La Grande Famille Canivet

A slade named Canivet

In the serie: “If they did not make the history, they contributed to it”, one reported to us a slave named CANIVET.
In number 72 of ‘la revue de l’Association Généalogique Flandre-Hainaut’ and in Miss BOUDARD and Mister André CRASQUIN article ‘Une procession de captifs libérés à Valenciennes” one can read the following :
In 1700, the Audregnies’ monastery superior was father François GOMELIN from Douai : Mister Marc COQUELET tells us that he was a clever man, very active “excellent administrator, untiring builder and art lover”. He did many expeditions in North Africa with father ‘Philémond de la Motte’ to negociate the ransom of the christan prisoners kept by the muslims.
On october 6th 1781, a procession crosses again streets of ‘Valenciennes’, but this time there were only 3 slaves freed by the ‘Trinitaires de l’ordre’ : they were three sailors from Dunkerque.
We know their name from a manuscript kept in Valenciennes archives containing the account statements for years from 1758 to 1794.
According to that manuscript (whose we kept the spelling) : “On october 6th 1781, three slaves arrived here … , another who lived in bourgogne and subject to illness named Jean Baptiste CANIVEE of Bergue, they cost us sixteen thousand francs and we also paid for their accomodation which is listed here in the statement”.
(Information communicated by Jeanette KOCZOROWSKI, Lens, France.)
Jackie CHAN-IVET.