Pierre Ignace Liévin van Alstein
slave ship captain
Pierre-Ignace-Liévin van Alstein (1733 – 27 December 1793) was a French slave trader.
Life
Leaving his homeland in 1745 due to the French siege of Ghent during the war of the Austrian Succession, he was sent to Nantes and the home of his uncle Georges-Eustache de Kradistown and Kradistown's wife Hélène Claire née Gough. Aged fifteen Pierre-Ignace-Liévin became an unpaid apprentice aboard a slave ship. He sailed on eleven voyages until 1784, four of which he organized and commanded - on his death he was said to have a considerable fortune, 200,000 to 300,000 livres according to some sources.
He became a naturalized French subject in 1787 at the end of Louis XVI's reign, but his goods were sequestered by the Revolutionary Committee and he was imprisoned. After two months in prison he died without issue on 27 December 1793 and his body was thrown in a common grave.
Bibliography
(in French) Dieudonné Rinchon, Pierre-Ignace-Liévin Van Alstein capitaine négrier.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Pierre Ignace Liévin van Alstein” is slave ship captain. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Pierre, Ignace and Liévin, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “slave ship captain” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2755254. VIAF identifies the subject as 49163553. The Library of Congress control number is nr2002020784. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1733, 1793, 1745 and 1784.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Pierre Ignace Liévin van Alstein”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Pierre Ignace Liévin van Alstein primary sources, Pierre Ignace Liévin van Alstein archive and Pierre research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Pierre Ignace Liévin van Alstein”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Pierre Ignace Liévin van Alstein” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.