Isabel Godin of the Odonais (1728 – 1792) is famous for having been the only survivor of an expedition of 42 people who left for the Amazon basin to join her husband.
Isabel and Jean Godin of the Odonais
Daughter of Don Pedro Gramesón y Bruno, administrator in Riobamba, Isabel Gramesón was born in 1728 in the Viceroyalty of Peru (in present-day Ecuador), under Spanish domination. Well educated, she learns languages and speaks Spanish, Quechua and French. Fascinated by France, Isabel was still young when she met Jean Godin des Odonais around 1740. French cartographer and naturalist, he joined the first French geodetic expedition which landed in the Quito region in 1735, to verify the shape real Earth.
Isabel and Jean fell in love and married in December 1741, when Isabelle was only fourteen and Jean was twenty-eight. At first, they settled in Riobamba where Isabelle gave birth to their children. In 1749, Jean, having learned of the death of his father, decided to return to settle in France with his family. He then decides to travel alone through the Amazon to French Guiana, to experience the dangers of the journey and then return to pick up his wife and children.
The years of separation
Things don't go the way he planned. In Cayenne, the Portuguese and Spanish colonial authorities refused to let him cross their territories for his return trip to Riobamba. Refusing to leave for France without his family, Jean is forced to stay in Guyana, from where he is not allowed to write to his wife. For years, he sends pleading letters to Europe to obtain permission to return to Riobamba, without success. It was not until 1765 that the King of Portugal, Joseph I, ordered a ship to bring Jean back to his wife. But the cartographer, ill, cannot bear the journey and must stop on the way. It is possible that, having had his own virulent remarks against the Portuguese in some of his letters, Jean was suspicious of the offer and got off the boat at the first port. As ordered, the ship continues on its way to pick up Isabel.
In Riobamba, Isabel Godin des Odonais has no news of her husband and her children are growing up without their father. Several of them die of smallpox, and Isabel faces the tragedy alone. In 1767, rumors reached her that a ship was waiting to take her to her husband, and Isabel sent her servant with Native Americans to reconnoitre the land. Two years later, they return and confirm having found the boat. In October 1769, an expedition of 42 people, including Isabel, two of her brothers, her nephew, a doctor, three servants, 31 Amerindians and three Frenchmen, set out. They are about to cover a journey of about three thousand kilometers, in at least six months.
Expedition in the Amazon Basin
The crossing of the Andes and the Amazon basin is arduous and risky, especially since a smallpox epidemic has decimated the region, and the expedition only manages to obtain a canoe of a dozen meters. to go down the Amazon. Little by little, the group dwindles:one of the Amerindians drowns, others flee when they reach a village ravaged by smallpox and deserted. Imported by Europeans, smallpox is indeed particularly deadly to Native Americans. Without a guide and without a reliable boat, the expedition is already in great difficulty. The doctor and one of the French then scout out to find better means of transport, but they are slow to return.
After two weeks, the remaining members of the expedition decide to build a raft, but it sinks almost immediately and the river carries away their supplies. They then decide to continue on foot, through the jungle. Little by little, infections, due to insect bites, wounds or poor diet, take away Isabel's brothers, her nephew, two servants and two Frenchmen. The last servant, Héloïse, goes away in the middle of the night in the jungle and never returns. One by one, all the members of the expedition die and, suddenly, Isabel is alone among the corpses of her loved ones. For a whole day, she stays at the camp, devastated, exhausted and unable to move on. Eventually, racked with hunger and thirst, she finds the strength to get up and start walking again.
Isabel Godin des Odonais wanders in the jungle for days, alone and hungry, on the brink of losing her mind. She feeds as she can on fruits and eggs. The trauma of what she has been through and the fear that grips her are such that her hair turns white in just a few days. After nine days of ordeal, she meets Amerindians who give her care and food, and offer to help her reach Cayenne. Thanks to their help, Isabel manages to descend the river to its mouth, to find the ship ready to take her to Cayenne. On July 22, 1770, when Isabel and Jean finally meet in the town of Saint-Georges-de-l'Oyapock, they haven't seen each other for more than twenty years.
The couple remained in Cayenne for a few years before leaving for France in 1773 with Isabel's father. They lived there together, in Saint-Amand-Montrond, for about twenty years. Isabel Godin des Odonais died on September 27, 1792, six months after her husband.