Seas of Gold, Seas of Cotton: Christophe Poulain DuBignon of Jekyll Island.

By Martha L. Keber. (Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, c. 2002. Pp. [xvi], 312. $39.95, ISBN 0-8203-2360-8.)

In Seas of Gold, Seas of Cotton Martha L. Keber limns the fascinating life of Christophe Poulain DuBignon (1739-1825), a French mariner and nobleman who spent the last thirty years of his long life as an emigre cotton planter on Jekyll Island, Georgia. As an eighteenth-century mariner DuBignon was literally a citizen of the world, and Keber tells his story against the backdrop of the Seven Years War, the eras of the American and French Revolutions, and the early and antebellum years of the American republic. Her research is thorough and impressive, her writing crisp and clear.

DuBignon's was quite a success story. Born of noble Breton lineage but still impoverished, he went to sea with the French India Company, where he rose from cabin boy to second ensign; then he went into maritime commerce, where he became a captain and--always alive to opportunity--eventually acquired a fortune. He retired from the sea, invested his wealth, and became a landowner of status, part of Breton's provincial nobility. Wealth brought respect, privilege, and honor. DuBignon might have lived out his life on his country estate. However, the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution forced him to leave his homeland in order to save his fortune--and perhaps his life--and he found refuge on the Georgia coast.

During the early months of the French Revolution, DuBignon joined four other Frenchmen in the Sapelo Company, a get-rich-quick scheme designed to capitalize on the island's economic potential while also providing a temporary haven from the storm of revolution in France. DuBignon and several other members of the company moved to the island with high hopes and in good comradeship, but the scheme was mismanaged from the start and disintegrated into a byzantine tangle of lawsuits and murder. DuBignon fortunately escaped from the venture with both his life and the bulk of his wealth intact; though soured on Sapelo, he found success as a cotton planter on nearby Jekyll Island. He eventually purchased the island, and it would be his home for the remainder of his life; DuBignon never saw France again.

Keber provides an engaging account of the life of a coastal cotton planter in good times and bad. From caterpillars and hurricanes to Jefferson's embargo and fluctuating cotton prices, DuBignon endured all the hardships that planters faced. Keber also details the losses endured by Georgia planters in the War of 1812 during the raids carried out by Admiral Sir George Cockburn. The British twice raided DuBignon's plantation, carried off twenty-eight of his slaves, burned his cotton house and gin, and stole or destroyed many of his private possessions. Neither DuBignon's plantation nor his spirit ever really recovered from these depredations.

Historians who seek a greater understanding of the Atlantic maritime world and the ways in which the tumultuous and stormy events of the "age of revolution" transformed the lives of those who lived through them will profit from this book. Indeed, Keber's work will appeal to anyone interested in a good story, well told.

STAN DEATON

Georgia Historical Society