Liz Bonnin Who Do You Think You Are?

Morning. How are you?

Science and wildlife presenter Liz Bonnin was born in France.

Thanks a million.

She spent much of her childhood in Ireland,

but her family are from the Caribbean.

Morning. How's it all going?

When people ask me what I am ethnically,

I just say I'm a mongrel.

You know those forms you have to fill out for visas or whatever?

There actually isn't a box for me.

My mum is from Trinidad,

and she is an Indian-Portuguese mix.

On the other side of my family,

my dad's family, I know that he is French-Martinican,

and maybe other things that I don't know.

I'm a big mishmash of different cultures.

Can you hear me?

And that's bound to reveal some unknowns into the lives

of these zebra.

But Socks, the four-year-old female that Max spotted in the forest

is pushing ahead of Winnie, Janet and the rest.

Super.

I hope there's nothing too hideous.

I do wonder about slave ownership,

and whether that was part of my family's history.

'It's sort of, it's something in the back of my head.

'I kind of think that it's probably quite likely, yeah.

'I want to find out when'

each arm, sort of, arrived in the Caribbean, and why.

And what the story is.

OK, let's go from 31 or 32 and lose "northern".

I want to know everything.

Everything.

Liz is beginning her journey in Trinidad.

So I was born in Paris,

and I grew up in the south of France until I was ten.

But my mum is from Trinidad.

Trinidad is one of the most ethnically diverse islands

in the Caribbean.

Liz wants to track down the roots of her maternal grandfather's family,

who she knows originally came from India.

I film in India a lot, and I feel a connection to India.

So I'd love to know when my Indian family came to Trinidad.

Which ancestors moved over, from where in India,

what caste they were...

So I'm on my way to meet my cousin Andrew. He's like a brother to me.

I spent so many holidays here in Trinidad.

I virtually grew up with him.

Liz's cousin has arranged to meet her at an art supplies shop

in the Trinidadian capital Port of Spain.

This business was once owned by Liz's family.

-Hello.

-Hello!

-How are you?

-I'm really good.

-Good to see you. You OK?

-I'm really good, how are you?

-It's been a while.

-I know.

-Yeah.

Liz never knew her mother's father, her grandfather.

But she did know his sisters, her great aunts.

So we'll do these one at a time.

-The aunties!

-Now, who do you know here?

-OK, so that's Orris.

-Yes.

That's Sybil, and that's Avril.

Look at them!

And, sort of, where they are.

Well, they're in the art shop, I guess.

That's the original place.

My God, this is taking me back, you know.

So...

1956. But do we know when...?

Who set up the company? When did it start?

Auntie Sybil took the business over from May Agnes, her mother,

-our great-grandmother.

-May Agnes.

-Yes.

-Is that her?

-Yeah, it is.

-Oh, my gosh.

-So that's our great-grandfather.

-George, yes.

-George?

-George was his name.

-So handsome.

I can see Mum in May's face.

-Very much.

-So, who's this?

Ah, that is Auntie Sybil.

Look at her!

So, OK, this is May,

this is the first time I've seen a picture of my great-grandfather.

So the next one I've got is an odd one.

-Well, there's George.

-It is. I'm not sure what...

Surrounded by clerics?

As in people of the church.

-That's a good point, yes.

-They are well-dressed.

Very colonial, very...

All look like they're from the Caribbean

with Indian or African heritage.

When the Indians first came to Trinidad to work the farms

they probably didn't have two pennies to rub together.

-Probably not.

-So all of these did pretty well for themselves.

Yeah.

Managed to find one, sort of,

document that is actually really interesting.

It's Auntie Sybil's obituary.

"Sybil Gwendolyn Rawle died peacefully last October

"in the Mary Jenny Poole Home

"after a lingering illness, at the age of 89.

"She was one of the leaders who established,

"who assisted in establishing the Susama...char..."

-Susamachar.

-"..Susamachar Church,

"where she served with great distinction..."

Hang on. "She was one of the leaders who assisted in establishing

"the Susamachar church..." She set up...?

-Sybil Rawle?

-Mmm.

-..set up a church?

"..where she served with great distinction,

"eventually being elevated to the status of an ordained elder."

Stop it!

-Did you know this?

-Not until I read that.

When did this all happen? And how did we not know about this?

What is the Susamachar Church? What kind of order is it?

Presbyterian, which is then odd,

because your mum and my mum were then brought up very Catholic.

-So...

-Indeed.

-The other odd thing is the church was in San Fernando,

in the south of Trinidad, rather than in Port of Spain.

South Trinidad.

I don't think I've ever been to South Trinidad.

I think it makes sense to me to go to San Fernando and find out more

about where George and May came from.

Indians came to Trinidad to work on the sugar plantations

after the abolition of slavery.

Almost 150,000 made the journey between 1845 and 1917.

Today, their descendants are the largest ethnic group in Trinidad.

Liz wants to know more about her Indian great-grandparents,

George Albert and May Agnes Rawle.

The only clues she has are

the obituary of her Great Aunt Sybil

revealing she was a Presbyterian

from the south of Trinidad,

and an intriguing photograph.

I'm fascinated by this picture

of my great-grandfather, George Albert.

I can't really make head or tail of it, because, I don't know,

I think I would have presumed that my Indian family would have

been Hindus. So I'm on my way to meet the archivist

of the Presbyterian Church in San Fernando.

I'm going to show him this picture,

and hopefully he can shed some light.

Good morning. Reverend Kalloo?

-Hello.

-I'm Liz.

-Liz.

-Very nice to meet you.

Welcome to Paradise Hill, San Fernando.

-This is where we are going.

-Fantastic.

-Come this way.

This is really what I wanted to ask you about,

because I can't really make sense of this photograph.

This is a gathering of Presbyterian men, as you see,

there are two clergymen at least.

So what does this mean about George Albert?

What was he?

He was certainly a member of the Presbyterian Church.

Here is a certificate of marriage of...

May Agnes Sirju and George Albert Rawle.

Performed at Susamachar Presbyterian Church.

Got married in 1907, on the 10th of January.

That's the first time I've seen what her maiden name is.

Do we know anything about Sirjus?

Her father would be a gentleman by the name of Timothy Sirju.

Kenneth J Grant, who performed the wedding, he wrote this book.

My Missionary Memories.

Yes. See. And he mentions Timothy Sirju.

There he is.

Timothy Sirju.

Secretary of the Board of Managers.

So he was a prominent person in the church, he was an elder.

So how does a man of Indian heritage become a Presbyterian?

What happened to my great-great-grandfather,

or his family, that led him to go down the Presbyterian path?

The first thing that I would have to note is the educational opportunity.

And because of having an education, of course, upward social mobility,

climbing the social ladder.

Westernisation went with Christianisation.

Simply being associated with white missionaries

made a great deal of difference. He is also here.

Timothy Sirju - court interpreter.

-What's a court interpreter?

-Aha, he was...

..assigned to the courts of the land,

where there were cases being tried,

-especially when Indians are involved.

-OK, right.

And he was the Hindustani English expert.

So he'd already learned English, he was then hired,

-he was given a good job.

-Yeah.

Interesting.

'Weirdly, I feel a little bit torn about what I found out.

'I feel a bit sad,

'and I think it's because it's that loss of'

the Hindu culture.

A loss of all the traditions and the religious beliefs

and culture that I love when I go to India.

And when I see pictures of my Indian family all dressed up in

this constrictive British garb,

in the West Indies...

..I just feel a little bit sad that all of that was lost.

Liz has discovered that

her great-great-grandfather,

Timothy Sirju,

was a pillar of the local community.

She is visiting the Susamachar Church, where he worshipped,

to meet local historian Angelo Bissessarsingh.

So, Angelo, I found out about my great-great-grandfather

Timothy Sirju,

he had quite an important role in the Presbyterian Church,

but he was also quite an influential person outside of the church?

Well, we could start with some documentation, Liz.

Here we have his obituary.

OK. I find it hard to read ancestors' obituaries.

That's quite surprising.

I'm getting emotional just thinking about a man I've never met.

-You're connected to him.

-Yeah.

OK, so... "Mr Timothy Sirju of San Fernando,

"died at his residence at La Pique on Wednesday evening, the 17th,

"after a fortnight's illness.

"He succumbed to typhoid.

"The deceased will leave an aged mother, widow and 12 children.

"Head of the mercantile house known as the Star."

And the mercantile house? What is a mercantile house?

Well, San Fernando was a market town,

so its high street was lined on both sides with shops.

The Star was one of those establishments.

Here, this building was the Star.

This is my great-great-grandfather's store.

He was a very wealthy man indeed.

This is a probate of his will.

"Real estate, cocoa and sugar plantation known as Nelson."

Indeed.

-130 quarries?

-Quarries.

So you're looking at an approximate of over 400 acres of land.

A man who owns 400 acres on a small island like ours was a man of

significant and very, very extensive consequence in society.

There is still that thing in my head,

and I don't know why it still lingers,

of "Who are you as a person?

"And how much do you value your heritage, your culture,

"your religion, everything about Hinduism?"

You'd have to understand,

colonial British society in the West Indies was heavily stratified

along the lines of colour, race, religion.

So to break the chains of any of those class structures

it would have been almost mandatory to convert to Christianity

some way, somehow. You don't live for yourself.

You live for your children, you live for the future.

In the hope that they have a better life than you.

I'm beginning to understand what kind of man Timothy Sirju was.

-He must have been a pretty tough man.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Liz wants to find out if Timothy Sirju was born in Trinidad,

or if he was the ancestor who came over from India.

She's meeting up again with her cousin Andrew,

he's been doing more digging,

and has some information from cousins in Canada.

-Hello.

-Hello!

-How are you?

-Good.

-Is it going well?

-It's going really well.

I've got something here that's arrived from Canada.

Maybe it will make a bit more sense to you.

Let's do this.

One at a time.

These are very old.

OK.

-Can I look at the back?

-Yeah.

-Oh, my gosh.

-Have a look.

SHE GASPS

"Timothy Sirju with his two brothers beside him,

"and staff of his store at High Street, now Imperial Stores,

"San Fernando."

So Timothy Sirju is May Agnes' father.

Oh, right.

And he had a general store on the high street of San Fernando.

He was a very wealthy, very successful man.

-Right.

-I can't believe I'm seeing what he looks like.

Look at him!

They're very handsome men, the three brothers.

Aren't they? Look at him!

And the second one, I guess,

just helps a bit more with placing people.

-GASPING:

-That is the mother.

-It goes even further, yes.

-And she's in a sari.

-Yeah.

Wow, wow, wow!

So Geo Adhar, perhaps George Adhar,

another son, Samuel Bunsie,

another son, Jas Mungal.

So Sirju is not necessarily the surname as we'd imagined it.

With Indian names, I'm not quite sure how it works.

What was her name, I wonder?

Look at her.

So that's our great-great-great grandmother.

Yes. That would be right.

-Look at her, she's incredible-looking.

-Yes.

Even though I learned so much about Timothy Sirju's life as an adult,

we still know nothing about him as a child,

whether he was born in Trinidad, or whether he did come on the ships.

It's hard to know whether this was all, sort of, acquired prosperity,

or whether they already had some wealth.

-Shamshu?

-Yes.

-Hi, Liz Bonnin.

-Nice to meet you.

Liz is meeting expert genealogist Shamshu Deen.

-Welcome to the National Archives.

-Thank you for having me here.

Shamshu, I wanted to show you this photograph of

my great-great-grandfather Timothy Sirju,

his brothers and their mother.

And I was wondering, basically,

if you had as much information about this family as possible.

I'd be eternally grateful.

Yes, well, it's quite an interesting photograph.

I have here his death certificate.

OK.

"Timothy Sirju, age 42.

"Hindustani interpreter.

"Country of birth - India."

I'm going to cry. Oh, dearie me.

What am I like?

"La Pique Road, cause of death, typhoid."

Oh, I don't know why I got all emotional there.

I presume, because of the dates and everything,

and with the immigration of Indians to Trinidad,

that he potentially was one of those individuals that came on the boats?

But it's really lovely to know for sure that, you know,

I knew I had Indian roots, but it's so real now.

And the fact that we have the names of brothers, that's interesting,

because when people came to Trinidad from wherever they came,

many of them had one name only.

And that name, eventually, could have become a surname.

So that could have been his first name.

His first, and sometimes only name.

Because I was wondering how his brothers all had different surnames.

So to find out which ship he was on, what year he came,

it helps to know that he was in a family group with Bunsie, Mungal,

Adhar, and a mother whose name we don't know.

So we will look to a document which might assist us in this way.

But before we do that, we need to put the gloves on.

-OK.

-Because we are looking at original documents.

I'm so excited right now.

I've got butterflies in my stomach.

I have here one of the sections of a ship register,

and each page represents a person who comes from India.

(Open the book, open the book!)

This here is the register,

or part of the register,

of the Indus ship that came to Trinidad in 1872.

So I want you to take a look at this page

and see if you have any questions.

-Oh... The writing is so beautiful.

-First of all,

-I want you to concentrate on the name of the person.

-Sorry.

Can you read that name for us?

Surjoudin? Surjodin. Surjoodin.

So you see a bit of a name similar to Sirju.

-Yes.

-So bearing that in mind,

we would like to see if any others from that picture

might have been here. OK?

We know that there is a Mungal there.

-So we will change...

-Oh, Mungal.

-Mm-hmm.

And we also know

that this one here...

U-D-H-A-R.

Udhar.

-Adhar.

-Yes. Did you see this one?

This is in Bunsee. B-U-N-S-E-E.

As opposed to B-U-N-S-I-E.

-And...

-So that's the four brothers?

Yes. We can see that.

And we also wanted to take a look here at the age of Sirju.

So we go to Sirju.

And we see his age is what?

-Eight.

-Eight.

And when we look at this death certificate, what are we seeing?

We're seeing that he dies in 1906, at the age...

42, so... It adds up.

It adds up. This is him.

So when you use all the different bits of information

-you can confirm.

-Yes.

What about the mum?

-This is the mum.

-I can't read that beautiful...

Her name is Sudhanee.

Sudhanee.

S-U-D-H-A-N-E-E.

-Sudhanee.

-Yes.

-30 years of age.

My great-great-great grandmother.

Did you know that the father had also come?

-Hang on.

-The husband is here.

-Aunondee.

-Aunondee, yeah.

Liz now has the names of her Indian great-great-great grandparents.

Aunondee and Sudhanee.

She wants to know where they were

in India's caste system.

What is the caste?

-I can't...

-The caste is called Koree, it's right here.

This is an agricultural caste, they were involved in agriculture.

It was not a very high caste.

That tells me so much more, again,

about what he achieved in his life.

If he came from an agricultural background, a low caste.

-What does zillah mean?

-Zillah is the district.

In this case, it's in Uttar Pradesh.

They don't put Uttar Pradesh, but we know this...

-Uttar Pradesh is...

-It's a state in Northern India.

-Northern India.

-It's the largest state.

-But we even have it up to the...

-Village.

-..village level.

-Oh, good grief...

-Luchmanpore.

So they came from the village of Luchmanpore?

-Yes.

-I now finally know where my Indian heritage comes from.

Luchmanpore. In Uttar Pradesh.

Yes.

Indians coming to Trinidad faced a gruelling three-month voyage

around the Cape of Good Hope.

Their passage was paid for them.

In return, once they got to Trinidad,

they were bound to work for a plantation owner

for a period of five years.

A system that was known as indentureship.

So each of these pages, which were on the ship record, is a contract?

-The indentureship?

-Yes. A contract, yes.

"Certified that I have examined and passed the above named

"as a fit subject for emigration,

"and that he is free from all bodily and mental disease

"having been vaccinated."

It sounds a bit...

close to the slavery aspect, doesn't it?

It's like, "This individual is fit...

"You know, I've checked him out, I've checked his teeth."

Do we have any idea of what happened to them

the minute they got off that boat in 1872?

Yes, they were assigned to various plantations or estates.

That estate was called, it's right at the top up here.

Palmist?

-Palmiste?

-Palmiste, correct.

-Right.

-Palmiste? Where's Palmiste?

Does it still exist?

It doesn't exist as an estate any more,

but it is in South Trinidad.

It was in South Trinidad, not too far from San Fernando.

It's really, really hard to put into words how I'm feeling right now.

I can't help but think about Sudhanee and Aunondee,

my great-great-great grandparents.

And Sudhanee certainly has a name and a face now,

with this really young family,

my great-great-grandfather, just eight years old,

an eight-year-old boy leaving his home.

I want to know how on earth this petrified little fellow,

dragged to this plantation to work, how he went from that to this

successful, confident family man

who owned estates, and a shop, and a plantation.

I'd love to understand more about how he made himself such a success

in the face of so many obstacles, so many challenges.

Today, Trinidad's sugar industry is almost closed down.

Liz is meeting historian Radica Mahase at an old disused sugar mill.

I wanted to know what life was like for my family.

Cos they got off the ship

and were assigned their estate and went to work.

What was it like?

Normally the contract stated that they had to work from

six in the morning until six in the evening.

But during crop time, when they were reaping, harvesting cane,

they would probably work till nine, ten in the night.

So they were extremely long days for the labourers.

And how much different was it to the conditions

that the slaves had worked in?

It was a system of paid labour, as opposed to African enslavement.

There was the option to return to India,

whereas with slavery

you didn't have an option to return to Africa at any point.

The mere fact that the indentured labourers lived on the same barracks

that the enslaved Africans lived in before says something.

So it would have been the same plantations,

the same living conditions.

I'm thinking about my great-great-grandfather,

eight years of age.

What would life have been like for him?

Children were allowed to work on the estates.

-Even at eight years old?

-Even at eight years old.

They'd be given lighter tasks, and they'd be given smaller wages.

But there were some estates with the planters were opposed to

the children working and they preferred to encourage the parents

to send the children to school.

So he may have worked, he may have been sent to school?

Yes.

To explain more about the Palmiste estate

where Timothy Sirju's family went,

Radica's taking Liz to a nearby plantation house

which has been turned into a museum.

The Palmiste estate was one of the more liberal estates in Trinidad.

One of the better states to be an indentured labourer.

-Really?

-Yeah. It was owned by the Lamont family,

and they were Scottish Presbyterians.

So the children on the Palmiste estate,

the children of the indentured labourers,

they would have probably been encouraged to attend schools.

So in a sense, you know, I've got the Lamont family to thank

because they could have been sent to a less liberal plantation.

And do we have information about my family at this plantation?

We have a birth certificate of Timothy Sirju's eldest son.

LIZ GASPS

And this birth certificate clearly shows that

Timothy Sirju was a schoolmaster.

This is 1882. What?

Oh, so at 18 years of age.

-Yes.

-He would have been already a schoolmaster.

-This guy! Wow!

-most probably he would have been allowed to attend

school as a little boy on the plantation,

maybe as soon as he arrived in Trinidad,

or right after.

So, if Timothy Sirju had probably stayed in India,

he would probably not have been able to have any kind of

upward caste mobility.

Because there were such severe caste restrictions in India.

So as my heart was breaking for these poor indentured labourers,

and, I mean, that's not to say their life wasn't difficult,

Timothy got opportunities that he, you know, arguably,

he would never have gotten in India.

It's amazing.

When I think about Timothy Sirju first setting eyes on Trinidad,

at the age of eight, you know,

I can't help but want to give that little boy a hug.

It must have been so difficult.

I still feel a little bit sad that he had to lose some of his identity,

his culture, his homeland, but that's probably really unfair of me.

I wasn't born in a lower caste in India,

with very little options to better myself.

So it's a great feeling to think that despite where he came from,

he made so much of himself.

I am incredibly proud to think that he is my ancestor.

Liz now wants to explore the other side of her family - her father's.

It means island hopping.

Liz's father was born in the nearby Caribbean island of Martinique,

which used to be a French colony.

Martinique's history, like Trinidad's,

is dominated by sugar and slavery.

I used to come to Martinique every holiday.

I remember coming for Christmas, for Easter, for summer...

..to visit this amazing woman.

This is my dad's mum.

We all called her Granny. Her name is Julie.

She kind of brought us up, in a way, because we spent so much time here.

She passed away 13 years ago,

and I'm tearing up just thinking about her,

because I loved her so much. I was so close to her.

And this is my first time back in Martinique since she passed away.

So everywhere is just bringing back incredible memories,

and it's a bittersweet visit. For sure.

Liz is meeting up with her aunt, Marie Christine,

who is also her godmother.

Marie Christine!

Darling, Lizzie.

IN FRENCH:

-How have you been?

-I'm great.

-It's so good to see you.

-It's been too long.

Thank you so much for meeting me.

They've come to Granny Julie's old house,

which she moved out of more than 30 years ago.

It no longer belongs to the family,

but the owners have allowed them to take a look around.

-Oh, look at that.

-Oh, my God.

-The terrace.

Oh-la-la-la. OK.

-The terrace has the same tiles.

-Yes, it's the same tiles.

And the same dining room.

Do you know what memory I have, coming through those doors?

Myself, my sister and my cousin,

Karine, it's raining tropical rain, and we all run out here,

and we wash our hair in the rain.

I love that it's the same doors and the same floors.

Let's go out on the terrace.

Same doors. Same doors that Granny used to shut during storms,

and at night we'd all help shut everything up.

It's funny, it seems so much smaller now.

Maybe you've seen this...

Oh!

Oh, Marie Christine, I love it.

-Look at the state of me!

-Look at the baby!

-Could I be any chubbier?

So this is when you were named my godmother.

-Absolutely.

-At my christening.

It was a special day.

Look at you.

Look at that. I remember this photograph.

The year we visited Granny just before her death,

we did start looking at some of the old cupboards where she

had photographs, and I remember seeing this.

-You saw this one?

-This is Granny, in the middle.

-Yes.

So they are all, they are all in mourning.

You see, they all wear black, and the baby wears white.

Their mother just died.

Good grief!

-So Granny's mum died when she was...

-She was a baby.

Yeah.

I didn't realise that she lost her mum so young.

Their father was still alive?

No, the father died a few months before.

Wow, Marie Christine, I didn't know that.

This is him. Everybody called him Achille, which was his second name.

Granny's father.

-Achille Gros Desormeaux.

-Oui.

-Gros Desormeaux.

-Gros Desormeaux is a strange name.

What do we know about the Gros Desormeaux,

-what did your mum tell you?

-It's a huge family.

-Yeah?

-Um...

She wouldn't tell me much.

Such a mix, and it's so complicated.

-Is it?

-Yes.

I was wondering, in fact, I was presuming, that if we were French,

at some point we owned slaves.

Do you know anything about that?

Well, I think they owned a plantation, or several plantations.

I don't know with certainty,

but I was told, my mother told me that

at some point, there were slaves on the plantations.

And when slavery was abolished...

..a few of them stayed with the family.

They wouldn't leave.

OK.

They felt at home.

I hope so, I hope that, aside from the fact that now we recognise it as

a hideous period in our history, that perhaps our family, at least,

treated them well. To make them want to stay,

or perhaps, they had nowhere else to go.

Didn't know what else to do, and they stayed anyway.

But, yeah, I want to find out more about that.

I'm heading south to meet up with a researcher who's been digging into

my grandmother's family tree.

To my absolutely favourite beach in the whole of Martinique,

it's a place I used to go to with Granny all the time.

-Romain?

-C'est moi.

Very nice to meet you.

-How are you?

-Nice to meet you.

THEY CONVERSE IN FRENCH

I wanted to show you this.

This is Achille Gros Desormeaux, he's my great-grandfather.

He's my grandmother Julie's father.

And I would love to know whether the stories of

my family owning slaves is true.

OK.

In Martinique, slavery was abolished in 1848.

So if, at some point,

your family was involved in slavery, it was before that.

I can show you a document I have here with me.

-"Mariage."

-Yes.

Oh, my gosh, so the marriage between Achille and Charlotte.

-Charlotte Savane.

-Charlotte Savane.

So 1907, the 29th of August, at 9.00 in the morning.

Achille was born on the 5th of October, 1883.

"Legitimate son of Louis Marie Gros Desormeaux."

OK, so his father was 79 years old.

-"Proprietaires."

-So he was a landowner.

A landowner.

79 in...1907.

Then he would have been born in 1830...

-1828.

-Exactly.

So that would mean that

at the time of the abolition of slavery he was...

1848... 20 years old.

So it is very unlikely he was himself a slave owner.

So, in order to get to the next generation,

I brought another document for you.

So this is my great-great-grandfather's death certificate.

-Louis Marie.

-Yes, it is.

In 1911.

"Aged 83, landowner.

"The legitimate son..."

So here we go.

"..of Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux.

OK, so we've got your great-great-great-grandfather.

Great-great-great already.

Good Lord. I mean, I wanted to go as far back as possible,

but this is amazing.

So what we know from Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux is that

he was a well-known landowner in the south-east of the island

of Martinique at that time.

And I found something for you.

I found out that one of his properties is still standing.

Would you like to see it?

-Well, let's go.

-Wow!

-Seriously?

-Yes, seriously.

Wow! Yes, let's go.

Let's go.

Liz has traced her family back to

her great, great-great-grandfather,

Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux,

who was a landowner in Martinique

during the era of slavery.

Oh, that is a view and a half!

-Just...

-Amazing.

-..incredible.

And so, Francois Alexandre owned the land?

-Yes. He did.

-And this was, sort of, the main plantation house?

Yes, it was. You can see on top of the hill,

so they could see all the land around.

So Francois Alexandre was a plantation owner?

-Yes, he was.

-Did he own slaves?

Well...

I have a document here I would like to show you.

It's an inventory that was drawn up in 1838 of his possessions.

OK...

"Monsieur Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux, aged 43."

So my great-great-great-grandfather

was born in the 18th century.

OK, so a portion of land, 6.75 hectares.

OK, so it states...

That's incredible, from 1838, so it states who he is,

and the land that he...

Yeah. I just... Hmm.

Actually, can you just stop filming?

The 1838 inventory contains a list of slaves

owned by Liz's great-great-great-grandfather.

Sorry about that, Romain.

I got a shock. It's something I expected,

and it's when I saw people's names and the price...

These are people.

These are human beings who were treated as commodities.

And we know this, but I just got a shock, just seeing it on paper.

So...

Francois Alexandre, for this plantation, owned...one, two, three,

four, five, six, seven slaves.

So, yeah. There's Louison.

-Quarante-sept ans.

-47 years old.

An estimated price, 1,111 francs.

"Bernadine, la fille," so the daughter of Louison.

18 years old.

1,200 francs.

Louise, also the daughter, 13 years old.

900 francs.

I have to take a minute after every one.

-I can't read any more.

-OK.

It's really strange.

I was pretty sure there was slave ownership in my family.

I mean, the whole of Martinique involved slave ownership, you know,

with the sugar cane industry. And many of the other islands.

And much of America. I mean, it's something I was thinking of

before I even left the UK,

and I thought I was more or less prepared for it.

And my reaction shocked me.

Now I look around and I think,

"This was a place that was filled with slaves

"working the sugar cane fields."

It's a lot to take in, even though I was preparing myself,

the reality of it in my family, it's a tough thing.

It's a tough thing. Yeah.

Martinique's economy depended on slavery.

In the 1830s, there were more than 70,000 slaves in the colony.

Ruled over by about 10,000 whites.

Liz is heading to Martinique's archives,

where records from the era of slavery are held.

Dominique? Liz. Bonjour.

IN FRENCH:

She's meeting historian Dominique Roger, an expert on the period.

So, Dominique, yesterday for me was a very hard day.

It was quite overwhelming,

and I found proof that my great-great-great-grandfather,

Francois Alexandre, was a plantation owner, and he owned slaves.

I'm curious to find out if there's anything in the archives that might

help me to understand what he was like as a plantation owner.

Well, we found a few documents.

-OK.

-Are you prepared?

-Yes, I'm prepared.

Mariage de...

-Francois.

-Voila!

OK, so marriage of Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux

and of Mademoiselle Marie Joseph.

That's my great-great-great-grandmother.

Wow!

The year, 1835.

The 22nd of June.

With eight children.

They had eight children. But this...

Hang on. Is this not a marriage certificate?

-Yes, indeed.

-So they had eight children before they got married?

Yes.

If they had illegitimate children,

was there something about their relationship

that wasn't acceptable at the time?

Was one or the other

slightly not of the same class...

I think we are going to have a second document.

This is 1831.

Four years before.

Four years before. In July. "Le mois de juillet."

At 11 in the morning...

SHE READS IN FRENCH

SHE GASPS

Oh, my gosh.

OK, hang on! Wah!

So... "On the 25th of June 1831, in the name of the King...

"..we, the governors of Martinique,

"declare Marie Joseph, aged 40 years, and her six children...

"..liberated of all servitude...

"..and free to enjoy..."

Oh, my gosh! "..free to enjoy the remaining days of their lives

"in the manner that they choose."

So my great-great-great-grandmother,

-Marie Joseph, was a slave?

-Yes.

And her son, my great-great-grandfather,

Louis Marie, was born in 1828,

as a slave.

That's mad!

I have never felt like this in my entire life.

I can't even put into words how I'm feeling right now.

I need to know more about who these people were.

That was a pretty extraordinary revelation.

At a time when sexual exploitation

pretty much went hand-in-hand with slave ownership,

apparently, my great-great-great-grandfather

had what seems to be a very real romance with this slave.

He married her, he legitimised all his children.

And I'm trying not to romanticise the whole thing too much,

but it sounds like Francois Alexandre...

..had the capacity to be a better human being than I potentially

thought he was the beginning

when I first found out he was a slave owner.

Francois Alexandre and the freed slave Marie Joseph,

Liz's great-great-great-grandparents,

were married in 1835.

Liz knows from their wedding certificate that his father was also

called Francois Alexandre.

And that his mother

was called Pauline Zoe.

Liz now wants to

find out about them,

and their attitude to their son's extraordinary marriage to a slave.

She's meeting local historian Vincent Huyghues-Belrose.

IN FRENCH:

Vincent has documents about the next generation of Liz's family.

So this 1804 document proves that Francois Alexandre Sr

had children with Pauline Zoe,

who was a slave at the time when they had two children.

Francois Alexandre Jr,

my great-great-great-grandfather and Marc Antoine.

So that means Francois Alexandre Jr was mixed race.

It's just...

..extraordinary and overwhelming

and I am flabbergasted at this story.

Vincent collaborated with a distant relative of Liz's

who wrote a history of the Gros Desormeaux family.

IN FRENCH:

The book reveals that Francois Alexandre Sr,

a white plantation owner whose father was born in France,

publicly acknowledged Pauline Zoe as his partner.

Although there were not formally married,

this was extremely unusual in Martinique at that time.

Wow!

I am superbly proud of Francois Alexandre Sr,

and I absolutely adore this sentence that speaks of how he created

his own little world, his own haven that suited him,

and he succeeded in protecting his descendants against the hostility

of the law, and the animosity of man.

And now, of course,

I can't rest until I set eyes on where this place was.

Where he just lived the way he wanted to live,

with the people that he loved.

Liz is meeting up again with historian Dominique Roger

to see if they can find the fiefdom Francois Alexandre Sr created

in the hills of Martinique.

Dominique knows that the location of one of his plantations is now

a small hamlet called Desormeaux.

-Pardon, monsieur. Bonjour.

-Bonjour.

IN FRENCH:

Wow.

So this spot is where the known plantation house was.

And it certainly dates to before the late 1800s,

according to my cousins.

So, who knows? This could very well be the place where it all started.

Where Francois Alexandre set up the beginning of his stronghold,

the beginning of his little world.

And then expanded his property.

Dominique has two final documents to show Liz.

They shed light on the relationship between

Liz's great-great-great- great-grandparents,

Francois Alexandre Sr,

and the freed slave, Pauline Zoe.

"The last will and testament of

"Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux Sr, 1831.

"I recognise voluntarily and freely for my natural children,

"all the rights that natural children are entitled to.

"And also legally recognised as such.

"So I leave to the demoiselles Pauline Zoe all of my possessions,

"and the buildings that I own."

This will is a very important part of the story,

it's quite fascinating, in fact.

It was done just after

the law of 1831, which, for the first time,

allows a white man to give money to his family,

or any free person of colour.

So the changing of the law meant

that now he could acknowledge his children,

and now he could acknowledge the woman that he loved.

And leave her all of his possessions?

And he was 95 years old.

So it's a very lucky state of affairs that he lived to that age,

to be able to do this for his family.

So he wrote the will in September 1831, and when did he pass away?

-The year after.

-1832, right.

And what happened to Pauline Zoe after that?

That is the second document.

Dominique has a list of slave owners who received compensation from

the French government when slavery was abolished in 1848.

This is the compensation to slave owners for slaves.

Hang on a second!

SHE received the compensation...

..for the liberation of the slaves that her partner owned,

and that she, in effect, owned. Because she inherited the estates.

That makes my head race.

You know, here is this woman who was a slave to Francois Alexandre,

they fell in love, they had children, who, at the time,

were slaves. My great-great- great-grandfather was a slave.

And then Francois Alexandre Sr passes away,

and Pauline Zoe becomes slave owner, I mean, that's just...

How common would it have been at that time for a freed female slave

to become the owner of a plantation,

or several plantations, and many slaves?

It would be exceptional.

Very rare.

Before going home, Liz is visiting her granny's grave.

I love this story.

It makes me incredibly happy to have made this journey.

Pauline Zoe must have been quite a tremendous woman

to survive that roller coaster that must have been her life.

To be a slave, to be freed, to bear children that were slaves,

and then to become the owner of what she used to be.

That must have been tough.

I guess I won't really ever know

what Francois Alexandre I's exact motivations were,

but he loved who he wanted to love.

And he lived the way he wanted to live.

I don't think he seemed to care what anybody else thought.

And I hope that some of that character has trickled down

through the generations.