Ancestors behaving badly!

Guillaume Vigne (b.1586-1590, d.1632) was born in Valenciennes, France. The Vigne family were Walloons (French-speaking Protestants from the southern Netherlands region that is now Belgium and northern France.) The Catholic French monarchy wanted to convert or kill this Protestant population and therefore confiscated their properties. Guillaume’s wife, Adrienne Cuvelier, whom he married in 1610, was also Walloon. The Vigne family fled to Leiden, Holland, where they found a protective and tolerant haven from war and prejudice. Here, Guillaume used the Dutch form of his name, Willem Vienje. The last name means vine and was usually associated with vineyards.

In 1624 the Vignes sailed with thirty Walloon families selected by the Dutch West Indies Company to establish a permanent settlement in New Netherlands (later becoming New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut). The families settled along the Connecticut or Delaware River, then they all converted on Manhattan Island in 1625. The Vignes established a farm (bowerie) north of what is now Wall Street, along the East River. Life in New Amsterdam was fraught with Indian wars, an enthusiasm not seen in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. When one of Adrienne’s sons-in-law returned from the massacre of the Pavonia Indians in February, 1643, with prisoners and also heads of several of the defunct enemy, she, Adrienne “forgetful of those finer feelings that do honor to her sex, amused herself in kicking about the heads of the dead men which had been brought in as bloody trophies of the midnight slaughter.” For the most part, the settlers of New Amsterdam had opposed this conflict and felt her behavior was disgusting.