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Morning. How are you? | 0:00:04 | 0:00:06 | |
Science and wildlife presenter Liz Bonnin was born in France. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:11 | |
Thanks a million. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:13 | |
She spent much of her childhood in Ireland, | 0:00:13 | 0:00:15 | |
but her family are from the Caribbean. | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
Morning. How's it all going? | 0:00:18 | 0:00:20 | |
When people ask me what I am ethnically, | 0:00:20 | 0:00:22 | |
I just say I'm a mongrel. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
You know those forms you have to fill out for visas or whatever? | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
There actually isn't a box for me. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:29 | |
My mum is from Trinidad, | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
and she is an Indian-Portuguese mix. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
On the other side of my family, | 0:00:36 | 0:00:38 | |
my dad's family, I know that he is French-Martinican, | 0:00:38 | 0:00:41 | |
and maybe other things that I don't know. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:45 | |
I'm a big mishmash of different cultures. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:47 | |
Can you hear me? | 0:00:47 | 0:00:48 | |
And that's bound to reveal some unknowns into the lives | 0:00:48 | 0:00:53 | |
of these zebra. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
But Socks, the four-year-old female that Max spotted in the forest | 0:00:55 | 0:00:58 | |
is pushing ahead of Winnie, Janet and the rest. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:01 | |
Super. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:03 | |
I hope there's nothing too hideous. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:06 | |
I do wonder about slave ownership, | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
and whether that was part of my family's history. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:11 | |
'It's sort of, it's something in the back of my head. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
'I kind of think that it's probably quite likely, yeah. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:18 | |
'I want to find out when' | 0:01:18 | 0:01:20 | |
each arm, sort of, arrived in the Caribbean, and why. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:25 | |
And what the story is. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:27 | |
OK, let's go from 31 or 32 and lose "northern". | 0:01:27 | 0:01:30 | |
I want to know everything. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:33 | |
Everything. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:34 | |
Liz is beginning her journey in Trinidad. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
So I was born in Paris, | 0:02:17 | 0:02:19 | |
and I grew up in the south of France until I was ten. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:22 | |
But my mum is from Trinidad. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:24 | |
Trinidad is one of the most ethnically diverse islands | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
in the Caribbean. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:30 | |
Liz wants to track down the roots of her maternal grandfather's family, | 0:02:32 | 0:02:36 | |
who she knows originally came from India. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:38 | |
I film in India a lot, and I feel a connection to India. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
So I'd love to know when my Indian family came to Trinidad. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:49 | |
Which ancestors moved over, from where in India, | 0:02:49 | 0:02:54 | |
what caste they were... | 0:02:54 | 0:02:56 | |
So I'm on my way to meet my cousin Andrew. He's like a brother to me. | 0:02:56 | 0:03:01 | |
I spent so many holidays here in Trinidad. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:04 | |
I virtually grew up with him. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:05 | |
Liz's cousin has arranged to meet her at an art supplies shop | 0:03:09 | 0:03:13 | |
in the Trinidadian capital Port of Spain. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:16 | |
This business was once owned by Liz's family. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:20 | |
-Hello. -Hello! | 0:03:21 | 0:03:24 | |
-How are you? -I'm really good. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:26 | |
-Good to see you. You OK? -I'm really good, how are you? | 0:03:26 | 0:03:28 | |
-It's been a while. -I know. -Yeah. | 0:03:28 | 0:03:31 | |
Liz never knew her mother's father, her grandfather. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:34 | |
But she did know his sisters, her great aunts. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:39 | |
So we'll do these one at a time. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:40 | |
-The aunties! -Now, who do you know here? | 0:03:42 | 0:03:44 | |
-OK, so that's Orris. -Yes. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:46 | |
That's Sybil, and that's Avril. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:49 | |
Look at them! | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
And, sort of, where they are. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:53 | |
Well, they're in the art shop, I guess. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:55 | |
That's the original place. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:57 | |
My God, this is taking me back, you know. | 0:03:57 | 0:03:59 | |
So... | 0:04:00 | 0:04:01 | |
1956. But do we know when...? | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
Who set up the company? When did it start? | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
Auntie Sybil took the business over from May Agnes, her mother, | 0:04:08 | 0:04:13 | |
-our great-grandmother. -May Agnes. -Yes. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
-Is that her? -Yeah, it is. -Oh, my gosh. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:20 | |
-So that's our great-grandfather. -George, yes. -George? | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
-George was his name. -So handsome. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:27 | |
I can see Mum in May's face. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
-Very much. -So, who's this? | 0:04:29 | 0:04:31 | |
Ah, that is Auntie Sybil. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
Look at her! | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
So, OK, this is May, | 0:04:37 | 0:04:39 | |
this is the first time I've seen a picture of my great-grandfather. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:45 | |
So the next one I've got is an odd one. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
-Well, there's George. -It is. I'm not sure what... | 0:04:51 | 0:04:53 | |
Surrounded by clerics? | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
As in people of the church. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:57 | |
-That's a good point, yes. -They are well-dressed. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
Very colonial, very... | 0:05:00 | 0:05:03 | |
All look like they're from the Caribbean | 0:05:03 | 0:05:05 | |
with Indian or African heritage. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
When the Indians first came to Trinidad to work the farms | 0:05:08 | 0:05:11 | |
they probably didn't have two pennies to rub together. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:13 | |
-Probably not. -So all of these did pretty well for themselves. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:17 | |
Yeah. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:19 | |
Managed to find one, sort of, | 0:05:19 | 0:05:21 | |
document that is actually really interesting. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
It's Auntie Sybil's obituary. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:29 | |
"Sybil Gwendolyn Rawle died peacefully last October | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
"in the Mary Jenny Poole Home | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
"after a lingering illness, at the age of 89. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:39 | |
"She was one of the leaders who established, | 0:05:39 | 0:05:41 | |
"who assisted in establishing the Susama...char..." | 0:05:41 | 0:05:45 | |
-Susamachar. -"..Susamachar Church, | 0:05:45 | 0:05:47 | |
"where she served with great distinction..." | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
Hang on. "She was one of the leaders who assisted in establishing | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
"the Susamachar church..." She set up...? | 0:05:53 | 0:05:54 | |
-Sybil Rawle? -Mmm. -..set up a church? | 0:05:56 | 0:06:00 | |
"..where she served with great distinction, | 0:06:00 | 0:06:02 | |
"eventually being elevated to the status of an ordained elder." | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
Stop it! | 0:06:05 | 0:06:06 | |
-Did you know this? -Not until I read that. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:09 | |
When did this all happen? And how did we not know about this? | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
What is the Susamachar Church? What kind of order is it? | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
Presbyterian, which is then odd, | 0:06:15 | 0:06:17 | |
because your mum and my mum were then brought up very Catholic. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
-So... -Indeed. -The other odd thing is the church was in San Fernando, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:25 | |
in the south of Trinidad, rather than in Port of Spain. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
South Trinidad. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:30 | |
I don't think I've ever been to South Trinidad. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:32 | |
I think it makes sense to me to go to San Fernando and find out more | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
about where George and May came from. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
Indians came to Trinidad to work on the sugar plantations | 0:06:43 | 0:06:47 | |
after the abolition of slavery. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:49 | |
Almost 150,000 made the journey between 1845 and 1917. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:58 | |
Today, their descendants are the largest ethnic group in Trinidad. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:03 | |
Liz wants to know more about her Indian great-grandparents, | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
George Albert and May Agnes Rawle. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
The only clues she has are | 0:07:13 | 0:07:15 | |
the obituary of her Great Aunt Sybil | 0:07:15 | 0:07:18 | |
revealing she was a Presbyterian | 0:07:18 | 0:07:20 | |
from the south of Trinidad, | 0:07:20 | 0:07:21 | |
and an intriguing photograph. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:23 | |
I'm fascinated by this picture | 0:07:25 | 0:07:27 | |
of my great-grandfather, George Albert. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
I can't really make head or tail of it, because, I don't know, | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
I think I would have presumed that my Indian family would have | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
been Hindus. So I'm on my way to meet the archivist | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
of the Presbyterian Church in San Fernando. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
I'm going to show him this picture, | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
and hopefully he can shed some light. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:47 | |
Good morning. Reverend Kalloo? | 0:08:03 | 0:08:06 | |
-Hello. -I'm Liz. | 0:08:06 | 0:08:08 | |
-Liz. -Very nice to meet you. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:09 | |
Welcome to Paradise Hill, San Fernando. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:13 | |
-This is where we are going. -Fantastic. -Come this way. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
This is really what I wanted to ask you about, | 0:08:16 | 0:08:18 | |
because I can't really make sense of this photograph. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:22 | |
This is a gathering of Presbyterian men, as you see, | 0:08:22 | 0:08:25 | |
there are two clergymen at least. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
So what does this mean about George Albert? | 0:08:28 | 0:08:30 | |
What was he? | 0:08:30 | 0:08:31 | |
He was certainly a member of the Presbyterian Church. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:36 | |
Here is a certificate of marriage of... | 0:08:36 | 0:08:42 | |
May Agnes Sirju and George Albert Rawle. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
Performed at Susamachar Presbyterian Church. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:49 | |
Got married in 1907, on the 10th of January. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:53 | |
That's the first time I've seen what her maiden name is. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:58 | |
Do we know anything about Sirjus? | 0:08:58 | 0:09:00 | |
Her father would be a gentleman by the name of Timothy Sirju. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:06 | |
Kenneth J Grant, who performed the wedding, he wrote this book. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:12 | |
My Missionary Memories. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:14 | |
Yes. See. And he mentions Timothy Sirju. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
There he is. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
Timothy Sirju. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:20 | |
Secretary of the Board of Managers. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
So he was a prominent person in the church, he was an elder. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:27 | |
So how does a man of Indian heritage become a Presbyterian? | 0:09:27 | 0:09:34 | |
What happened to my great-great-grandfather, | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
or his family, that led him to go down the Presbyterian path? | 0:09:38 | 0:09:42 | |
The first thing that I would have to note is the educational opportunity. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:46 | |
And because of having an education, of course, upward social mobility, | 0:09:46 | 0:09:51 | |
climbing the social ladder. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
Westernisation went with Christianisation. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
Simply being associated with white missionaries | 0:09:57 | 0:10:01 | |
made a great deal of difference. He is also here. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:05 | |
Timothy Sirju - court interpreter. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
-What's a court interpreter? -Aha, he was... | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
..assigned to the courts of the land, | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
where there were cases being tried, | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
-especially when Indians are involved. -OK, right. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:19 | |
And he was the Hindustani English expert. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
So he'd already learned English, he was then hired, | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
-he was given a good job. -Yeah. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:27 | |
Interesting. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:30 | |
'Weirdly, I feel a little bit torn about what I found out. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
'I feel a bit sad, | 0:10:33 | 0:10:35 | |
'and I think it's because it's that loss of' | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
the Hindu culture. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:41 | |
A loss of all the traditions and the religious beliefs | 0:10:41 | 0:10:46 | |
and culture that I love when I go to India. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
And when I see pictures of my Indian family all dressed up in | 0:10:50 | 0:10:55 | |
this constrictive British garb, | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
in the West Indies... | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
..I just feel a little bit sad that all of that was lost. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:05 | |
Liz has discovered that | 0:11:11 | 0:11:12 | |
her great-great-grandfather, | 0:11:12 | 0:11:14 | |
Timothy Sirju, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:15 | |
was a pillar of the local community. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
She is visiting the Susamachar Church, where he worshipped, | 0:11:18 | 0:11:22 | |
to meet local historian Angelo Bissessarsingh. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:26 | |
So, Angelo, I found out about my great-great-grandfather | 0:11:26 | 0:11:31 | |
Timothy Sirju, | 0:11:31 | 0:11:32 | |
he had quite an important role in the Presbyterian Church, | 0:11:32 | 0:11:37 | |
but he was also quite an influential person outside of the church? | 0:11:37 | 0:11:42 | |
Well, we could start with some documentation, Liz. | 0:11:42 | 0:11:46 | |
Here we have his obituary. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:50 | |
OK. I find it hard to read ancestors' obituaries. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
That's quite surprising. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:55 | |
I'm getting emotional just thinking about a man I've never met. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
-You're connected to him. -Yeah. | 0:11:58 | 0:11:59 | |
OK, so... "Mr Timothy Sirju of San Fernando, | 0:11:59 | 0:12:02 | |
"died at his residence at La Pique on Wednesday evening, the 17th, | 0:12:02 | 0:12:08 | |
"after a fortnight's illness. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:09 | |
"He succumbed to typhoid. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:12 | |
"The deceased will leave an aged mother, widow and 12 children. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:19 | |
"Head of the mercantile house known as the Star." | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
And the mercantile house? What is a mercantile house? | 0:12:22 | 0:12:25 | |
Well, San Fernando was a market town, | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
so its high street was lined on both sides with shops. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:33 | |
The Star was one of those establishments. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:36 | |
Here, this building was the Star. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:41 | |
This is my great-great-grandfather's store. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
He was a very wealthy man indeed. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
This is a probate of his will. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
"Real estate, cocoa and sugar plantation known as Nelson." | 0:12:51 | 0:12:56 | |
Indeed. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:57 | |
-130 quarries? -Quarries. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
So you're looking at an approximate of over 400 acres of land. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:04 | |
A man who owns 400 acres on a small island like ours was a man of | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
significant and very, very extensive consequence in society. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:14 | |
There is still that thing in my head, | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
and I don't know why it still lingers, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:18 | |
of "Who are you as a person? | 0:13:18 | 0:13:21 | |
"And how much do you value your heritage, your culture, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
"your religion, everything about Hinduism?" | 0:13:24 | 0:13:26 | |
You'd have to understand, | 0:13:26 | 0:13:28 | |
colonial British society in the West Indies was heavily stratified | 0:13:28 | 0:13:32 | |
along the lines of colour, race, religion. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:36 | |
So to break the chains of any of those class structures | 0:13:36 | 0:13:41 | |
it would have been almost mandatory to convert to Christianity | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
some way, somehow. You don't live for yourself. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
You live for your children, you live for the future. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:49 | |
In the hope that they have a better life than you. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
I'm beginning to understand what kind of man Timothy Sirju was. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:58 | |
-He must have been a pretty tough man. -Yeah. -Yeah. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:01 | |
Liz wants to find out if Timothy Sirju was born in Trinidad, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:09 | |
or if he was the ancestor who came over from India. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
She's meeting up again with her cousin Andrew, | 0:14:16 | 0:14:18 | |
he's been doing more digging, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:20 | |
and has some information from cousins in Canada. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
-Hello. -Hello! | 0:14:25 | 0:14:27 | |
-How are you? -Good. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:28 | |
-Is it going well? -It's going really well. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:32 | |
I've got something here that's arrived from Canada. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:35 | |
Maybe it will make a bit more sense to you. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
Let's do this. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:40 | |
One at a time. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
These are very old. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:44 | |
OK. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:46 | |
-Can I look at the back? -Yeah. -Oh, my gosh. -Have a look. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
SHE GASPS | 0:14:50 | 0:14:51 | |
"Timothy Sirju with his two brothers beside him, | 0:14:51 | 0:14:55 | |
"and staff of his store at High Street, now Imperial Stores, | 0:14:55 | 0:15:00 | |
"San Fernando." | 0:15:00 | 0:15:01 | |
So Timothy Sirju is May Agnes' father. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:06 | |
Oh, right. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:08 | |
And he had a general store on the high street of San Fernando. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:11 | |
He was a very wealthy, very successful man. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
-Right. -I can't believe I'm seeing what he looks like. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
Look at him! | 0:15:18 | 0:15:20 | |
They're very handsome men, the three brothers. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
Aren't they? Look at him! | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
And the second one, I guess, | 0:15:25 | 0:15:27 | |
just helps a bit more with placing people. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:31 | |
-GASPING: -That is the mother. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:32 | |
-It goes even further, yes. -And she's in a sari. -Yeah. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
Wow, wow, wow! | 0:15:38 | 0:15:40 | |
So Geo Adhar, perhaps George Adhar, | 0:15:40 | 0:15:44 | |
another son, Samuel Bunsie, | 0:15:44 | 0:15:46 | |
another son, Jas Mungal. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:48 | |
So Sirju is not necessarily the surname as we'd imagined it. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:54 | |
With Indian names, I'm not quite sure how it works. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
What was her name, I wonder? | 0:15:57 | 0:15:59 | |
Look at her. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
So that's our great-great-great grandmother. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
Yes. That would be right. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:06 | |
-Look at her, she's incredible-looking. -Yes. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
Even though I learned so much about Timothy Sirju's life as an adult, | 0:16:14 | 0:16:19 | |
we still know nothing about him as a child, | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
whether he was born in Trinidad, or whether he did come on the ships. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:26 | |
It's hard to know whether this was all, sort of, acquired prosperity, | 0:16:26 | 0:16:31 | |
or whether they already had some wealth. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:33 | |
-Shamshu? -Yes. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:35 | |
-Hi, Liz Bonnin. -Nice to meet you. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:37 | |
Liz is meeting expert genealogist Shamshu Deen. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:41 | |
-Welcome to the National Archives. -Thank you for having me here. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:44 | |
Shamshu, I wanted to show you this photograph of | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
my great-great-grandfather Timothy Sirju, | 0:16:48 | 0:16:53 | |
his brothers and their mother. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
And I was wondering, basically, | 0:16:56 | 0:16:58 | |
if you had as much information about this family as possible. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
I'd be eternally grateful. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:02 | |
Yes, well, it's quite an interesting photograph. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:05 | |
I have here his death certificate. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:07 | |
OK. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
"Timothy Sirju, age 42. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:12 | |
"Hindustani interpreter. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:14 | |
"Country of birth - India." | 0:17:14 | 0:17:16 | |
I'm going to cry. Oh, dearie me. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:20 | |
What am I like? | 0:17:20 | 0:17:22 | |
"La Pique Road, cause of death, typhoid." | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
Oh, I don't know why I got all emotional there. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:28 | |
I presume, because of the dates and everything, | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
and with the immigration of Indians to Trinidad, | 0:17:31 | 0:17:35 | |
that he potentially was one of those individuals that came on the boats? | 0:17:35 | 0:17:39 | |
But it's really lovely to know for sure that, you know, | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
I knew I had Indian roots, but it's so real now. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:45 | |
And the fact that we have the names of brothers, that's interesting, | 0:17:45 | 0:17:49 | |
because when people came to Trinidad from wherever they came, | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
many of them had one name only. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:55 | |
And that name, eventually, could have become a surname. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
So that could have been his first name. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
His first, and sometimes only name. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:04 | |
Because I was wondering how his brothers all had different surnames. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:08 | |
So to find out which ship he was on, what year he came, | 0:18:08 | 0:18:12 | |
it helps to know that he was in a family group with Bunsie, Mungal, | 0:18:12 | 0:18:16 | |
Adhar, and a mother whose name we don't know. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:19 | |
So we will look to a document which might assist us in this way. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:23 | |
But before we do that, we need to put the gloves on. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
-OK. -Because we are looking at original documents. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
I'm so excited right now. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
I've got butterflies in my stomach. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:33 | |
I have here one of the sections of a ship register, | 0:18:33 | 0:18:39 | |
and each page represents a person who comes from India. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:43 | |
(Open the book, open the book!) | 0:18:43 | 0:18:44 | |
This here is the register, | 0:18:44 | 0:18:46 | |
or part of the register, | 0:18:46 | 0:18:47 | |
of the Indus ship that came to Trinidad in 1872. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:51 | |
So I want you to take a look at this page | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
and see if you have any questions. | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
-Oh... The writing is so beautiful. -First of all, | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
-I want you to concentrate on the name of the person. -Sorry. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:00 | |
Can you read that name for us? | 0:19:00 | 0:19:02 | |
Surjoudin? Surjodin. Surjoodin. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:09 | |
So you see a bit of a name similar to Sirju. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:13 | |
-Yes. -So bearing that in mind, | 0:19:13 | 0:19:16 | |
we would like to see if any others from that picture | 0:19:16 | 0:19:20 | |
might have been here. OK? | 0:19:20 | 0:19:22 | |
We know that there is a Mungal there. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
-So we will change... -Oh, Mungal. -Mm-hmm. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
And we also know | 0:19:30 | 0:19:32 | |
that this one here... | 0:19:32 | 0:19:34 | |
U-D-H-A-R. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
Udhar. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:40 | |
-Adhar. -Yes. Did you see this one? | 0:19:40 | 0:19:42 | |
This is in Bunsee. B-U-N-S-E-E. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:44 | |
As opposed to B-U-N-S-I-E. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:48 | |
-And... -So that's the four brothers? | 0:19:48 | 0:19:49 | |
Yes. We can see that. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:51 | |
And we also wanted to take a look here at the age of Sirju. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:56 | |
So we go to Sirju. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:58 | |
And we see his age is what? | 0:19:58 | 0:20:00 | |
-Eight. -Eight. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:02 | |
And when we look at this death certificate, what are we seeing? | 0:20:02 | 0:20:05 | |
We're seeing that he dies in 1906, at the age... | 0:20:05 | 0:20:08 | |
42, so... It adds up. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:10 | |
It adds up. This is him. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:12 | |
So when you use all the different bits of information | 0:20:12 | 0:20:15 | |
-you can confirm. -Yes. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:17 | |
What about the mum? | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
-This is the mum. -I can't read that beautiful... | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
Her name is Sudhanee. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:24 | |
Sudhanee. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:26 | |
S-U-D-H-A-N-E-E. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:29 | |
-Sudhanee. -Yes. -30 years of age. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
My great-great-great grandmother. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
Did you know that the father had also come? | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
-Hang on. -The husband is here. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
-Aunondee. -Aunondee, yeah. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:45 | |
Liz now has the names of her Indian great-great-great grandparents. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:53 | |
Aunondee and Sudhanee. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
She wants to know where they were | 0:20:56 | 0:20:58 | |
in India's caste system. | 0:20:58 | 0:20:59 | |
What is the caste? | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
-I can't... -The caste is called Koree, it's right here. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:06 | |
This is an agricultural caste, they were involved in agriculture. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:11 | |
It was not a very high caste. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:13 | |
That tells me so much more, again, | 0:21:13 | 0:21:17 | |
about what he achieved in his life. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:20 | |
If he came from an agricultural background, a low caste. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:25 | |
-What does zillah mean? -Zillah is the district. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
In this case, it's in Uttar Pradesh. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:29 | |
They don't put Uttar Pradesh, but we know this... | 0:21:29 | 0:21:32 | |
-Uttar Pradesh is... -It's a state in Northern India. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:35 | |
-Northern India. -It's the largest state. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:37 | |
-But we even have it up to the... -Village. -..village level. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:39 | |
-Oh, good grief... -Luchmanpore. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:43 | |
So they came from the village of Luchmanpore? | 0:21:43 | 0:21:45 | |
-Yes. -I now finally know where my Indian heritage comes from. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:50 | |
Luchmanpore. In Uttar Pradesh. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
Yes. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:54 | |
Indians coming to Trinidad faced a gruelling three-month voyage | 0:21:57 | 0:22:01 | |
around the Cape of Good Hope. | 0:22:01 | 0:22:03 | |
Their passage was paid for them. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:08 | |
In return, once they got to Trinidad, | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
they were bound to work for a plantation owner | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
for a period of five years. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:18 | |
A system that was known as indentureship. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:21 | |
So each of these pages, which were on the ship record, is a contract? | 0:22:24 | 0:22:30 | |
-The indentureship? -Yes. A contract, yes. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:32 | |
"Certified that I have examined and passed the above named | 0:22:32 | 0:22:36 | |
"as a fit subject for emigration, | 0:22:36 | 0:22:40 | |
"and that he is free from all bodily and mental disease | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
"having been vaccinated." | 0:22:44 | 0:22:46 | |
It sounds a bit... | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
close to the slavery aspect, doesn't it? | 0:22:49 | 0:22:53 | |
It's like, "This individual is fit... | 0:22:53 | 0:22:55 | |
"You know, I've checked him out, I've checked his teeth." | 0:22:55 | 0:22:58 | |
Do we have any idea of what happened to them | 0:22:58 | 0:23:02 | |
the minute they got off that boat in 1872? | 0:23:02 | 0:23:04 | |
Yes, they were assigned to various plantations or estates. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:09 | |
That estate was called, it's right at the top up here. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:13 | |
Palmist? | 0:23:15 | 0:23:17 | |
-Palmiste? -Palmiste, correct. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
-Right. -Palmiste? Where's Palmiste? | 0:23:19 | 0:23:22 | |
Does it still exist? | 0:23:22 | 0:23:23 | |
It doesn't exist as an estate any more, | 0:23:23 | 0:23:25 | |
but it is in South Trinidad. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:27 | |
It was in South Trinidad, not too far from San Fernando. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
It's really, really hard to put into words how I'm feeling right now. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:35 | |
I can't help but think about Sudhanee and Aunondee, | 0:23:35 | 0:23:39 | |
my great-great-great grandparents. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:42 | |
And Sudhanee certainly has a name and a face now, | 0:23:42 | 0:23:45 | |
with this really young family, | 0:23:45 | 0:23:47 | |
my great-great-grandfather, just eight years old, | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
an eight-year-old boy leaving his home. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:55 | |
I want to know how on earth this petrified little fellow, | 0:23:55 | 0:23:59 | |
dragged to this plantation to work, how he went from that to this | 0:23:59 | 0:24:05 | |
successful, confident family man | 0:24:05 | 0:24:10 | |
who owned estates, and a shop, and a plantation. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:14 | |
I'd love to understand more about how he made himself such a success | 0:24:15 | 0:24:19 | |
in the face of so many obstacles, so many challenges. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:22 | |
Today, Trinidad's sugar industry is almost closed down. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:29 | |
Liz is meeting historian Radica Mahase at an old disused sugar mill. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:36 | |
I wanted to know what life was like for my family. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
Cos they got off the ship | 0:24:40 | 0:24:42 | |
and were assigned their estate and went to work. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:44 | |
What was it like? | 0:24:44 | 0:24:46 | |
Normally the contract stated that they had to work from | 0:24:46 | 0:24:48 | |
six in the morning until six in the evening. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:50 | |
But during crop time, when they were reaping, harvesting cane, | 0:24:50 | 0:24:53 | |
they would probably work till nine, ten in the night. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:56 | |
So they were extremely long days for the labourers. | 0:24:56 | 0:24:59 | |
And how much different was it to the conditions | 0:24:59 | 0:25:03 | |
that the slaves had worked in? | 0:25:03 | 0:25:05 | |
It was a system of paid labour, as opposed to African enslavement. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:09 | |
There was the option to return to India, | 0:25:09 | 0:25:11 | |
whereas with slavery | 0:25:11 | 0:25:12 | |
you didn't have an option to return to Africa at any point. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:16 | |
The mere fact that the indentured labourers lived on the same barracks | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
that the enslaved Africans lived in before says something. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:22 | |
So it would have been the same plantations, | 0:25:22 | 0:25:24 | |
the same living conditions. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
I'm thinking about my great-great-grandfather, | 0:25:26 | 0:25:30 | |
eight years of age. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:31 | |
What would life have been like for him? | 0:25:31 | 0:25:34 | |
Children were allowed to work on the estates. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:36 | |
-Even at eight years old? -Even at eight years old. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:38 | |
They'd be given lighter tasks, and they'd be given smaller wages. | 0:25:38 | 0:25:41 | |
But there were some estates with the planters were opposed to | 0:25:41 | 0:25:44 | |
the children working and they preferred to encourage the parents | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
to send the children to school. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
So he may have worked, he may have been sent to school? | 0:25:49 | 0:25:53 | |
Yes. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:54 | |
To explain more about the Palmiste estate | 0:25:56 | 0:25:58 | |
where Timothy Sirju's family went, | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
Radica's taking Liz to a nearby plantation house | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
which has been turned into a museum. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
The Palmiste estate was one of the more liberal estates in Trinidad. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:11 | |
One of the better states to be an indentured labourer. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:14 | |
-Really? -Yeah. It was owned by the Lamont family, | 0:26:14 | 0:26:17 | |
and they were Scottish Presbyterians. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
So the children on the Palmiste estate, | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
the children of the indentured labourers, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:24 | |
they would have probably been encouraged to attend schools. | 0:26:24 | 0:26:27 | |
So in a sense, you know, I've got the Lamont family to thank | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
because they could have been sent to a less liberal plantation. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:34 | |
And do we have information about my family at this plantation? | 0:26:34 | 0:26:38 | |
We have a birth certificate of Timothy Sirju's eldest son. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:45 | |
LIZ GASPS | 0:26:45 | 0:26:48 | |
And this birth certificate clearly shows that | 0:26:48 | 0:26:51 | |
Timothy Sirju was a schoolmaster. | 0:26:51 | 0:26:53 | |
This is 1882. What? | 0:26:53 | 0:26:56 | |
Oh, so at 18 years of age. | 0:26:57 | 0:26:59 | |
-Yes. -He would have been already a schoolmaster. | 0:26:59 | 0:27:03 | |
-This guy! Wow! -most probably he would have been allowed to attend | 0:27:03 | 0:27:07 | |
school as a little boy on the plantation, | 0:27:07 | 0:27:10 | |
maybe as soon as he arrived in Trinidad, | 0:27:10 | 0:27:12 | |
or right after. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:13 | |
So, if Timothy Sirju had probably stayed in India, | 0:27:13 | 0:27:17 | |
he would probably not have been able to have any kind of | 0:27:17 | 0:27:19 | |
upward caste mobility. | 0:27:19 | 0:27:22 | |
Because there were such severe caste restrictions in India. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:26 | |
So as my heart was breaking for these poor indentured labourers, | 0:27:26 | 0:27:30 | |
and, I mean, that's not to say their life wasn't difficult, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
Timothy got opportunities that he, you know, arguably, | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
he would never have gotten in India. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:39 | |
It's amazing. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:41 | |
When I think about Timothy Sirju first setting eyes on Trinidad, | 0:27:53 | 0:28:00 | |
at the age of eight, you know, | 0:28:00 | 0:28:02 | |
I can't help but want to give that little boy a hug. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:05 | |
It must have been so difficult. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
I still feel a little bit sad that he had to lose some of his identity, | 0:28:08 | 0:28:12 | |
his culture, his homeland, but that's probably really unfair of me. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
I wasn't born in a lower caste in India, | 0:28:15 | 0:28:18 | |
with very little options to better myself. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:22 | |
So it's a great feeling to think that despite where he came from, | 0:28:22 | 0:28:27 | |
he made so much of himself. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
I am incredibly proud to think that he is my ancestor. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:33 | |
Liz now wants to explore the other side of her family - her father's. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:48 | |
It means island hopping. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:50 | |
Liz's father was born in the nearby Caribbean island of Martinique, | 0:28:52 | 0:28:56 | |
which used to be a French colony. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:58 | |
Martinique's history, like Trinidad's, | 0:29:10 | 0:29:13 | |
is dominated by sugar and slavery. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:15 | |
I used to come to Martinique every holiday. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
I remember coming for Christmas, for Easter, for summer... | 0:29:18 | 0:29:22 | |
..to visit this amazing woman. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:25 | |
This is my dad's mum. | 0:29:25 | 0:29:28 | |
We all called her Granny. Her name is Julie. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:31 | |
She kind of brought us up, in a way, because we spent so much time here. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:35 | |
She passed away 13 years ago, | 0:29:35 | 0:29:37 | |
and I'm tearing up just thinking about her, | 0:29:37 | 0:29:40 | |
because I loved her so much. I was so close to her. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:42 | |
And this is my first time back in Martinique since she passed away. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:47 | |
So everywhere is just bringing back incredible memories, | 0:29:47 | 0:29:51 | |
and it's a bittersweet visit. For sure. | 0:29:51 | 0:29:55 | |
Liz is meeting up with her aunt, Marie Christine, | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
who is also her godmother. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:04 | |
Marie Christine! | 0:30:08 | 0:30:10 | |
Darling, Lizzie. | 0:30:10 | 0:30:11 | |
IN FRENCH: | 0:30:11 | 0:30:14 | |
-How have you been? -I'm great. | 0:30:14 | 0:30:16 | |
-It's so good to see you. -It's been too long. | 0:30:20 | 0:30:22 | |
Thank you so much for meeting me. | 0:30:22 | 0:30:24 | |
They've come to Granny Julie's old house, | 0:30:24 | 0:30:26 | |
which she moved out of more than 30 years ago. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:30 | |
It no longer belongs to the family, | 0:30:30 | 0:30:31 | |
but the owners have allowed them to take a look around. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:34 | |
-Oh, look at that. -Oh, my God. -The terrace. | 0:30:36 | 0:30:38 | |
Oh-la-la-la. OK. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:42 | |
-The terrace has the same tiles. -Yes, it's the same tiles. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:45 | |
And the same dining room. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:47 | |
Do you know what memory I have, coming through those doors? | 0:30:47 | 0:30:50 | |
Myself, my sister and my cousin, | 0:30:50 | 0:30:52 | |
Karine, it's raining tropical rain, and we all run out here, | 0:30:52 | 0:30:57 | |
and we wash our hair in the rain. | 0:30:57 | 0:30:59 | |
I love that it's the same doors and the same floors. | 0:31:02 | 0:31:06 | |
Let's go out on the terrace. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:10 | |
Same doors. Same doors that Granny used to shut during storms, | 0:31:11 | 0:31:15 | |
and at night we'd all help shut everything up. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:19 | |
It's funny, it seems so much smaller now. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:23 | |
Maybe you've seen this... | 0:31:26 | 0:31:28 | |
Oh! | 0:31:28 | 0:31:30 | |
Oh, Marie Christine, I love it. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:33 | |
-Look at the state of me! -Look at the baby! -Could I be any chubbier? | 0:31:33 | 0:31:37 | |
So this is when you were named my godmother. | 0:31:37 | 0:31:41 | |
-Absolutely. -At my christening. | 0:31:41 | 0:31:43 | |
It was a special day. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:45 | |
Look at you. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:47 | |
Look at that. I remember this photograph. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:51 | |
The year we visited Granny just before her death, | 0:31:51 | 0:31:54 | |
we did start looking at some of the old cupboards where she | 0:31:54 | 0:31:58 | |
had photographs, and I remember seeing this. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:00 | |
-You saw this one? -This is Granny, in the middle. -Yes. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:04 | |
So they are all, they are all in mourning. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:06 | |
You see, they all wear black, and the baby wears white. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:10 | |
Their mother just died. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:13 | |
Good grief! | 0:32:13 | 0:32:15 | |
-So Granny's mum died when she was... -She was a baby. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:18 | |
Yeah. | 0:32:18 | 0:32:19 | |
I didn't realise that she lost her mum so young. | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
Their father was still alive? | 0:32:22 | 0:32:24 | |
No, the father died a few months before. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:26 | |
Wow, Marie Christine, I didn't know that. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:30 | |
This is him. Everybody called him Achille, which was his second name. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:35 | |
Granny's father. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:38 | |
-Achille Gros Desormeaux. -Oui. | 0:32:38 | 0:32:41 | |
-Gros Desormeaux. -Gros Desormeaux is a strange name. | 0:32:41 | 0:32:45 | |
What do we know about the Gros Desormeaux, | 0:32:45 | 0:32:47 | |
-what did your mum tell you? -It's a huge family. | 0:32:47 | 0:32:51 | |
-Yeah? -Um... | 0:32:51 | 0:32:53 | |
She wouldn't tell me much. | 0:32:53 | 0:32:54 | |
Such a mix, and it's so complicated. | 0:32:56 | 0:32:59 | |
-Is it? -Yes. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:00 | |
I was wondering, in fact, I was presuming, that if we were French, | 0:33:00 | 0:33:07 | |
at some point we owned slaves. | 0:33:07 | 0:33:10 | |
Do you know anything about that? | 0:33:10 | 0:33:12 | |
Well, I think they owned a plantation, or several plantations. | 0:33:12 | 0:33:18 | |
I don't know with certainty, | 0:33:18 | 0:33:21 | |
but I was told, my mother told me that | 0:33:21 | 0:33:24 | |
at some point, there were slaves on the plantations. | 0:33:24 | 0:33:28 | |
And when slavery was abolished... | 0:33:28 | 0:33:30 | |
..a few of them stayed with the family. | 0:33:33 | 0:33:36 | |
They wouldn't leave. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:38 | |
OK. | 0:33:39 | 0:33:41 | |
They felt at home. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:43 | |
I hope so, I hope that, aside from the fact that now we recognise it as | 0:33:43 | 0:33:48 | |
a hideous period in our history, that perhaps our family, at least, | 0:33:48 | 0:33:52 | |
treated them well. To make them want to stay, | 0:33:52 | 0:33:55 | |
or perhaps, they had nowhere else to go. | 0:33:55 | 0:33:57 | |
Didn't know what else to do, and they stayed anyway. | 0:33:57 | 0:33:59 | |
But, yeah, I want to find out more about that. | 0:33:59 | 0:34:02 | |
I'm heading south to meet up with a researcher who's been digging into | 0:34:10 | 0:34:13 | |
my grandmother's family tree. | 0:34:13 | 0:34:15 | |
To my absolutely favourite beach in the whole of Martinique, | 0:34:15 | 0:34:19 | |
it's a place I used to go to with Granny all the time. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:22 | |
-Romain? -C'est moi. | 0:34:31 | 0:34:33 | |
Very nice to meet you. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:35 | |
-How are you? -Nice to meet you. | 0:34:35 | 0:34:36 | |
THEY CONVERSE IN FRENCH | 0:34:36 | 0:34:40 | |
I wanted to show you this. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:42 | |
This is Achille Gros Desormeaux, he's my great-grandfather. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:48 | |
He's my grandmother Julie's father. | 0:34:48 | 0:34:51 | |
And I would love to know whether the stories of | 0:34:51 | 0:34:56 | |
my family owning slaves is true. | 0:34:56 | 0:34:59 | |
OK. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:01 | |
In Martinique, slavery was abolished in 1848. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
So if, at some point, | 0:35:04 | 0:35:06 | |
your family was involved in slavery, it was before that. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:10 | |
I can show you a document I have here with me. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:14 | |
-"Mariage." -Yes. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
Oh, my gosh, so the marriage between Achille and Charlotte. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:23 | |
-Charlotte Savane. -Charlotte Savane. | 0:35:23 | 0:35:26 | |
So 1907, the 29th of August, at 9.00 in the morning. | 0:35:26 | 0:35:30 | |
Achille was born on the 5th of October, 1883. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:37 | |
"Legitimate son of Louis Marie Gros Desormeaux." | 0:35:37 | 0:35:42 | |
OK, so his father was 79 years old. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:47 | |
-"Proprietaires." -So he was a landowner. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
A landowner. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:52 | |
79 in...1907. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:58 | |
Then he would have been born in 1830... | 0:35:58 | 0:36:02 | |
-1828. -Exactly. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:04 | |
So that would mean that | 0:36:04 | 0:36:06 | |
at the time of the abolition of slavery he was... | 0:36:06 | 0:36:09 | |
1848... 20 years old. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
So it is very unlikely he was himself a slave owner. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:19 | |
So, in order to get to the next generation, | 0:36:19 | 0:36:21 | |
I brought another document for you. | 0:36:21 | 0:36:23 | |
So this is my great-great-grandfather's death certificate. | 0:36:26 | 0:36:30 | |
-Louis Marie. -Yes, it is. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:32 | |
In 1911. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:34 | |
"Aged 83, landowner. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:40 | |
"The legitimate son..." | 0:36:40 | 0:36:41 | |
So here we go. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:42 | |
"..of Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux. | 0:36:42 | 0:36:46 | |
OK, so we've got your great-great-great-grandfather. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:49 | |
Great-great-great already. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:51 | |
Good Lord. I mean, I wanted to go as far back as possible, | 0:36:51 | 0:36:53 | |
but this is amazing. | 0:36:53 | 0:36:55 | |
So what we know from Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux is that | 0:36:56 | 0:37:00 | |
he was a well-known landowner in the south-east of the island | 0:37:00 | 0:37:05 | |
of Martinique at that time. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:07 | |
And I found something for you. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:09 | |
I found out that one of his properties is still standing. | 0:37:09 | 0:37:13 | |
Would you like to see it? | 0:37:13 | 0:37:15 | |
-Well, let's go. -Wow! | 0:37:17 | 0:37:20 | |
-Seriously? -Yes, seriously. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:23 | |
Wow! Yes, let's go. | 0:37:23 | 0:37:25 | |
Let's go. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:26 | |
Liz has traced her family back to | 0:37:29 | 0:37:31 | |
her great, great-great-grandfather, | 0:37:31 | 0:37:34 | |
Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux, | 0:37:34 | 0:37:37 | |
who was a landowner in Martinique | 0:37:37 | 0:37:39 | |
during the era of slavery. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:40 | |
Oh, that is a view and a half! | 0:37:49 | 0:37:52 | |
-Just... -Amazing. -..incredible. | 0:37:55 | 0:37:57 | |
And so, Francois Alexandre owned the land? | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
-Yes. He did. -And this was, sort of, the main plantation house? | 0:38:04 | 0:38:08 | |
Yes, it was. You can see on top of the hill, | 0:38:08 | 0:38:10 | |
so they could see all the land around. | 0:38:10 | 0:38:12 | |
So Francois Alexandre was a plantation owner? | 0:38:14 | 0:38:18 | |
-Yes, he was. -Did he own slaves? | 0:38:18 | 0:38:21 | |
Well... | 0:38:21 | 0:38:23 | |
I have a document here I would like to show you. | 0:38:23 | 0:38:25 | |
It's an inventory that was drawn up in 1838 of his possessions. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:32 | |
OK... | 0:38:34 | 0:38:35 | |
"Monsieur Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux, aged 43." | 0:38:35 | 0:38:41 | |
So my great-great-great-grandfather | 0:38:41 | 0:38:44 | |
was born in the 18th century. | 0:38:44 | 0:38:46 | |
OK, so a portion of land, 6.75 hectares. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:52 | |
OK, so it states... | 0:38:52 | 0:38:53 | |
That's incredible, from 1838, so it states who he is, | 0:38:53 | 0:38:57 | |
and the land that he... | 0:38:57 | 0:38:58 | |
Yeah. I just... Hmm. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:02 | |
Actually, can you just stop filming? | 0:39:08 | 0:39:10 | |
The 1838 inventory contains a list of slaves | 0:39:13 | 0:39:16 | |
owned by Liz's great-great-great-grandfather. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:19 | |
Sorry about that, Romain. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:29 | |
I got a shock. It's something I expected, | 0:39:29 | 0:39:33 | |
and it's when I saw people's names and the price... | 0:39:33 | 0:39:37 | |
These are people. | 0:39:39 | 0:39:40 | |
These are human beings who were treated as commodities. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
And we know this, but I just got a shock, just seeing it on paper. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:48 | |
So... | 0:39:50 | 0:39:51 | |
Francois Alexandre, for this plantation, owned...one, two, three, | 0:39:51 | 0:39:56 | |
four, five, six, seven slaves. | 0:39:56 | 0:40:01 | |
So, yeah. There's Louison. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
-Quarante-sept ans. -47 years old. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:08 | |
An estimated price, 1,111 francs. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:13 | |
"Bernadine, la fille," so the daughter of Louison. | 0:40:13 | 0:40:17 | |
18 years old. | 0:40:17 | 0:40:20 | |
1,200 francs. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:22 | |
Louise, also the daughter, 13 years old. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:28 | |
900 francs. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:29 | |
I have to take a minute after every one. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:33 | |
-I can't read any more. -OK. | 0:40:36 | 0:40:39 | |
It's really strange. | 0:40:41 | 0:40:43 | |
I was pretty sure there was slave ownership in my family. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:48 | |
I mean, the whole of Martinique involved slave ownership, you know, | 0:40:48 | 0:40:52 | |
with the sugar cane industry. And many of the other islands. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:56 | |
And much of America. I mean, it's something I was thinking of | 0:40:56 | 0:40:58 | |
before I even left the UK, | 0:40:58 | 0:41:00 | |
and I thought I was more or less prepared for it. | 0:41:00 | 0:41:05 | |
And my reaction shocked me. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:07 | |
Now I look around and I think, | 0:41:07 | 0:41:10 | |
"This was a place that was filled with slaves | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
"working the sugar cane fields." | 0:41:13 | 0:41:15 | |
It's a lot to take in, even though I was preparing myself, | 0:41:16 | 0:41:20 | |
the reality of it in my family, it's a tough thing. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:24 | |
It's a tough thing. Yeah. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:25 | |
Martinique's economy depended on slavery. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:36 | |
In the 1830s, there were more than 70,000 slaves in the colony. | 0:41:36 | 0:41:40 | |
Ruled over by about 10,000 whites. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:45 | |
Liz is heading to Martinique's archives, | 0:41:51 | 0:41:53 | |
where records from the era of slavery are held. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
Dominique? Liz. Bonjour. | 0:41:58 | 0:41:59 | |
IN FRENCH: | 0:41:59 | 0:42:01 | |
She's meeting historian Dominique Roger, an expert on the period. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:09 | |
So, Dominique, yesterday for me was a very hard day. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:15 | |
It was quite overwhelming, | 0:42:15 | 0:42:18 | |
and I found proof that my great-great-great-grandfather, | 0:42:18 | 0:42:21 | |
Francois Alexandre, was a plantation owner, and he owned slaves. | 0:42:21 | 0:42:25 | |
I'm curious to find out if there's anything in the archives that might | 0:42:27 | 0:42:31 | |
help me to understand what he was like as a plantation owner. | 0:42:31 | 0:42:36 | |
Well, we found a few documents. | 0:42:36 | 0:42:39 | |
-OK. -Are you prepared? -Yes, I'm prepared. | 0:42:39 | 0:42:42 | |
Mariage de... | 0:42:45 | 0:42:48 | |
-Francois. -Voila! | 0:42:49 | 0:42:50 | |
OK, so marriage of Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux | 0:42:50 | 0:42:56 | |
and of Mademoiselle Marie Joseph. | 0:42:56 | 0:43:01 | |
That's my great-great-great-grandmother. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:05 | |
Wow! | 0:43:06 | 0:43:08 | |
The year, 1835. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:11 | |
The 22nd of June. | 0:43:11 | 0:43:14 | |
With eight children. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:17 | |
They had eight children. But this... | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
Hang on. Is this not a marriage certificate? | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
-Yes, indeed. -So they had eight children before they got married? | 0:43:23 | 0:43:26 | |
Yes. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:27 | |
If they had illegitimate children, | 0:43:29 | 0:43:31 | |
was there something about their relationship | 0:43:31 | 0:43:35 | |
that wasn't acceptable at the time? | 0:43:35 | 0:43:38 | |
Was one or the other | 0:43:38 | 0:43:40 | |
slightly not of the same class... | 0:43:40 | 0:43:45 | |
I think we are going to have a second document. | 0:43:45 | 0:43:47 | |
This is 1831. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:52 | |
Four years before. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:54 | |
Four years before. In July. "Le mois de juillet." | 0:43:54 | 0:43:57 | |
At 11 in the morning... | 0:43:57 | 0:43:59 | |
SHE READS IN FRENCH | 0:43:59 | 0:44:03 | |
SHE GASPS | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
Oh, my gosh. | 0:44:06 | 0:44:07 | |
OK, hang on! Wah! | 0:44:07 | 0:44:09 | |
So... "On the 25th of June 1831, in the name of the King... | 0:44:10 | 0:44:15 | |
"..we, the governors of Martinique, | 0:44:16 | 0:44:20 | |
"declare Marie Joseph, aged 40 years, and her six children... | 0:44:20 | 0:44:27 | |
"..liberated of all servitude... | 0:44:29 | 0:44:32 | |
"..and free to enjoy..." | 0:44:34 | 0:44:36 | |
Oh, my gosh! "..free to enjoy the remaining days of their lives | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
"in the manner that they choose." | 0:44:39 | 0:44:41 | |
So my great-great-great-grandmother, | 0:44:44 | 0:44:47 | |
-Marie Joseph, was a slave? -Yes. | 0:44:47 | 0:44:50 | |
And her son, my great-great-grandfather, | 0:44:52 | 0:44:55 | |
Louis Marie, was born in 1828, | 0:44:55 | 0:44:59 | |
as a slave. | 0:44:59 | 0:45:01 | |
That's mad! | 0:45:01 | 0:45:02 | |
I have never felt like this in my entire life. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
I can't even put into words how I'm feeling right now. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:11 | |
I need to know more about who these people were. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:14 | |
That was a pretty extraordinary revelation. | 0:45:22 | 0:45:25 | |
At a time when sexual exploitation | 0:45:27 | 0:45:29 | |
pretty much went hand-in-hand with slave ownership, | 0:45:29 | 0:45:32 | |
apparently, my great-great-great-grandfather | 0:45:32 | 0:45:36 | |
had what seems to be a very real romance with this slave. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:41 | |
He married her, he legitimised all his children. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:45 | |
And I'm trying not to romanticise the whole thing too much, | 0:45:45 | 0:45:48 | |
but it sounds like Francois Alexandre... | 0:45:48 | 0:45:50 | |
..had the capacity to be a better human being than I potentially | 0:45:52 | 0:45:55 | |
thought he was the beginning | 0:45:55 | 0:45:57 | |
when I first found out he was a slave owner. | 0:45:57 | 0:45:59 | |
Francois Alexandre and the freed slave Marie Joseph, | 0:46:04 | 0:46:09 | |
Liz's great-great-great-grandparents, | 0:46:09 | 0:46:12 | |
were married in 1835. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:15 | |
Liz knows from their wedding certificate that his father was also | 0:46:15 | 0:46:18 | |
called Francois Alexandre. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:20 | |
And that his mother | 0:46:20 | 0:46:22 | |
was called Pauline Zoe. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:24 | |
Liz now wants to | 0:46:24 | 0:46:25 | |
find out about them, | 0:46:25 | 0:46:27 | |
and their attitude to their son's extraordinary marriage to a slave. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:31 | |
She's meeting local historian Vincent Huyghues-Belrose. | 0:46:36 | 0:46:41 | |
IN FRENCH: | 0:46:41 | 0:46:43 | |
Vincent has documents about the next generation of Liz's family. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:54 | |
So this 1804 document proves that Francois Alexandre Sr | 0:47:58 | 0:48:05 | |
had children with Pauline Zoe, | 0:48:05 | 0:48:09 | |
who was a slave at the time when they had two children. | 0:48:09 | 0:48:14 | |
Francois Alexandre Jr, | 0:48:14 | 0:48:16 | |
my great-great-great-grandfather and Marc Antoine. | 0:48:16 | 0:48:20 | |
So that means Francois Alexandre Jr was mixed race. | 0:48:21 | 0:48:26 | |
It's just... | 0:48:27 | 0:48:29 | |
..extraordinary and overwhelming | 0:48:30 | 0:48:33 | |
and I am flabbergasted at this story. | 0:48:33 | 0:48:36 | |
Vincent collaborated with a distant relative of Liz's | 0:48:36 | 0:48:40 | |
who wrote a history of the Gros Desormeaux family. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
IN FRENCH: | 0:48:44 | 0:48:46 | |
The book reveals that Francois Alexandre Sr, | 0:49:09 | 0:49:12 | |
a white plantation owner whose father was born in France, | 0:49:12 | 0:49:16 | |
publicly acknowledged Pauline Zoe as his partner. | 0:49:16 | 0:49:19 | |
Although there were not formally married, | 0:49:19 | 0:49:22 | |
this was extremely unusual in Martinique at that time. | 0:49:22 | 0:49:26 | |
Wow! | 0:49:53 | 0:49:55 | |
I am superbly proud of Francois Alexandre Sr, | 0:50:05 | 0:50:10 | |
and I absolutely adore this sentence that speaks of how he created | 0:50:10 | 0:50:15 | |
his own little world, his own haven that suited him, | 0:50:15 | 0:50:19 | |
and he succeeded in protecting his descendants against the hostility | 0:50:19 | 0:50:24 | |
of the law, and the animosity of man. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
And now, of course, | 0:50:29 | 0:50:31 | |
I can't rest until I set eyes on where this place was. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:35 | |
Where he just lived the way he wanted to live, | 0:50:35 | 0:50:38 | |
with the people that he loved. | 0:50:38 | 0:50:40 | |
Liz is meeting up again with historian Dominique Roger | 0:50:41 | 0:50:45 | |
to see if they can find the fiefdom Francois Alexandre Sr created | 0:50:45 | 0:50:49 | |
in the hills of Martinique. | 0:50:49 | 0:50:51 | |
Dominique knows that the location of one of his plantations is now | 0:50:55 | 0:50:59 | |
a small hamlet called Desormeaux. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:02 | |
-Pardon, monsieur. Bonjour. -Bonjour. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:09 | |
IN FRENCH: | 0:51:09 | 0:51:11 | |
Wow. | 0:52:29 | 0:52:31 | |
So this spot is where the known plantation house was. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:37 | |
And it certainly dates to before the late 1800s, | 0:52:37 | 0:52:41 | |
according to my cousins. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
So, who knows? This could very well be the place where it all started. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:47 | |
Where Francois Alexandre set up the beginning of his stronghold, | 0:52:47 | 0:52:52 | |
the beginning of his little world. | 0:52:52 | 0:52:54 | |
And then expanded his property. | 0:52:54 | 0:52:58 | |
Dominique has two final documents to show Liz. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:11 | |
They shed light on the relationship between | 0:53:11 | 0:53:14 | |
Liz's great-great-great- great-grandparents, | 0:53:14 | 0:53:18 | |
Francois Alexandre Sr, | 0:53:18 | 0:53:20 | |
and the freed slave, Pauline Zoe. | 0:53:20 | 0:53:22 | |
"The last will and testament of | 0:53:24 | 0:53:27 | |
"Francois Alexandre Gros Desormeaux Sr, 1831. | 0:53:27 | 0:53:30 | |
"I recognise voluntarily and freely for my natural children, | 0:53:32 | 0:53:38 | |
"all the rights that natural children are entitled to. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:42 | |
"And also legally recognised as such. | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
"So I leave to the demoiselles Pauline Zoe all of my possessions, | 0:53:45 | 0:53:50 | |
"and the buildings that I own." | 0:53:50 | 0:53:53 | |
This will is a very important part of the story, | 0:53:53 | 0:53:57 | |
it's quite fascinating, in fact. | 0:53:57 | 0:53:59 | |
It was done just after | 0:53:59 | 0:54:02 | |
the law of 1831, which, for the first time, | 0:54:02 | 0:54:06 | |
allows a white man to give money to his family, | 0:54:06 | 0:54:11 | |
or any free person of colour. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:14 | |
So the changing of the law meant | 0:54:14 | 0:54:16 | |
that now he could acknowledge his children, | 0:54:16 | 0:54:19 | |
and now he could acknowledge the woman that he loved. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:23 | |
And leave her all of his possessions? | 0:54:23 | 0:54:25 | |
And he was 95 years old. | 0:54:26 | 0:54:30 | |
So it's a very lucky state of affairs that he lived to that age, | 0:54:30 | 0:54:37 | |
to be able to do this for his family. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:39 | |
So he wrote the will in September 1831, and when did he pass away? | 0:54:40 | 0:54:46 | |
-The year after. -1832, right. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:48 | |
And what happened to Pauline Zoe after that? | 0:54:48 | 0:54:51 | |
That is the second document. | 0:54:51 | 0:54:54 | |
Dominique has a list of slave owners who received compensation from | 0:54:54 | 0:54:58 | |
the French government when slavery was abolished in 1848. | 0:54:58 | 0:55:02 | |
This is the compensation to slave owners for slaves. | 0:55:04 | 0:55:09 | |
Hang on a second! | 0:55:11 | 0:55:13 | |
SHE received the compensation... | 0:55:13 | 0:55:15 | |
..for the liberation of the slaves that her partner owned, | 0:55:16 | 0:55:20 | |
and that she, in effect, owned. Because she inherited the estates. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:26 | |
That makes my head race. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:27 | |
You know, here is this woman who was a slave to Francois Alexandre, | 0:55:29 | 0:55:32 | |
they fell in love, they had children, who, at the time, | 0:55:32 | 0:55:36 | |
were slaves. My great-great- great-grandfather was a slave. | 0:55:36 | 0:55:40 | |
And then Francois Alexandre Sr passes away, | 0:55:40 | 0:55:43 | |
and Pauline Zoe becomes slave owner, I mean, that's just... | 0:55:43 | 0:55:46 | |
How common would it have been at that time for a freed female slave | 0:55:49 | 0:55:54 | |
to become the owner of a plantation, | 0:55:54 | 0:55:57 | |
or several plantations, and many slaves? | 0:55:57 | 0:55:59 | |
It would be exceptional. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:01 | |
Very rare. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:03 | |
Before going home, Liz is visiting her granny's grave. | 0:56:20 | 0:56:24 | |
I love this story. | 0:56:26 | 0:56:28 | |
It makes me incredibly happy to have made this journey. | 0:56:28 | 0:56:34 | |
Pauline Zoe must have been quite a tremendous woman | 0:56:34 | 0:56:38 | |
to survive that roller coaster that must have been her life. | 0:56:38 | 0:56:43 | |
To be a slave, to be freed, to bear children that were slaves, | 0:56:45 | 0:56:50 | |
and then to become the owner of what she used to be. | 0:56:50 | 0:56:53 | |
That must have been tough. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:55 | |
I guess I won't really ever know | 0:56:56 | 0:56:59 | |
what Francois Alexandre I's exact motivations were, | 0:56:59 | 0:57:05 | |
but he loved who he wanted to love. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:07 | |
And he lived the way he wanted to live. | 0:57:07 | 0:57:09 | |
I don't think he seemed to care what anybody else thought. | 0:57:09 | 0:57:12 | |
And I hope that some of that character has trickled down | 0:57:12 | 0:57:16 | |
through the generations. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:18 |