mortgage business with Jacobus Kinkeet and Jan Adam Charbon: He was in debt of 4,000 guilders. In the 1770s, Correvont became owner, director and administrator of plantations Ma Resource and Tout lui faut. His neighbour was now Louis-Berthélemy Petitmaître from Yverdon (Canton of Berne/Vaud). Correvont for a certain time also became director of plantations Prosperiteit, Zion, and Rusthoff. In 1792, he became administrator of a fourth plantation: Saints-Lust. In 1794, Correvont must have withdrawn from the plantation administration business. He was still mentioned as owner of Ma Resource and Tout lui faut, but administration of these two plantations had apparently been left to his swiss neighbour Petitmaître. Owners, directors and administrators of plantation Saint-Lust were now his «mulatto» children Louis Zamore van Wicky van Correvont (1778–1805) and Lisette Gabriëlle van Wicky van Correvont (1784?–1824). Correvont must have bought that plantation for his children. The mother’s name is not mentioned in the baptismal register. In 1802, Louis Zamore enrolled as a student of the Amsterdam Academy of Arts and took lessons with then famous wallpaper artist Jurriaan Andriessen (1742–1819), with whose family Louis was staying. Louis died in 1805. Plantation Saint-Lust figures in the inventory published after his death. Lizette now became the sole owner of Saint-Lust. Probably in 1808, the plantation (together with Cornelia Agnetha a surface of 1000 acres) was sold for fl 30,000 to Helder &Mittelholzer. Helder was married Maria Mittelholzer, probably Christoffel Mittelholzer’s sister. So, the plantation stayed in «Swiss» hands. In 1819, there were only 20 slaves left on the plantation, which no longer existed in 1835, when no longer existed in 1835, when the British paid out compensations for the loss of the slave workforce.
=> Jakob Stäheli (1727-1761) from St.Gallen (E Switzerland) was a slave-overseer in Berbice. When he died – probably from a disease that killed many Europeans at that time – he was manager/director of plantations Zubli Lust, Hubertsburg and La Charité.
=> Andreas Grimm (1709-1744) from Burgdorf (Canton of Berne) was a medical doctor who left Switzerland for Holland in 1731. From there he travelled to Berbice, where in 1736 he was a candidate for the «Raad van Politie en Justitie». Other candidates were the Swiss O. Chaille(t) (probably from Neuchâtel) and J.L. Sellon from St.Gallen. In 1741, Grimm was made manager of plantations Maria (500 acres) and Agnes (500 acres), which were often mentioned as one plantation under the name of Maria Agnes. He owned a town house in Fort Nassau, the hamlet which was Berbice’s capital.
=> Johannes Feer (1716–1756) from Brugg in the Canton of Berne/Aargau signed a contract with the Sociëteit van Berbice in 1742 to work as «Chirurgyn Major» in Fort Nassau. He set sail for Berbice and took up his job in the same year. In 1748 he volunteered for membership on the orphanage board. apparently, he did not fulfill his employment of surgeon to the satisfaction of the authorities and was dismissed. He then became owner of the plantations De Goede Hoop und Charlottenburg on the Canje River. In the great slave rising of 1763/64, a «Mulat Daniel Feer» was reported a swimming away from his arrest in the Canje River. This must have been a son of Johannes Feer’s, who died of malaria. Johannes Feer had designated as sole heir of his property one Elisabeth Stanger, wife of of his brother living in Berne.
=> In 1746, one Pieter Davidt from Basel was a soldier in Berbice.
=> Isaac du Thon (born 1709) from an Yverdon family (Canton of Berne/Vaud) was director of the Dutch Berbice company.
=> In 1771, Conrad Schläpfer, member of the municipal authorities of Trogen (Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, NE Switzerland) published a report on Berbice in the annual «Appenzeller Calender», a colony which he had visited in 1769/1770. He described Berbice as a place where many plantations were inhabited by Swiss and German immigrants. To plant coffee and cotton, he went on, «negroes or slaves are used, they are wild black folks taken from Africa and bought there, a male costs 150 to 500 guilders, they are better adapted for work than the original inhabitants, they go about naked, except for their pubic area, their toes and eyes are white, their hair short and black like the wool of sheep.»
=> In 1767, one H. Werndli from Zurich, employed as a surgeon in Berbice, made a gift of plants and seeds to the Zurich Botanical Gardens. In 1773, he sent the Zurich Naturalist Society a collection of reptiles (e.g. the embryo of an armadillo preserved in alcohol) and of «American snakes».
=> In 1748, Jacob de Sollicofre is mentioned as «Edele Heer Raad van Justitie», i.e. part of the administration of the colony.
=> One Anton Zollikofer (1720–1761), son of Georg Leonard Zollikofer (1693–1779) from the Canton of Thurgau, was captain lieutenant of the grenadiers in Berbice, where he died. He was married to Johanna Barbara Wetter (1725–1754) from Herisau AR, who was the niece of large-scale indiennes entrepreneur Johann Rudolf Wetter (1705–1767) in Marseille and Orange. Anton’s brother Adriaan (1738–1765) died in Berbice, too. He became a plantation owner and was one of the three judges at the trial of the Berbice Rebels of 1763/64. His daughter Maria Elisabetha (born 1744) married Christoph Mittelholzer, the Mittelholzers being a family of Berbice plantation owners of Swiss origin.
=> At the beginning of the 18th century, Pierre Antoine Charbon (died 1762) from Treytorrens (Payerne, Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland) emigrated to Holland, where he appeared in Amsterdam in 1736. In 1742, his son Maurits Hendrik was born. In 1743, he signed six-year contract as director of plantation La Ressource in Berbice. This was a 1000-acre plantation first registered in 1733, but surveyed and put into operation as late as 1740. Charbon’s employer, the Testas family, paid for the transfer from Holland to Berbice, where he arrived with his wife Susanna Spack and his children Maurits Hendrik and Jan Adam in 1743. La Ressource was to be sold in 1744, and was then taken over by the «Sociëteit van Berbice» in whose area (plantations Peerebom and Cornelia Jacoba) it was situated. In 1746, Charbon signed a six-year contract as director of the two 500 acre plantations St. Elisabeth und Alexandria. His annual salary was 500 guilders and 8% of all plantation products delivered to Holland. In 1751, his contract was extended until 1757, but he left his post before that date. at an unknown date, Charbon also became director of plantations Oosterleek und Pieterslust. He died on Oosterleek in 1762 of a disease (probably dysentery) that killed many Europeans around that time. Emanuel Hosch (from a Basel family) died, too, and Berbice governor Van Hoogenheim wrote to the board of the «Sociëteit van Berbice» in Amsterdam that after the death of councillors Hosch and Charbon, the «Raad van Politie» could no longer meet because it had sunk below the necessary quorum of members.
=> Jan Adam Charbon (before 1736–1798) took over from his father. He first formed the company Jan Adam Charbon, and later was a partner in Wils & Charbon, Jan Wils & Zoon, Pool & Wils, and Charbon & Zoon (which lasted for three generations). In 1750, he signed a contract (with the consent of his father Pierre Antoine) with Pierre Testas of «Testas & Zonen» over a seven-year apprenticeship. The Testas family in Amsterdam was active in overseas trade, banking, plantation ownership, and invested in the British «South Sea Company». They were in close contact with the directors of the French «Compagnie des Indes» and with the Nantes-based company «Walsh & Shiell», which made a fortune in the slave trade from the Bight of Benin to Saint Domingue. The company Jan Adam Charbon and Jan Wils & Zoon later bought plantations St. Elisabeth und Alexandria, and in 1826 the company «Charbon & Zoon» bought the coffee plantation Crappahoek (1000 acres) on the Nickerie River, which was still in the hands of the Charbon family in 1860. The company also owned the coffee plantation Nieuwe Aanleg (1500 acres) on the Nickerie River and more plantations in Suriname and Berbice (coffee plantations De Standvastigheid and Op Hoop van Beter, plantations De Standvastigheid, De Vrouw Johanna, Ruijmzicht, and Bestendigheid). Jan Adam Charbon’s son Pierre Elie Charbon (1762–1818) became involved in Charbon & Zoon. With Maria Geertruy Carbrijn, Peter Elie had three children who reached maturity: Jeannette Gertrude Charbon, who in 1816 married Theodorus Carel Lodewijk Sluyterman with connections to Demerrara; Jean Adam Charbon (1793–1877), and Pieter Anthony Charbon (1800–1864), who participated in «Charbon & Zoon» and founded the shipping insurance company «Tweede Nederlandse Zee-Assurantie Maatschappij».
=> In December 1822, the vessel «Pieter Anthony» set sail from the island of Texel in Holland. It belonged to a Partenrederij under the management of Charbon & Zoon, it was bound for Berbice, and it was shipwrecked on a sandbank in a storm. Among its cargo was found a cast-iron kap, a boiling kettle such as they were used in the boiler house of a sugar plantation to thicken sugar-cane juice of various consistencies. Its dimensions were impressive: diameter 150 cm, height 78 cm, so it easily held 1000 litres. There had been two kettles on board, but one was found broken.
=> Several members of the Straub family from St.Gallen were registered in Berbice. One Michael Straub(1730–1758) from a St.Gallen family (with relatives among the Rietmann, Högger and Kunkler families) was born and died in Berbice. Johann Ulrich Straub (1746–1785) from a St.Gallen family was a merchant and born in St.Gallen. He must have been in Berbice already before 1771, and in 1776, he married Cornelia Johanna Mennes, who was born in the Netherlands and died in 1788 in Berbice. Also in 1776, mortgages for the two plantations were registered as having been granted to the couple by one Johannes Aegidius in Amsterdam. Johann Ulrich Straub was the owner, administrator, and director of plantations Overijssel (with 34 slaves), De 3 Gezusters, and De Vriendschap, certainly since 1771. In 1780, Straub made a formal request to expand Overijssel from 250 to 500 acres of land. In 1781, some slaves from Overijssel revolted together with slaves from plantations Vrouw Johanna and Dankbaarheid. Thek turned against the plantation owners, killed the gardener of plantation Dankbaarheid and looted some of the plantations. The uprising was put down, and in January 1782, the captured freedom fighters had to bear witness. There are surviving accounts of six enslaved people from Overijssel: Carel (or Adoe), Claas, Jan, Hector, George, and Mars. A factual report and conclusion followed that same month. The punishment for the slaves involved was intended to have a deterrent effect: Five of the conspirators were «roasted alive» and four others (including Claas) were «burned alive». Financial compensation for the plantation owners was also part of the sentence. Johann Ulrich Straub died in 1785 in Gais, Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden. In 1785, he and his wife were mentioned in a mortgage business concerning De Vriendschap and De Drie Gezusters, and most probably Cornelia Johanna Mennes continued administration of the two plantations until her death. A 1785 map mentioned as owner of the two plantations Louis-Berthélemy Petitmaître from Yverdon, founder of the plantation Lausanne, who is mentioned again in that context in 1790 and 1794. In 1771, plantations Roosendaal and Vreedenburg had been registered as having as director one «Urb. Straub». The «Amsterdamse Courant» of 1780 mentioned the death of one Johann Straub in Berbice. As late as 1802, one Johann Ulrich Straub was mentioned as the owner of the 1000-acre plantation De Johanna.
=> On his death in Namur in 1760, Michael Schläpfer from Speicher (Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, E Switzerland), son of Captain Hans Schläpfer, captain-lieutenant in the Dutch army, left to his five heirs two plantations in Berbice worth 9000 guilders. Master carpenter Johannes Klee from Bühler (Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden), Konrad Schläpfer, and his son Andreas Schläpfer administered the plantations Oberberg and Flachtal. In 1771, Andreas Schläpfer died and his father returned to Switzerland. In 1779, Johannes Klee returned, too, to his home village of Bühler (AR). In 1781, the plantation, which had fallen into decay because of the British invasion of Berbice, was sold. Johannes Klee was later responsible for the building of the following houses in Speicher (AR): «Reutenenstrasse 2», «Haus Blume», «Adler» and «Hauptstrasse 16».
=> In 1762, Berbice plantation Le Resource was renamed Wallisland (or merged with Le Resource under a new name). It was registered as belonging to one Laurens Felix Mercier, who also owned close-by plantation Nieuwenhagen. Both were located on Wieronje Creek. The owner of Le Resource was Jean Testas, who had close relations with the Swiss Charbon family. Whether the name Wallisland has anything to to do with the Swiss Canton of Wallis (German for Valais) and whether Laurens Felix Mercier had a Swiss background, remains to be established. A Mercier family is documented as having left France for Lausanne for religious reasons in 1740 and having established a prosperous tannery there. In 1771, both plantations were registered with Laurens Felix Mercier as owner, administrator and director. In 1781, Mercier had disappeared and been replaced by one J.J. Swaving.
=> Paulus Züblin (1709–1760), grandson of the mayor of St.Gallen (E Switzerland), emigrated via Holland to Berbice. On 16 January 1735, Nicolaas Huber (possibly from Walenstadt in the Canton of St.Gallen) and Paulus Zublin each applied to the «Sociëteit van Berbice» for a 500 acres plantation with six slaves. On 24th Januar 1736, Huber und Züblin were granted the land, and Huber insisted on paying cash for his six slaves. On 11the April 1736, Nicolass Huber und Paulus Zubly demand that the administrative council of the «Sociëteit van Berbice» adapt the allotment to two plantation each with three slaves each. The council agreed, and Züblin was allotted land for the plantation Zubli’s Lust, which, together with plantation Hubersburg, was surveyed in 1740. Those two plantations belonged with one half each to Paulus Züblin and Nicolaas Huber, who lived in Amsterdan. Züblin was manager of the two plantations, and in 1743, he manumitted his slave Nicolaas, son of his slave woman Anna. In 1747, he became «Edele Heer Raad van de Politie», i.e. part of the colonial administration, and in 1749, he married Cornelia Gertrud Verste(e)r (1733–1800, then 16 years old). He lived in New Amsterdam and was administrator of the sugar plantation de Herstelling (2000 acres), probably the biggest Berbice plantation at the time. Were also born and baptised in Berbice: Ambrosius Justus (1751–1820, died in Holland), Johanna Louisa (1754–1796, died in Holland), Paulus (1756–1790, died in Berbice), Abraham (born 1760) and a child who died unnamed in infancy.
• In the 1780s, Vincent Jacob Conrad (1745-1792) from the Canton of Grisons (SE Switzerland) arrived in Berbice in the middle of the 1770s. He married Helena Johanna Versfelt in 1776. He first worked as plantation manager of ’s Gravenhage, then also became manager of de Bestendigheid. Later, he was an administrator on the coffee plantation Mara en Germania, which belonged to J.V. Pool, and owned 10 adult slaves. He was also, together with one J.A. Schläpfer, a member of the administration team of Middelburgs Welvaaren and introduced Johann Conrad Winz to plantation administration. Together with Claas Nicolay (1748–1799), also from Graubünden, Conrad founded the plantations Grauwbunderland and Grondzorg doch met Vergenoegen. 2/3 of the two plantations belonged to Claas Nicolay, 1/3 to Vincent Conrad. Conrad died in 1792 on plantation La Prospérité, whose manager he had been. The couple Conrad–Versfeldt had four children: Johanna, Petrus, Arnoldus, Johanna Maria, and Abraham Jacob. Nicolay had been mentioned for the first time in 1781 as administrator and manager of plantation Cruysburg. He became co-administrator and manager of plantation De Waakzaamheyd, and he served as deacon of the Dutch Calvinist colonial church. In 1818, the British «Slave Returns» documented for the two plantations Grauwbunderland and Grondzorg doch met Vergenoegen 66 slaves (18 male slaves between ages 12 and 65 fit for work, 28 female slaves between ages 7 and 55 fit for work, 4 slaves unfit for work, 16 slave children; 30 of these were born in Africa, 36 in Berbice). His heir appears to have been one Frederic(k) Nic(h)olay, who owned 27 slaves in 1822. In 1827, he is registered as having purchased slave Francina Frederick from Cruysburg plantation for 500 florin for manumission. Francina had been registered as one of Frerick Nicolay’s slaves already in 1822, and he had probably had a sexual relationship with her. She is noted as a «caboeger» (¾ black / ¼ white). In 1835, he was compensated by Britain for the loss of his «property» (12 slaves) with £ 585 4s 3d.
• In 1781, Louis-Berthélemy Petitmaître from Yverdon (Canton of Berne/Vaud) is mentioned as owner, administrator and manager of plantation Ma Retraite, which was the product of a merger between plantations Zubli’s Lust and Hubertsburg. Petitmaître was also administrator of Prosperiteit, Zion and Rusthoff. In 1790, he is mentioned as owner and administrator of plantation Sara Jacoba (formerly Schermers or Schirmers Lust) and owner, administrator and manager of the large sugar plantation De Vriendschap. In 1794, he is recorded only as owner, administrator and manager of De Vriendschap. In 1796, he is granted the plantations Maria Helena and Lausanne, according to documents, but his death is recorded in 1795, on plantation De Vriendschap.
• Johann Konrad Winz (1757–1828) from Stein am Rhein (Canton of Schaffhausen, N Switzerland) was banished to Berbice for revolutionary activities in 1785. There he lived on plantation Schepmoed and was introduced to managing a plantation by Paulus Zublin jun. (1756–1790) from a St.Gallen family and by Vinzent Conrad. Plans for a plantation of his own did not materialise, but then he was able to take over the directorship of the coffee plantation Middleburgs Welvaren (80 slaves, 60,000 coffee trees), whose director Schläpfer from Appenzell Ausserrhoden (E Switzerland) wanted to return home. In 1794, Winz was administrator and manager of plantation Utile & Faisible, which belonged to one Lambert Blair, one of the richest plantation and slave owners of the colony. Winz also speculated in cattle, wine, and slaves. He also served as a church administrator of the Dutch Calvinist colonial church. In 1800, Winz returned to Switzerland a rich man and entered local politics. He married Maria Magdalena von Waldkirch (1782-1852), whose brothers Franz and Johann Conrad were plantation owners in Surinam. The house «Zum Grüt», which he bought in Schaffhausen, belonged to Laurenz Ziegler (1772-1807), who lived in Surinam at the time of the purchase. The road on which Winz had his mansion «Villa Berbice» built is still called «Berbiceweg» (Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Canton of Schaffhausen). In Berbice, he seems to have left a (coloured?) slaveholding branch of his family: In 1819, one Liseatta Wintz is registered with six, one Joseph Wintz with two slaves, in 1822 one Jacob Wintz with two and one Jannet Wintz with nine slaves.
• The following members of the patrician Zollikofer (Sollicoffre) family from St.Gallen are mentioned as plantation managers or directors in Berbice. On 12th December 1735, in a meeting of the administrative council of the «Sociëteit van Berbice», Robert Sollicoffre († ca. 1757) applied for 500 acres and 6 slaves from among the next «delivery». On 27th December 1735, he appeared again before the council announcing his withdrawal from the plantation application and asking for it to be transferred to Jacob Boulé, whose director he later became. Robert Sollicoffre managed Engelenburg (granted 1735, surveyed 1739) and Altenklingen (1735, belonging to Jacob Boulé). Later managers of Engelenburg included Germain Sollicoffre (1748) and Jacob de Sollicoffre (1765). Ida en Sabina (also owned by Jacob Boulé) was also managed by Jacob Sollikoffer in 1765. Magdalenenburgh, Amsterdam, and Fransenburgh (owned by Abraham Vernesobre) were all managed in 1735 by Georgie Sollicoffer, who had been allotted 500 acres and three slaves the same year, but who never figuresd as a plantation owner. Roeboth (owned by Pieter Massé ) was managed by Hans Solicoffre in 1767 und 1771. De Nieuwe Vigilantie (belonging to the heirs Hartsinck and A. Frenzel) was managed by J. F. S. de Solicoffre in 1790, 1792, and 1794. De Eenzaamheid (owned by the heirs of Jan Broer) was managed in 1790 by H. F. S. Sollicoffer and de Eendragt boven (owned by Jan Slayeman) was managed by S. F. S. Sollicoffre in 1781. It is possible that the last three are one and the same person made into three persons by difficulties in transcribing handwritten documents.
• Laurens Kunckler (1716–after 1763) came from a prominent St.Gallen family and was probably the son of Ursula Zollikofer von Altenklingen ( 1680–1743) and Laurenz Kunkler (1688–1756). He left Holland for Berbice aboard the «Christina Johannes» in 1737, but was shipwrecked off the Isle of Wight. He then sailed to Berbice aboard the «Izabella Maria» in 1737, where he got a job on plantation Helvetia, which belonged to a group of St.Gallen businessmen around Jean-Barthélémy Rietmann. In 1748, he owned and directed plantation De dertien Cantons, (the Thirteen Cantons, the number of member states making up the Swiss Confederation 1513–1798) together with Leonard Sellon/Schlumpf, co-owner of Helvetia. Later, Kunckler, who was also captain of the local militia and a member of the colonial administration, concentrated on his plantation Goed Land en Goed Fortuyn (originally the two plantations Nimwegen and Realmont) as owner and manager. These plantations were registered in 1762 with 5 indigenous women for house work and 23 black slaves. Kunckler had a black concubine. In 1762, together with Willem Nicolas Schoock, and Emanuel Hosch, he bought slaves from the ship «De Eenigheid» at an auction or acted as surety: No 9, a woman, ƒ 280:0, to Kunckler, guarantors: Schook & Stubbeman; No 24, a man, ƒ 295:0, to Kunckler, guarantors: Schook & Stubbeman; No 12, a woman and child, ƒ 265:0, to Hosch; No 55, a girl, ƒ 165:0, to Hosch; No 63, a boy, ƒ 120:0, to Hosch; No 4, girl, ƒ 150:0, to Hendrik Meijer, guarantors: Hosch & Maisoneuve; No 7, a boy, ƒ 225:0, to: Köhler, guarantors: Hosch & Bocht; No 15, a man, ƒ 355:0, to Schook q.q., guarantors: Hosch & & Sollicoffre; No 16, a woman, ƒ 205:0, to idem, guarantors: idem & idem; No 22, a boy, ƒ 165:0, to Dell, guarantors: Hosch & van Staeden; No 28, a boy, ƒ 125:0, to Meijers, guarantors: Hosch & Sollicoffre; No 52, a man, ƒ 210:0, to Adriaan d’Sollicoffre, guarantors: Hosch & Kohler; No 53, a woman, ƒ 210:0, to Mittelholtzer, guarantors: Hosch & Gelskerke. The same year, slaves on Kunckler’s plantations rose in rebellion. Kunckler then held the offices of captain (i.e. the supreme commander of the local militia in the upper part of the colony) and «Raad van Politie en Criminele Justitie». The rebellion started on 5th July 1762, but Kunckler had left his plantation aboard the «Tentboat» (rowed by slaves) two days before in order to join a council meeting in Fort Nassau, 90 km downstream. The rebellion, which was a prelude to the great rising of 1763, was put down with great brutality. Rebel leader Coffij was executed by tying him to a cross and breaking his bones with iron bars. We have now news of what happened to Kunckler after the rebellion. He might have died of a disease that was rampant in the colony, or he might have returned to Europe.
=> Jakob Pool (1700-1771) from Bever (Canton of Grisons, SE Switzerland) took over from his father the flourishing family business in Amsterdam, which had already expanded to the Dutch West Indies in 1710. The company «Westrik & Pool» and members of the Swiss Pool family (Ambrosius, Ambrosius Johannes, Anna Louisa, Jacob Ambrosius, Jan Jacob, Jan Vintzenz, Jan, Louis, Pieter) owned shares in the following plantations on the Berbice River: Engadina (from 1741) Essendam and Sans Souci (150,000 guilders), Julianenburg, Maria Germania (coffee), Middelburgs Welvaren (coffee), Schepmoed (coffee), Zandvoort (coffee), Bellevue (coffee), Sophia (coffee), L’Esperance (sugar), De Grond Engelenburg, De Vrwyheyd, De Grond Ida Sabina, and Mon Repos. Jan Vintzent Pool held shares in the colonial company Societeit van Berbice. In 1768, 1772, and 1780, «Jacob Ambrosius Pool et Compagnie» in Amsterdam received credits from the Zurich-based bank Leu. Jakob Pool left a fortune of over 240,000 guilders. Practically his whole wealth ended up in the Engadin: a considerable part went to the von Planta family in Samedan, another part to Melchior von Muralt from Zurich (1792-1834), who had married Maria Pool (1788–1863). Their daughters brought the Bever estates into the hands of the Salis-Soglio and von Planta-Reichenau families. The wealth of the Pool, Orlandi and Zamboni families resulted in Bever, the second smallest municipality of the Upper Engadin, becoming the richest community in the whole Engadin before the French Revolution. The company «Westrik & Pool» seems to have been in existence until 1828. The last plantations remained in Pool hands until the abolition of slavery in 1833/34, whereupon they received from the Dutch state £6,437 7s 3d for the 124 slaves of Schepmoed and £8,540 7s 6d for the 160 slaves of Mara and Germania.
=> David Amstein from St.Gallen was granted the 500 acre-plantation Roosenburg (Roozenburgh, Rosenburg) on the River Berbice, divided by the Kimbia Creek, in 1736. It was surveyed in 1738 and its ownership recognized. Amstein lived on the plantation. In 1758, it passed into the hands of the Pool family from Bever (Grisons). In 1738, the neighbouring plantation Mon Repos was granted to a member of a Neuchâtel family, Olivie(r) Chaillé(t), who lived on it. It was surveyed in 1742 and its ownership recognized. The Pool family bought it in 1768, and treated the two plantations as one unit, with one administrator-director
=> In 1743, 1752 and 1755, a document of authorisation was issued for Jean (Louis) Herrenschwand (possibly from the Canton of Berne) in Berbice, which gave him the right to work as director on several plantations.
=> In 1770, on the lower Canje River in Berbice, there was a 500 acres plantation called Canton Berne. It belonged to Emanuel Buess, possibly from Aarau in the Canton of Berne. In 1771, the plantation is recorded as belonging to his widowed wife.
=> Théophile Cazenove (1708-1760) from a Geneva family of Huguenot immigrants resident in Geneva since 1686. His father Pierre Cazenove (1670–1733) was a merchant and a banker, whose network established with his three sons Jean, David (1711–1782)and Théophile extended as far as Amsterdam, London, and Nantes. Théophile went to Amsterdam as a young man and became a merchant who traded with Bordeaux, Saint Petersburg, Archangelsk, Stockholm, and the West Indies. In 1735, Théophile Cazenove was granted 500 acres plus 6 slaves, in 1736 500 acres plus 6 slaves again. Later he owned the following plantations on the River Canje in Berbice: Toijras / Thoyras /Toyras (500 acres, from 1741 on), Don Carlos (500 acres, from 1740 on), Nova Caza / Nova Cassa (500 acres, from 1740 on), and Oloron / Oleron (500 acres, from 1742 on, its director was murdered in 1763). In Amsterdam in 1762, Charles and Théophile Cazenove issued a document of power of attorney to P. A. Charbon and Emanuel Hosch, both resident in Berbice. In 1764, Marie Cazenove (born 1742), daughter of David Cazenove, married Jacques Antoine Odier (1737–1815) (1737–1815) from a Geneva family of bankers. Their son Jacques Antoine Odier (1766–1853) married into the Boué family from Hamburg (sugar import from the French Caribbean; import of coffee, cotton and indigo, investment and insurance, ship-building for the «Compagnie de l’Inde», which was active in the Atlantic and Asian slave-trade) and entered the indiennes textile business in 1789 by associating him with the royal works at Wesserling .
=> Gudains Planta (c 1712) and Elias Tratschin († 1732) from Samedan (Canton of Grisons, SE Switzerland) are recorded as having died «in las Indias», probably in the same area as the Pool plantation empire in Berbice.
=> In 1741, Johann Ulrich Koch from Zurich is registered as a soldier in Berbice. He arrived there on the ship «De Dageraad».
=> From 1732 on, private individuals could apply for plantations in Berbice. In 1733, banker Jan-Barthélémy Rietmann from St.Gallen (E Switzerland) applied for 1500 acres for Jan Leonard Sellon (Schlumpf), also from St.Gallen. They were granted the land plus 9 slaves, and in 1734 another 21 slaves. In 1735, Jan Leonard Sellon became a member of the council. The same year the following slave «deliveries» were registered: 3 times 9 slaves to Jan-Barthélémy Rietman (prices: fl. 2,475, fl. 2,259 , fl. 2,475), 6 slaves to Jacques Sellon (fl. 1,650), and 33 slaves to Jan Leonard Sellon (fl. 8,859). These slaves were needed for clearing the forest for the plantation. In a meeting of the administrative council of the «Sociëteit van Berbice» on 16th January 1736, David Hogguer and David Amsteyn (Amstein) from a St.Gallen family related to the Hogguers, Rietmanns and the Sellon(f)s were allotted 500 acres and six slaves each, but Hogguer never seems to have made use of his land grant. In 1736, Jan Leonard Sellon was appointed Council of Policy and Justice for the colony. In 1736, Jan Bartholomeus Rietmann, René David de Gennes and Jacob Sellon ask for «eenige lappies land bij hunne plantage», which is granted to them. In 1737, coffee and cotton plantation Helvetia (Helvecia or Hellevesia) was surveyed and was registered as belonging to Jan Bartholomeus Rietman, René David de Gennes, Jacob Sellon and Jan Leonard Sellon, Amsterdam. Its manager was Leonard Sellon. In 1740, Salomé Rietmann, sister of Jan-Barthélémy Rietmann and wife of Daniel Hogguer (de Bignan), who was to be co-owner of the enlarged plantation Helvetia, sold or left her share to the Sellon brothers. In 1744, 292 acres were added to the plantation, whose owners were now Rene David de Gennes, Jacob Sellon, Hogguer de Bignan, and Scherer, Amsterdam. Jan Leonard Sellon also owned plantation God ziet alles (500 acres) from about 1742–1762. In 1765, the owners of Helvetia were the heirs of de Gennes, Jan Leonard Sellon, and Jean Jacques Hogguer de Bignan. In 1802 it was recorded as having 1792 acres and 128 slaves. Paul Iwan Hogguer (1760–1816) was a businessman and banker in Holland. He was mayor of Amsterdam and became the first director of «De Nederlandsche Bank» (DNB), whose role in slavery and the slave-trade is now being looked into.
=> In 1779, a Berbice plantation called De dertien Cantons («The Thirteen Cantons» was a name for the Swiss Confederation 1513–1798) was mentioned. According to the land title of plantation Henevliet, plantation De dertien Cantons must already have existed in 1741. In 1748, the owners were identified as L. Zellon and L.(aurenz) Kunckler, who was also the manager.
=> In 1762, the partners or the company «Hosch & Zollikofer» granted the price of a male slave (No. 15, 355 guilder), a female slave (No. 16, 205 guilder) and of a slave boy (No. 28, 125 guilder) in an auction in Berbice. Emmanuel Hosch probably came from a Basel family. During the slave rising, the prevailing disease (probably dysentery) raged worse than ever before and in the same year claimed the lives of two of the council members Emmanuel Hosch and Charbon and several directors of the societal plantation. Hosch’s widowed wife and her three daughters were spared (just as was one of Mr. Mittelholzer’s nieces and her son). But they had to work, half naked, for the rebels in their vegetable garden. In 1762 was issued in Amsterdam a document of power of attorney by Jan Adam Charbon to Emanuel Hosch and Johannes Mittelholzer in Berbice.
=> In 1780, an Amsterdam document established a guardianship by Jan Adam Charbon (before 1736–1798) over Frederica Henrietta Rosenberger (b. 1770) from a family from Bilten in the Canton of Glarus. The Charbons were a family of plantation owners in Berbice and Suriname, orginally from Treytorrens (Payerne, Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland). Frederica was to stay in the Netherlands and Jan Adam Charbon to receive powers of attorney over all Rosenberger businesses. Co-signatory of the document was Jan Adam’s son Pieter Elias Charbon (1762–1818). Frederica Henrietta Rosenberger’s mother was Anna Margaretha Schlösser, who was married to Martinus Rosenberger, lately arrived in Amsterdam from Berbice and planning to move to the Canton of Glarus permanently. Rosenberger was registered as former «weesmeester» of Berbice. According to a 1773 work contract, Martinus Rosenberger was director/manager of plantation La Providence on the Canje River.
=> In 1737, one Henry Grivel from Bournens in the Canton of Berne/Vaud got married to Constantia Apia. In 1739 he was mentioned in a legal affair concerning an inheritance. In 1740, he owned the 500 acres plantation Switzerland (Zwitserland, Zwitzerland, also called Grivelle). The land was surveyed and the ownership recognised. Later ownership passed to Emmanuel Hosch, originally from Basel. In 1752 there was a slave rising on plantation Switzerland. In 1767, the plantation was registered as in the hands of the heirs of Emmanuel Hosch. They wanted to sell the plantation in 1786 with «alle deszelft Bepootingen, Beplan-Tingen, Huysingen, Opstallen, Thuynen, Slaaven en Slaavinnen, en verdere Apen Dependentien van dien» (all plants, buildings, gardens, male and female slaves and their descendants), belonging to the heirs of Emanuel Hosch and Sara Jeuning.
=> In 1760, one Jean Etienne Fizeaux decreed who should administer his plantation on the Canje River should anything happen to him. Third in line was Adriaan (Adrien) de Sollicoffre (1738–1765), who might have been administrator of one of Fizeaux’s plantations. In 1762, Adriaan de Sollicoffre sent two letters of exchange for slaves sold privately in Rio Berbice and Rio Essequibo, addressed to the honourable lord directors of the «Commercie Compagnie in Middelburg Zeeland», the most important Dutch slave-trading company, which had armed the slave-ship «Enigheid». One was to be paid to Dirk Kraaij and satisfied by H. Hooft in Amsterdam (83 guilders), one to Hendrik Jansen Buse and satisfied by Jean Etienne Fizeaux in Amsterdam (121 guilders). The «Enigheid» started its voyage in Zeeland (Holland) in 1761, purchased slaves in Cape Lahou, on the Windward Coast, and on the Gold Coast, and began the Middle Passage with 319 slaves, out of which 298 survived. Slaves were disembarked in Berbice and Essequibo. In 1763, Adriaan d’Sollicoffre was granted a plantation of 500 acres on the Canje River, which had belonged to Johannes Feer until his death. In 1763/64, Adriaan d’Sollicoffre was one of the three judges at the trial of the Berbice Rebels.120 male and 4 female slaves were sentenced to death. 32 verdicts were passed the first day and carried out the next day. 18 of the enslaved were hanged, 8 (among them a woman) were broken on the wheel, 6 were burnt at the stake, five of them on a small fire, to prolong the suffering. After the final round of executions on 15th December 1764, Dutch governor Wolfert Simon van Hoogenheim (1730–1794) granted a general amnesty. He did so at the request of the «Societeit van Berbice», who were shocked – not at the brutality with which the rebellion had been put down but at the destruction of capital, i.e. of the enslaved workforce.
=> In 1818–1822, the «Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers» contain three slave-holding members of the Swiss Sollicoffre family, originally from St.Gallen/Thurgau: D. Sollicoffre (8 slaves in 1818, 5 in 1819, none in 1822), J. Sollicoffre (18 slaves in 1818, 11 in 1819, none in 1822) and the the «free black woman Mietje Sollicoffre» (7 slaves). Some male slave names were Bonaparten, Bonaparte, Simon, Welkam, David, Aberham, France, some female slave names: Juno, Elisabeth, Antje, La Rose, Dorothea, Vesta, Alida, Augusta.
=> In the 1763 slave rebellion, the insurgents occupied most of Berbice for ten months. Plantations were destroyed, houses burned and sugar mills deactivated. From plantation Lelienburg, Cuffy and his people attacked the plantations Juliana (Vlissingen), Mon Repos, Essendam, St. Elizabeth, Alexandra and Altenklingen.
1.6.2 Demerara (Demerrara, Demerary)
=> In Demerara, there was a plantation called Geneve on Canal Nr. 1. In 1785, it was a coffee plantation of 250 acres and the property of Swiss called Jourdan, who also owned another plantation (unnamed, Nr. 8) of 250 acres on Canal Nr. 1 North. In 1792, that plantation was still unnamed, but in 1795 it appeared under the name of Basel. Jourdan could have been Jean Philippe Jourdan, who married Margaretha van Dijk in 1781 in Demerary and died 1806 in Paris. In 1812, the plantation Geneve is still mentioned. Geneve had been managed by Robert Ferrier (died 1806, probably English) as a joint plantation Vree-and-Hoop and Geneva. A tax register of 1818 shows that there must have been 337 slaves there. In 1777, the registers of the Durch West Indien Company (WIC) also mention one Jean Pierre Jourdan from Geneva, a medical doctor.
=> («General») Louis de Saulles (1767-1817) came from a Huguenot family who fled from France to Switzerland. He served with General Lafayette during the American Revolution. In 1806, he was appointed at the City of New York as an «Inspector at Demerara». He was a shopkeeper there, and established an «Academy». In 1807, he sold three slaves, and in 1808, he paid the colonial tax for his three slaves. In his obituary, it was said that he was born in Switzerland. He died at Mahaica.
=> There are further traces of possibly Swiss plantation ownership in the region: On the eastern banks of the Mahaica River the «Kaart van de rivier en zeekusten van Demerary» (1792) shows a cotton plantation of 175 acres called Berne. Its owner John Tappin also owned half of Plantation 31 (250 acres, cotton) and plantation Beter Hoop. Two plantation owners called Fresen and Jean Cuche are noted as «Swiss or French». Jean Pierre Cuche (born 1768, died before 1807) from La Tour-de-Peilz (Canton of Berne/Vaud) was made ensign of the local militia in 1789, and he owned the plantation L’Inattendu on the Demerara sea coast between Maicouny Creek and Mahaica Creek. In 1807, Cuche’s widowed wife Anne Cathrine Marchand (1758–1820) must have owned a plantation on the east side of Mahaica Creek. The owner of the plantation Langzaamheid on Wakenaame Island is noted as «Zwitsers». In 1804, Cuche’s wife was mentioned as planning to leave the colony. Her authorised representative was a Swiss called David Pierre Morthier (died before 1812) from Neuchâtel. Morthier seems to have managed Cuche’s estate. He lived on plantation Nooyt Gedagt on the western bank of Mahaica Creek.
=> In 1810, the plantation Neufchatel on the right bank of the Mahaica River in Demerara was offered to the highest bidder, «with all its appurtenances, Negroes, &c. &c.». In 1808, a tax on 58 slaves (slave units, or «Piezas de India»). It is today called Neuchâtel Estate. Next to this plantation there was another called Vevay or Vevey.
=> In 1808, Jeanette Crousaz from Lutry (Canton of Vaud, W Switzerland) from a patrician family, owners of the local castle since 1598 and known for foreign services, among them General Pierre François Crousaz de Corsier (1690-1769) for Holland, lived in the colony of Demerrara, where she married Rudolph Onink (died 1813) from Rio Demerary, a slave owner and trustee and probably the director or administrator of plantation Wittenburg.
=> There are indications that one member of the Sellon family might have owned a plantation in Demerrara. In 1815, the «Royal Gazette» announced that a fugitive slave could be picked up in prison by his owner Sellon.
=> Abraham Zubli (born 1760), son of Paulus Zubli (1709–1760) from a St.Gallen family, was born in Berbice on plantation Zublis Lust according to the «British Guiana Colonists Index», in New Amsterdam according to MyHeritage, the latter being more probable. He was to our knowledge the only Swiss present at all points of the slave-trade triangle during his lifetime. Like most of his siblings, he went to Holland at an early age and started a military career as a 16-year-old. First, he was cadet in the Infantry Regiment No. 10 under Luitenant Generaal Van Raders. He was promoted to ensign after 20 months, then he served under Generaal Majoor Van Brakell and was promoted to lieutenant and captain. He quit his service in 1799. Abraham Zubli married twice (1790: Hendrika Catharina Wesselink; 1795: Wilhelmina Johanna de Clercq). In 1809, he reappeared in Fort Elmina, one of the most important Dutch slave-trade strongholds on the West African coast (today’s Ghana). At that time, the fort was no longer fully operative, but Abraham Zubli is registered there in the function of «Magazijnmeester» and member of both the Small Council (responsible for the slave-trade) and the Grand Council (where the adinistrators of Accra, Axim, Chama, and Cormantijn each had a seat). Due to a conflict with the Governor General, he left Elmina on a ship bound for Berbice between 1809 and 1812. His family is said to have received news in 1811 that he had arrived in Berbice and was planning to move on to Demerara. After that nothing more was heard from him. The children from his second marriage called themselves de Clerq Zubli, a family branch active in the Dutch East Indies which is still around and of renown and which still has ties to Switzerland.
=> In 1811, Anselme Fleury from Neuchâtel married Aimable de Corbinière, probably from Saint-Domingue, in Demerrara.
=> In 1810, the cantonal authorities of Zurich dealt with a number of complaints from local trading houses on account of the conflict between France and Britain («continental blockade») which led to sequestrations. The goods concerned were, among others, long fiber cotton from Demerara.
1.6.3 Essequibo
=> Beath Rodolph Emmanuel Mottet (1752–1819) possibly from Murten (Canton of Fribourg) married Jeanne Johanna Brunell in 1785. In 1816, he sold to R. Burnthorn his sugar plantation Lust tot Rust situated on «Varken Eiland», Essequibo, which was in future to be called Endeavour, with all the buildings, cultivation, and 11 slaves. In 1836, his widowed wife Johanna Mottet was compensated £231 4s 6d by Britain for the loss of her «property» of 4 slaves. Several other individuals of the name Mottet lived in Essequibo and Demerrara.
=> Francis Amick (born 1780) from Switzerland (according to the «British Guiana Colonists») married Johanna Deborah Fischer in 1818. In 1824, Amick, who was the «deliberating executor of the estate of Peter Laggan» was involved in the auction of a «Negro man named Richard». Scotsman Laggan’s estate was plantation Coffee Grove on the River Essequibo. In 1835, Amick’s widowed wife received a compensation of £65 4s 10d for the loss of one slave.
1.7 Haiti (French colony «Saint-Domingue»)
1.7.1 Economic
=> In 1528, merchant and nobleman Hieronymus Sailer (1495-1559) from St. Gallen (E Switzerland), together with Heinrich Ehinger from Konstanz (Germany), received a license issued by the Spanish crown which allowed them to colonise Venezuela and to transport 50 mining workers from Germany to Santo Domingo, from where they would be distributed among the Spanish colonies. Sailer was also granted permission to use the Santo Domingo shipyards.
=> Hans Caspar Zoller (1574–1644) and Hans Felix Escher, sons of wealthy patrician families from Zurich, made their apprenticeships as merchants in Lyon. They travelled to Hollland and Britain, and then signed on a French slaving vessel in Dieppe, with a profit-sharing rate of 0.25 to 0.5 percent. In December 1595, they set sail and via Madeira, Cadonor (Cotonou?), Cap Palmas and Sao Thomé reached Cap Lopez (today Gabun), where they took on board the slaves for Brazil. They then crossed the Atlantic, and in September 1596, they landed at Cabo Branco (Paraíba), where they sold their «freight». For three months they stayed in Bahia before continuing their voyage to Santo Domingo, from where, in 1597, they returned to France via the Azores.
=> Around 1700, the French planters Jean-Joseph du Paty (a former buccaneer) and Julien Raymond employed a Swiss mason, who was sent for from La Rochelle and was responsible for the construction of their plantation house and sugar-cane mill in the Léogâne area.
=> Jean Nerette from Versoix in the Canton of Geneva, formerly sergeant in the Regiment de Hallwyl, had served in Saint-Domingue for 23 years. He decided to stay there when the regiment was called back in 1764. He became a planter and, not having known that he was entitled to military salaries, applied for payments on account of his military discharge.
=> One Daniel Robert (1570–1634) from Sonvillier, Canton of Berne, died at Droit in the Artibonite area.
=> Ignace Ferrety from Switzerland was a master mason in Saint-Domingue and received his naturalisation documents in 1785/1786.
=> Vinzenz (Vincent) Stürler (1714–1753) from Schöftland (Canton of Berne/Aargau) died in Saint-Domingue and was buried on plantation Fontaine near Mirebalais because he was a Protestant.
=> Rosemonde Gottchall, a Swiss lady from Berne, wife of Mr. Gottchall, bookseller on Saint-Domingue, came to Saint-Domingue (Le Cap) around 1742 with her two daughters, then aged 16 and 11. The mother died in 1744, but before her death she had converted to Catholicism.
=> On the eve of the Frech Revolution, 31% of the shares of the most important French slave-trading company, the «Compagnie des Indes», were in Swiss hands. Shareholders were Leonhard Meister, Professor of theology from Zurich, silk merchant Andreas Gossweiler, as well Johann Ulrich Geilinger, Jonas Hauser and Jacob Sulzer, all from Winterthur. The «Compagnie des Indes» for a long time held the monopoly for the slave trade to Saint-Domingue.
=> In his travelogue «Bericht des Grafen Karl von Zinzendorf über seine handelspolitische Studienreise durch die Schweiz 1764», the Austrian count describes the commercial activities of the Ammann banking and merchant company from Schaffhausen (N Switzerland), which traded in cotton, indigo, sugar, and tobacco. The first quality cotton came from Curaçao and Berbice, but from the latter there were no more imports because «the colony has been ruined». From that cotton, the Toggenburg textile industry (today Canton of St.Gallen) produced muslin fabrics. Curaçao cotton was very rare: a ship that transported 60 bales from Saint Domingue only carried 6 from Curaçao. The second quality variety came from Martinique and Saint-Domingue and was transported to Switzerland via Marseilles, Lyon, Belfort and Basel. The third (and worst) quality cotton came from Barbados. Nearly 1000 bags of cotton were imported by Ammann every year and were processed in the Toggenburg and Glarus area. In the second half of the 18th century, 35% of the cotton it delivered into the Zurich, Berne/Aargau, Toggenburg, and Appenzell areas were from Berbice or Essequibo. The Ammann company did business with such slave trading firms as Schalch & Cie., Hegner, Gier & Cie., Pelloutier, Petitpierres, Tourton & Baur, and Bourcards. From Schalch & Cie alone, Ammann received in six years deliveries of indigo worth 600,000 guilders. The archive of Johann Jakob Amman (1699–1777) and his son Johann Heinrich (1722–1794) has been handed down to the Frey family and – being a private archive – is still nor accessible. Industrial magnate Hermann Frey (1844–1928) was a board member of the «Bank in Schaffhausen», which merged into the «Schweizerische Bankverein» and later UBS. The banking house «Ammann» was liquidated as late as 1921.
=> In Lyon, the Zellweger companies were among the most active merchants, and together with the St.Gallen family enterprises of the Sollicoffre (Zollikofer), Scheidlin (Scheitlin), Weguelin (Wegelin) and Councler (Kunkler) exported to the West Indies. The Zellweger companies exported textiles and imported colorants for their linen and cotton industry as well as colonial goods, such as coffee from Saint-Domingue. Focused on the Saint-Doimingue market and therefore oriented towards Bordeaux were «Zellweger et Ougster» (Zellweger & Eugster), «Zellweger frères et Cie », «Scheidlin et Finguerlin», and «Laurent Councler et Cie». In August 1750, «Councler et Cie » exported five bales of cloth to Cap Français.
=> The Mississippi Company (Compagnie de la Louisiane ou d’Occident or Compagnie d’Occident) created by John Law in 1717 absorbed the monopolies and privileges of earlier companies, such as the Compagnie de Saint-Domingue. It attracted shareholders and speculators by the prospect of profits from trade with textiles and bullion, and from the export of slaves to Saint-Domingue. Among the Swiss shareholders was Louis Guiguer (1675–1747) from Bürglen, Canton of Thurgau, who with an investment of 800,000 £ was the fourth largest single shareholder of the company. From the same canton, from Steckborn, came members of the Labhard, Deucher and Füllemann families. From Trogen in the Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden came the investors Conrad Zellweger-Tanner (1659-1749), Conrad Zellweger-Sulser (1694-1771) and Johannes Zellweger-Sulser (1695-1774). Others included the banker Henri d’Antoine Locher from St.Gallen, the Berne-based bank Malacrida, several citizens from Geneva and several citizens from St.Gallen residing in Lyon.
=> Christophe Jean Baur (1699–1770) and Louis Tourton († 1786), both from Geneva and since 1740 partners in the banking house «Tourton et Baur», in 1748 helped create the «Société pour le commerce de la traite des nègres à la côte d’Angola et de là aux îles de Saint-Domingue» by investing 375,000 livres each. The company bought three ships serving as storage vessels on the Angola coast and five slavers for the Middle Passage. They decided to expand their activities to Martinique and to buy 13 ships altogether. Shareholder and shipping agent Antoine Vincent Walsh (1703 – 1763) from Ireland and stationed in Nantes had a reputation for overstraining his crews, neglecting his vessels and overloading his slavers. Out of 5000 ensalved boarding his ships in Africa, only 4000 arrived alive in the Americas.
=> (Jean-Jacques) Meyer & (David) Crom from their company seat in Lyon exported textile goods to Spain and the Spanisch colonies. At one point, even the City of St.Gallen was among the creditors of the St.Gallen based head-office «Meyer & Crommische Credit-Wesen». David Crom (or Kromm) (born 1681?) from St.Gallen established himself in 1716 as secretary to the Swedish ambassador, probably through the intermediary of his fellow citizen Antoine Hogguer. In 1719, the Crom trading house made important investments in the French Compagnie des Indes and at the moment, when the «System» collapsed, that investement had reached a volume of 830,000 livres. David Crom himself had aquired enough shares to take part in the General Assembly of the Company on 22 February 1720. When the collapse approached, he acted as the Paris representative of the «Nation Suisse», i.e. the community of Swiss merchants in Lyon. Crom still held this position in the 1740s.
=> The following Swiss are registered to have lived in Saint-Domingue between 1750 and 1800: Gabriel Descombaz (bookshop-stationer, freemason), Mr. Despassier, Jacob Dupan (merchant from Geneva, freemason), Jean Estève (from Coppet, then Canton of Berne), Marie Elisabeth Globesk, Henri-Albert Gosse, Chevalier d’Illens (officer), Jacob Mayer (merchant from the Canton of Berne), Jean Meschinet (from Geneva), François Joseph Mollinger (from Basel), Charles Ravy, Jean Utry Sphey (soldier), Antoine Tournier, David-Philippe-Barthélémy Treytorrens (officer), Joseph Valdony (officer from Poschiavo, Canton of Graubünden, freemason), Henriette Vincent, Adrien Virte (officer of the Swiss Guards).
=> Niklaus Jenner (1695–1728) from Berne died in Saint-Domingue. His brother was Jean (Johann) Jenner (1702–1749), who was a banker in La Rochelle and had close business relations with Saint-Domingue via Swiss mercenary officer and plantation owner Johannes von Hallwyl (1688-1753). In 1742, Jean Jenner married Susanne Belin from a French family of merchants, plantation owners, sugar traders, and investors in triangular slaving expeditions, all of which closely related to Saint-Domingue. His sons Johann Niklaus Jenner (1743–1817) and Adrian Allard Jenner (1742–1774) were both captains at the service of the French. Johann Niklaus later became a politician in Switzerland.
=> Sigmund von Wattenwyl (1706–1745) from Berne died in Saint-Domingue.
=> Hans Ulrich Faesch from Basel sailed from Amsterdam to the West Indies in 1770. His last letter, dated May 5, 1774 said that he was intending to go to Saint-Domingue.
=> In 1788, one Cavin from Switzerland asked to be paid in advance the costs of his passage to Saint-Domingue.
=> Plantation owners in Saint-Domingue with Swiss backgrounds:
• Louis-Joseph Bloisselier de Carnotte from Geneva, coffee plantation
• the Simon family, indigo plantations (Augustin Simon, son of a Saint-Domingue plantation owner, founded an indiennes manufactory in Nantes and became partner of the company Simon & Roques, which invested in triangular expeditions)
• Jost Henry Girard from the Canton of Berne was lieutenant of the militia of Petit-Goave on Saint-Domingue, where he also lived. He was over 50, owned two coffee plantations, was married in Switzerland and had some children, one of whom was living with him on Saint-Domingue. He applied for French citizenship in 1781/1783.
• Louis Isaac Chanson de Cormont from the Canton of Berne had been an officer in the «Regiment de Chilleberg» (owner since 1690: Hans Jakob Schellenberg, 1634–1714, from Richterswil). He was 42 years old and was living in Saint-Domingue, when he applied for French citizenship. In his last will he provided for his plantation and his slaves. His documents of 1707–1713 include his application for citizenship, his marriage certificate and his testament.
• the Meynadier family from Geneva, coffee plantation Mont-Soucy (Jean-Louis Privat from Geneva, son of Anne-Andrienne Meynadier, was forced to return to Geneva in 1796 because of the slave revolt)
• Bertrand brothers, Bertrand père (1781, Artibonite plain)
• members of the Cadusch or Cadouche family from Graubünden (E Switzerland) were influential planters and owners of great sugar plantations
• Jean Trembley (1719–1791) from Geneva (1781, Artibonite plain, indigo and cotton, with slaves from Benin, Elmina, the Gold Coast, the Congo, Nigeria and Angola). Trembley also worked as a hydraulic engineer in the region. His project was installed in 1786.
• Jean David Ramel from the Canton of Berne/Vaud (W Switzerland), owner, at the age of 45, of a large cotton and indigo plantation on Saint-Domingue in 1795
• Jean-Conrad Baron de Spechbach (or Spebach or Spitzbach) from Miécourt, Prince-Bishopric of Bâle, was an officer in the mercenary Regiment de Hallwyl and commander of the Jérémie and the Grande-Anse militia around 1777, and in 1789 owner of a plantation and a sugar refinery in the Cap Dame Marie region (Grand’Anse). He became immensely rich. In 1777, he received in Port-au-Prince the ribbon and the cross of the «Royal and Military Order of St.Louis». Being childless, he returned to Miécourt and asked all his relatives and allies to accompany him to Saint-Domingue to take over his plantation and become his heirs. Nobody followed him and he returned alone. In the Haitian Revolution, his property was laid waste.
• Jean-Louis Robert-Coëls (1739-1793) from a Swiss family owned a coffee and cotton plantation. He was the brother of Benoist-Lambert Robert-Coëls and was a member of the French mercenary unit «Cents Suisses». As such he was arrested and assassinated like his brother.
• Benoist-Lambert Robert-Coëls (born 1733 in Nanterre the son of Antoine Robert Coëls from Switzerland, died in Port-au-Prince 1793) served in the French mercenary unit Cents Suisses. In 1770, he lived with his brother on the plantation Sibert in Cul-de-Sac. In 1780, he owned the coffee plantation «Petit Trou» in the Asile region (Anse-à-Veau). He was part of the »Cercle des Philadelphes», which in its membership and projects not only reflected colonial racial inequality and support for slavery in Saint-Domingue, but was also a profoundly racist institution. He was arrested in Port-au-Prince on orders from the two French revolutionary commissioners Etienne Polverel and Léger Félicité Sonthonax and died in prison. His widowed wife Marie Renée Hébert, Allette Guillemette Zéline (widow Coëls), and Marie Suzanne Robert-Coëls(widow Sonis, 1779–1843) were compensated by France as «refugees and spoliated colonists» during the Haitian revolution.
• Jean-Baptiste-François chevalier de Volant, son of the commander of the Swiss troops in garrison in Saint-Domingue
• Anne-Marie-Elisabeth-Marguerite de Nucé, wife of Louis Tousard d’Olbec (1757-1840) from Grône and Saint-Maurice (Canton of Valais), coffee plantation Massacre
• Jeanne-Elisabeth Gouin, wife of Louis Sévérin de Costar (b. 1743), officer in the Swiss regiment d’Hallwyl
• Maria Jeanne Ducoing, wife of one Mr Comblefort from Geneva (coffee)
• Jeanne-Benedictine Ducamp, wife of Boisselier de Carnotte from Geneva
• In 1784, Charles Emmanuel de Rivaz (1753-1830) from Sion in the canton of Valais (SW Switzerland) left for Saint-Domingue to administer the assets of Count Paradès, his brother in law.
• In 1795, through a contract signed in Nyon, Jean-David Ramel (1757-1819) from Château-d’Oex in the Canton of Berne/Vaud (W Switzerland) became the owner of a sugar, indigo and cotton plantation in the Saint-Marc area.
• Raymond Marie (1748-1825) from Geneva was a merchant and owned (a) sugar, cotton and indigo plantation(s). In 1791 he was a deputy member of the Assemblée coloniale and a member of the Assemblée provinciale.
• In 1736, a member of the Zollikofer (Zollicoffre) family from St.Gallen and also active in Lyon was employed by J.-J. Brossard de La Poupardière on his plantation, which had gone from sugar to indigo in 1733. Brossard de La Poupardière was also trading with Gaspard Councler (from the St.Gallen family of the «Kunkler») in Marseilles.
• In 1748, François Larguier was a merchant in Lyon. He married Jeanne Élisabeth Solicoffre (from the St.Gallen family of the «Zollikofer») and acquired the citizenship of Orbe in the Canton of Berne/Vaud. Larguier was the owner of a coffee plantation at Plymouth in the Jérémie region.
• Johann Ulrich Staub (1723–1775) from Sevelen in the Canton of St.Gallen joined the Dutch army in 1742 and was taken prisoner by the French in 1746 during the Siege of Brussels in the context of the War of the Austrian Succession. From France, where several of his ventures failed, he travelled to Saint-Domingue on a slaving-ship, from where he reported to his municipality of Sevelen that, in the Port-de-Paix area, he owned a coffee plantation with 100,000 coffee trees and a surface of «a square hour». The plantation could also be used for sugar and indigo production. 110 slaves had to work for him, he wrote, and if the price of coffee stayed the same, his plantation would bring him an annual revenue of 10,000 francs in 1772. After 30 years, he meant to visit his mother in his home village, but he died at the age of 54 in Saint-Domingue. He held the rank of a captain.
=> The following individuals with Swiss background were compensated or made attempts at compensation by the French government for loss of property, i.e. slaves, in the Haitian Revolution:
• Jean Antoine Abeille (1770-1826), died in Lausanne, Canton of Berne/Vaud
• Jeanne Madeleine Courlet (1769-1849) from Geneva
• Pierre Gautier (1763-1838) from Geneva (coffee business)
• Raymond Marie (1748-1825) from Geneva
• 1825-1830, Carl Friedrich Lutsdorf (1785-1835) from Berne, officer in French services, made complaints about the compensations to be paid to his father-in-law, César Rey de la Rousse (born 1775), former colonel in the service of the French in Saint-Domingue.
• In 1827, Joseph-Hubert Franc (1773-1858?) from Monthey in the canton of Valais (SW Switzerland) was informed in a letter (without name of sender) that he could not receive compensation for his plantation slaves, since, in 1789, they had been legally separated from the plantation grounds and could therefore only be considered as moveable objects under the Ordinance of 10th April 1826.
• Swiss officer Abraham-Rodolphe-Henri-Louis de Treytorrens for one third of a coffee plantation as heir to his aunt (Marie Letort, sister of the former owner) and of 1/12 of another sugar plantation as heir to his aunt Marie Letort (daughter of the former owner). Letort was the name of one of the two plantations.
=> The following merchants, trading companies, and banks with Swiss backgrounds were active in Saint-Domingue:
• «Louis Nadal & Le Roy», «Roque & Bonnafus», «Marcet et Corneille» from Geneva, based in Cap-Français
• Raymond-Marie Duperrier in Port-au-Prince
• members of the Zollikofer family from St.Gallen (E Switzerland)
• the Cuentz brothers from St.Gallen (E Switzerland), speculation on indigo
• Sebastian Kunz (1683–1734), whose son died at the age of 12 in Saint-Domingue
• «Marcuard, Beuther & Cie.» from Berne, creditors of a trading house active in Saint-Domingue
• In 1824, Grégoire de Riedmatten (1782-1846), from a prominent patrician family in the canton of Valais (SW Switzerland), officer in several Swiss regiments in the service of France, married Nathalie Taffanel de La Jonquière († Sion, 1862) from a family of colonial administrators (Nouvelle France), Saint-Domingue plantation owners and coffee merchants
• V. Gaspard Deonna (1746-1797) from Geneva was a master founder in Saint-Domingue.
• Michel Lullin de Châteauvieux (1754–1802), a banker from Geneva, died in Santo Domingo (Los Alcarrizos), where he probably lived as a planter. He had been married to Amélie Christine Pictet, also from Geneva. Their daughter Anne Lullin de Châteauvieux (1793–1868) was born in Lancy (Canton of Geneva) and spent her childhood in Santo-Domingo before returning to Geneva with her widowed mother at the age of 14.
=> Jean-Simon Chaudron (1758-1846) from France was sent to Switzerland at an early age to perfect his watch-making skills. In 1784, he left Paris for Saint-Domingue. In 1791 he got married in Cap Français to Geneviève Melanie Stollenwerck and took over the administration of his father-in-law’s sugar plantation. In 1793, he fled from the slave uprising to Philadelphia, where he associated himself with goldsmith Charles Billon.
=> Charles (Frédéric) Billon (1776–1822) from Le Locle worked as a silversmith 1793. He then moved to Philadelphia, where in 1797 he married Jeanne Charlotte Sophie Stollenwerck, born in 1781 in Cap Français in Saint-Domingue. His father-in-law was Pierre Hubert Stollwerck, watchmaker, coffee planter, slave trader, and merchant, who owned a coffee and indigo plantation on the Champagne River in Upper Plaisance, a parish in the north of Saint-Domingue. Pierre Hubert and his brother Chevalier (killed in the Haitian revolution) are said to have owned hundreds of slaves, some of whom they nursed back to health in a hospital before selling them at good profits.
=> The textile family businesses of the Zellweger in Trogen (Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, E Switzerland) imported «cotton de saint domingue».
=> The trading company «J.-R. Wirz & Cie.» was owned to a large degree by Hans-Rudolf Wirz from Basel and supported by the Parisian bank «Dufour, Mallet et Le Royer». Wirz became a great ship-owner and financier in Bordeaux, together with Nantes one of the great centres of the African slave-trade and the most important port for importing Saint-Domingue coffee. The Wirz company owned 13 ships and took part in four triangular expeditions between 1786–1789: two from the Senegal (one of which to Cayenne), one from the Gold Coast, one from Porto Novo, thus «exporting» more than six hundred slaves.
=> In 1791, the French aristocrat and Minister of Finance Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil fled to Switzerland, and in Solothurn he had a leisure walk built through the gorge dedicated to Saint Verena. Le Tonnelier de Breteuil owned sugar and coffee plantations in Saint-Domingue, which he had to sell later.
=> Two members of the Hollard family from Lausanne in the Canton of Berne/Vaud (NE Switzerland), Louis and Charles, in the context of the Haitian «debt of independence» demanded the repayment of 1000 francs from the French banking house «J. Lafitte et Cie.», which was centrally involved in financing the Haitian government of Jean-Pierre Boyer, who was struggling with the «ransom of independence».
=> Rudolf-Emanuel von Haller (1747–1833), banker, merchant, and politician from Berne, learnt from a trading partner that the slave rising had come to a head and that Port-au-Prince had gone up in flames. His trading partner advised him to gather as much sugar and coffee in Marseilles (in order to profit from rising prices later).
=> David Louis Agassiz (1737–1807), uncle of the racist and glaciologist Louis Agassiz (1807–1873), was a financier who left Switzerland for France in 1747 with his friend Jacques Necker in order to work in the Parisian branch of the Thellusson et Vernet bank (investments in colonial companies, links with the slave trade). Until 1770, David Louis Agassiz cooperated with Pourtalès of Neuchâtel via the company «Joseph Lieutaud et Louis Agassiz». Necker was to become Louis XVI’s Minister of Finance, whereas David Louis Agassiz left for Britain where he acquired a considerable fortune and anglicised his name to Arthur David Lewis Agassiz. He was naturalised by a private Act of Parliament in 1766. Agassiz dealt in cotton, silk, sugar, cocoa, coffee, tobacco, and cochineal and had business relations with France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, North and South America and the East and West Indies. In 1776, Francis Anthony Rougemont (1713–1788) from a Neuchâtel family joined the partnership under the name of «Agassiz, Rougemont et Cie.», a company which had close ties with «MM Pourtalès et Cie.» from Neuchâtel (ownership of plantations on Grenada, indiennes industry, banking). Arthur David Lewis Agassiz’s son Arthur Agassiz (1771–1866), cousin of the racist Louis Agassiz, took over the family business, and later formed a company «Agassiz, Son & Company». In 1823, Arthur Agassiz was working in Port-au-Prince (Haiti) with «Jean Robert Bernard et Cie.».
=> The Swiss trading company «Solier, Martin et Salavy», whose Marseilles activities are well documented for the years 1781-1787, received investments from Hunziker (Berne/Aargau), de Fellenberg and Manuel Frères (Berne), Deonna, Fazy-Claparede, Lullin, Plantamour, Milliet (Geneva), de Pourtalès (Neuchâtel), Jean-Theodore Rivier, de Charriere, de Severy, de Chandieu, de Gingins, Chavannes, de Constant, d’lllens, Polier (Lausanne), Ferdinand de Roverea (Rolle), de Saussure (Morrens), Jurgla, Perdonnet, Couvreu de Deckersberg (Vevey). Among the documents of the latter family, Couvreu de Deckersberg, a leaflet was found, advertising «the expedition of a vessel of some 400 tons, which will sail for the Guinea Coast to trade 400 to 450 blacks in order to transport them to the French Isle of Saint-Domingue on a Portuguese ship by permission granted by the French court to a company in Lisbon, which undertakes the equipping.»
=> One Stahel from Switzerland died in Saint-Domingue in 1786, having lived in Fort Dauphin since 1774. He left a house and land with a lime kiln. The authorities had to deal with his inheritance matter.
=> When Christoph Burckhardt-Merian (1740-1812), merchant and bailiff from Bâle, was confronted with fears that the Haitian Revolution could endanger trade and business, he answered that reports now showed a brighter picture. There were, it was true, still armed «negroes» roaming the woods, but Whites and Blacks were already celebrating their reconciliation with great festivities. The statement of account of the slave-ship «Le Conquérant» showed, still according to Burckhardt-Merian, that sales opportunities for «negroes» were favourable. Should unrest in Saint-Domingue continue, he argued, they would have to be sold in Suriname. The price «per negro» was 650-800 guilder, according to their looks.
=> In 1785, Ignace Ferrety, master-mason from Switzerland in Artibonite, Saint-Domingue, received his documents of naturalisation.
=> The following slave-ships equipped with Swiss investments or owned and fitted out by Swiss merchants sailed to Saint-Domingue in the context of triangular expeditions:
• In 1774–1775, Abraham Henry (1734–1793) from Neuchâtel and his father-in law Jacques Montet (1715–1784), as «J. Montet, Henry & Cie.» and later as «Montet, Henry et Bellamy», owned and fitted out on five expeditions the four slave-ships «La Vigilante» (Bordeaux => Gold Coast => Cap Français, 250/208 slaves), «Le Vigilant» (Bordeaux => Bight of Benin => Whydah => Badagry/Apa => Princes Island => Cap Français, 412/351), «Union» (1787/88, Bordeaux => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Cap Français, 275/250), 1789/90, Bordeaux => Gambia => Cap Français, 127/113), and «Nestor» (1790, Bordeaux => Gambia => Port-au-Prince, 169/150). The company dealt in «guinéss bleus», a special type of indiennes textiles, produced by «Porchet & Cie.», founded by< a merchant from Neuchâtel.
• In the 1780s, Louis d’lllens (1749-1819) from Lausanne and «Louis d’Illens et Cie», in association with Jacob van Berchem (1736–1794) and Augustin Roguin (1768–1827), imported coffee, indigo, and cotton directly from Martinique. They were also active in the slave trade by outfitting four slave-ships (1790–1792), namely «L’Helvétie» (1791/92, to Havana), «Pays de Vaud» (1790, Marseille => Moçambique => Cap Français, 579/485 slaves), «La Ville de Lausanne» (1790, Marseille => Moçambique => Cap Français, 796/550 slaves) and «Anaz» (1791, Marseille => Moçambique, left home port, then no further information). Jacob van Berchem alone was the organiser of the following slave voyage: «Marie Thérèse» (178384, Nantes => West Central Africa => St.Helena, unknown outcome).
• In 1751, Emmanuel Weis (1712–1780) from Basel, together with six associates, founded the maritime insurance company «Emmanuel Weis et compagnie». It existed until 1756. Together with his brother, he became active in the sugar, indigo and coffee business and speculation with Saint-Domingue as «Emmanuel et Nicolas Weis». In 1770, the company became co-owners (56/120) of the slave-ship «Prince Manuel», which carried out a slaving voyage from La Rochelle via West Central Africa to Cap Français (233 slaves embarked, 212 arrived). They commission two associates in Saint-Marc with collecting 42,000 £ of debts from the sale of the slaves of the expedition of the vessel «Début» to the coast of Angola. In 1774, the company included two sons of Emmanuel (Conrad-Achille and Marc-Jérémie) and became «Emmanuel et Nicolas Weis et fils». Emmanuel, who had at least three of his daughters baptised in Basel, retired from the company and died in 1780. In 1765, one daughter, Anne-Marie, had been married to Jacques-Allard Belin, who later became a merchant in Saint-Domingue. Emmanuel’s brother Nicolas died in 1793, leaving a fortune of 386,078 £. From 1779–1790, the Weis company participated in the following slaving expeditions: «Belle Pauline» (1783/84, Weis as owner, La Rochelle => Malembo => Cap Français, 624/568 slaves), «Suzanne», «Treize-Cantons» (1784, Weis as owner, La Rochelle => Loango => Port-au-Prince, 548/499 slaves; 1786/87, La Rochelle => Porto Novo => Cap Français, 332/283 slaves), «Jolie Henriette de Ribeaucourt» (1784, Trieste => Ile de France => Moçambique => Cap Français, 368/267 slaves) , «Iris» (1783, Weis as owner, La Rochelle => West Central Africa, no further record), «Elise» (1783/4, Weis as owner, La Rochelle => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Port-au-Prince, 386/351 slaves), «Nouvel-Achille» (1783/84, Weis as owner, La Rochelle => Gold Coast => Sao Tome => Cap Français, 414/355 slaves) , «Rochelais», «Réparateur» (1786/87, Weis as owner, La Rochelle => Porto Novo => Sao Tome => Port-au-Prince, 411/410 slaves; 1787/89, Weis as owner, La Rochelle => Porto Novo => Port-au-Prince, 514/512 slaves; 1790/91, Weis as owner, La Rochelle => Gold Coast => Port-au-Prince, 420/360 slaves), «Ville de Basle» (1786/87, Weis as owner, La Rochelle => Porto Novo => Port-au-Prince, 270/236 slaves). In 1788/89, the Weis company insured the triangular expedition of the vessel «Madame» (Nantes => Moçambique => Cape of Good Hope => Port-au-Prince, 586/405). The insurance contract provided that for each invalid slave, the owners of the vessel would be paid 500 £, which – considering a probable sales price of 400–450 £ – made it possible to gain from losses.
• The merchant house Pelloutier, Bourcard & Cie. (originally from Basel, with a Nantes branch) was active in the slave trade and ran the slave ship «Comte de Tréville», which three times transported slaves to Haiti: 1784/85, Nantes => Bight of Benin => Ouidah => Lagos => Princes Island => Saint-Marc, 367/313 slaves; 1786/87, Nantes => Port Novo => Princes Island => Saint-Marc, 411/350 slaves; 1789/90, Nantes => Port Novo => Princes Island => Léogâne (546/465 slaves). From 1770 onwards, Benoît Boucard from a patrician Basel family was a shareholder.
• Jean Daniel Schweighauser (1714–1781) from Basel moved to Nantes, where he became a banker and was involved in importing tobacco, sugar, coffee, tea and cotton from the Americas. In July, 1777, his oldest daughter, Marie-Rose, married the nineteen-year-old Pierre-Frédéric Dobrée (1757-1801) from a well known mercantile family in Guernsey. In 1778, Schweighauser informed his supplier of canvas Johann Friedrich Ketzler in Hirschberg (Silesia) that his merchandise was destined for the slave trade («traitte des Negre»). At Schweighauser’s death in 1781, his widow and Dobrée carried on the firm, and the latter was for a time U.S. consul in Nantes. Together they invested in commercial vessels and in the slave ships «Véronique» and «Le Succès». The «Véronique» sailed from Nantes to West Central Africa and transported 275 enslaved Africans to Saint-Marc (Saint-Domingue) on her first voyage (1787/88). On the second, 386 enslaved Africans were taken on board in Loango, but then there was a slave insurrection and the ship was burnt.
• Jean-Louis Baux (1726-1792) from Geneva and Jean-Étienne Balguerie (1756–1831), as the company «Baux, Balguerie & Cie» owned and fitted out the slave-ships.«Le Chasseur» (1789/91, Bordeaux => Moçambique => Ile de France => Cap Français, 434/300) and «Le Nélée» (1789, Bordeaux => Ambriz => Cap Français, 372/339);
• Georges Riedy and Benjamin Thurninger from Basel had their main office in Nantes, with branches in Brest and Lorient. 1783–1798 they fitted out ten slave-ships and supplied indiennes textiles for the slave trade. They had a branch on Saint-Domingue, which organised the sale of captured africans to the planters. They owned the following slave-ships: «Affriquain» (1783/84, Nantes => West Central Africa => St.Helena => Cabinda => Cap Français, 530/428 slaves), «Georges» (1788, Nantes => West Central Africa => St.Helena => Les Cayes, 608/553 slaves; 1789/90, Nantes => West Central Africa => St.Helena => Malembo => Cap Français, 484/440 slaves; 1792, Nantes => West Central Africa => St.Helena => Les Cayes, 440/400 slaves) , «Georgette» (1788/89, Nantes => Congo River => Les Cayes, 377/343 slaves; 1790, Nantes => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Cap Français, 305/278 slaves; 1791/1792, Nantes => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Malembo => Congo River => Saint-Marc, 336/306 slaves), «Espiège» (1790/91, Nantes => Gabon => Cap Français => Port-au-Prince, 37/28 slaves), «Jeune Auguste» (1791, Nantes => Gabon => Port-au-Prince, 264/200 slaves), «Passepartout» (1790, Nantes => shipwrecked, no slaves), «Petit Georges» (1791, La Rochelle => Africa => destination unknown, 310/266 slaves). Thurninger also invested in the slave-ship «Le Saint-Clément» (1784, Rochefort => Gold Coast => Cap Français, 175/150 slaves).
• Jean-Théodore Rivier from Geneva, as the company «Rivier et Cie.», invested in the slave-ship «L’Adèle», which in 1787/88 sailed from Le Havre via Cabinda to Port-au-Prince (299/272 slaves) and in 1789/90 from Le Havre via West Central Africa, St. Helena, and Loango to Cap Français (440/400). 1788–1790 He also invested in the slave ship «Conquérant» (1790, Le Havre => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Malembo => Rio Dande => Cap Français, 462/420).
• Augustin Simon from Bâle, son of a plantation owner in Saint-Domingue, together with Henry Roques, also from Bâle, founded an indiennes production company in Nantes to suplly the slaving-expedition launched from that port. They were active as «Simon & Roques» and were owners of the following slave-ships: «Duc d’Orléan» (1789/90, Nantes => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Léogâne, 332/302 slaves; 1791/92, Nantes => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Léogâne, 249/227), «Superbe» (1790/91, , Nantes => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Cap Français, 523/476 slaves), «Uranie» (1790/91, Nantes => Cabinda => Saint-Marc, 638/600 slaves), «Roi d’Ardres» (1791/1792, Nantes => Lagos => Prince Island => Port-au-Prince, 225/192), «Frasquita» (1791/92, Nantes => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Ambriz => Malembo, 406/405; 1793, Nantes => captured by Portuguese before embarking slaves).
• «La ville de Bâle» (1786) sailed from La Rochelle and was destined to transport part of its 236 slaves to Cap-Français. The Bâle-based company «Weiss et fils» had invested in the expedition.
• «Le Saturne» (1787/88, Nantes => Bight of Benin => Ouidah => Lagos => Saint-Marc, 353/320 slaves). A citizen from Vevey (Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland) held shares, the ship carried Swiss cheese from the County of Gruyère and indiennes textiles produced by the companies «Pelloutier» and «Bourcard & Cie.», originally from Bâle.
• Vessels with shares held by one of the three Burkhardt companies originally from Bâle («Christoph Burckhardt & Sohn zur Goldenen Müntz», «Christoph Burckhardt & Cie.», «Bourcard Fils & Cie.»): «Bonne Sophie» (1783/84, Honfleur => Malembo => Cap Français, 499/482 slaves), «Petit Mathurin» (1787/1789, Nantes => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Port-au-Prince, 176/160 slaves); «Véronique» (1787/1788, West Central Africa => St. Helena => Saint-Marc, 275/223), «Georges» (1789/90, West Central Africa => St. Helena => Cap Français, 484/440 slaves), «Roy d’Angole» (1789/1790, Le Havre => Malembo => Port-au-Prince, 549/500 slaves), «Neptune» (1791, La Rochelle => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Cap Français, 386/351 slaves), «Georgette» (1788/89, Nantes => Congo River => Les Cayes, 377/343 slaves; 1791/1792, Nantes => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Malembo => Congo River => Saint-Marc, 336/306 slaves), «Réparateur» (1790/91, La Rochelle => Gold Coast => Port-au-Prince, 420/360 slaves), «Necker» (1789/90, Nantes => West Central Africa => St.Helena => Port-au-Prince, 443/403 slaves; 1790, Bordeaux => Saint Louis => Port-au-Prince, 169/150 slaves; 1790/1791, Le Havre => Moçambique => port-au-Prince, 550/380 slaves),
• «Maréchal de Mouchy» (1783, Bodeaux => West Central Africa => St. Helena => Ile de France => Rio Dande => Cap Français, 960/810 slaves), in which expedition the company «Christoph Burckhardt & Sohn» held a share of 20,000£.
1.7.2 Military
=> 1721–1763, the 3rd company (approx. 200 soldiers) of the Swiss mercenary regiment of marine infantry «de Karrer» was stationed on Saint-Domingue as part of the French troops in the service of the «Compagnie des Indes». Other sources speak of 957 Swiss soldiers on Saint-Domingue. This has to be seen against a background of a total of some 1500 French troops in the whole of the French West Indies. The 5th company of the Karrer Regiment was raised in 1752 and sent to Saint-Domingue, too. In 1722, soldiers of the regiment are reported to have been stationed in Petit-Goâve, which briefly functioned as the capital of the French colony. They were commanded by Franz Adam Karrer (1672 – 1741) from Solothurn (NW Switzerland). In 1758, soldiers of that company secured the square where the revolutionary slave leader was burnt. Their commander then was Franz Josef von Hallwyl (1719-1785) from Solothurn, and the regiment was called «de Hallwyl» after him. The Swiss military presence was apparently so well known in Saint-Domingue that during the Haitian revolution, a fighting unit composed of free blacks recruited by the free men of colour to fight for pay was called «Les Suisses».
=> Johannes von Hallwyl (1688-1753) from a family active in the silk industry in the Canton of Aargau started his military carrer in 1708 in Holland, where he fought in a Swiss regiment for the Spanish Netherlands. In 1719, when his regiment was disbanded, he entered the services of the French and sailed to Martinique. In 1720, he became lieutenant of the 1st company of the Regiment de Karrer, stationed in Fort Royal. In 1724, he was captain-lieutenant and commander of the company of Swiss in Petit Goâve in Saint-Domingue. Whether or not he bought indigo, sugar and tobacco plantations in Saint Domingue from his military wages is subject of a debate. For sure he made good money by exporting colonial goods and importing cotton cloths and stockings (probably for his troops) and cheese. He went on leave to Europe in 1725, 1729, and 1734. In 1735, he was promoted to captain. In 1736, news of the death of his brother reached him, whereupon he decided to return to Switzerland as soon as possible. He was only partly able to liquidate his plantation property, and he left Saint-Domingue in January 1737 on the vessel «Labaleine» to arrive in Europe in May. He later managed to buy back the Swiss family castle near Lake Hallwil, where he took up residence in 1743 and had three children with Bernhardine von Diesbach (1728–1779), daughter of Franz Ludwig von Diesbach (1684– 1739), captain in Dutch services, and Johanna Dorothea Stürler (1697–1767), from a Bernese family linked to Holland and its East Indies. Until his death in 1753, Johannes von Hallwyl dealt in colonial goods from Saint-Domingue.
=> Anne-Marie Volant, niece of Colonel Louis-Ignaz Karrer (1711–1751) from Dornach in the Canton of Solothurn, married François-Joseph Cailly (1700–after 1762) in about 1730. Cailly was from Sainte-Croix-en-Plaine (dept. of Haut-Rhin), France. He joined the Regiment de Karrer as a cadet in 1719 when the regiment was formed. He became ensign in 1723 and was sent to Martinique. Three years later he was promoted captain-lieutenant in the colonial regulars and given command of the half-company stationed in Saint-Domingue. In 1730 he was involved in a quarrel there which resulted in the death of a fellow officer. Acquitted of murder, Cailly was sent to command the 100 Swiss in garrison at Louisbourg, Île Royale, where he arrived in 1732. He was still active in 1762, but nothing is known of him after the Regiment de Karrer was disbanded in 1763.
=> The following military personnel from Switzerland served in Saint-Domingue:
• David Philippe Legier de Treytorens, captain 1763–1768
• Joseph Pertuys from Grandvillars in the Canton of Fribourg served the 3rd Company of the Regiment de Hallwyl for 6 years before taking his leave in Port-au-Prince in 1759. He established himself as a vegetable merchant. In 1761, he was around 50 years old. He died in Port-au-Prince in 1768.
• Lieutnant Meguin, 1763–1764
• Benoît le Chambrier from a Neuchâtel family was a captain in the Regiment de Karrer at Cap Français on Saint-Domingue. He was sent on a diplomatic mission to Veracruz in Mexico in the 1740s.
• Jean Nerette, sergeant in 1764
• Frédéric Buscalia, captain of a privateer in the service of the French, demanded the post of a prison warden in Cap-Français in 1783
• The Cadosch family probably came from Oberhalbstein in the Canton of the Grisons. Pierre-Louis Cadosch was an officer at the service of the French, served in the Swiss Guards, received the order «Chevalier de Saint-Louis» in 1720, became a colonel in the infantry, and died in Paris in 1750. Nicolas Louis-Pierre de Cadouche (1706–1750) was a cavalryman and holder of the order «Chevalier de Saint-Louis», too. His brother Paul Louis Cadouche was an officer in the Karrer regiment, stationed in Saint-Louis in 1746, and then as lieutenant in Saint-Domingue (Fort-Dauphin in 1751, Le Cap in 1753). In the end he held the rank of a major. His son was Paul de Cadouche (or Cadush). He was born on Saint-Domingue, was an officer and owned half of a sugar plantation in the Quartier-Morin area.. In 1777, he sold 40 slaves for 2000 livres per «piece d’Inde». He was a member of the regional council of Saint-Marc and a deputy in the first Colonial Assembly. In 1790, he travelled to France and back to Saint-Domingue in July 1791. He became President of the second Colonial Assembly of August 1791 and fled to Jamaica the same year to escape the slave revolution (beginning 22/23 August 1791). His sugar plantation had gone up in flames. Until his flight from Saint-Domingue, however, he had still tried to pursue world politics, so to speak: To maintain slavery on Saint-Domingue and against the aspirations of the gens de couleur libres, he dreamed of a self-governing colony of Saint-Domingue under British rule. To this end, he addressed a letter to British Prime Minister William Pitt, asking him to prepare for an occupation of Saint-Domingue with a show of force by 14 warships and 12,000 men. In 1795, Paul de Cadouche died in Jamaica. His brother Eustache Cadouche was commander of the Quartier-Morin militia on Saint-Domingue in 1780. His son was Pierre Paul de Cadouche (1771-1801), a cavalry officer. Other members of the family born or living in Saint-Domingue were: Charles Henry Marie de Cadouche (*1754), Jean-François Cadouche (marriage to slave woman Catherine-Affiba), Marie-Magdeleine Cadouche (*1773), Rose Marie Aimée de Cadouche (*1774, compensated for the loss of her slaves in 1826), Marie Rose Anne Cadouche (compensated for the loss of her slaves in 1826). In Quartier-Morin (SE of Cap Haïtien) there is still a «Quartier Cadouche» today.
• Antoine Génaud, dit Vagner, ou Wagner, a captain without command of the gunners-bombardiers of Saint-Domingue 1734–1774.
• Jean-Samuel de Mellet (1766–1793) from Vevey (Canton of Berne/Vaud) entered the services of the French early. He was sent to Saint-Domingue as commander of a batallion to suppress the slave rising. Shortly after his arrival he was killed by enemy fire in Les Cayes.
=> In the 1780s, there was a «Compagnie des Suisses» at the service of the Comte d’Artois (from 1824 on the French king Charles X) in Saint-Domingue.
=> David-Philippe Treytorrens (1721-1788) from Yverdon (Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland) became immensely rich in the service of the Dutch West-India Company. He was a captain in Saint-Domingue. He had established himself there in 1742. He became rich by marrying Marie Letort, daughter of a wealthy planter. The French authorities confirmed the nobility he had already acquired in his home country. As a captain in the Swiss regiment Hallwyl in the service of France, he helped to suppress a slave rebellion in Saint-Domingue. Through his wife, he was related to a family of French plantation owners and politicians. In 1776, David Philippe returned to Yverdon in 1776 where the Villa d’Entremont was built for him. He returned to Switzerland with his two slave children François Mida and Pauline Buisson. Pauline was commented on by the German racist theoretician Friedrich Blumenbach as being «a negro woman of perfect beauty» and «an outstanding midwife with solid professional knowledge». His four cousins demonstrate a globalized family: Daniel and François lived in Batavia, Henri as a merchant in Marseille, and François-Marc as a plantation owner in Suriname. David-Philippe’s son was David de Treytorrens.
=> Antoine Génaud, aka Vagner or Wagner from Switzerland, captain of the gunner-bombadiers in Saint-Domingue 1761-1774, was 60 years old when he applied to receive the «croix de St. Louis». In 1734 he had entered the batallion of artillery de Marcé. He served there until 1745, and then entered as military policeman in the company d’Anjou. In 1747, he was promoted to lieutenant of the cavalry, which he served until 1756. He then served in Canada and then in Boston, from where he was transferred to Saint-Domingue, where he was employed to train the gunner militia in Port-de-Paix. He was wounded on the ship, was granted a pension and demanded it to be raised. He was so ill and destitute that he expressed his desire for his own death.
=> Marie-Joseph-Simon-Alexis von der Weid (1771-1802) was born in Fribourg. He entered the services of the French as cadet in the Swiss Regiment de Waldner in 1781 and was promoted to sub-lieutenant in 1788. He became captain in 1792 and joined the «bataillon du Rhin» the same year. He then became «aide de camp» of general Scheldon in 1793 and brigadier in 1799. In December 1801, he was designated to join the Leclerc expedition to Saint-Domingue to suppress the slave revolution. He took part in the battle of Crête-à-Pierrot and was provisionally promoted to brigadier-general by Leclerc on 12th June, 1802. He was stationed in Môle Saint-Nicolas and died of yellow fever on 9 August, 1802.
=> Jérôme Joseph Toussaint Valdony, born in Milan in 1762 in Mailand, a freemason, later moved to Poschiavo (Canton of the Grisons), and then in 1803 became Brigadier of the French expeditionary corps in Saint-Domingue under General Rochambeau.
=> In 1797, Joseph Mansell, an «able seaman from Switzerland», took part in the bloody mutiny on the Royal Navy frigate «HMS Hermione». The 32-gun vessel had sailed to Jamaica in 1793, served in the West Indies during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars, and participated in the British attack on Port-au-Prince in 1794.
=> Jean Baptiste Maur Ange Montanus Joseph Rodolphe Eugène Meyer de Schauensée (1765-1802) from Lucerne (central Switzerland) The patrician family had had their seat on Castle Schauensee near Kriens LU since 1749. Maurus Meyer von Schauensee was in the service of the French, then on the side of the Revolution. Under Lafayette, he was part of the French general staff before he was transferred to overseas commands: first in the Mediterranean, then as Chief of Staff of the French invasion troops on Saint-Domingue. He arrived in Saint-Domingue probably in February 1802 after asking for his younger brother Bernard Meinrad Fridalin Joseph Philippe Neree Jean Baptiste Meyer de Schauensée (1777–1860)to accompany himas aide-de-camp. In September 1802, he died of yellow fever, whereas his brother Bernard returned to Europe to become French brigadier general.
=> Pierre François Joseph Amey (1768–1846) from Albeuve in the Canton of Fribourg entered French services and became lieutenant in the Swiss Regiment Châteauvieux in 1788. After a long and eventful military carreer (Army of the Rhine, Legion «Côte de la Rochelle, Alpine Legion) he accompanied General Leclerc as adjutant on his expedition to Saint-Domingue in 1802.
=> The 3rd Helvetian (Swiss) Half-Brigade had been stationed on Corsica in 1802. On account of a capitulation (treaty) with France, 635 soldiers and officers from Switzerland and other European regions (Poland, Austria, Hungary, Piemont) had to board the man-of-war «Le Redoutable» in Ajaccio on 4th February 1803, in order to reinforce the French troops fighting the rebellious slaves in Saint-Domingue. The 1st batallion of the half-brigade under the command of Captain Jean Gaspar (Hans Kaspar) Wipf from the city of Schaffhausen (N Switzerland) arrived in Port-au-Prince on 5th April 1803 and was immediately integrated into the French infantry. In the end, only 11 men survived the yellow fever and the fighting. They were taken prisoners by the British and transferred to Jamaica.
=> Jean-Frédéric Perregaux (1744–1808) from Neuchâtel was an officer in the service of the French and started his career in finance in 1765 in Paris. In 1800, he was given a seat on the board of directors of the Banque de France. In 1802, he financially supported the Leclerc expedition to reconquer Saint-Domingue from the revolutionary slaves. From 1801–1803, that expedition was also financed by the Parisian bank Hottinguer & Cie., founded by Hans Konrad (or Jean-Conrad) Hottinger or Hottinguer (1764–1841) from Zurich, who was also on the board of directors and had supported the French Saint-Domingue planters during the slave-uprising.
=> Maximilian Niklaus Gatschet (1782–1803) from a patrician family from Payerne and Berne was born in Frauenfeld and baptised in Berne. He fought with the Swiss auxiliary troops against the Haitian Slave Revolution and fell. He was a cousin of Niklaus Samuel Rudolf Gatschet (1765–1840), from whom
Heinrich von Kleist rented the little house on the island «Scherzliginsel» in Thun. It is likely that this was – together with his imprisonment in the Fort de Joux, where Toussaint Louverture had died – the inspiration for Kleist’s novella «Die Verlobung in St. Domingo» (Betrothal in San Domingo).
=> In 1757, Joseph Comte, aka L’Eveille, subject of the bishop of Bâle, soldier of the company de Courpon in Saint-Domingue, applied for a leave.
1.7.3 Ideological
=> In 1803, the Swiss almanac «Le véritable messager boîteux de Berne et Vevey» published an image called «The cruelty of the negroes», which showed four black rebels besetting a white planter with knives, thus clearly apportioning blame in the ongoing Haitian revolution.
=> For Swiss glaciologist and racist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), the Haitian Revolution was not a beacon a freedom and democracy, but the great ominous historical warning and bugbear. In a letter to his mother, he wrote in 1846: «Be not tempted by false humanity to tie the future of the white race to that of the black. Because then, the result will merely be a recurrence of the scenes of Saint-Domingue.»
=> Swiss neuroanatomist, psychiatrist and eugenicist Auguste Forel (1848–1931) reported from his trip through the Caribbean in 1878 (voyage from Jamaica to Barbados to St. Lucia) that he could no longer stand «the stench of the negroes» in his cabin and that there were a lot of «negroes and mulattoes» from Haiti on the boat, «whose childish chatter (in French) made him break out laughing.»
=> Henri de Saussure (1829-1905), Swiss mineralogist and entomologist from a prominent Geneva family, undertook a research trip through the Caribbean in 1854-1856. With admiration, he commented on the fact that the French consul had managed to make the Haitians resume their payments of the «independence ransom». The letters which he sent home (which were probably meant as the basis for a later publication) show a vicious racism and a marked euro-centricity:
«The negro has no idea what it means to fix something; he never brushes nor cleans anything; if there happens to be a hole somewhere, nobody tries to repair it – one might think that there is no remedy at all for this evil.»
«Nothing is funnier than listening to a senior official in golden galloons, how he speaks the rather limited and naïve language of the negro.»
«If you talk of a Minister or a general in Switzerland, you know what that means. Here, the former is an orang-utan, the latter a capuchin monkey.»
For other members of the de Saussure family, see «3.1 Anti-Black Racism».
1.8 Jamaica
=> 1719-1734, the city state of Berne as well as the Berne-based banking houses of «Malacrida» and «Samuel Müller» held shares in the speculative South Sea Company. With 253,000 £, Berne was the biggest single investor. The South Sea Company had slave deposits on Jamaica, and it shipped 1,230 slaves from Jamaica to America in the first year of its existence. All in all, it shipped 20,000 slaves from Africa. Those that were left in the docks of Jamaica to die were called «refuse slaves».
=> Hans Rudolf Zeller (1639-1700) and Hans Heinrich Hauser (1638-1683) from Zurich were Anglican clergymen in Jamaica. They probably owned slaves and Zeller complained about the Quakers› antislavery activities.
=> One Robert Raillard (1660–1691) from Bâle died in Jamaica.
=> Medical doctor Jeremias Müller from Bâle owned a few slaves in Jamaica and was killed by one of them in 1670. Before Jamaica he had lived in Virginia and Brazil for 14 years.
=> Augustine Prévost (1723-1786) from Geneva was an officer in Sardinian, Dutch and British services. In 1761, he fought in the sieges of Martinique and Havana. After the Seven Years War, he was stationed in Kingston as Inspector General in the rank of a lieutenant colonel. In 1774, he was promoted to the rank of colonel.
=> Pierre Cottier from Rougement (Canton of Berne/Vaud) was a student of theology in Berne, where the government stated in 1753 that he would be admitted to the clergy on account of his propriety. However, he preferred emigration to the Americas around 1750. He was said to have died around 1757 on an unknown plantation on Jamaica.
=> Johann Bernhard Rätzer (born 1726) was a goldsmith. He was in the English services as engineer-captain of the artillery in Jamaica. He was registered as a captain and island engineer in 1774. He may have been the same Bernhard Ratzer who was said to have been «German» and to have been recruited by the Swiss engineer James (Jacques) Prévost into the 60th American Regiment on Foot. He drew the famous «Ratzer Plan» or Map of New York City in 1769.
=> In 1785, the «Appenzeller Calender», an annual publication with astronomical and agricultural information, entertaining texts and national and international news headquartered in Trogen (Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, E Switzerland), contained a lengthy «Historical Description of Kingtston, a city in America – in letters». The author, possibly from Lower Saxony in Germany, is rather put off by the wealth and splendor of the colonists and gives a critical rendering of a slave market, organized after the arrival of a French slaver with 550 «humans» from the Guinea Coast. He concludes that the colonists all die young on account of their unhealthy lifestyles and wishes he were home again, eating potatoes rather than pineapples.
=> Of the 635 soldiers and officers from Switzerland and other European countries who fought in Saint-Domingue in 1803 to put down the slave revolution, only about 11 survived. Some of them were taken prisoners of war by the British and transferred to Jamaica: Captain Albert Deflue, Sub-lieutenant Leonard Tremp, and Sub-lieutenant Frederic Rutz.
=> Caspar Landolt von Oehrlingen from the Canton of Zurich entered the British Regiment of York Light Infantry Volunteers stationed in Jamaica. His death there was reported in 1817. Johannes Meister from Andelfingen (also Canton of Zurich) had also served in that regiment.
=> Captain Louis Correvont was – according to the diaries of Lady Maria Nugent (1771?-1834) «an old officer and a Swiss by birth», possibly from Yverdon in the Canton of Berne/Vaud. In Jamaica, he served in the 3rd West India Regiment. He was first recorded in 1781 (as ensign), then in 1782 (as lieutenant) and then again in 1793 (on half pay). In 1783, he married Elizabeth Rennalls (1765 – 1817), whose father was a merchant and factor. Louis Correvont owned the coffee plantation Orange Grove in the County of Middlesex (Parish St. Catherine), north of Spanishtown. In 1809, after his death, the «estate of Lewis Correvont» was recorded with 60, in 1811 with 35, in 1812 with 34, in 1816 with 50 («heirs of Louis Correvont») and in 1818 with 60 slaves. In 1820, one John Powell Correvont (1786-1837), Louis‹ eldest son, was recorded as joint owner of 37 slaves with Mary Elizabeth Hocker, his sister. He was a captain and a plantation and slaveowner. In 1822, he was recorded as the sole owner of the plantation. Later recordings: 1823 (38 slaves), 1824 (52), 1826/1827/1828 (42), 1829 (43), 1830 (39), 1831(36), 1832 (40). On 15th February 1836, John Powell Correvont was compensated for his 35 plantation slaves with the sum of £713 3s 0d and for his four house slaves with £106 8s 11d.
=> John Campbell, 2nd Marquess of Breadalbane (1796–1862), Scottish nobleman, Liberal politician, and Rector of Glasgow University 1840–1842, was awarded compensation of £6,630 for 379 enslaved people on his family’s Hope estate in St Andrew, Jamaica, on 25 July 1836. He died in Lausanne, Switzerland.
=> Henri de Saussure from Geneva (see 1.5.3) took a trip to Jamaica in 1854. On the boat, he made the acquaintance of a planter from Cuba, who owned 300 slaves. De Saussure thought him «a great and good-natured guy». In Cuba, de Saussure commented on Jamaica and Haiti:
=> Auguste Forel (1848–1931) from Morges in the Canton of Vaud (see 1.5.3) commented on Jamaica during his trip through the Caribbean in 1878: «Order on the island is exemplary, at least externally. But inside, the Negroes are hardly any better than anywhere else.»
=> When the racist «scientist» Charles Davenport (1866-1944) in his book Race Crossing in Jamaica (1929) tried to prove that «…Whites are relatively swift and accurate, the Blacks are slow but accurate, while the Browns are slow and inaccurate…», he based himself on the authority of Louis Agassiz (1807-1783) from Môtier (Canton of Fribourg, NW Switzerland). The Swiss professor of zoology and geology at Harvard had advocated the same theories of the purportedly fatal consequences of racial mixing in A Journey in Brazil (1868). Davenport in his turn was used as an authority by the Nazi racial hygienists and quoted extensively in their 1936 standard work Menschliche Erblehre und Rassenhygiene (Baur, Fischer, Lenz, 1936).
=> English abolitionist George Thompson (1804-1878), in his three lectures on British and colonial slavery, had this to say on the 1832 slave revolt in Jamaica:
«How do we speak of individuals struggling for liberty all over the world? – of a Tell in Switzerland, – a Byron in Greece, – a Bolivar in Mexico, –a Brutus at Rome, – a Lafayette at Paris? And let me remember, before we answer this question, that the rebels of Jamaica were more enslaved, more brutalised, –had more insults and wrongs to complain of, and were a million times more oppressed than ever were the Swiss, the Greeks, the Mexicans, the Romans, or the French. (Great applaus)»
1.9 Montserrat
=> From 1772 to 1796, Peter Thelluson (1737-1797), a Swiss banker, entrepreneur and slave-owner from Geneva, owned a share in Windmill Estate in Montserrat.
1.10 St. Vincent & The Grenadines
=> David de Duveluz, from Bournens in the Canton of Berne/Vaud, living in London, creditor of Patrick Wilkie, to whom he sold two plantations on the island of Saint-Vincent in 1780.
=> David de Duveluz (1725–1808) from Bourmens, Canton of Berne/Vaud, was living in London as a merchant and was registered in 1780 as creditor to Patrick Wilkie with 10’000 £, to whom he therefore sold two sugar plantations called Ratho Mill and Brebner (around 20 slaves) on the island of St. Vincent.
1.11 Suriname
For the chapter on Suriname, I owe a great deal to the profound knowledge and the persistent research activities of Dr. Klaus Stuckert, researcher and former lecturer on Caribbean literature (Wetzikon ZH, Switzerland).
=> Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), from the original Bâle branch of her family, left a few critical remarks on slavery during her stay in Suriname (1699-1701) in her work Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium. However, she never questioned slavery as such, and used indigenous and African slaves for her research and expeditions. She herself enslaved an indigenous woman during her voyage back to Holland in order to obtain first-hand botanical information. The details of this indigenous woman’s life beyond her servile captivity on the journey to Amsterdam were not documented by Merian and are therefore unknown.
=> Marx Friedrich Högger (b. 1733) from St.Gallen died in Suriname. In 1771, he married Katharina Spruyt in Amsterdam. They had one son, Jeremias Högger (b. 1773 in Amsterdam).
=> One Charles Crousaz from a patrician family from Lutry (Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland) served the Queen of Hungary as a distinguished officer, then entered the services of the Dutch and in 1750, as General von Sparke’s general adjutant and as lieutenant colonel of his regiment, he sailed to Suriname.
=> Frédéric-Louis Allamand (1736–1803) from Payerne in the Canton of Berne / Vaud was a son of François-Benjamin Allamand and Marie Madeleine de Treytorrens. In 1749, he moved to Holland, where his uncle was professor of philosophy in Leiden. In 1753, he graduated as a medical doctor, and in 1760 he became a marine surgeon in the Dutch navy. He travelled to Suriname and Guyana, published a study on syphilis (which was thought by some to have originated in the West Indies) in 1770 and described a number of of new plant species he had discovered in the Dutch West Indies. Later he became a doctor at the court of Catherine II in Saint-Petersburg and returned to Leiden in 1793.
=> Land surveyor François-Louis-Frédéric Bermont (1745 – after 1784) and Pierre-Antoine Bermont’s brother, members of a Huguenot family from Echallens (Canton of Vaud), died in Paramaribo (Suriname) in Dutch service in 1752 and 1751 respectively. In 1751, a command under Lieutenant Colonel Bermont departed to complete the Rama-Saramacca road. Lieutenant Colonel Bermont is mentioned with engineering work («Oranje Weg») with the help of 20 slaves.
=> Johann Heinrich (Jan Hendrik) Hottinger (1751– 1823) from Zurich became a military engineer and cartographer in the service of the Dutch in 1777 and a captain in 1788. He sojourned in Suriname from November 1786 to March 1787 and made several maps, especially of the Comewyne and the Suriname River. He went on to Curaçao the same year and depicted the fortifications of Willemstad, and he also worked on Sint Eustatius. He retired from Dutch service in 1795 to enter the service of the British, but he must have returned in the service of the Kingdom of The Netherlands in 1814, where he retired with the rank of Major General in July 1817.
=> According to a 1756 work contract, Johan Casper Roost from Beringen in the Canton of Schaffhausen (Switzerland), travelling free of passage to Suriname with a ship yet to be designated, was to serve for a period of six years as surgeon on the plantations Eyland (2500 acres, sugar, on Paulus Creek), Peperpot (Commewijne district, sugar, cocoa, then coffee, 51 slaves at emancipation, neighbouring plantation of La Liberté) and Beaumont (4000 acres, sugar). These plantations all belonged to Carel Baron van Essen tot Helbergen, an absentee landowner.
=> Daniël Roguin (1691–1771) from a ptrician family from Yverdon in the Canton of Berne / Vaud lived in Suriname for several years at the service of the Dutch army, before establishing himself in 1742 as a banker in Paris. From the same family came Auguste Roguin (1768–1827), who was associated with his uncle Louis d’Illens in Marseille and became part of «D’Illens, van Berchem, Roguin et Cie.», a company active in the slave-trade.
=> In 1770, Judith Coin from Echallens in the Canton of Berne/Vaud (W Switzerland), widow of Vulle Nuhouser, inherited 1000 Dutch guilder from the property of her husband in Suriname.
=> In 1784, Théophilus Cazenove (1740–1811) from a Huguenot Geneva family, son of Théophile Cazenove (1708–1760), was registered as the owner of plantation St Domingo (375 acres) in Suriname. It once belonged to Volkert van Jever (1706-1774), his father-in-law. In 1827, it was just a «houtgrond» and without owner.
=> In the 1790s, Bernhardin Peyer from the Canton of Schaffhausen (N Switzerland), mercenary captain in the service of the Dutch in Suriname, died in Paramaribo. An agreement was reached over his heritage between the families Peyer and von Waldkirch. Two members of the latter, Franz (1771-1813) and Johann Conrad von Waldkirch (1784-1805) from Schaffhausen, were colonists in Surinam. One Johann Heinrich von Waldkirch was in the service of the Dutch Westindian Company and died in Suriname in 1789. One Johannes von Waldkirch from Schaffhausen died in Suriname in 1788.
=> Philippe de Chambrier (1701-1756) from Neuchâtel (NW Switzerland), chief engineer in the rank of a lieutenant-colonel, was given command of the Dutch colony of Suriname in 1742.
=> In 1859, Swiss chocolate factory Maestrani (St.Gallen, E Switzerland) imported cocoa beans from Suriname, where slavery was abolished as late as 1863.
=> François-Marc de Treytorrens, cousin of David-Philippe de Treytorrens, owned the sugar plantation Goed Accoord on the Boven-Commewijne River in Suriname. In 1737, the 3500 acre sugar plantation was registered as belonging to the widow Treytorrens.
=> An uncle of Auguste-Frédéric de Meuron’s (1789-1852) from Neuchâtel was a merchant in Suriname.
=> Gabriel Gottlieb Jakob Furer (1825–1866) from Obersimmental in the Canton of Berne died in Paramaribo. He had been a merchant and a missionary.
=> In 1747, the governor of Suriname, Johan Jacob Mauricius (1692-1768), launched a project of German and Swiss settlers to colonise the territory. In Switzerland, the city of Bâle was chosen for recruitment and the colonists were promised 10 slaves per family. In 1748, ten families or 93 people from Bâle set out for Suriname, but the project by Louis de Bussy, who was a physician from Switzerland in Paramaribo, was a failure and many of the emigrants, who had to create a village called «Carolinenburg», succumbed to maroon attacks or tropical diseases. An 1807 map of Suriname (Christlieb Quandt, Nachricht von Suriname und seinen Einwohnern sonderlich den Arawacken, Warauen und Karaiben, … Goerlitz, 1807) still shows five «Schweizer Dörfer» (Swiss villages) between Carolinenburg on the Suriname River and Post «7 Provinces» on the Saramaka. River.
=> Beat Ludwig Braun of Berne took part in all the expeditions in the West Indies from 1738–1744 under the British Admiral Edward Vernon (1684-1757). This took place in the context of the War of Jenkins› Ear (known as Guerra del Asiento), which was a conflict between Britain and Spain over the lucrative slave-trading contracts with the South Sea Company. The campaigns in which Beat Ludwig Braun took part included landing at Port Royal, the British fleets stronghold on Jamaica, the capture of Porto Bello (Panama), the assault on Cartagena de las Indias, and the capture of Guantánamo Bay on Cuba. From 1750-1757, Braun was in Suriname.
=> Nicolas Laurent Robatel (±1751-1817) from Noréaz in the Canton of Fribourg was commander in Paramaribo (Suriname) in the rank of a colonel in the Dutch corps of engineers. He was first married to Elisabeth Dandiran, daughter of David François Dandiran from Geneva (see below).
=> In 1774, Abraham Moiseszoon Perret-Gentil (1747–1824) from Le Locle in the Canton of Neuchâtel (then part of Prussia) joined the Dutch military, became captain of the marine regiment Bentinck and soon left for Suriname. He got married in 1776 in Paramaribo. In 1793, he took over the command of the garrison of Curaçao. In 1797, he was stationed in Saint Domingue for a short time, probably because the Dutch cooperated with the French. At the end of his career, he was brigadier general of the French army. He died in Lyon.
=> Abraham Moiseszoon Perret-Gentil’s son Claude François Frederic Perret-Gentil (1777-1818) was an officier on Curaçao from 1796 on and became the founding father of the Curaçao branch of the Perret-Gentil family.
=> In 1772, the Dutch lost control over the rebellious maroons after a four-year war. In 1773, Holland sent an armada with 800 men under the command of Colonel Louis Henri Fourgeoud (1708-1779) from Bussigny-près-Lausanne (Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland) to put down the rebellion. They fought until 1777.
=> In 1775, Swiss captain Meylan from the Vallée de Joux (Canton of Berne/Vaud) led a military patrol against the village of Gabo Saby, which was under the command of Boni, the leader of black resistance in Suriname.
=> In 1777, the «Appenzeller Calender», an annual publication with astronomical and agricultural information, entertaining texts and national and international news headquartered in Trogen (Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, E Switzerland), contained a lengthy description of slavery and the slave trade, including information on the triangular trade, investments, living conditions in the West Indies, plantation life expectancy and slave prices in Brazil, Suriname and at the Cape of Good Hope. The «Appenzeller Calender» had been founded by Johannes Tobler from Rehetobel, who in 1736 had emigrated to the Carolinas to become a slave-owner himself. Tobler remained co-editor until 1754. Tobler’s wife Anna died in New Windsor in 1768, but at least eight of their children went on to establish a lineage in the area and several of his descendants remain.
=> During the continental blockade, a large-scale embargo against British trade decreed by Napoleon and valid for Switzerland, too, the Zurich authorities in 1810 published a list of colonial goods which would be subject to this embargo. among them were: long-fibre cotton from Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and Demerara, cotton from the Levant imported across the sea and imported overland.
=> In 1810, the cantonal authorities of Zurich dealt with a number of complaints from local trading houses on account of the conflict between France and Britain («continental blockade») which led to sequestrations. The goods concerned were, among others, long fiber cotton from Suriname.
=> In his letters, plantation administrator Marc Warnery (1797-1836) from Morges in the Canton of Vaud (see below), mentions a tightly-knit network of Swiss countrymen and -women in the colony of Suriname: Edouard Caliste Cusin (surgeon, member of the court on St. Eustacius 1835–1837, † 1838), the Guignards (Antoine, carpenter, and his wife Charlotte from Payerne VD), the Guigaud family, one Frédéric from Lugano in the Canton of Ticino (captain of an army division), Mr. Jacot from La Chaux-de-Fonds (watchmaker), Mr. Meyer from Aubonne VD (first apothecary, then surgeon), Mr. Perret-Gentil (colonial administrator) and the Bertoud family (with Mr. Berthoud, a cousin of one of the Guigauds, a merchant and plantation owner in Paramaribo, see below).
=> In 1837, Johann Rudolf Passavant from Basel, superintendant of the Moravian mission in Suriname since 1829, reported that slaves in Suriname had become restless because they had heard about slavery emancipation in the British colonies of 1834. At the same time, he was relieved that the slaves did not understand English. The Moravians› missionary principles towards the slaves was expressed in 1850 like this: «We do not want to liberate the slaves, who were entrusted to us, from their status nor do we want to make them restless, but our aim is the opposite, which is that they should become more useful, happier and more satisfied with their status determined by God.» In 1836, according to a slave register, Passavant bought two male slaves, Charles and Candase, from Baron van Heeckeren, the governor of Suriname, and sold them again the same day. After the slave rebellion in the Nickerie in 1837, Passavant reported having been asked by the governor to accompany the expedition of 36 troops and 10 «criminals» back to their plantations to teach all the slaves on those plantations to forget «the false worship by which they were seduced» and to teach them the true gospel. Passavant had in vain tried to convert the leader of the rebellion on several visits in prison. In 1844, a mulatto called John Claver stated before a British Judge in a mixed court in Surinam that he had been the slave of Mr. Passavant, who had left him to be sold by the other missionaries when he left the colony.
=> In 1850, Johann Ludwig Gutmann from the Canton of Zurich, was in the service of the 27th Battalion of Infantry stationed in Paramaribo.
=> Between 1791 and 1796, mercenary Captain Bernhardin Peyer from the Canton of Schaffhausen died in Paramaribo.
=> Pierre François Rod (born 1759) from Ropraz (Canton of Berne/Vaud) lived in Paramaribo, was noted in 1792 as «lieutenant» and married one Johanna Henrietta in 1797. Her father Carel Casimir Kleijnhans had owned the plantation Elisabethshoop on the Commewijne River (in Sranan Tongo called Kreinhansi), where he died in 1786. In 1793, Rod was registered in the military defense system of the colony as a sous-lieutenant and adjutant in the «Lyf Gompagnie Letter A» of the First Infantry Bataillon.
=> In 1846, a settlement was reached between the siblings Sophia and Emil Paravicini from the Canton of Zurich concerning the properties in Surinam of their brother Major General Paravicini.
=> Simon le Chevalier de Rochefort came from a noble Neuchâtel family. He was an officer in the service of the Prince of Orange and Nassau, and a captain in the Regiment Chambrier. His nephews were Jean-François le Chevalier de Rochefort (born in Amsterdam 1770) and his brother Rodolphe le Chevalier de Rochefort (1777-1865). Together these made a fortune by creating a merchant house in Amsterdam and by importing sugar. Rodolphe worked his way up to the head of the trading house «J.J. Poncelet & Son», which also operated some ships as a shipping company. «J.J. Poncelet & Son» mainly did business with Central and South America, specifically with Suriname, where in 1793, they or a fund under J.J. Poncelet owned plantations Elisabeths Hoop on the Commewyne, Vlaardingen on the Cottica and Katharinenburg on Cabbes Creek. In 1801, Rodolphe married Jeanne Poncelet (1770–1844), daughter of his boss Jean Jacques Poncelet. Thus, after the death of his father-in-law, Rodolphe became owner of a number of plantations, among them Elisabeth’s Hoop. In 1819, «J.J. Poncelet & Son» owned plantation Spieringszorg (650 acres, coffe & cotton), and in 1820 plantations Aarendsrust (1200 acres, sugar), Nieuw-Weergevouden (1000 acres, sugar), Lugtenberg (coffee), Spieringszorg (650 acres, cotton), Liefdenshoek (1000 acres, coffee), and Jacobusdaal (500 acres, cotton). In 1829, Rodolphe le Chevalier de Rochefort became chairman of the «Koninklijk College Zeemanshoop» in Amsterdam, founded in 1821on the initiative of some 18 merchant navy captains. In 1837, he was co-founder of the Dutch Railway Company (HIJSM).
=> In 1770, Louis Vullijamozah bought plantation Smalkalden in Suriname, which was located close to Accaribo (in Swiss hands at that time), and renamed it Saint Saphorin. The director of the 300 acres plantation, which produced coffee with 62 slaves, was Louis Perret. Saint Saphorin is a village in the Vevey/La Tour de Peilz area of the Canton of Berne/Vaud, and the name Vullijamozah (also spelt Vuillamoz or Vouillamoz) is found in that region of Switzerland. However, it remains to be established whether the 1770 owner and/or director of Saint Saphorin had a Swiss background. In 1784, one J.J. Polak was registered as owner.
=> In 1720, Isaac Tourton (1678-1742) from a Geneva family, brother of Jean André Tourton(1676–1759) and son of Amsterdam banker Jean Tourton (1649–1702), was the owner of plantation Nieuwzorg. After a plan to build a new large fort at the confluence of the Suriname and Commewijne Rivers was discarded by the governor and council of Suriname, they instead invited Isaac Tourton to make a design for a fort to replace Zeelandia. Tourton submitted a project of an entirely new fort in 1710 and an improved version in 1712, but this idea only took shape after a French expedition under captain Jacques Cassard invaded Surinam in 1712 in the context of the War of the Spanish Succession. It was not until 1734 that Isaac Tourton managed to get his hands on the construction of Fort Nieuw Amsterdam. For its construction, a workforce of 40 slaves were used in 1734, and 150 in 1735.
=> Plantation owners, co-owners, administrators or directors in Suriname with Swiss backgrounds:
• In 1700, Pieter Miville from Switzerland (possibly from Basel) came to Suriname as a carpenter. In 1714, he started the plantation Salzhalen on Commetewanekreek. It had only few slaves. He got married to Maria Jansz in the same year. His wife was a mulatto and a slave from Saint Nevis and had been manumitted in 1713. She was the half-sister of the famous Afro-Surinamese coffee plantation owner Elisabeth Samson (1715—1771). Pieter Miville died in a slave rising, and Salzhalen later became an important coffee plantation. It bordered on the sugar plantation Hoyland (see Faesch family).
• Plantation Accaribo was bought by father Jean and son Pierre Chevalier at the end of the 17th century. Plantation La Liberté was started by Pierre Chevalier. Both plantations remained in the hands of the Chevalier family and their heirs until 1770. Jacques Christoffel Baron Hogguer (1697-1738) from a St.Gallen family, son of Daniel Hogger und Salomé Rietmann (owners of plantation Helvetia in Berbice) had married Sara Chevalier (1701–1750), Pierre Chevalier’s daughter, in Amsterdam and thus became co-owner of La Liberté through his wife, who owned 1/8 of the plantation and probably inherited another 1/8 after the death of her mother. When his widow Sara Hogguer-Chevalier died in 1750, their son Daniël Vrijheer Hogguer Graaf van Bignan (1732-1793) became co-owner of plantation La Liberté. Around 1770, Nicolas David Guisan (appr. 1727-1781, in Suriname since 1759) from the Canton of Berne/Vaud and clergyman Amédée Jaques Sugnens (1737-1773) from Moudon (Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland) bought one half each of the sugar plantations Accaribo and La Liberté and of Leliendaal (coffee, 1000 acres, 187 slaves). One Francois George Tschiffely (Chifféli/Cheffelli) from La Neuveville (Canton of Berne) had been director of plantation La Liberté since 1748. Under Guisan and Sugnens, he became the main administrator of all three plantations. He had taught Jean Samuel Guisan (1740–1801) from Avenches (Canton of Berne/Vaud), who later made a career in Cayenne, how to administer a plantation. In 1781, Nicolas David Guisan and Rosa Du Toit-Sugnens, Amédéé’s sister, each owned half of Leliëndaal and La Liberté. In his last will of 1781, Nicolas David Guisan decreed that a certain Nanetta Gerarda (ca. 1771-1852), whom he recognized as his legitimate daughter, was to be freed. She was probably the child of a liaison with a slave called Johanna la Liberté, his «housekeeper». Abraham Moiseszoon Perret-Gentil (1747 – 1824) and Elisabeth Jacoba Lijnslager (1744 – 1804) became Nanetta’s foster parents. In 1797, Nanetta married Gerrit van der Kolk in Amsterdam.
• Women were able to participate in slavery and colonial affairs just like men: Merchant Sara Chevalier (1701–1750) combined different activities. She was born in Paramaribo and in 1738 became the widow of the immigrant merchant Jacques Christoffel Hogguer. She held an account in the Wisselbank from at least 1742 until 1767 (it may have passed to her heirs). She was engaged in many different types of businesses over these years. She ran several plantations in the Dutch West Indies and as a consequence also engaged in the slave trade in Africa. She engaged in the Mediterranean trade (including to Genoa, Cartagena and Marseilles), and dealt with merchants and bankers in Bordeaux and London.
• In 1793, sugar plantation L’Espérance on the Suriname River (opposite plantation Palmeneribo in the hands of the Faesch family) was noted as being the property of P.D. Jenatsch and C.S. de Sausyn (who inherited the plantation via his wife). P.D. Jenatsch was Colonel Paul «Paulus» Jenatsch III aka de Jenatsch (1725–1791), born in Davos, from a Grisons (Canton Graubünden) family, which originally came from Samedan in the Upper Engadine Valley and which in the 18th century provided many officers for the Dutch, Genovese and Venetian armies. In 1759, at the time of his marriage to Marie Huijghens (born 1738), Paul Jenatsch served as captain-lieutenant in the Grisons regiment of Swiss Baron Heinrich Sprecher von Bernegg. Jenatsch’s wife Marie Huygens was the grand-daughter of Johan de Coetier, Governor of Suriname 1718–1721, who was the first owner of L’Espérance. In 1774, a document in Holland recorded Jenatsch’s power of attorney concerning a plantation in Suriname, probably L’Espérance. In 1775 Paul de Jenatsch was captain in the Grisons Regiment of Major General Johann Christoph Friedrich Schmidt. In 1784, Jenatsch is first recorded as owner of L’Espérance. Through Jenatsch’s daughter Mary Magdalene de Jenatsch (1762–1839), the plantation L’Espérance passed into the hands of Scotttish husband Colin Dundas Graham KW. In 1821, L’Espérance was registered as a plantation of 2000 acres and 157 slaves.
• In 1753, Jacques Roux (1717-1780) from a Lausanne Huguenot family (Canton of Berne/Vaud), arrived in Paramaribo. In 1757, he became «Raad van Politie en Crimineele Justitie», i.e. part of the colonial administration, and in 1758 he was co-administrator of the plantations Roosenburgand Mon Bijou.On Tapoeripakreek, he established the plantation Lausanne,and with François Louis Chaillet from Neuchâtel he co-owned the estate Boniface outside Paramaribo, of which he later became the sole proprietor. In 1759, he married Anna Kennedy-Arnout (1723-1770), owner of the coffee plantation Visserszorg.Were present at the wedding: Gouvernor Crommelin and his wife, as well as David Francois Dandiran, plantation owner from Geneva. After the death of his wife in 1770, Roux married Elisabeth Dandiran (1751-1800), daughter of David François Dandiran from Geneva. In 1772, their son Jacques François was born, and the baptism performed by Minister Heinrich Grob from Zurich saw the presence of church elder Nicolas David Guisan (appr. 1727-1781), plantation owner, administrator, and plantation-valuer for Clifford & Chevalier from a Swiss family from the Canton of Berne/Vaud. When Roux died in 1780, plantation Visserszorgwas registered with 328 slaves. In 1787 Elisabeth Roux-Dandiran married Nicolas Laurent Robatel (±1751-1817) from Noréaz in the Canton of Fribourg, commander in Paramaribo in the rank of a colonel in the Dutch corps of engineers. The couple now (co-)owned the four plantations Visserszorg, Lausanne, Rouxgift and Beaulieu. In 1793, widow Roux was registered as co-owner of Beaulieu on the Para Creek. In 1821, Henry Louis Perret-Gentil (1779–1824) figured as administrator of the combined plantation of Visserszorg–Lausanne–Rouxgift , and as late as 1850, a member of the Roux family was still registered as co-administrator of Visserszorg,now a sugar plantation with some 300 slaves. When Elisabeth Robatel died, Nicolas Laurent Robatel married Rijnhardina Maria Elisabeth Meurs (1766-1833) in Suriname, and the two moved to Holland after 1800. In 1843, Visserszorg (1000 acres, sugar, 270 slaves) is registered as being co-administrated by Jacques François Roux, probably a grandson of Jacques Roux. In 1859, 311 slaves were registered.
• Abraham Moiseszoon Perret-Gentil’s son Henry Louis Perret-Gentil (1779–1824) became owner of the following plantations: Dageraad on the Commewijne (sugar, 3600 acres), La Persévérance on the Paramarica (coffee, 1200 acres), Lust en Rust on the Suriname River (coffee, 800 acres); he also became administrator of the plantations Visserszorg(500 acres, coffee until 1792, sugar afterwards, 150 slaves in 1758, into which Lausanne and Rouxgift had been integrated) on the Commewijne (sugar, 1000 acres, 260 slaves), Resolutie on the Jonkermannskreek (sugar, 1500 acres), De Resolutie on the Suriname River (sugar, 1500 acres), Standvastighheid on the Tapoeripakreek (cotton, 810 acres), Stolkwijk on the Motkreek (coffee and cotton, 300 acres), Zeewyk on the Motkreek (cotton, 790 acres), Dageraad and Dankbaarheid(cotton, together 1100 acres), Libanonon the Cottica (sugar 1800 acres, 81 slaves in 1834), and Jonge Beyekorf (coffee). He was also a member of the colonial administration («Hof van Policie en Krimineel Justitie») and 1819–1824 commander of the Paramaribo militia in the rank of a lieutenant-colonel. He died on a trip to Europe in Den Haag.
• Nicolas David Guisan (appr. 1730-1781) from the Canton of Berne/Vaud, together with François Louis Chaillet from Neuchâtel, was administrator of the sugar plantation Le Mat-Rouge on Perica Creek (2,500 acres, 110 slaves). In 1770, he was in Amsterdam where two documents register the acquisition of coffee plantation Leliendaal, and his will is dated 16 October. When he returned to Suriname, he took his nephew Jean Samuel with him, and they arrived in January 1771. Nicolas David Guisan also administered for «Clifford & Chevalier» the plantations Le Mat-Rouge on the Perica, Mijn Geluk on the Orleane, La Nouvelle Esperance on the Cottica, and Groot-Chattillon on the Suriname River. In 1772, Nicolas Guisan, together with E. J. Chaillet-Leijnslager, was administrator of the coffee plantations Perou (890 acres, 158 slaves) and Va comme je te pousse (1000 acres, 113 slaves), and of the sugar plantation Libanon (1500 acres, 161 slaves), all three on the Cottica River. In 1781 Nicolas Guisan and Rosa Du Toit-Sugnens, Amédéé Jacques Sugnens‹ sister, owned half of the property.
• Jan Daniel Bartholomey was born in 1748 in Neuchâtel (Switzerland). In 1775, he married Anna Catharina Mardorff in Suriname. The Sranan Tongo plantation name Batrome (for Leyderdorp) is derived from his name. In 1793, he was administrator of the following plantations: Charlottenburg (coffee) on the Cottica, Catharinenburg (sugar) on the Cabbes Kreek, Nimmer door on the Commewijne, Des Tombesburg (sugar, 1800 acres, 188 slaves in 1770) on the Boven-Commewijne, Vlaardingen on the Cottica and Weltevreeden on the Commewijne.
• In 1823, Marc Warnery (1797-1836) from Morges in the Canton of Vaud, sailed to Suriname, where he first became an overseer («blanc-officier») on Beekhuizen and on the sugar plantation Tout-lui-Faut (200 slaves) and later an itinerant administrator of the plantations Goede Vreede (sugar), Kleinslust (coffee), Boksweide (sugar), Hazard (sugar), and Djikveld (sugar). Accompanying him on his trip to Suriname was a carpenter called Guignard from Aubonne in the Canton of Vaud, who also became a slave-owner. In 1833, Warnery had this to say about the execution of a slave accused of rebellion: «This sentence, which will appear frightful to all civilized people, is necessary here, when one considers how few in number we white people are, and that we are dealing with beings without instruction, almost brutes, for whom any sentiment in the soul is unknown and who respond only to physical pain. The goal was to make an impression on the multitude [of slaves].»
• In 1848, 2/45 of the coffee-plantation Sorgvliet (1000 acres, 93 slaves) on the Commewijne River were in the hands of one Frederique (Frederica) de Paravicini. At emancipation in 1863, she owned the whole plantation together with a community of owners, among them three members of the Brazil branch of the Paravicini family. They received over 23,000.- guilder in compensation for 77 slaves. The Paravicini family were a noble family with branches in the Cantons of Grisons, Glarus and Bâle. Family members were found in the mercenary service of Holland and France. As early as 1692, a «Freikompagnie» (a non-official unit) from the Canton of Glarus was in the service of Holland under the command of a member of the Paravicini family.
• Moïse Tissot from Geneva owned a sugar plantation, which on his death in 1692 went to his mother, who lived in Vuillerens (Canton of Berne/Vaud, W Switzerland). Later, François Fatio (1622–1704) of the merchant banking company «Fatio & fils» from Geneva acquired three thirds of the plantation. It was inherited by Jean-Baptiste Fatio after his father’s death. In 1693 there was a litigation over the heritage involving Isaac de Mestral and Gabriel Henri de Mestral (1670-1753) from the Canton of Berne/Vaud. However, the supreme court in Bern deemed Francois Fatio & Son the rightful owners of the two plantations. Fatio & Son – with the aid of Jean Tourton – were able to hold on to the estates.
• In 1688, coming from Suriname, Abel Tissot from the vicinity of Mollens in the Canton of Berne / Vaud appeared off the coast of Tobago and, with an armed band, tried to wrench the island away from the British together with what was left of the original Dutch settlers. Lieutenant Tissot became a member of the colonial administration («raad van policie») and 1677–1678 acting governor of Suriname. In 1681, he was involved in a business transaction concerning 2624 pounds of sugar. Abel Tissot died in Suriname. In 1710, the Bernese government requested its ambassador to Holland, Saint Saphorin, to make inquiries concerning the valuable estate of Abel Tissot (Thysso). In 1711, the Canton of Berne turned to the government of the Netherlands concerning the legacy of Abel and Moïse Tissot. The respective Amsterdam documents also mention an Amsterdam merchant called Jieronymus Huntziger (born 1692 in Aarau).
• Vriendsbeleid en Ouderzorg was a coffee plantation on the Commewijne River in Suriname. It was founded by Abraham Vereul, who came to Suriname in 1714 via Rouen. In 1716 he married Elisabeth Felix, who originally came from Aarau (Canton of Berne/Aargau) in Switzerland.
• In the years of emancipation 1863, the company of Pieter Anthony Charbon and his brother Jan Adam Charbon owned the sugar plantation Hamburg on the Beneden-Saramacca River in Suriname with 139 enslaved people. They received compensation when the enslaved were set free in 1863.
• In the middle of the 18th century, David François Dandiran ( 1774) from Geneva started the coffee plantation Nooytgedacht (later renamed Ellen) on the Cottica River. He also owned the sugar plantation Guineesche Vriendschap on the Suriname River and the plantation Beekvliet on the Cottica. He was a captain in the citizens› militia, served in the criminal justice system, and represented the trading company «Jan van der Poll» from Amsterdam. When he died, his plantations were bought by Jean André Tourton from a Geneva family.
• In 1770, François Louis Chaillet from Neuchâtel owned the sugar plantation Rosenburg on the Boven Commewijne Rivier in the Paramaribo area with some 170 slaves. In 1771, he also owned half of the plantation Libanon (capital 150,000 guilders).
• Jean-Zacharie Robin from Geneva owned a coffee and cotton plantation called La Campagne. In 1779, he handed over its administration to a lawyer in Paramaribo and returned to Geneva. On his death in 1783, the plantation passed to his son Chrétien-André, who appointed Charles Pache from Morges (Canton of Berne/Vaud) as administrator. One André-Dominique Robin was born in Paramaribo in 1810 and died in Geneva in 1871. While in Suriname, he was a judicial counselor. La Campagne remained in the hands of the Robin family and their heirs until at least 1847.
• Alfred Jacques Henri Berthoud (1802-1887) from a noble Neuchâtel family (NW Switzerland) settled in Suriname as a merchant and shopkeeper in 1821. He bought and administered coffee, sugar and cotton plantations including their slaves. He was married to Charlotte Christiana Esther Weissenbruch (died 1833), daughter of Carl Ludwig Weissenbruch, who administered 62 Suriname plantations. Berthoud entered into business relations with the Weissenbruch family, whose fortune had been estimated by Marc Warnery at 10 million guilders. Thus, Berthoud became co-administrator of Ornamibo, Munchenstein, Le Prospérité, Meyndershoop, Killenstein, Nieuw Welgelegen (on the Surnauskreek), and Ma Retraite (on the Parakreek). In 1833, Berthoud requested from the governor to have the plantation slaves Rosalina and Betje with son Alfred (!) to be henceforth declared house slaves, which means that Berthoud had a son with an enslaved woman. In 1834, Berthoud bought the plantation Rees en Crop (750 acres, on the Tapoeripa, next to Berthoudslust), and sold the plantation Bosseeslust (on the Matappica). In 1835, Berthoud returned to Switzerland, but remained an absentee landlord. In 1838, he married Anne-Louise Coulon (1817-1911), whose grandfather had owned, together with Jacques Louis Pourtalès and Johann Jakob Thurneysen, large plantations on Grenada. In 1839, Berthoud owned: 1/3 of La Prosperité (161 slaves, 3200 acres, wood), Kleinslust (ownership since 1830, 400 acres, coffee & cotton & sugar), Livorno (155 slaves, 1800 acres, sugar), Killenstein (104 slaves, 725 acres, coffee), Boksweide (ownership in 1830, 213 slaves, 900 acres, coffee & sugar), Bertaud’s Lust (the merged plantations Kleinslust and Boksweide, 213 slaves, 903 acres, sugar), 1/3 of Meyndershoop (1000 acres, wood), Rees en Corp (10 slaves, 1000 acres), and 1/3 of Ornamibo (202 slaves, 669 acres, sugar). In 1840, Berthoud returned to Suriname for a year in order to sell his property. He visited Killenstein, Berthoudslust, and Ornamibo in order to collect specimens of the local fauna and flora for the collections of Louis Agassiz in Neuchâtel. In 1841, he requested the manumission of Betje and her son Alfred, and of another slave called Leentje. In 1841, he left the colony on board the «Jonge Lodewyk Antonie», with a load of sugar and cotton. Back in Switzerland, he concentrated on his commercial activities in Paris, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam, and on the finances of the city of Neuchâtel. Berthoud’s son, Alphonse Henri Berthoud-Coulon (1839–1913), became a banker in London and in 1879 bought the castle of Gorgier (Canton of Neuchâtel), which had once belonged to the de Pourtalès family.
• Charles Joseph Duruz from Estavayer in the Canton of Fribourg must have been in Suriname at least 1823–1840. He started as director of the plantation Dijkveld (sugar, 1000 acres) on the Suriname River, where he also applied for the manumission of Josephina, daughter of the mulatto slave woman Louisa. In 1827, he was director of sugar plantation Houttuin (2300 acres). In 1828 he is mentioned as co-administrator with a member of the German Weissenbruch family, major plantation owners. He then went on a trip to Europe. In 1834, he was back in Suriname as director and co-administrator of sugar plantation De jonge Bijekorf (1000 acres, 92 slaves). In 1836, he appeared fort he first time as co-administrator on Berthoud’s plantations. Berthoud then started doubting Duruz‹ qualities: he had been ill, had recovered but was now devoted to alcohol. In 1840, another manumission was registered for Duruz: For 1000 guilders he bought the freedom of slave children Carel Constant van Duruz and Elisabeth Nanette van Duruz. They were called Duruz because their mother had been manumitted under this name. In 1841, Duruz planned another trip to Europe, this time with Alfred van Duruz, probably a coloured minor. From there, his traces are lost. In 1852, Charles Constant van Duruz owned three slaves: Wilhelmijntje (born 1829) and her children und Louisa Francina Constantia Duruz and Josephine Cucient Elisabeth van Duruz, who was manumitted in 1855. Duruz seems to have left behind a large (coloured) kinship in Suriname.
• In 1751, Charles Alexander Dunant (1728–?1774) was the son of Ami Dunant (1679–1740) and Alexandrine Trembley (1696-1778), from whose family came plantation owner Jean Trembley in Saint-Domingue. The Dunant family was from Geneva (the same family as Henri Dunant, 1828-1910, Swiss founder of the Red Cross). Charles Alexander Dunant was acolonel in the Swiss regiment Hirzel, which was in Dutch services, and then became co-administrator of plantation Egmont (430 acres, coffee, 77 slaves)on the Commewijne River, of which David Flournois had inherited one fifth. In 1755, Flournois gave up the plantation, and Dunant became its director. In 1765, Dunant lost his job as director and one Johannes Tanner (died Paramaribo 1774) became his successor. In 1766, Dunant was mentioned as «priseur», an official specialising in the vaulation of plantations. In 1769, Charles Alexander Dunant became owner of plantation Naaltwijk (700 acres, coffee, 148 slaves) on Motkreek/Mudcreek. In 1770, he recruited workers and an overseer for the slaves in Geneva. Together with his wife Jeanna Dekanter (1731–1813), whom he had married in 1772 in Holland, he travelled to Suriname in 1772 and became owner of plantation Boxel (3100 acres, sugar, bananas, coffee, 124 slaves) on the Suriname River, where the sugar canes were pressed with the use of a water mill. Dunant and Dekanter had a son, Alexandre-Jean Dunant (born in Suriname around 1773, died in Geneva 1858). Probably in 1773, Dunant and his wife returned to Geneva. Plantation Boxel might have belonged to a Dunant family member (his wife or his son) until 1793, when it passed into the hands of the mortgage fund with which one Dunant had done business. Jeanna Dekanter died in Geneva in 1813.
• Isaac Vernet (1700-1773), banker in Paris, left to his son Isaac Vernet (Geneva) the sum of 16,000 guilders in 16 bonds of a plantation company in Suriname.
• Michel Trollet from Geneva owned plantations in Surinam from 1740-1770. One of them was called Mon Plaisir.
• Protestant clergyman Heinrich Grob from Zurich emigrated to Suriname, where he was employed by the Dutch West India Company (WIC), who paid him with money and slaves. He retired from the pulpit in 1783. In 1803, his widow intervened with the Swiss federal and the Zurich authorities to secure the 500 guilders pension which she had been promised by the Dutch West Indian Company.
• One Daniel Högger, probably Salomé Högger-Rietmann’s grandson and a magistrate in Amsterdam, had high-level connections with the mortgage fund Harman van de Poll & Co, which was among the foremost financiers in Suriname, investing some 4.5 million guilders in 40 plantations.
• On Para Creek in Suriname, there were two plantations called Zwitsergrond and DrieZwitsergrond. This probably goes back to the fact that around the middle of the 18th century, some of the local lands were given to smale-scale farmers from Switzerland. On those plantations, fugitive slaves from the 1733 Berbice rebellion were defeated. In a 1856 plantation list, the two plantations only figure as Zwitserland. Also on Para Creek and close to the two above-mentioned, there was a timber plantation called Munchenstein. It was fist mentioned in 1819. Münchenstein is a village in the canton of Basel-Landschaft (NW Switzerland).
• In the 18th century, members of the Faesch family from Bâle owned, held bonds or shares on the Surinam plantations Herstelling (coffee and cotton), Marienburg (sugar, about 140 slaves, started in 1745, inherited from Maria de Hoy-de la Jaille, sold by the Faesch family in 1769 for 300,ooo guilders, 200 slaves in 1770), Voorburg (sugar), Leyerdorp, Weltevreden (coffee), Waterland (5310 acres, sugar, later coffee, 89 slaves in 1837), Palmeniribo (attacked by maroons in 1758, overseer killed, looted, 60 rifles taken by maroons, 80 slaves leaving the plantation), Surimombo (3400 acres, 100 slaves in 1699, slave-rising subdued by 25 soldiers in 1707), Charlottenburg (coffee), Bekenhorst, Egmont, Rhijnbeek, Mon Tresor (coffee) and Hoyland. In 1769, the Faesch family also sold 1/32 of the ship «De vijf gesusters», used for slave transports. The sugar plantation Hoyland was owned by the Faesch family as late as 1852. One Nicolaas Faas (Faesch?) held shares in the Societeit van Berbice. On her wedding in 1782, Margarethe Maria Faesch from Bâle received plantations as a dowry from her parents, and out of gratitude christened her country estate near Bâle «Zum kleinen Surinam» (Little Suriname). Until today, a bus-stop in that area is called «Surinam». In 1946, historian Walter Bodmer wrote about Johann Jacob Faesch (1732-1796), husband of Maria de Hoy-de la Jaille, that he had «not allowed himself in the last quarter of the 18th century to be tempted by the ‹boom› that prevailed in Suriname despite repeated uprisings by the bush negroes, either to make far-reaching investments or to mortgage his plantation.». Bodmer called this «sound business practice».
• The sugar plantation Hoyland (Sranan Tongo Name: Di Hooi ) on the Commewijne River in Suriname was created in 1737 by David de Hoy (1694–1743). In 1770, it went to his sons-in-law Johannes Faesch (1727–1768) and Johann Jacob Faesch (1732–1796), in 1793 to his son Jean-Jacques Faesch and in 1819 to the heirs of Jean-Jacques Faesch. When it was sold to Englishman Hugh Wright (1809–1877) in 1853, the co-owners were: Jean Balthazar Faesch from Basel, Jean-Jacques David de Faesch from Passij (?), Jeanne Maria de Faesch from St. Petersburg, Valerie Faesch from Basel (widow of Jean Luc Thurneysen), Eli Bourcard from Basel (widower of Marguerite Valerie Rhyner), Eli Benoit Burckhardt Breck from Basel, Elise Burckardt from Basel, Henry Rhyner from Basel, Rudolph Rhyner from Basel, David Claparède from Champel near Geneva, Charles Claude Claparède from Geneva, Jeanne Elisabeth Passavant from Geneva (widow of Emanuel Faesch), Alfons François Faesch from Geneva, Marie Valerie Faesch from Geneva, Rodolphe Vischer from Basel, Frederic Vischer from Basel ins his function of legal guardian of the underage children August Stehelin and Marie Stehelin, Julia Vischer(1821–1888) from Basel, daughter of merchant banker Wilhelm Vischer and since 1840 the wife of Rudolf Paravicini (1815-1888) from Basel. Rudolf Paravicini learnt his trade in the Lyon textile industry, entered the silk ribbon company «Dietrich Preiswerk & Co.» in 1835, whose owner he became in 1847. He was a member of the Basel legislature 1845–84 and a member of the cantonal cabinet 1856–61. He co-founded the «Basel Insurances» in 1863 and presided over their board of directors 1864–88. His military career took him from officer (1835) via colonel (1858) and brigadier (1860) to commander of a division (1870). 1870–1871 he was Chief of Staff of the Swiss Army and oversaw the internment of the Bourbaki Army. In 1863 (emancipation), 636 slaves lived and worked on the 2170 acres plantation.
• Johann Rudolf Ryhiner (1784–1824) from Basel was born to Johann Rudolf Rhyner and Margarethe Maria Faesch, who got married in Suriname in 1782. In 1807, Johann Rudolf Ryhiner jr. eventually took possession of his parents› plantations. On a sugar plantation, he got an enslaved woman pregnant. A baby boy was born, who was named Jan Harry. Johann Rudolf acknowledged the child and was able to buy him free, but was not allowed by the then owner Boedeker to buy his mother free and marry her. Shortly before 1810, he married the «mulatto» woman Missi Groenberg there, who gave him a son and a daughter. He did not like this marriage, and left for Basel with most of his fortune, where in 1815, he married Anna Pauline Streckeisen and moved into Ebenrain Castle in Sissach, which he bought in 1817. With Anna Pauline he had two sons. When in Suriname, Missi Groenberg heard this news, she left for Paris and hired a lawyer. As Johann Rudolf wanted to spare himself the shame of a trial for bigamy, he shot a bullet through his head in Ebenerain Castle on 24 July 1824. He left a fortune of 350,000 Swiss francs. Jan Harry Ryhiner became a gunmaker and had a house in Paramaribo. From his stepmother Anna Pauline Streckeisen and from his sister-in-law he regularly received generous remittances from Basel. From one connection he had two daughters and became the founder of the Surinamese branch of the family.
• Pierre Alexandre DuPeyrou (1729–1794) from Neuchâtel (NW Switzerland) owned plantations in Suriname, which he had inherited from his father Pierre. These were the sugar plantations Libanon and La Nouvelle Espérance on the Cottica River, as well as the coffee plantation Pérou and the timber plantation L’Espérance on Para Creek. These plantations generated for Pierre Alexandre DuPeyrou an income of 24,000-40,000 guilders per annum. In 1774, Pierre Alexandre DuPeyrou, in Amsterdam at that time, authorised widow Chaillet and Nicolas Guisan, general administrator of the Peyrou possessions in Suriname, to sell to one Jacot des Combes in Suriname «three mulatto children of female slave Brandina» of Perou Plantation under condition that the mother Brandina give her consent to the said sale and transport and that «three negroes (one for each child)» be bought and sold together with the girls. In 1843, the plantations Libanon and Zuinigheid (with 53 slaves) were still registered as being in the hands of «Erven du Pyrou» (heirs of the DuPeyrou family).
• Jacques-Joseph DuPeyrou (1734–1788) from the Neuchâtel family owned the plantations Monserrat on the Cottica River and La Bonne Amitié (sugar) on Para Creek. On the Commewjine River, Jan (or Jean) DuPeyrou (1700–1767) owned the coffee plantation Picardie. His daughter Luzia du Peyrou (1729–1791) was born in Paramaribo. One J. P. Du-Peyrou owned the coffee and cotton plantation Guadeloupe. In 1786, a certificate of baptism registered the birth of an «illegitimate mulatto child» named François Johannes Jacobus Maarb, whose mother was the «free negro» Lucretie van du Peijrou.
• In 1703, a service contract was signed between Jean Tourton, owner of plantations in Suriname, originally from Geneva, and Nicolas Hachen from Reichenbach (Canton of Berne, central Switzerland). Hachen committed himself for two years of work on the plantations owned by Jean Tourton and Jean-Baptiste Fatio from Geneva. In 1706, administration of the Tourton and Fatio plantations passed into the hands of Isaac Tourton and Jean André Guiguer.
=> In 1694, a contract was concluded in Geneva between Jan (Jean) Tourton and the carpenters Claude Braillard from Gourgy (?) in the Canton of Neuchâtel and Nicolas Wis (Wyss?) from Berne.
• At the beginning of the 18th century, Jean-André Guiger (born 1671) from the Canton of Thurgau (NE Switzerland) died in Surinam, where his uncle Jean Tourton had owned the coffee plantation Ellen on the Commewijne River. Jean Tourton had been director of the «Sociëteit van Suriname» from 1698-1706 and had created the coffee plantation Tourtonne near Paramaribo. The «Sociëteit van Suriname» was created in 1683 and was owned – one third each – by the City of Amsterdam, the West Indian Company and the Aerssen of Sommerlsdijck family.
• Student of theology Ami Butini (1718-1780) from Geneva inherited the plantation Tulpenburg on a tributary to the Commewijne River. He settled and got married in 1753 in Paramaribo, where he also served as a Dutch legal officer. In 1759, he offered a number of ethnographic objects to the Geneva Library, among them a foetus de nègre. Johanna Magdalena Buttini (1773-1829), born a «redeemed mulatto» (a manumitted child of a white man and a negro woman) in Paramaribo might have been his daughter.
• Gédéon Flournois (1639-1684) from Geneva studied theology in 1659, was ordained as minister of the Calvinist State Church and worked as hospital pastor in 1667. He became a plantation owner in Suriname and on his death left his plantations to his son David Flournois. The latter sold his plantations and his house in 1755, and settled as a banker in Paris.
• Jean Gallatin (1733-1765) from Geneva left his underage son Albert (the future US Secretary of the Treasury) his share in the plantation Le Mat-Rouge in Surinam. The other half was held by Georges-Alexandre Rolaz (1728-1805), citizen of Geneva and Rolle (Canton of Berne/Vaud), captain in the service of the Dutch army, and by Alphonse Rolaz from Rolle.
1.12 Trinidad and Tobago
=> In 1688, coming from Suriname, Abel Tissot from the vicinity of Mollens in the Canton of Berne / Vaud appeared off the coast of Tobago and, with an armed band, tried to wrench the island away from the British together with what was left of the original Dutch settlers.
=> In 1795, the Faesch family from Bâle held shares in the plantation Vriendschap on Tobago.
=> In 1781, Henry Peschier (1741-1791) from a Geneva Huguenot family landed in Port-of-Spain with his wife, children, brother Jean and his mother-in-law. He received 179 acres of land from the Spanish governor, which through the work of slaves he turned into the sugar plantation Paradise Estate. After his death, the plantation remained the property of his wife Celeste Rose Peschier (1755-1817) until her death. The heirs then sold it to the governor. Henry’s brother Jean and his wife Elizabeth were granted 523 acres of land in Naparima along the river Guaracara, which they turned into a sugar estate. Henry also received land at Point-a-Pierre. The family spread in the early 19th century, and the «Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834» record some 600 slaves in the hands of members of the Peschier family.
=> Sir Ralph James Woodford (1784-1828), Peter Thelluson’s nephew and a trustee of his will after the death of his uncle Matthew Woodford, was governor of Trinidad from 1813 to 1828. He was also a strong apologist for the retention of slave labour.
=> Georg Ludwig Vonwiller (1793–1835) from a St.Gallen family moved to Trinidad, where he «imported» a female slave in 1822. He married Gabrielle d’Ey, and they had four children: Georg Heinrich (born 1824 in Grenada), Franz Adolf (b. 1826), Andreas (b. 1833). and Louise Maria Anna (b. 1834).
=> The UK Slave Register 1813–1834 has 280 slaves in the hands of owners named Cazenove, Cazeneuve, Casenave, Casnave, etc. in Grenada, Trinidad, and Mauritius.