Maurycy August Beniowski – King of Madagascar | Article

Maurycy August Beniowski – King of Madagascar

beniowski_maurycy_5964313.jpg, portrait, Maurycy Beniowski, photo: the National Digital Library Polona

A traveller, soldier, conspirator and exile, Beniowski was crowned king of Madagascar and proclaimed the island’s Ampansakebe (Emperor) by its indigenous people.

A rebel on land and sea

Maurycy August Beniowski considers himself Polish, even though he is of Hungarian, Slovak and Polish descent. He attends the Piarist school in Svätý Jur near Bratislava. The school is of the Catholic order, but Beniowski suddenly decides to convert to Lutheranism. In 1768, this doesn’t stop him from joining the Polish armies under the Bar Confederation: an armed association of Polish nobles, established at the fortress of Bar to defend the Catholic faith and independence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Beniowski is soon captured by the Russians, along with many other confederates. After his unsuccessful attempt to escape from exile in Kazan, Beniowski is sent to the farthest end of Asia. In 1770, he reaches the Bolsheretsk fortress in Kamchatka and, after successfully starting a rebellion, he seizes a ship – St Peter and St Paul – leaving Kamchatka with 70 other men, most of whom had never seen the open sea in their life.

According to Beniowski’s journals – which, although interesting, tend to exaggerate the truth – the Russians fear the unfamiliar hot climate, so they insist on taking a colder route via the Arctic Ocean. After passing the Bering Strait, the ship gets stuck in ice for several months. It takes the rebels several months before they can continue their travel southwards.

The crew demands larger food rations, more water and liquor. Some plunder the supplies storage and destroy food reserves in a drunken rage. Starved and parched, the crew finally reaches the shores of an uninhabited island in the Izu archipelago, where they find spring water, fruit trees and wild pigs. Some of Beniowski’s men refuse to carry on with their journey, so he coaxes them with promises of kidnapping women from nearby lands.

The shore they intruded turns out to belong to Japan. A generous welcome of the Emperor’s deputy helps the men forget the joys of the previous island. Soon, the St Peter and St Paul reaches Macau, a Portuguese colony in China. There, Beniowski sells his ship and rents another.

The Ampansakabe of Madagascar

After Beniowski returns to Paris, the French Foreign Minister, Prince d’Aiguillon makes him a commander of the volunteer infantry regiment. Making use of Beniowski’s skills and experience, Louis XV’s government bestows him with an important task: he is to make Madagascar a French colony.

The indigenous people of Madagascar are not happy to see the intruders. After several armed attacks from the native Malagasy people, the colonisers manage to quickly build a fortified settlement: Beniowski calls it Louisbourg. He soon forces the locals into submission, and in 1776, they proclaim him Ampansakebe, the island’s emperor.

Beniowski wants to legalise his status, and so he leaves Madagascar and travels to France as a sovereign monarch. His expectations, however, are not met with approval. That’s where Beniowski’s memoirs come to an end: but his adventures continue.

Beniowski joins the Austrian Army and fights in the war with Prussia (1778–1779) as a lieutenant.

In 1779, Beniowski tries to join the American Army, using his alleged connection to Casimir Pułaski who died at the Battle of Savannah. Beniowski proposes that the Americans take over Madagascar and use it as their military base against the British.

When his plan is rejected, Beniowski returns to Hungary. Some argue that he never went to the United States at all. According to some sources, Beniowski was staying at his estate in Bečkovská Veska, and it was his younger brother Ferenc Szerafin who went to America.

Beniowski’s mate

Maurycy maintains a good relationship with the Ambassador of the United States in Paris, Benjamin Franklin, with whom he shares a passion for chess (the famous ‘smothered mate’ checkmate is called a ‘Beniowski mate’ in Poland). In 1782, Beniowski travels to America again, this time with his wife Zuzanna. Soon, their child is born in Baltimore.

In June 1785, Beniowski arrives at Madagascar for the last time and is received warmly by the locals. He takes the French trading post in Antongil Bay by storm, occupies the capital and erects several forts. In 1786, a stray French bullet kills Beniowski in battle.

Four years after Beniowski’s death, his journal Memoirs and Travels of Mauritius Augustus Count de Benyowsky is published in English (translated from the original French). The extraordinary adventures of the Polish traveller soon gain popularity and are published in several countries.

The inconsequences in Beniowski’s memoirs should not take away from the adventurer’s accomplishments. In many ways, Beniowski was ahead of his times: after his arrival in Madagascar, he treated the natives with more respect and justice than any other European coloniser. Envious Frenchmen tried to smear Beniowski’s name, branding him a spinner of yarns and rabble-rouser. This harmful opinion was later repeated by numerous other researchers and historians, a great injustice to Beniowski, who was a brave man of many talents indeed.

Beniowski’s life was described in many literary works, dramas and operas, most famously in Juliusz Słowacki’s digressive poem Beniowski (1841), although it should be noted the poet used little more but Beniowski’s name in his work. The poem tells the story of Beniowski’s youth: a fresh-faced hero preparing to leave for a life full of adventures. Other notable works are Wacław Sieroszewski’s historical novels Beniowski (1916) and Ocean (1917).

Translated by Agata Zano

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