Summary: Adolphe Badin (also known as Couschi) who was born a slave in the Danish colony Saint Croix in 1747. Bought for $10 and taken to Europe by a Danish sea captain, he was eventually presented to Sweden’s Queen Lovisa Ulrika as a gift ca. 1757. The Queen who had read Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s book on education, Èmil, wanted to experiment with an upbringing free of society’s inhibitions, and then convert the person to become ”civilized.” For years Badin was allowed to roam free around the palace as “natural” as he could be, a privilege that included free access to a playmate his age who would one day be King Gustav III. Eventually the Queen decided it was time to “Europeanise” him. He was tutored in the languages of the Court (French, German and Latin) by Sweden’s pioneers in education, converted to Christianity and given the name Adolphe Ludvig Gustav Fredrik Albert Badin. Badin survived during one of the most turbulent eras of Swedish Court intrigue. Upon the death of his patron, the Queen, in 1782, he was handed over to King Gustav III, who was eventually murdered in his own castle in 1792. He also had a presence during the regimes of he next two Swedish monarchs, Gustav IV Adof (1792/1796 -- 1809) and Karl XIII (1809 –1818), though his role in their Courts is unclear.When he died in 1822 he was about 75 years old.

Books of Adolphe Badin