As I am currently living France, last month while I was on vacation I decided to create a specific and intentional route for my travels. Why? Because I knew that on the 21st of December I wanted to be in the town of Saint-Malo. Currently in my family tree, I have no genealogical connection to any towns in France, but I came to Saint-Malo with one specific intention. To honor the lives of my 5th and 4th great-grandmothers, Eglantine and Julienne Malvina, two women who were enslaved in Martinique through the union of two families, the Garnier-Laroche and the Lapierre family. It is the Garnier-Laroche family that has its origins in the town of Saint-Malo.
I came here to stand on the ground of this town, in the country that enslaved my ancestors in the Caribbean with one simple message – we are still here.
Getting to Saint-Malo
Getting to the town of Saint-Malo was fairly easy because it is a touristic town. I took a SNCF train from Rennes to Saint-Malo which only took about an hour. The town is located in the north of France in the region of Brittany and it is on the coast, meaning that in the summer you can easily delight on one of the many beaches the town has to offer. The sea has and continues to play an important part of the town’s history and identity. The population hovers at a little less than 50,000 inhabitants.
When I arrived to Saint-Malo, my goal consisted of two parts: to see/experience the north of France but also to come here and stand firm on the land of a family that enslaved mine in the Caribbean.
Garnier-Laroche origins in Saint-Malo
The most recent Garnier-Laroche my ancestor would have known was Jean François Marie Garnier-Laroche, he was born in Martinique and married Rose Hélène Lapierre around 1820. The Garnier-Laroche family lived in/around Rivière-Pilote and Le Lamentin in Martinique. It was however Joseph’s great-grandfather Thomas Garnier who was said to have been from Saint-Malo, France. According to the Book “209 anciennes familles subsistantes de la Martinique”, it mentions that Thomas was the first from this line to arrive in Martinique from Saint-Malo. It mentions he was baptized the 2nd November 1648 in Saint-Malo and married Louise Coudray in Le Carbet, Martinique the 23 March 1687, she herself from Maulévrie, Anjou, France. The book then continues to trace the descendants from Thomas Garnier down to Jean Françoise Garnier-Laroche, showing four direct generations of the paternal family. Below is the snippet about Thomas Garnier written in French.
I am not exactly sure which church Thomas would have been baptized in, but I wonder if it is the church I photographed above which seems to be the town’s most important church. Known as Cathédrale de Saint-Malo or as “Cathédrale Saint-Vincent de Saint Malo”, it is fairly centric in the town and easy to find as well. The church was completed in the 12th century, however, it is said that there has been a church in this area since before the 9th century.
Searching online for Thomas’ baptism record I was able to find it with the date mentioned in the book [2 November 1648]. The question remains: Could it have been in the Cathédrale de Saint-Malo? The entry mentions that Thomas Garnier, son of Thomas and Jeanne Alere (written in other documents as “Alaire” or “Allaire”) was baptized the second of November 1648 and his godparents were Jan [Jean?] Alere [Alair/Allaire] and Laurence Alere [Alair/Allaire].
Keeping memories alive
Though I can not identify yet whether or not the entry for this baptism occurred in the Cathédrale de Saint-Malo, I still entered (mainly to catch a break from the pouring rain). I took the opportunity to light two candles, one for Eglantine and the other for her daughter Julienne Malvina. I stood there and prayed for them, thanked them for their strength, and promised to keep their memories alive. I did not grow up knowing about my connection to the French Caribbean and to finally know more about this part of my ancestry wills me to continue carrying their stories, their identities, and their names with me into the future and sharing it with other descendants as well.
174 years ago, on December 21, 1848 – my 5th and 4th great-grandmothers earned their liberty from slavery and gained the surname Lautin. Eglantine, born in Africa would have known slavery in her early twenties while Julienne Malvina would have been enslaved shortly as a child and then immigrated to Puerto Rico during her own twenties.
I felt this was an important moment in my life and decided to memorialize it by taking a photo inside the church.
Many More Doors
to Open...
I hope there is still more information to discover on a genealogical level about Eglantine’s and Julienne’s life. I want to explore more of the notarial records here in France and the church records in Martinique to see what I can find. For example, when Julienne Malvina was born in 1844, she and Eglantine were already owned by “Madame Lapierre née Forget” which would have been Alexandrine Forget and her husband Jean Jacques Catherine Lapierre. I know that Alexandrine transfers/sells over a pregnant Eglantine and a young Julienne to her daughter Rose Hélène Lapierre in 1846, but when did Jean and Alexandrine purchase Eglantine? Are there more notarial records that shed some light to this?
Also, on a genetic level I wonder if we can learn more about where in Africa Eglantine would have been from. Can we learn where in western Africa she would have been from? Does her mitochondrial haplogroup hold more information about her origins?
Stepping into Saint-Malo was surreal but I know when I finally get a chance to travel to Martinique and Guadeloupe, I will be over the moon to walk the same land of my ancestors. Until then, I will continue to learn as much as I can about their lives to prepare for such a journey.
Beautiful, sad and very interesting article.