Jessé de Forest

Jessé de Forest (1576 – October 22, 1624) was the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe due to religious persecution.

[2] On February 5, 1621, Jessé de Forest sent a round robin petition, to Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester, English ambassador to The Hague.

It applied for permission to settle about fifty Walloon and French Huguenot families that planned to follow the Puritans to America (then called the West Indies) in Virginia.

Proposing his services and those of his fellow countrymen to the Dutch West India Company, de Forest informed them that a group of families practicing various trades had the opportunity to emigrate to America.

On August 27, 1622, after efforts delivered by Willem Usselincx and Jessé de Forest, the latter finally received the authorization to emigrate with other families to the West Indies.

Left on reconnaissance for the coasts of Guyana in 1623, Jessé de Forest died on the Oyapock River bank (present borderline between Brazil and French Guiana), on October 22, 1624.