Why would Huguenot refugees migrate from the Netherlands to St. Kitts in 1708?

Question

Matthieu Garrigues travelled from The Netherlands to St. Kitts about 1708 and from there to Philadelphia in 1713. I'm trying to figure out why.  St. Kitts was apparently under French control from 1705 to 1713, so he brought his family to an island which was run by the French from the relative safety of the Netherlands and then when the French ceded the island to the British, he took that moment to move his family to a different British colony.

This doesn't make sense to me. Anybody know enough of the history of the time to give me a plausible story?

I can imagine the move to Philadelphia might have been because that move had suddenly become easier with both St. Kitts and Pennsylvania being under British control and Philadelphia seems safer, but I can't think of a story to explain the move to St. Kitts.

Thoughts?

Comments

There was a good bit of maritime trade in those years between Europe, the West Indies, and the English colonies of the eastern seaboard of North America. Trade in sugar, enslaved persons, molasses, rum, and doubtless other goods.

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Since there's so little findable online, I've ordered a book on the history of the Leeward Islands from 1670 to 1776. I hope to learn more about the French and specifically the Huguenots in St. Kitts from this time.

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The book arrived and it helped somewhat. This is all tangled up in The War of The Spanish Succession which I had never heard of. It seems like my question might be something that a graduate student of History writes their thesis on.

I filled in details from the book and tied some of it together with his naming his tavern in Philadelphia after Prince Eugene using Wikipedia and will have to just leave it knowing that European politics of the 17th and 18th centuries is more complex than I am ready to try and understand.

Answer 1

This isn't THAT odd; there were plenty of Jewish conversos/crypto-Jews who went from Spain to Spanish America (despite the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492).

Comments

Yes, I have Huguenot ancestry and some Jews from Portugal. They ended up with the Huguenots in Virginia. I know that the Huguenots and the Jews of Southern France and Iberia often lived in the same villages and intermarried. It's hard to find information on them.

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This is correct. My maternal line runs through the Huguenot community of the Netherlands, which attracted B'nay Annusim (descendants of Jews who were forced to convert to another religion) aka crypto-Jews. Earlier, they were expelled from Spain, and later, Portugal, many of whom forgot that they were Jewish. Perhaps the family was moving around to escape persecution.

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Yes, they lost their faith due to persecution. I’d love to find out which of these Jews found their way back to a Jewish community. I’m sure there were some.

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Wanda, thank you for your inquiry. Unfortunately, none of my Jewish ancestors going back 10 generations returned to Judaism because they did not realize that they were Jewish. They thought that they were Christian. I am the only one. I converted to Judaism before I found out that I was already Jewish, an act that I do not regret because I learned more that way.

Answer 2

At the risk of sounding like Yogi Berra, they probably immigrated to St. Kitts because there were other Huguenots there.  There were early groups of them and, as C. Handy suggested, it's easier to hide further from the French crown.

I know that were was immigration from St. Kitts to colonial Virginia, too.  While I'd bet that there was an element of pursuing economic opportunity, there were Huguenots in Philadelphia, some of whom they have known.

It was probably easier to make the move, too, given that the hostilities between Great Britian and France had ended.

P.S.  You might look at the Huguenot community in Philadelphia and see if there were relatives or other people from the same communities in which your family originated.

Comments

This is making some sense. 

I still don’t get why he  chose Saint Kitts over the Netherlands in 1708 though. He left a brother in the Netherlands and DNA tells us that other family members went to Magdeburg. There may have been a brother who ended up in Arcadia as well. This generation is where the documentation trail runs out. He was definitely the only family member who ended up in Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Huguenots never formed a community. The only former Huguenot in their known social circle was https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Benezet-1 who arrived there after joining the Quakers in England. Records of just where in France he came from and who his parents were had already been lost by 1800 or so when his grandchildren were wondering where they came from and they came up with theories that have since been disproven. 

It also appears that no family members remained in Saint Kitts. 

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Yes, I have some Huguenot ancestors that joined the Quakers and ended up in Pennsylvania, they then migrated to Virginia.

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Matthieu (Matthiew) himself attended a Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, but three of his sons (including my ancestry) became Quakers. Reading about Anthony Benezet shows that there was definitely a Huguenot influence on the Quaker anti-slavery position. I'd love to read something that goes deeper on the connections between Huguenot and Quaker thought.

Answer 3

I've found quite a few Huguenots that came through the Caribbean and I don't know why.

Comments

Part of it certainly is that there was a thriving trade in the Caribbean as described by Ellen Smith above. St. Kitts was actually more important than any of the colonies on the American continent.  I just don't know why to chose French occupied St. Kitts over The Hague if you've been persecuted by the French.

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Maybe it's the same situation that was in England. The king sent the Huguenots to Virginia because the country couldn't absorb all of the Huguenots that came. The Huguenots were of the mercantile society and there wasn't work for them.

My ancestors were described as "swarthy" so they weren't exactly welcome in England and neither in Virginia.

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That's an excellent thought.

FWIW, I'm trying to understand the motivations and drivers because I decided to write a historical novel centered around one of Matthew's daughter-in-laws and as I'm fleshing out the character arcs, I realize that I need to understand what drove him to establish his family where he did. He's not a major character, but understanding him will help me understand his sons and understanding how and why French Huguenots became Philadelphia Quakers will provide a lot of texture to the story.

He owned a Tavern in Philadelphia called the Prince Eugene which I'm going to use as a setting, so I even have to learn about Prince Eugene of Savoy to know who would have been attracted to his tavern.

My first attempt at historical fiction (or fiction of any kind) and I'm amazed at how much I have to learn!

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I'm a fiction writer also. And, I've written two historical novels also. I know what you mean about character arcs and I don't know exactly all the motivations for what the Huguenots did, but the individual stories must be fascinating.

I can only talk about my ancestors, but in spite of have been Quakers, and having been persecuted for being Huguenots, when they got to Maryland Virginia, they left Quakerism and purchased slaves.

My ancestors came from the Languedoc, which means their first language was Occitan and not French. I wrote a book on this subject, Birth of the Huguenots: https://www.amazon.com/Birth-Huguenots-Wanda-Morissette-Richards-ebook/dp/B08KXZQJTT/ref=sr_1_1?crid=J7BH7LJTCL78&keywords=birth+of+the+huguenots&qid=1647871036&sprefix=birth+of+the+huguenots%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1

My ancestors intermarried with Iberian Jews and came to Virginia with some of these Jewish families.

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Matthew was apparently also from Languedoc. I never heard of Occitan. I'll add your book to my list!

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I just read the sample of your book on Amazon....must not get distracted...must not get distracted...

I can't read it now, but I absolutely will read it at some point.

(BTW, I don't like reading long forms on a screen. I'm old school and like to read on paper. If you had a way to buy it on paper, I would have already ordered it so it could nag me to read it from my shelf)

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The name Garrigues also exists in the Catalan in Spain, so this stuff about the Occitan explains a lot about the older history of the family.

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Catalan is a dialect of Occitan. Occitan is also the language of the troubadours

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Derivation of Garrigue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrigue 

A bit of a tangent but it might be of interest.

It's definitely a popular name in the Aveyron (Occitanie) the prefecture in France where we  lived for almost 20 years. (we used to get our oil from a M. Garrigues and they were many others.) Many of the local people  still speak a patois which is an Occitan, French mix.Speaking Occitan used to be forbidden but some of the schools are now biligual with both French and Occitan used for teaching. The Occitan 'National Anthem ' was often sung with more gusto than the Marsellaise (here on youtube sung by a group we went to see many times. The subtitles are French so you can hear there is a big difference).

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Thanks. Did you like living there?

Answer 4

I have also found that some Virginia Huguenots went to South Carolina to live, specifically in Laurens, South Carolina. I assume they had relatives there since so many came in through Charlestown. Love to have letters they wrote to each other.