The Nageon Family (Part 2): André Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang

I’m looking at three 18th century Nageon de l’Estang men in the Indian Ocean, all called André. Having looked at André Nageon de l’Estang in Part 1, I’m now moving briskly on (in this Part 2) to his son André Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang.

André Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang

~1716: born (see further below why I think this date is correct)
17th February 1738: marries Mathurine Metayer (1714-1765).
1744: birth of son (Jean Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang) born – dies in 1745
1st October 1745: birth of son (André Ambroise Nageon de l’Estang) born in Port Louis.
1746: birth of son (Louis Noël Nageon de l’Estang) born – dies in 1756
20th October 1750: dies in Port Louis.

Duchemin quotes as his source for André Bernardin’s death the Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer:

ANOM, Ile de France, Port louis, année 1750, page 19 :
“Le 21ème jour du mois d’octobre 1750 … sépulture de Bernardin Nageon officier des vaisseaux de la Compagnie, décédé ledit jour et an …”

…and no further trace of André Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang appears beyond this date, which seems fairly conclusive, all in all.

Source: Jean Claude DUCHEMIN

Even though we don’t have a date of birth for André Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang, the excellent Mémoires des Hommes has some maritime records dating between 1735 and 1741, which I think we can identify him in:

* Duc de Bourbon (1735-1736) Bernard NAGEON, Paris, 2e pilote, ?, remplacement à l’île de France le 26/12/1735, débarqué au désarmement, vient de la Légère.

* Gloire (1737-1737) André Bernardin NAGEON, 21, Paris, 3e pilote, £24, a fait la campagne, non classé

* Amphitrite (1738-1739) André Bernardin NAGEON DE L’ESTANG, 23, Valogne, 3e pilote, £28, embarqué à l’armement, renversé sur le Duc d’Anjou le 01/02/1739, resté à l’île de France le 20/07/1739.

* Comte de Toulouse (1739-1742) Bernardin NAGEON, Paris, officier marinier, £28, remplacement à l’île de France le 26/03/1741, débarqué à l’île de France le 31/07/1741.

If this is indeed him (and I’m fairly sure that it is), André Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang was 21 years old in 1737 and 23 years old in 1739, so would seem to have been born in (or very close to) 1716.

So… Was André Bernardin The Pirate ‘Bernardin’?

Given that the Mauritian pirate treasure mystery has always been linked to a ‘Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang’, people have often suggested that the pirate ‘must surely have been’ André Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang.

From my perspective, the good news as far as this suggestion is concerned is that if we can eliminate BN3 (because it was written by a different corsair entirely) and both BN4 and BN5 (because they are so abbreviated and cryptic that nobody can yet make any genuine sense of them), all we have to work with is the scanty evidence in BN1 and BN2. This quickly eliminates the vast majority of problematic references, because they are almost all in BN3.

However, other problems do still remain. For example, one variant of the Will refers to Bernardin’s nephew Jean-Marius-Justin as an “officier de la République” (which would point to a post-1792 date): yet another refers to him as an “officier de la réserve”. We don’t yet know enough to tell which one of these is correct.

Perhaps more straightforwardly, given that the French Republican Calendar was only used from 1793 to 1805 and the documents have some dates quoted for BN1 (“l’an III de la République”) and BN2 (“20 floréal an VIII” and “20 floréal an III”), it would seem to be a straightforward thing to eliminate any pre-1794 date.

However, I’m not so sure: the date given for the third document BN3 (“20 Floréal de l’An IX”) seems to be incorrect, insofar as I think we can date BN3 as having been written after the Fall of Tamatave in May 1811, several years after the French Republican Calendar had stopped being used. As a result, I’m highly suspicious of all the dates given for BN1, BN2, and BN3.

It could very well be, for example, that at least one of the dates was attached to the papers when they were copied, rather than when they were originally written. As far as the French Republican Calendar date evidence goes, then, I think the jury should still be out.

Still, there is one more problem in the papers that remains to be considered. BN1 begins “I’m about to enlist to defend the motherland, and will without much doubt be killed”: but was there any such enlistment on Mauritius during André Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang’s relatively short adulthood?

The War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748)

From 1721 to 1767, Ile de France (Mauritius) was governed by the Compagnie des Indes, most famously under the governorship of Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais during 1735-1746.

But when hostilities broke out between France and Great Britain, thanks to the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748), I am sure that enlistment must have taken place on Mauritius. Hence my tentative conclusion is that if ‘Bernardin Nageon’ was André Bernardin Nageon, then the phrase “I’m about to enlist to defend the motherland” probably refers to enlistment to fight against Great Britain in the War of Austrian Succession.

Without much doubt, the most famous Indian Ocean engagement of this war was when La Bourdonnais took a small fleet from Ile de France in 1746 and captured the British stronghold of Madras. Perhaps the enlistment for La Bourdonnais’ fleet was what ‘Bernardin Nageon’ was referring to in his Will and letter, who can tell?

Though there is much more history yet to be dug up (hopefully by my documentary!), it currently seems most likely to me that the archival material surrounding La Bourdonnais’ expedition to Madras might well prove a productive place to be looking for further details of André Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang…