(Sources: Mayor's Report, January 18, 1810, published in the Moniteur, January 27, 1810, "Recensement general du Territoirs d'Orleans au ler de janvier 1807," item 1 in Joseph Debreuil de Villars Papers, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University; Population Schedule for the Territory of Orleans of the Third Census of the United States, 1810, f. 468-470.)

More refugees were counted by the mayor in 1809 than the total increase of white and slave populations in Orleans Parish from 1806 to 1810, and they represented 90 percent of the increase in free persons of color. Measured against the urban population of the parish, 10,000 to 12,000 in 1806, 17,242 in 1810, the migration appears even larger. Its immediate effect was to double the population of New Orleans proper.

News of the events leading to the expulsion of the refugees from Cuba reached Louisiana in April. Cubans refused to accept Napoleon's substitution of his older brother Joseph for Ferdinand VII as king of Spain. On March 12, 1809, the Marquest de Someruelos, captain-general of Cuba, issued a proclamation calling for vigilance committees in every town and parish to investigate the conduct and opinions of Frenchmen in Cuba and to expel those whose presence might prove dangerous. The first boatload of refugees from Cuba arrived at Fort Plaquemines by May 12. On May 17, the mayor of New Orleans, James Mather, acting on rumors of the imminent arrival of up to 6,000 white refugees, called on the municipal council to provide measures of temporary relief, including removal of the fish market to a vacant lot and use of its five storerooms as accommodation for refugee families, collection of blankets for the destitute, and formation of a welfare committee to procure pecuniary aid and work for refugees. The council passed a resolution to this effect at its meeting of May 24. By August, the welfare committee had collected and distributed $5,000 in aid and was calling for a second subscription for needy refugees who continued to arrive in the city. By way of comparison, residents of New Orleans paid $7,650 in taxes on real estate and slaves in the fiscal year beginning May 1, 1809.

In addition to the local government, the principal French-language newspapers, the Moniteur and the Courrier, served as conduits of aid to the refugees by picturing them as "victims of the horror of war...unfortunate planters, whose conduct (in Cuba) was an example of industry, of equanimity in adversity, and of submission to the laws of the country where they had found an asylum. On the practical side, editors allowed refugees in search of employment to advertise their talents free of charge and printed propositions addressed by Louisianans to the refugees, such as offers to employ them or their slaves, to exchange property in Louisiana for property abandoned in Cuba, to let them farm land not currently under cultivation, or to sell them real estate in the city on generous terms. The newspapers also announced events organized in the refugees' behalf, like the special performance at the Theatre St. Pierre for an "ill-fated" family.

These initiatives were intended for white refugees. Some were truly dependent on the generosity of residents of New Orleans....

Free persons of color aided refugees of their own caste. On June 17, the mayor signed an appeal calling on them to contribute to a fund to "save from poverty certain persons of their own class," in particular, "several women of color, recently arrived from Cuba, and burdened with children of a young age." Two free men of color, Charlot Brule and Batiste Hardi, assumed responsibility for this collection. ...free men of color above the age of fifteen were never officially exempted from legislation forbidding them to settle in the Territory of Orleans. Governor Claiborne wanted this law enforced. On August 4, 1809, he asked the mayor of New Orleans, "Have you been enabled to execute the Law of the Territory as relates to the freemen of color? -Are they retiring from the Territory, and to what place, do they seem to give a preference?" Mather replied that to date, 64 free men of color above 15 had given security for their departure from the Territory, as required by law. Others who had been granted a delay to produce proof of freedom or procure securities had not returned and could not be found. He knew "but of few men of color who had left this place." In January, 1810, the mayor complained that the law did not give him sufficient authority to obtain evidence leading to expulsion of free men of color; but he also pointed out their good behavior. No person of color had been arrested or brought before the courts. In other words, the legislation seems to have served as a means of control over free men of color rather than to force their immediate emigration....

A more precise view of how long the refugees maintained a visible presence in New Orleans is provided by the registers of St. Louis Cathedral and the Ursuline Chapel, where the vital events of almost all French speakers were recorded up to 1840. In the course of his research on Saint-Domingue refugees, the late Rene LeGardeur systematically searched the St. Louis Cathedral funeral register for individuals with some connection to Saint-Domingue. Of 355 entries in the register for whites from July, 1809, to May 1810, 183 (52%) migration relative to the white population of New Orleans at the moment of arrival. From 1815 to 1828, refugees accounted for 600 of 4,600 acts (13%), reflecting a decline in the proportion of refugees in the white Catholic population due to the departure of some refugees, the arrival of other immigrants to replace them, and natural increase of the resident population.

With the disproportion of white males to females and the surplus of free women of color, it was natural that unions between these groups would occur.

Laws in all southern states prohibited marriage between races. The Catholic Church supported both slavery and discriminatory laws. Many priests had slaves as indicated by slave censuses. The Catholic Church, in 1866, after emancipation, issued a declaration that slavery was morally acceptable to the church and to society. The Catholic Church also condoned the cohabitation between the races and never spoke out against it.

There was an economic reason why free women of color accepted such relationships. It was just a matter survival. All women found doors closed to them in the job market. Most of the population was uneducated. Society frowned upon the education of even wealthy women. Poor women were illiterate and dependent upon a man for support. Domestic service was performed by slaves, so even these jobs were not available.

Unions between white males and free women of color were of two kinds. When the parties to the union were entering into permanent relationships, the process was call "plaçage". Friends and relatives came together to celebrate the commitment. Actually, according to Church law, these were valid marriages, since a minister is not necessary to perform a marriage. The marriage did not have legal validity but was, according to Catholicism, religiously valid.

Unions called "liaisons" were less permanent in nature. Socially prominent whites would not reside with the colored lady and maintained their own residences. They supported the women and engaged in long-term relationships.

I mentioned the low educational levels of the general population. Free public schools were not available until the latter part of the nineteenth century. Compulsory education laws were not enacted until 1916, the year of my birth, and were not enforced for black people even in 1949 when we left the state. Many parishes (counties) did not maintain high schools for blacks until after World War II. In the early years of public education, teachers frequently had only one or two more years of education than the students they taught.

Free men of color usually were artisans or mechanics. Unskilled labor was performed by slaves. The most usual skills of free men of color were those of the building trades, cigar making, blacksmithing, cooperage, and drayage. All of these jobs could be performed with a minimum amount of literary skills.

No one can over state the difficulties experienced by free people of color during the antebellum period of our history. Forced to register with the mayor's office, to carry their freedom papers at all times, restricted in where they could live, the work they could do and the education they could receive, they were additionally subjected to the indignities of the Tignon Laws.

In the years just prior to the Civil War, free people of color were seldom tabulated in censuses or directories. They seemed to become an almost invisible people. But these were the ancestors who toiled and persevered to give us our identity.

A note must be made for the reader of this journal so that he will understand the prolems faced by a researcher in documenting the facts presented. Although my files will contain copies of the documentation of names and events, the casual readers will find many inconsistencies in the names. He must understand the historical events which created this chaos.

Louisiana was governed by the French, Spanish, and Americans. Documents are found in all three languages (and sometimes in combinations of languages). Therefore, a person may be referred to by the equivalent forms of a name, i.e., Mary, Marie, Maria; Etienne, Estevan, Stephen; Sem, or Sam, etc.).

As indicated before, most citizens were illiterate and did not write their own names and lacked the capability to see that the recorder of an event used a preferred form. Names were written phonetically and the spelling often varied several times within the same document.

Another problem presented itself by the frequent changes of names caused by people wishing to escape their past or to use a name more to their liking. In early Louisiana history, almost ten percent of the males had names recorded with "dit" and a preferred name. "Dit" loosely means "alias" or "called" or "surnamed". Sometimes it was used to correct a faulty record.

When the father of a child, born out of wedlock, did not choose to recognize him, the child was baptized under the mother's name When the child matured, he assumed the father's name and the word "dit" was used. It was also used when a person rejected the name of the father and chose a name of his preference.

Another cause of misidentification occurred because of the Spanish use of the mother's name as the last name. Some descendants continued to use this maternal name as their surname while others in the same family used the patronymic name.

Additional problems occurred with the names of free people of color and with those of slaves. In order to demean both groups, priests and civil clerks recorded them with a single name although in most cases a surname existed. If there was a need to specify which person was indicated, the name of the mother would be used, i.e., "Joseph, son of Mary".

Most house slaves had assumed surnames long before the civil war. These were seldom used in documents. In an additional attempt to demean slaves, many masters gave them Greek or Roman classical names such as Pompey, Cato, or Caesar. Whenever they were emancipated, they renamed themselves with names of their own choosing.

Additional confusion occurs in determining relationship since beau père can mean either step-father or father-in-law and beau-frère can mean step-brother or brother-in-law.

Additionally, many French names beginning with "de", "le", or "du" were anglicized by dropping this prefix.

These are a few of the problems faced by the genealogist in tracking ancestors. There are many more but these will shed some light on seeming inconsistencies in the records on file.

Another insight must be given for us to understand our heritage. It is the use of the word "creole" either as a noun or as an adjective.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines creole as:

"...a descendent of early French or Spanish settlers of the U.S. gulf states preserving their speech and culture; also: a person of mixed French or Spanish and Negro descent speaking a dialect of French or Spanish..."

Some, so-called, historians and genealogists claim the right to use the descriptive term "Creole" was limited to pure whites who came directly from France or Spain and were people of social status. Others extended the right to use of the term to anyone born in the Gulf Coast area without regard to race, education, wealth, or country or origin.

Probably the most researched and definitive description of the term "creole" comes from Winston DeVille, who stated:

The population of Colonial Louisiana is too complex to label as a single entity. Out of this complexity, however, has grown a uniqueness, best expressed, if not totally correctly expressed, by the term creole--a much maligned word which, to many Americans as well as to many Europeans, denotes exotic and clandestine mixtures of races. One American of my acquaintance--boasting very Dutch New York ancestry--believed that "Creoles are something like gypsies who live in the swamps of Louisiana"! To identify a family as "creole" properly, one has to be aware, at least, that most often our 18th century ancestors were always referring to someone or something native to, or produced in, the colony, when they used the term. As a matter of fact, the word "creole" was most often used when referring to a product from Louisiana and especially to slaves born in the colony or in the islands; it was not often used to refer to Louisianans who were not of African ancestry. However, when it was used to refer to the French and Spanish in Louisiana, there was another qualification: that their ancestry be directly from France or Spain. The children of Canadians were not generally referred to as creole, nor were the children of the Acadians, and the Americans remained Americans, until, after two or three generations, having been absorbed into the Latin families. Not until well into the 19th century were some of the Canadian, Acadian, and Anglo-American families identified as creole, and then, probably, only because of intermarriage. This gradual evolution was most apparent in New Orleans where the term finally became almost synonymous with social position in either the Black or White communities. In the country parishes to this day, the word "Creole" is most-often used only in the 18th century sense, when it is used at all.

According to a strict interpretation, then many old and quite illustrious Louisiana families should not be referred to as "Creole"--the Juchereau de St. Denys family, for instance, whose progenitor founded the oldest settlement in the state, and the Villere family, which gave Louisiana a governor called "Creole" by most Louisiana historians. Both indeed French, but Canada French, not Creole!

We should also remember that the term "creole" originally implied "of lesser quality" than goods manufactured in France or Spain, or, when referring to persons native to Louisiana, of lesser ability than a person born in Europe. Imported fabrics, for instance, were more sought after than homespun, and with almost no exceptions, high civil officers, major military appointments, and other desirable positions were open only to Europeans, not to descendants of Europeans born in Louisiana. Considering the almost total lack of formal education and training in the colony, it is hardly surprising that such a European-controlled system developed, however poorly it was administered locally.

Elizabeth Shown Mills in an article, "The Creole: White, Nonwhite, Aristocratic, or Common?" published in the Louisiana Genealogical Register stated:

Within the past two decades several studies of the term Creole--and the classes of people to whom it may apply--have appeared in various professional journals, both historical and literary....The general consensus of these impartial and professional scholars is that the term traditionally applied, in seventeenth and eighteenth century Louisiana, to all who were born in that colony or that state, regardless of whether they were white, black, or in-between and regardless of the country from which their ancestors came. It is also used as a general adjective applicable to anything indigenous to Louisiana, be it horses or cabbage.

This opinion is supported by an unending number of contemporary documents and statements. With regard to the national origin of Creoles, an Englishwoman in Louisiana reported in 1838: "Creole means native. French and American creoles are natives of French and American extraction." Similarly, an 1841 journalist prefaced his study of Louisiana society with the explanation: "The children of northern parents, if born in Louisiana, are 'Creoles.'

The right of nonwhite Louisianans to the use of the term "Creole" is indisputable, a right which they were accorded for a century and a half before the birth of the "Creole myth." Countless church records of the 1700s refer to the Creoles de couleur. An 1828 issue of a New Orleans newspaper advertised: "Wanted to purchase, a seamstress who can also wash and iron...she must be a creole or acclimated." In 1832 a nonwhite, non-Latin member of New Orleans society was publicly quoted [without censure] as labelling himself "a Creole....I had considered myself a Creole in the ordinary acceptation of the term."

Certainly by these definitions, we must (like it or not) classify ourselves as Creole.

One last word of caution to the researcher. In early Lousisiana, old French measures of length and surface were used. The linear measures were le pied (1.066 ft.), la toise (6.396 ft.), la perche (19.188 ft.) l'arpent (192 ft.) and la lieue (3.1 miles).

Surface measurements used the term "carree" behind the linear measure, i.e. "l'arpent carree" which meant "l'arpent squared" (.846 acres). However in practical use the word "carree" was dropped and l'arpent was used for both lineal and square measure, leaving the reader to determine the meaning.

Since roads were virtually non-existent, most travel was done on rivers, streams, and bayous. Land frontage faced the waterways and land grants were ususally forty arpents deep. When references to size of plots stated "x arpents by the ordinary depth, the reference was to linear measurements. A plot of 400 arpents referred to square measurements (10 X 40 = 400 arpents carree).

One other thing should be noted before entering upon the actual history of our family. In the sixteenth, seventeenths, and eighteenth centuries, the death rate among settlers was exceptionally high. The cold winters of Quebec and the humid marshes of Louisiana did not provide wholesome environments for the settlers. Indeed, it has been said that Quebec had only one day of summer each year, and if it rained on that day, there was no summer at all.

Rarely did a married couple reach middle age before one had died. The need that women had for a protector and a provider made them eager to re-marry. Men needed the comfort, companionship and caring that women provided. As one searches through the record, he finds that most survivors remarried several times.

To record all the marriages and offspring would make this document a tome as thick as an unabridged dictionary. Therefore, I have decided to record only that marriage which was in our direct line of ancestry, be it the first, second, or third.

Opelousas and Attakapas