From the Desert to the Refuge

This article follows the transatlantic journey of a minister named Jean-Louis Gibert and through his story illuminates an unexplored chapter in French Atlantic history. A Protestant minister from Languedoc, Gibert worked to create Protestant churches in Saintonge, but during the 1760s he fled France, moving first to England and eventually to South Carolina, where he and several hundred Huguenot refugees founded the frontier town of New Bordeaux. Gibert's story illustrates the global nature of eighteenth-century French Protestantism, divided as it was between those who stayed in the French “Desert” and those who found new lives as refugees. Like other Huguenots, Gibert first hoped to use emigration as a political strategy to force concessions from Louis XV. When this strategy failed, the minister and his neighbors left France entirely, promoting themselves as perfect immigrants who would use their skills to develop the British Empire. Cet article suit le voyage transatlantique d'un pasteur protestant nommé Jean-Louis Gibert pour éclaircir un chapitre méconnu de l'histoire de l'Atlantique français. Languedocien d'origine et engagé dans la construction d'églises protestantes à Saintonge, Gibert décida de fuir la France pendant les années 1760, d'abord pour l'Angleterre et finalement en Caroline du Sud, où il fonda la ville frontalière de New Bordeaux avec plusieurs centaines d'autres réfugiés huguenots. L'histoire de Gibert illustre le caractère global du protestantisme français au dix-huitième siècle, partagé entre ceux qui tentèrent une traversée clandestine du « Désert » français, et ceux qui choisirent l'émigration. Comme d'autres huguenots, Gibert espérait initialement utiliser son émigration pour arracher des concessions à Louis XV. Lorsque ce projet politique échoua, le pasteur et ses proches quittèrent définitivement la France, optant finalement pour une image d'émigrés parfaits prêts à mettre leurs compétences au service de l'Empire britannique

Archaeology · Art · Desert (philosophy · Emigration · Ethnology · Frontier · Humanities · Immigration · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · Refugee · Canadian Identity and History · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law

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