Luis Vernet

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Portrait: Luis Elias Vernet.
(painted by his daughter Luisa)

Luis Elias Vernet (born March 6, 1791 in Hamburg ; † January 17, 1871 in San Isidro , Argentina ) was a merchant from a Huguenot family. As the first Argentine island commander on the Falkland Islands , he founded a colony there in 1829 with a group of British and Germans. His efforts to implement his own economic interests and Argentine sovereignty claims on the Falkland Islands with a permanent settlement found no international recognition and were nullified by a military intervention by the USA in 1831 .

biography

Family & youth

Luis Elias Vernet (also Louis Elie Vernet) was born on March 6, 1791 in Hamburg. His ancestors were Huguenots who first fled to Belgium in 1685, presumably from Avignon , and then settled in Hamburg. His grandfather, Pierre Antoine Vernet, joined the Hamburg Nexus in 1727. His parents were the tobacco and tea merchant Jacques Vernet (* 1730; † 1813) and María Vernet. His brothers were Peter Alexander, Emilio and Federico.

At the age of 14, in 1805, his father sent him to the Buck and Krumbhaar trading company in Philadelphia . There he became a merchant. He made trips to Portugal, Brazil and Hamburg.

Emigration to South America

The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata around 1821

When the US government sent a diplomatic commission to establish contact with the recently independent United Provinces of the Río de la Plata , Luis Vernet was also on the frigate USS Congress , which in February 1818 belonged to Montevideo (then part of Brazil) and ran into Buenos Aires . For him it was a trading trip. He stayed there and organized ship transports that went to the Brazilian coast and on to the port of Hamburg.

Together with Conrado Rücker († 1866, Hamburg) based in Montevideo, he ran a trading company until 1821. Rücker was also his best man when he married María Saez Pérez (* 1800; † 1858) from Montevideo on August 17, 1819. With her he had seven children: Luis Emilio, Luisa, Sofía, Malvina (* 1830, † 1924), Gustavo, Carlos and Federico.

About 100 km south of Buenos Aires on the Río Salado , which at that time represented the border to the areas that were not yet colonized, Vernet ran an estanzia , where he caught and slaughtered feral cattle.

Reach for the Falkland Islands

At the end of 1819 Vernet met the captain Jorge Pacheco (* 1761 in Buenos Aires; † 1832). Pacheco was an impoverished war veteran with good connections. Vernet lent him money. Because by April 1820 the debts totaled 2,000 pesos and Pacheco was practically bankrupt, the two reached a settlement . Pacheco, who in turn was a creditor of over 100,000 pesos to the government in Buenos Aires, who were either insolvent or unwilling, undertook to give half of what he would receive from the government to Vernet. In return, Vernet was ready to provide for the Pachecos family for as long as it was necessary.

Pacheco was the brother-in-law of Bernardo Bonavia, a former Spanish governor of the Falkland Islands who had joined the independence movement. It is probably through this connection that Vernet obtained detailed knowledge of the Falkland Archipelago. In August 1823, Vernet and Pacheco signed another contract for the joint economic development of the Ostfalkland Island. Pacheco, as a well-deserved veteran and with his good connections, should apply to the government for usage rights and give Vernet half of the future income. In order to obtain the desired exclusive rights of use, Pacheco, in consultation with Vernet, offered to build buildings on the island that the government could use to set up an administration. Later that month he was informed by decision that the government was not empowered to grant any privileges or property rights to the island, but that he would be allowed to go to and use the island.

Vernet and Pacheco gained the English businessman Robert Schofield as a partner, who invested 7,500 Pesos in the company and bought two ships, the schooner "Rafaela" and the brig "Fenwick". At the beginning of February, the expedition, led by Pablo Areguati, reached Port Louis in East Falkland with 26 gauchos . In March 1824 the brig "Antelope" was also sent to the island. But poorly equipped and suffering from constant supply problems, the attempt to establish a permanent settlement failed. They all returned to Buenos Aires by August.

At the end of 1825 Vernet and some friends founded a new company with the intention of starting another expedition and buying up Pacheco's rights of use. At the beginning of June 1826, in the middle of winter, he arrived on the snow-covered Falkland Islands for the first time, accompanied by 25 gauchos. His business consisted of catching feral cattle, slaughtering them, and selling the products they received.

The island headquarters

Puerto Luis around 1829–1831
(painting by daughter Luisa, based on a drawing by brother Emilio)

On January 5, 1828, Vernet turned to the government in Buenos Aires to propose a colonization project and to obtain the necessary privileges. The government agreed on the same day and allowed him to set up a colony within three years and then use a large part of Eastern Falkland and the Isla de los Estados, about 400 km southwest of it . He also received fishing rights along the South American coast south of the Río Negro and 20 years of tax exemption for the project. In order not to come into conflict with British sovereignty claims, he also turned to the British consul in Buenos Aires, who finally gave him his approval, because up until then it had only been a purely private company.

At the instigation of Vernet, the government in Buenos Aires established the administrative district “Comandancia politica y militar en la Isla de Soledad y las islas adyacentes al Cabo de Hornos en el océano Atlantico” by decree in June 1829 (Political and military command of East Falkland and the Cape Horn neighboring islands in the Atlantic Ocean) and appointed him island commander.

In the same month Vernet started an expedition to Falkland. He chartered the Brigg Betsy , which sailed under the flag of the USA. The cargo consisted of a herd of merino sheep , equipment for a blacksmith's shop , important foods such as meat, salted meat , cassava flour, herbs, salt, etc. as well as four cannons and 50 rifles with ammunition. The government had given him the weapons. Accompanied by his wife, his three children Emilio, Luisa and Sofía and with some British, German and Dutch families (approx. 40 people) he moved to Port Louis.

10 peso banknote from 1829, issued by Luis Vernet

On August 23, 1829 he constituted his headquarters with a proclamation in which he formally took possession of the Falkland Islands for the "República de Buenos Aires". The British saw this as an interference with their own sovereignty and literally protested against it. On this occasion, too, Vernet sought contact with the British and offered that he would be ready to place his colony under British sovereignty.

The Falkland Islands became Vernet's new home. A daughter was born to him on February 5, 1830, whom he baptized Malvina based on the Spanish name of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas). An English naval officer reported about him:

“The governor, Luis Vernet, received me warmly. He is an educated man and speaks several languages. His house is long and low, with very thick stone walls. In it I found a good library with books in Spanish, German and English. The conversation at table was very lively. In the evening we had music and dancing. There was a large piano in the room. Ms. Vernet, an Argentinian, sang some of Rossini's arias superbly. How strange that sounded here in the Falkland Islands, where we expected to find only a few sealers. "

Traditionally, the Falkland Islands have been frequented by British and North American seal and whaling vessels hunting there. They ignored Vernet's authority and economic monopoly. For the British, the islands were their own territory and for the United States no man's land . So it finally came to a conflict. In 1831 Vernet brought up three ships from the USA, the Harriet , Superior and Breakwater . Two of the ships managed to escape and alerted their own government. On November 7, 1831, Vernet left Port Louis on the Harriet with the captured sailors and his family for Buenos Aires. Soon after, in December, the US intervened. The frigate USS Lexington called at the Falkland Islands. 7 prisoners were taken and 13 black slaves of Vernets were freed. These, as well as 26 settlers (including a German family) who took the opportunity to travel, were brought to Montevideo. Only Vernets gauchos and a few Charrúas Indians remained. The settlement project had thus failed. Vernet never returned to the Falkland Islands.

Post Falklands era

Vernet stayed in Buenos Aires. He dealt with chemical experiments and invented, among other things, a means to preserve skins and protect them from worms. In 1841 he was granted a patent on it. Because hides were the most important export good for Argentina, he did very good business with it.

In 1852 Vernet traveled to London to seek compensation for his losses in the Falkland Islands, because the British had occupied the Falkland Islands in January 1833 and refused to allow him to return. He claimed ten houses, a number of specially trained horses for his gauchos and other moveable goods, with interest totaling £ 28,000. He was eventually offered £ 2,400, of which £ 550 were to be withheld to cover the paper money he had put into circulation, which was still in circulation on the island. In protest and depressed by the death of his wife, he then accepted the offer in 1858 and waived any further claims. Then he returned to Buenos Aires.

Luis Vernet died on January 17, 1871 in San Isidro , Buenos Aires Province.

Posthumous commemoration

Mausoleum of the Luis Vernet family.

Luis Vernet is a controversial person who is judged differently depending on political or national direction. Vernet is seen in Argentina on the one hand practically as a national hero with whose work the sovereignty claims on the Falkland Islands are still reinforced today and on the other hand as a "patriotic" merchant because he would have acted out of self-interest and also made pacts with the British. The United States accused him of piracy in 1831. For Great Britain at that time he was just an entrepreneur who opened up the Falkland Islands economically.

Web links

Commons : Luis Vernet  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke : In the footsteps of the explorers at the southernmost end of the world . Milestones in the history of discovery and cartography from the 16th to the 20th century (Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Falkland Islands, Terra australis, Antarctica, South Pole) (=  Edition Petermann ). Perthes-Verlag, Gotha 1996, ISBN 3-623-00350-6 , p.  73 f . (248 pp.).
  2. ↑ a b Antonio Montarcé Lastra, María Sáez de Vernet: Redención de la soberanía. Las Malvinas y el diario de doña María Saez de Vernet . Padilla y Contreras, Buenos Aires 1946, OCLC 1418148 (Spanish, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed September 4, 2010]).
  3. ↑ a b Darrin Lythgoe: Family: Luis Vernet Vernet / María Sáez Pérez (F14442). Retrieved September 8, 2010 .
  4. ^ A b c Wilhelm Lütge, Werner Hoffmann, Karl Wilhelm Körner: Germans in Argentina . Ed .: German Club in Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires 1981 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed August 30, 2010]).
  5. ^ Karl Wilhelm Körner: La independencia de la america española y la diplomacia alemana . In: Documentos para la historia argentina . tape 41 . Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Buenos Aires 1968, OCLC 1411831 , p. 286 (Spanish, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed August 31, 2010]).
  6. ↑ DM moorem, JP Scannell: Bartholomew Sulivan and early watercolors of Falkland Islands vegetation in the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin . In: Society for the Bibliography of Natural History (Ed.): Archives of natural history . tape 13 . Edinburgh University Press, June 1986, ISSN  0260-9541 , pp. 155–163 , doi : 10.3366 / anh.1986.13.2.155 (English).
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h Graham Pascoe, Peter Pepper: Getting it right: the real history of the Falklands / Malvinas. (PDF) A reply to the Argentine seminar of December 3, 2007. 2008, archived from the original on July 26, 2011 ; accessed on September 11, 2010 (English).
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Mario Tesler: El Gaucho Antonio Rivero: . la mentira en la historiografía académica. A. Peña Lillo, Buenos Aires 1971, OCLC 221193365 (Spanish, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed August 22, 2010]).
  9. ↑ Guide to Remarks Made on Board the United States Frigate Congress, 1817 MS 23 ( Memento of January 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ archive.org
  11. ^ Mark Cilley: Malvina Vernet. In: The Cilley Pages. October 1, 2009, accessed September 11, 2010 .
  12. ^ A b Ricardo Rodolfo Caillet-Bois: Las Islas Malvinas. Una tierra argentina . Ediciones Peuser, Buenos Aires 1948, OCLC 1182339 (Spanish, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed September 21, 2010]).
  13. ^ Carlos Mey Martínez: Historia y Arqueología Marítima. Hechos marítimos durante los años 1829–1870. 2010, Retrieved September 25, 2010 (Spanish).
  14. ↑ Aquiles D. Ygobone: Soberania Argentina de las Islas Malvinas. Antártida Argentina. Cuestiones fronterizas entre Argentina y Chile . Editorial Plus Ultra, Buenos Aires 1971, LCCN  72-326193 , OCLC 1596398 (Spanish, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed September 22, 2010]).
  15. ↑ Luis Vernet: Proclama de Luis Vernet en el momento de tomar posesión de su cargo, Puerto de la Soledad, 30 de agosto de 1829. (PDF) Dirección de Cultura y Educación, Buenos Aires, August 20, 1829, accessed on 11. September 2010 (Spanish).
  16. ↑ Decreto de creación de la Comandancia Civil y Militar, Buenos Aires, 10 de junio de 1829. (PDF) Dirección de Cultura y Educación, Buenos Aires, June 10, 1829, accessed on September 11, 2010 (Spanish).
  17. ^ A b Werner Hoffmann: The Germans in Argentina. Country and people . In: Hartmut Fröschle (Ed.): The Germans in Latin America. Fate and achievement . Horst Erdmann Verlag, Tübingen 1979, ISBN 3-7711-0293-6 , p. 66 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed August 30, 2010]).
personal data
SURNAME Vernet, Luis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vernet, Luis Elias (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German merchant, Argentine island commander of the Falkland Islands
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1791
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1871
Place of death San Isidro , Argentina