PLANTER AND MERCHANT 39 



fabrics, wines and every luxury known to the colonists 

 of that day, returned to Les Cayes, as well as to Saint 

 Louis, an important port a little farther to the east, 

 where these merchants also possessed warehouses and 

 stores. 



In a short time Jean Audubon had acquired an in- 

 dependent business of his own, both as a planter and 

 merchant. He made his home at Les Cayes, but ex- 

 tended his enterprises to Saint Louis and possibly to 

 other points. From this time onward he commonly 

 described himself as negotiant* or merchant, and his 

 son, when writing to his father from America, addressed 

 him in this way. His business letters and other docu- 

 ments of the period refer to his house at Les Cayes, his 

 plantations of cane and his sugar refinery, his exporta- 

 tion of colonial wares, his purchases of French goods, 

 particularly at Nantes, and to his trade in black slaves 

 which eventually assumed large proportions. How im- 

 portant his sugar plantations may have been is not 

 known, but a tax -receipt shows that at one time he pos- 

 sessed forty-two slaves. 4 The naturalist said that his 

 father acquired a plantation on the He a Vaches, an 

 island of considerable importance at the southern bound 

 of the roadstead of Les Cayes and nine miles from the 

 town, but we have found no other reference to it. 



Great numbers of negroes must have passed through 

 Jean Audubon's hands, as shown by his bills of sale, 

 which strangely reflect the customs of a much later and 

 sadder day on the North American continent (see Ap- 

 pendix I, Documents Nos. 4-6). In one of these bills, 



8 And sometime as marchand, more strictly a retailer. 



4 Since a colonist's wealth was estimated upon the number of slaves 

 he could afford, and since a slave was regarded as equivalent to a return 

 of 1,500 francs a year, Jean Audubon's income on this basis would have 

 been 63,000 francs. 



