Elias LaGarde (1586 - aft. 1633)

Born 1586 in Gard,Languedoc,France

Descendants

Died after 1633 after age 47 in Buck Row, Elizabeth City County, Va.

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Biography

Elias arrived in Jamestown aboard the ship Abigail in 1621.

Elias meets the criteria to be a Jamestowne Society Qualifying Ancestor (but is not listed as one).

Elias LaGarde was a Jamestown colonist.

Elias LaGarde was born in 1586 in or around the vicinity of Gard, in the region of Languedoc. Named as such in the native Occitan language, it was at this time a large administrative region of France. Elias was doubtless a native Occitan speaker, with French being a second language. It is obvious that his surname is derivative of le Gard or la Gard, indicating his origin from the area.

Recruitment of the ffrenchmen

The Virginia Company was set up to be a profitable venture. The colony was founded to that end. We are all familiar with tobacco becoming the dominant export after the precarious beginnings of the colony. However, it was not the only crop attempted. In fact, King James was dismayed by the vice, and lent his own influence to create other avenues for the colonists to pursue.

Two of these that had the King's blessing were grape and mulberry cultivation, for the production of wine and silk. The following excerpts from A History of Winemaking In America.. by Thomas Pinney; provides a brief but clear history of these efforts:

In the official—and therefore not wholly reliable—"True Declaration of the Estate of the Colony in Virginia" (1610), a tract written to raise fresh funds for the company after the disastrous "starving time" in the winter of 1609-10, we hear of "Frenchmen" with Lord De La Warr "preparing to plant vines," who "confidently promise that within two years we may expect a plentiful vintage." ^[1]

In 1622, at King James' command, the company distributed copies of His Maiesties Gracious Letter to the Earle of South Hampton . . . (London, 1622) written by one John Bonoeil, the King's master vigneroon and silkmaker. The Treatise even bore the King's royal seal. ^[2]

This John Bonoeil sent his son Anthony to the colony. His name is anglicised in the record as Anthony Bonnall, but is the same man nonetheless. One of Bonnall's companions was Elias LaGarde. A fellow vigneroon recruited to create this new enterprise for the betterment of all the colonists. This lofty endeavor was met with scorn by the vast majority of inhabitants, because already, tobacco was king.

On the 1624 Muster at Elizabeth City he is listed as Elias LaGardo, a freeman aged 38, in the household of Anthony Bonnall, having arrived in the colony in 1621 aboard the ' Abigail' ^[3][4]

The curious spelling of LaGardo is found only this once. One can easily see how an Occitan and/or French accent may well emphasize the final consonant in such a way as to interpret it as having a final vowel. He was most assuredly French, and as were all of the other half dozen Hugeuenot vigneroons, recruited and sent over with a singular mission.

This mission failed. The promised vines from Malaga never made their way in any number across the Atlantic, and the detractors set about within a year calling the endeavor a failure and using these Frenchmen as scapegoats as this final excerpt from Pinney points out: ( Note: Pinney's footnote notations are included, but the reader is referred to the link provided in order to access these.)

The unlucky French "vinearoones" were a principal scapegoat. As early as 1621 the government was instructed from London to take care that the French were not allowed to forsake vine growing for tobacco, "or any other useless commodity.

Seven years later, by which time all of the original hopes to produce a large "commodity" of wine had been falsified, the colonial council complained to England that "the vignerons sent here either did not understand the business, or concealed their skill; for they spent their time to little purpose."[70] Four years later, an act of the assembly directed that all the French vignerons and their families be forbidden to plant tobacco as a punishment for their crimes: they had, it was asserted, wilfully concealed their skill, neglected to plant any vines themselves, and had also "spoiled and ruinated that vineyard, which was with great cost, planted by the charge of the late company."[71]

What basis could so strange a charge have? Perhaps some light is thrown on the question by a passage in a tract of 1650, Edward Williams' Virginia Richly and Truly Valued . Williams says (his information is supposed to be derived from John Ferrar, who had been in the colony) that the colonists did not live up to their agreement with the French: "Those contracted with as hired servants for that employment [vine growing], by what miscarriage I know not, having promise broken with them, and compelled to labour in the quality of slaves, could not but express their resentment of it, and had a good colour of justice to conceal their knowledge, in recompence of the hard measure offered them."[72] If only that had not happened, Williams laments, Virginia would already be a great winegrowing land, blessed with "happiness and wealth" and fulfilling the biblical ideal of prosperous life, with every man at peace under his own vine." ^[5]

Elias LaGarde establishes himself by 1627, leasing a 100 acre parcel of land on Harris Creek from John Arundell, Gentleman, on March 14th of that year.^[6]

In April, 1633 he leases a 12 acre homesite at Buck Roe adjoining the land of William Cronet and James Bonall; fellow Frenchmen, and his friends. The next month he gains another 100 acre parcel on the western side of Harris Creek.^[7] This land was cut off in 1637 into Lower Norfolk County.

Elias disappears from the records after these transactions. He may have lived a number of years longer, happy with his acreage under cultivation, and just not entering into any official transaction. We just cannot know.

What we do know is that he most likely married, and had one son Thomas, whose name is further anglicised to Ellegood. Given the scorn the colonists heaped on the vigneroons, it is no wonder at all that Thomas would anglicize his name. Better acceptance and an opportunity to grow tobacco would be incentive enough. The only child is telling in that it is probable Elias died soon after and the mother as well.

Who he married is a complete mystery. The Alligood researchers prior to the internet era knew this. Since the 'cut and paste' era, more malleable souls have accepted whatever is read. In genealogy, especially, there is no more motivating factor than to find that next line. This casual line of thinking has brought us to Rebecca Issacke. Someone made a bold assumption based on false premises. As the record will show, it is doubtful she survived the crossing.

Origin of the Jewish Myth

Rebecca Issacke was not the wife of Elias LaGarde. Only in recent times has she been put forth as such. The method used to do this was by reasoning with more zeal than proof. The agenda was to claim Elias as the first Jew in America. Someone named Rebecca Issacke sounded like the perfect fit to support this claim. Elias LeGarde never claimed to be Jewish, and was a protestant from Occitan, from the tradition of the gnostic Cathars. If you base someone's Jewishness on their name only, then Rebecca has a better claim than Elias.
Still, the damage is done, and she will forever be tied to him as a result of casual duplication of poor historical and genealogical research. So for posterity's sake, and in pursuit of the truth, it is required of us to debunk this notion, and offer up the misleadings, or rather, misreadings of the facts.

The first scholar to put forth thid claim was advanced by Mr. Leon Huhner, the long time curator of the American Jewish Historical Society. He wrote an article in 1915 making the claim. In the article, all he does is just quote another scholar from his society. The scholar he quoted was Mr. Cyrus Adler, who himself cites the MSS on which Hotten's work is based, naming Elias LaGardo, 38, arriving in 1621. Mr. LaGardo is probably the first Jew to arrive in the Old Dominion. In 1624 there appear also the names of Joseph Mosse and Rebecca Issacke, but there is no evidence that they were Jews." ^[8]
The article goes on to list several other people, wherein their religion is identified by their names only it seems. Certainly within the Shephardic traditions this can sometimes be the case, and perhaps Adler and Huhner viewed the phonetic spelling of LaGarde written once in the documents as LaGardo, as reason enough to declare him a Jew. However if the actual manuscript is viewed, it is just an interpretation that the 'e' is an 'o'. Looking at the preponderance of evidence, he is what he is said to be, a French vigneroon, and nothing more.
.The title of first Jew in America should find it's rightful owner. A more likely candidate would be Issac Jacob, who was living in Northampton County in 1664.

This work was cited decades later in the William and Mary Quarterly; there we find Adler's entire essay Jews in the American Plantations with his by line and the Smithsonian Institution, printed in it's entirety in an immigrant passenger list book. ^[9] Here at long last, we can see the scholarly shortcuts and misreadings that brought forward this single notion. On page 16 of that work, Adler is shown hard at work making lists of Jewish sounding names, some with descriptions as Jewish, and others just a name, all of which are coming from Hotten. On that page the list is titled ' Musters of the Inhabitants of Virginia 1624-25

P, 261 Elias LaGardo age 38 in the Abigall 1621

P. 280. Ipswich. A note of the names of ... all passengers.. <snip> in the

Elizabeth ... the last of April 1634. Joseph Mosse aged 24.

P. 281 Rebecca Issacke aged 36 yeeres.

Here is the smoking gun. Adler's list is inadvertently deceptive. In the current age of short attention span scholarship, one glance and it isn't a far cry to suppose Elias LaGarde took the beautiful Rebecca Issacke as his wife. She was the right age and religion, right?
Look at Hotten's original work here : Hotten and look at page 261 and page 281 ( Hotten's numbering ) It is clear to see the entire ship's passenger list of the Elizabeth from the port of Ipswich embarked for New England and see Rebecca's name. The entire chapter is devoted to returns for New England as opposed to Virginia. Conclusion: There is no evidence that Rebecca Issacke ever went to Virginia, much less met and married Elias LaGarde. The answer to the Jewish question is nothing more than a presumption based upon a single instance of precarious spelling and on a suspect final vowel.

Sources

1. ↑ Pinney, Thomas. A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1989 1989. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft967nb63q/
2. ↑ http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A68246.0001.001?view=toc
3. ↑ Hotten's Original Lists of Persons of Quality...Who Went From Great Britain to the American Plantations 1600-1700 MSS London, 1874 https://archive.org/stream/originallistsofp00hottuoft#page/274/mode/2up
4. ↑ 1624/5 Jamestown Muster (accessed 14 September 2020)
5. ↑ Pinney, Thomas. A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1989 1989. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft967nb63q/
6. ↑ Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society First Pioneer Families of Virginia page 61
7. ↑ Nugent, Nell Marion. Cavaliers and Pioneers. Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants, 1623-1666, Vol. I, Virginia State Library, Virginia Genealogical Society. Richmond, Press of the Dietz Print Co. 1934, pages 18,19.
8. ↑ 'The Jews of Virginia from the Earliest Times to the Close of the Eighteenth Century https://www.jstor.org/stable/43057876?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
9. ↑ New World Immigrants: A Consolidation of Ship Passenger Lists and Associated Data from Periodical Literature, Volume 2 1979 http://tinyurl.com/mcloezx