Isabel Godin des Odonais (1728 in Riobamba, Viceroyalty of Peru, now in Ecuador – 28 September 1792 in Saint-Amand-Montrond, Cher, France) was an 18th-century woman who became separated from her husband in South America by colonial politics, and was not reunited with him until more than 20 years later. Her long journey, from western Peru to the mouth of the Amazon River, is considered unusual in the history of South America. Her story has been often repeated and inspired popular misconceptions of the dangers of the tropical rain forest.
In 1749, her husband, Jean Godin des Odonais, left their home in Riobamba, Ecuador, Spanish South America to visit French Guiana. As a French citizen, he was refused permission by the Spanish and Portuguese authorities to return for his family. Isabel Godin des Odonais became famous for being the only survivor of a 42-person, 3000-mile expedition through the Amazon Basin to rejoin her husband. They were reunited in 1770 and later returned to France together.
Background
Isabel Godin des Odonais née Gramesón was the daughter of Don Pedro Gramesón y Bruno, an administrator in Riobamba, a Spanish colonial city in the Viceroy of Peru. She was well-educated and spoke fluent Spanish, French, and Quechua, and understood the use of quipus, the Incan method of communicating information using colored strings and knots.
Jean Godin des Odonais was a French cartographer and naturalist who had joined the world's first geodesy expedition to the equator. The team worked in the Quito region from 1735 to 1744, during which time Jean and Isabel met. They married on 27 December 1741, when Isabel was fourteen years old.
Separation
At first Jean decided to remain in Riobamba with his new wife, but in 1743 he offered to accompany La Condamine on his next expedition. He stayed behind to see Isabel through her pregnancy. But, when he heard of his father's death in March 1749, Godin decided to return to France with his family. He planned to travel alone to Cayenne, French Guiana via the Amazon to test whether the journey would be safe for them to take, and to make the necessary arrangements with the French authorities.
Upon arriving in Cayenne, Godin found the Portuguese and Spanish colonial authorities would not let him — a Frenchman of no importance — return through their territory. Unwilling to return to France without his family, he became a reluctant resident of French Guiana, constantly writing pleas to Europe to allow for his return to Riobamba. Eventually, La Condamine wrote on Godin's behalf to the Portuguese king, who due to changing political circumstances was eager to befriend the French. In 1765 he ordered a galiot, crewed by thirty oarsmen, to take Godin back to his wife. However, as Godin had written some incendiary letters against the Portuguese, he was suspicious of the offer of passage up the Amazon, and abandoned the ship at its first port. The captain of the galiot continued upriver without him, to fetch the Frenchman's wife as ordered.
For most of their 20-year separation, Isabel received no news of her husband, while enduring the death of her children from smallpox. She moved to the smaller community of Guzman. When she heard rumors that a ship was waiting to take her down the Amazon, she sent her servant Joachim and a handful of Indians to investigate. The party returned two years after having discovered the waiting ship, four years after its initial departure. Isabel's father, Don Pedro, went ahead to the ship to make arrangements and to wait for Isabel.
Isabel's journey
On 1 October 1769 a 42-person party set out for the ship: Isabel, her servant Joachim, Isabel's two brothers Antoine and Eugenio Gramesón, Isabel's ten-year-old nephew Joaquin, three servants: Rosa, Elvia, and Heloise, thirty-one Indians, and three Frenchman. The route across the Andean mountains and Amazon Basin was arduous, made worse by the recent devastation by smallpox of the mission station at Canelos (in present-day Pastaza Province), depriving the party of valuable support nine days into their journey. They found two Indian survivors who agreed to repair a forty-foot canoe, in which they continued down the Amazon.