John James Audubon
American, 1785-1851
Jean-Jacques Audubon was born in Les Cayes in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) on his father's sugar plantation. He was the son of Lieutenant Jean Audubon, a French naval officer (and privateer) from the south of Brittany, and his mistress Jeanne Rabine. His mother died when the boy was a few months old.
The senior Audubon had commanded ships. During the American Revolution, he had been imprisoned by Britain. After his release, he helped the American cause. He had long worked to save money and secure his family's future with real estate. Due to slave unrest in the Caribbean, in 1789 he sold part of his plantation in Saint-Domingue and purchased a 284-acre farm called Mill Grove, 20 miles from Philadelphia, to diversify his investments. Rising unrest in Saint-Domingue from African slaves, who greatly outnumbered French colonists, convinced Jean Audubon to return to France, where he became a member of the Republican Guard. In 1791 he arranged for his natural children Jean and Muguet, who was majority-white in ancestry, to be transported and delivered to him in France. The children were raised in Couëron, near Nantes, France, by Audubon and his French wife Anne Moynet Audubo. In 1794 they formally adopted both his natural children to regularize their legal status in France. When Audubon, at age 18, boarded ship in 1803 to immigrate to the United States, he changed his name to an anglicized form: John James Audubon.
In France during the chaotic years of the French Revolution and its aftermath, the younger Audubon grew up to be a handsome and gregarious man. A great walker, he loved roaming in the woods, often returning with natural curiosities, of which he made crude drawings. His father planned to make a seaman of his son. At twelve, Audubon went to military school and became a cabin boy. He quickly found out that he was susceptible to seasickness and not fond of mathematics or navigation. After failing the officer's qualification test, Audubon ended his incipient naval career. He was cheerfully back on solid ground and exploring the fields again, focusing on birds.
In 1803, his father obtained a false passport so that Audubon could go to the United States to avoid conscription in the Napoleonic Wars. Jean Audubon and Claude Rozier arranged a business partnership for their sons to pursue in Pennsylvania. IAudubon caught yellow fever upon arrival in New York City. The ship's captain placed him in a boarding house run by Quaker women. They nursed Audubon to recovery and taught him Quaker English.He traveled with the family's Quaker lawyer to the Audubon family farm Mill Grove. Audubon lived with the tenants in the two-story stone house, in an area that he considered a paradise. "Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment". Audubon set about to study American birds, determined to illustrate his findings in a more realistic manner than most artists did then. He began conducting the first known bird-banding on the continent. He also began drawing and painting birds, and recording their behavior. Risking conscription in France, Audubon returned in 1805 to see his father to discuss family business plans. While there, he met the naturalist and physician Charles-Marie D'Orbigny, who improved Audubon's taxidermy skills and taught him scientific methods of research. Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier moved their merchant business partnership west, ending ultimately in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. Shipping goods ahead, Audubon and Rozier started a general store in Louisville, Kentucky on the Ohio River. Soon he was drawing bird specimens again. He regularly burned his earlier efforts to force continuous improvement.
Due to rising tensions with the British, President Jefferson ordered an embargo on British trade in 1808, adversely affecting Audubon's trading business. In 1810, Audubon moved his business further west to the less competitive Henderson, Kentucky area. He and his small family took over an abandoned log cabin. He frequently turned to hunting and fishing to feed his family, as business was slow. On a prospecting trip down the Ohio River with a load of goods, Audubon joined up with Shawnee and Osage hunting parties, learning their methods, drawing specimens. During a visit to Philadelphia in 1812 following Congress' declaration of war against Great Britain, Audubon became an American citizen and had to give up his French citizenship. After his return to Kentucky, he found that rats had eaten his entire collection of more than 200 drawings. The War of 1812 upset Audubon's plans to move his business to New Orleans. He formed a partnership with Lucy's brother and built up their trade in Henderson. Between 1812 and the Panic of 1819, times were good. Audubon bought land and slaves, founded a flour mill. After 1819, Audubon went bankrupt and was thrown into jail for debt.
After a short stay in Cincinnati to work as a naturalist and taxidermist at a museum, Audubon traveled south on the Mississippi with his gun, paintbox, and assistant Joseph Mason. He was committed to find and paint all the birds of North America for eventual publication. On October 12, 1820, Audubon traveled into Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida in search of ornithological specimens. He traveled with George Lehman, a professional Swiss landscape artist. The following summer, he moved upriver to the Oakley Plantation in Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, where he taught drawing to Eliza Pirrie, the young daughter of the owners. Though low-paying, the job was ideal, as it afforded him much time to roam and paint in the woods. Audubon called his future work Birds of America. He attempted to paint one page each day. Painting with newly discovered technique, he decided his earlier works were inferior and re-did them. He hired hunters to gather specimens for him. With his wife's support, in 1826 at age 41, Audubon took his growing collection of work to England, in the autumn of 1826 with his portfolio of over 300 drawings. With letters of introduction to prominent Englishmen, Audubon gained their quick attention. "The British could not get enough of his images of backwoods America and its natural attractions. He met with great acceptance as he toured around England and Scotland, and was lionized as "the American woodsman.
Person TypeIndividual
