Tattoos and Espionage

Issue: October 2024

The botanist was a secret agent! On Highlands Main Street–near the Highlander Mountain House–is a historical marker commemorating the transit across the plateau of botanist André Michaux in June, 1787. But note that our first French tourist also collected in Cashiers Valley on that same trip. Michaux (1746-1802) had been sent by Louis XVI to see what useful new plants he could find in North America.

A new book, “The Scientist Turned Spy: André Michaux, Thomas Jefferson and the Conspiracy of 1793” by Patrick Spero tells what Michaux got up to later. Mr. Spero is the head of the American Philosophical Society, founded by in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and devoted to science and history. One of the greatest treasures of the APS is a hand-written subscription list offering to support a proposed scientific expedition to the Pacific led by Michaux; among it distinguished signatories are the men who would become the first four presidents of the United States and it’s believed to be the only document that can boast all of those autographs all on the same document. At the time, Philadelphia was the new capital of the nation and the government had not yet been moved to Washington, D.C.

In 1793, Washington was president and Thomas Jefferson his sec. of state—as well as Vice President of the philosophical society. The area west of the Mississippi River belonged to Spain and was relatively unknown. The U.S. could hardly explore another empire’s lands—this was a decade before the Louisianna Purchase and the Lewis & Clark expedition–but a philanthropic society could! Hence Jefferson’s scheme to have the widely respected (and neutral) Michaux lead an expedition to the Pacific and report back. Money was raised and Jefferson suggested that as the travel would be rough and journals liable to be dropped in water, Michaux should tattoo the most pertinent info on his skin. Oh—and bring back a live Wooly Mammoth. (The equally callous Michaux noted that as guides were liable to be eaten by bears, one should always take *two.*) Ah, the Age of Enlightenment.

In the meantime, the new French Republic sent an ambassador—the very histrionic, kiss-everyone-twice then hug them and denounce monarchy–Citizen Genet, who arrived in Philadelphia with secret instructions from Paris for the scientific expedition to be transformed into an armed invasion of Louisianna and the capture of New Orleans. Turns out Jefferson was OK with that, but timing is everything and it all fell through and many were embarrassed. Among Spero’s main sources are two fine tomes edited by Toxaway’s own Charlie Williams, including translations of Michaux’s Journals and the contemporary biography written just after Michaux died in Madagascar.

by Stuart Ferguson,
local historian, armchair traveler, and irrepressible raconteur. He reviews books for The Highland Hiker, which maintains an extensive collection of local literature.