Benovsky's life

For an introduction see: Moric Benovsky

Beňovský was a typical representative of the period of the Enlightenment, the development of transport and trade, exploration of unknown regions. He was:

• the first European sailor in the North Pacific region — he examined the western coast of Alaska between the mouth of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, sailing along to the island of Unimak (Aleutians) and his voyage to Macao was the first known voyage from the north-east to the south-east shores of Asia
• the first person who has visited the land of four continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, America)
• was the first explorer of the St. Lawrence Island
• a significant explorer of Madagascar and first King of a unified Madagascar
• the first Slovak author of a worldwide best-seller
• the first Slovak having intervened in the development of many countries (at least Poland, USA, France, Austria, Madagascar)

Important dates of Benovsky's Life

1746 (September 9) 

Born in Vrbové near Trnava in Slovakia. Slovakia was part of Hungary at that time, which in turn was part of Austria at that time.

1746 – 1759 

Childhood in Vrbové

1759 – 1760 

Studies at the Piarist College in Svätý Jur, a suburb of Bratislava

1760 

His mother dies, her property is inherited by her daughters from her first marriage, and Maurice has to care for his brothers and sisters, and is engaged in quarrels with his brothers-in-law.

c.1762 

He shortly enters the army as an officer in the Seven Years War (1755 – 1763), then escapes and stays in the Spiš.

1764 

He is accused of deserting and of apostasy (he had a rebellious attitude in matters of Catholic religion) and must participate in a tribunal.

1765 

He captures his mother's (see 1760) property in Hrušové near Vrbové, previously seized by one of his brothers-in-law. He is accused for this and must participate in a tribunal in Nitra. Before the trial ends (1766?), he flees to Poland, by which he violates the order of queen Maria Theresa forbidding to leave the country

1767 – 68 

He stays in those Spiš towns that Hungary had pawned to Poland in 1412

1768 (beginning of) 

For unknown reasons, he flees to Poland and enters into contact with Confederation of Bar (Konfederacja Barska) in Poland, which was rebelling against the Polish king Stanislaw August Poniatowski installed by Russia.

1768 (July) 

He is arrested in Spišská Sobota in the house of the butcher Hönsch (whose daughter will become his wife – see Family), because he had tried to organize a military unit for Confederation of Bar. In the same month he is imprisoned in the Lubovňa Castle (part of the pawned territories).

1769 - 1770 

He joins the Polish Confederation at Bar (Konfederacja Barska) to fight together with the Pulaski brothers for the independence of Poland from the Russian rule in the Ukraine. He is captured and interned in a camp at Kazan. Taking advantage of local rebellions (according to some sources the rebellion was icited by Benovsky), he flees from there to St. Petersburg, where he tries to board a Dutch ship, but the captain of the ship delivers him to the Russian police.

1770 - 1771 

This time, the Russians send him into exile 8000 km further east to eastern Siberia (Kamchatka). There he is one of the few educated people, so the local governor asks him to teach his daughter piano playing. She falls in love with him. In May 1771 Benovsky organizes a revolt of mainly Polish prisoners, during which the rebels led by Maurice capture weapons, money and a Russian battleship. Benovsky’s girl is killed in ambush by an flying bullet. Benovsky then commandeers the captured battleship and on May 23 sets out for a discovery trip through the Northern Pacific (well before James Cook and Jean-François de La Pérouse) along the Aleutians, Alaska, Japan, Formosa (Taiwan), until the rebels finally arrive in Macao in July 1771. In his Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (London, 1785), Capt. James Cook will describe meeting with Erafim Izmailov, a mutineer left by Beňovský on Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands. That indirectly confirms that Beňovsky's really was at Alaska.

1771 – 1773 

In Macao, he enters into contact with France. The Kamchatka rebels sell their original ship and on another ship then sail to France. On their way (around the Cape of Good Hope) they also visit the huge island of Madagascar off the African coast, then still independent and ruled by countless native chieftains. Finally in July 1772, he and most of the Kamchatka rebels arrive in France, where he is joined by his wife and learns about his promotion to General of the Polish Confederation, as well as about his growing international fame. He suggests to the King Louis XV that he could establish a French colony on Formosa (Taiwan) or Madagascar. The king appoints him as Governor of Madagascar, gives him the title of count and a few promises, and charges him with leading a French military and trade mission to the island of Madagascar (see 1774);1774 (February): Maurice, together with 21 officers and 237 volunteers lands at Madagascar.

1774 – 1775 First expedition to Madagascar 

In Madagascar, he starts to build the town of Louisbourg, a kind of base, through which France could enter into trade relations with Madagascar, and starts to build roads, settlements and to dry up swamps. Louisbourg was at the Maroantsetra (Antongil Bay) and included a hospital/quarantine on Nosy Mangabe. Besides building the French presence and geographically exploring the island, Maurice is unifying tribes there (see 1776). From the beginning, he is in conflict with the Governors of the French colonies Réunion and Mauritius, who are his superiors and are sending negative reports on his activities to Paris, are hindering his projects and cause the French Maritime Ministry to send a committee, which then finds deficiencies in Maurice's activities. The main reason for this is that the colonisation did not bring the immediate profits expected by the French government.

1776 

On October 1, the natives of Madagascar elect him King / Emperor (Ampansacabé) of Madagascar on the Mahevelou plane. Among other things, Maurice introduces Latin script for the Madagascar language. (In the history of Madagascar, the King Andrianampoinimerina (1786-1810) is mentioned as the national unifier—in fact he built upon the efforts of the Ampansacabe Beňovský.) In general, however, Maurice's mission largely fails (also due to illnesses caught by his men – their number will reduce to 63 in 1778) and Paris ignores his requirements. At the end of the year, Maurice leaves the island and goes to France.

1776 

Back in France, he tries to achieve that the amounts he had invested in Madagascar are paid to him, and he presents new proposals for the colonization of the island. He is promoted to the rank of General, and granted the military Order of Saint Louis and a life pension by Louis XVI.

1777 

Still in Paris, he becomes a close friend of Benjamin Franklin (American envoy in France), Casimir Pulaski (1748-1779) and Franklin becomes a good uncle to Beňovský's two daughters. Franklin and Beňovský regularly play chess, often joined by Count Casimir Pulaski. Franklin will support Beňovský later in trying to organize an American expedition to Madagascar (see 1784). In the same year, Casimir Pulaski goes to America with Benjamin Franklin's letter of recommendation and presents to Continental Congress a proposal from Beňovský to use Madagascar as a base in the American struggle against England. The project is not approved, because Continental Congress does not want to risk alienating France. Also in 1777, Beňovský turns to the Austrian royal court. He petitions the Austrian empress Maria Theresa, offers his services and experience acquired abroad for the development of the commerce of his native country and asks her pardon and permission to return home (see 1765). The royal court in Vienna changes its attitude towards Maurice (because he now is in service of France, whose queen is member of the same—Habsburg—dynasty as that in Vienna). The amnesty is granted to him on October 17.

Late 1777/ early 1778 

He returns to Slovakia and, for example, writes a letter to the French Maritime and Colonial Ministry from his castle in Beckovská Vieska near Trenčín.

1778 

France grants him the title of a brigadier with annual payments of 4 000 pounds, but all his proposals are rejected by the French court. In addition, on April 3 he receives a letter by Maria Theresa promoting him to the rank of Count. However, his project for maritime trade from Historic Hungary and for the establishment of a trade route from Komárno to Rijeka (i.e., the Mediterranean) is refused by the Austrian royal court. In addition he enters the Army and fights in the War between Austria and Prussia (1778-1779) in Prussia.

1779 First expedition to America 

Beňovský follows Pulaski to America and offers his services in the American Revolution in person in a letter to the Continental Congress. He is approved to report to General Pulaski at the siege of Savannah, where Pulaski died in his friend's hands. Without Pulaski's support, Maurice has no choice but to return to Europe.

1780 

In Austria, he presents another project aiming at promoting the maritime trade, but again it is rejected.

1781 - 1782 Second expedition to America 

Back in America, in 1782 we find him in Philadelphia with letters of recommendation from Benjamin Franklin, offering in a letter to General Washington through General Baron Steuben to serve in person the American Revolution and the USA, "of which he is desirous to become a citizen"; his offer is respectfully declined. A month later, through the French Minister to the United States, he submits a plan to General Washington proposing that he would raise in Germany a body of troops consisting of three legionary corps of cavalry, infantry, grenadiers, chasseurs and artillery, the whole amounting to 3,383 effective men, and after their transport to America they would be subject to the order of the United States and take the oaths of fidelity and allegiance. The project is favorably evaluated. Beňovský meets George and Mary Washington in their headquarters in Newborough (Newburgh - New York). Following this discussions with Washington, Beňovský rewrites his proposal and presents it to the Continental Congress on May 6. However, finally, the proposal is rejected by Congress following a reconciliatory change in British attitude under the new British cabinet. Beňovský writes a farewell letter to Washington and embarks on the Friendship for Europe. He stops en route in Saint Domingue (now Haiti) to visit his brother, Francis Beňovský, stationed there with a French army unit (see Chapter Family below).

1783 

He returns to Slovakia, where he visits his castle at Beckovská Vieska and receives a privilege from the Emperor Joseph II, under which he is under special protection of the king and is authorized to found an Austrian colony on Madagascar, in which Maurice will be the governor under the Austrian flag. However this project is not realized, because the royal court does not provide money for it.

1783 

After he had failed to gain recognition in France, Austria and the USA, he turns to Great Britain, where in 1783 he asks the British government to enable him an expedition to Madagascar. Also, he gives to John Hyacinth de Magellan, a member of the Royal Society and descendant of the famous Ferdinand Magellan, his memoirs (or diary) written in French, describing and exaggerating all his past journeys. In the same year, Magellan translates it from French to English (under the title: Memoirs and Travels) and the memoirs will be first published in 1790 in the UK. The manuscripts of Benowsky's Memoirs comprise four volumes in the French language and Benowsky appended a signature to each of them in witness of his responsibility for their contents. The manuscripts were deposited in the British Museum Library by the owners subsequent to their first publication in 1790 and are still kept in the Manuscript Division of the British Library. Soon the memoirs will be published in German (Berlin, 1790; Vienna, 1816), French (Paris, 1791), Dutch (Haarlem, 1791), Swedish (Stockholm, 1791), Polish (Warsaw, 1797), Slovak (Bratislava, 1808), and Hungarian (1888) and will become a world best-seller. In the same year, with Benjamin Franklin's and J.H. Magellan assistance, he enters into contact with the Baltimore businessmen Messonier and Zollikofer, who found an American-British company for trade with Madagascar.

1784 3rd expedition to America 

On March 24, he appoints J.H. Magellan Plenipotentiary for the State of Madagascar and authorizes him to act as representative of all economic and political affairs of the island. In the same year he leaves Baltimore for Madagascar on board the a 5CC-ton vessel Intrepid provided by Messonier and Zollikofer. During the voyage, the ship is blown off course and has to remain for repairs along the coast of Brazil, before it continues.

1785 -1786 Second expedition to Madagascar 

In Madagascar, he initiates a rebellion of natives of Madagascar (who have remained loyal to him) and finally captures the French trade settlement Foulpointe. He also starts building the capital of his empire, the trade settlement Mauritania (named after his himself—Maurice) at the furthest eastern point of the island, Cape East. In the contract with his Anglo-American associates, lots are guaranteed for all of them in the city. From Mauritania, he trades with Maryland and Baltimore. The main trade article are slaves.

1786 

The French Maritime Ministry, outraged by Maurice's cooperation with the USA and by the capture of Foulpointe, sends an unexpected expedition from the Ponichéry colony to stop Maurice. The expedition manages a surprise attack on May 23, 1786. Benovsky's fights bravely, but he and his empire dies from a bullet to his chest in Mauritania. He is buried at the village of Mauritania by his former lieutenant Jacques de Lassalle, together with two Russian fugitives who had accompanied him from Kamchatka.