Life on the Waterford Plantation sugar operation in the 1940s remains a vivid memory for many area residents, such as Leona Picard of Luling. Dart, Henry Plauch. Around a decade later, 1759, the estate of George Drozeler was appraised with the house, slaves (number and gender not given), cattle, furnishings and effects. There were no Catholic churches designated for slaves and free people of color in St. Charles parish or along the river prior to the Civil War. There are now 47,000,000 of us. In 1800 he sells all the cypress trees on his farm 19 miles above New Orleans to a logging company. In 1775 there was a total of 70 concessions in St. Charles Parish, counting both banks of the Mississippi, with a total of 840 slaves (Blume 85), a large increase from the 120 slaves owned by both German coasts in 1730. Today Destrehan Plantation, open to the public, has an exhibit and tour of the 1811 Slave Revolt. It is safe to say that Picou and Panis people of color in the river parishes today descend from that union of Marie Louise and Urbain. But she added they encouraged their children to move ahead and take their liberties or freedom., MAKING A DIFFERENCE Sgt. Cornelius Shannon, 35, a groom from Ireland is listed in the household with the mulatto Pauline Masicot, 60, probably a housekeeper. Duhe, Mary. That is evident in the history above of Marie Louise Panis, free woman of color who is said to have owned 60 slaves in the 1840s. (Duhe 196). Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, Small farmers stuck to cultivating grain, corn and some cotton (Merrill 45). Translated by Anthony G. Tassin. One has to imagine the conversation between this proud, dark-skinned slave owner and Southern gentleman and the black soldiers who had been ordered to raid his plantation (Adams 223-225). Whitney is today a well-known museum of slavery on the German Coast. Some male slaves were hired on to carry knapsacks and equipment for Union soldiers. The Destrehan family of color, now using Honor as surname, as referenced above in the section Slave Records in Mid-to-Late 1700s, is another interracial family to emerge in this period. Two decades later, October 1768, Karl Frederick Darensbourg led 400 German militia, drawn from the farmers and planters of the German Coast, on a march to New Orleans where they joined over 1000 protesters rejecting the takeover of Louisiana by Spain. Oubre, Elton J. Vacherie, St. James Parish, Louisiana: History and Genealogy. They were indebted at the commissary store for things like matches, candy, tobacco and bread, said Harrell, who also found Waterford Plantation records in Whitney Plantation records. 31 # 2, June 2010, pp 74-79. Many Louisiana Catholic churches kept separate sacramental registers for births and marriages of free people of color and slaves (Webre, Religious, 75), though such registers do not exist in St. Charles Parish where early records were lost to fire. Les Voyageurs Vol. Most sales of small, well established farms show no slaves as part of the inventory. Added to this mix were hundreds of slaves running away toward New Orleans where they expected Union troops to grant them freedom. She recalled once bathing Billy when the plantation bell run as a fire alarm. Of course, you know that slavery, Jim Crowism and racism were supported by the government and the legal system. His home still stands at 141 Elm Street (Becnel et al 82). Abuse on isolated farms or plantations was easily hidden from outsiders or ignored by the larger population. I guaranteed never to betray their count on and you can would not provide away its labels to help you anybody.. Raphael dropped the St. Jemme surname after marrying Marie Jeanne Faucher in St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans 1760 . 1792, April 30 Jacques Masicot, on orders from New Orleans, submitted to the governor a Census of the Free Negroes and Mulattoes in the First German Coast, Parish of St. Charles. He was fined $124, a considerable sum at the time (Conrad, German Coast, 65-66). And what about family that had already left? This is substantiated by the August 1, 1822 will of Antoine Folse that states: I free my slaves after my youngest reach majority. Oubre, oddly, puts this sentence in bold print. In 1995, it was finally ratified but the archivist in DC had not been officially notified. Harrell told you it informed her throughout the a bell getting rung during the the start and you may days end. I felt like I became from the room with freshly freed anyone, and i normally understand why they did not should speak about so it., I remember considering its confronts across the room, Harrell said. In the river parishes cutting and milling of lumber and constructing raised structures in the swampy environs required hard labor. I will share this article with my staff, thank you for writing and giving the world insight. September 12, 1722, just as the Germans were settling in, there was a hurricane that caused Lac des Allemands to flood, forcing two of the small enclaves of German farms to be abandoned. Nowadays, the center of Killona region is the Waterford III nuclear plant, with the Waterford 1 and 2 steam generator plants nearby. Keep this dynamic population in mind as Louisiana moves into the Civil War. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 1994. The Board of the St. Charles Museum & Historical Association hopes this interesting document will highlight the important role these forgotten people contributed to our early history. Rene LeConte notes that Commandant Karl Frederick Darensbourg and his brother-in-law who joined him from Germany in 1731, Georg- August Von der Hecke, each owned 5 or 6 slaves as part of their status that year (p. 12). Harrell said they told her about a bell being rung at the beginning and end of the day. 3rd edition. The number of slaves killed or escaped is not recorded, but 66 dead is the statistic most often quoted. In 1877, he partnered with Richard A Milliken, who first named the plantation Waterford in 1879. Charles E. Nolan, General Ed. Rice, cotton and increasingly more sugarcane plantations were expanding and the demand for enslaved laborers was fierce. Principal for the white school was Ada Munson and Mrs. B.L. Between the years 1890 and 1917, the Milliken family controlled both Waterford and the 3idjacent Killona Plantations. St. Charles Church in Destrehan (later renamed St. Charles Borromeo), for whom the parish is named, and Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church in Hahnville continue to have African-American constituencies. 9 # 3, September 1988. Congregations of these churches have in some cases relocated and started new cemeteries elsewhere in the general area. On the eastern edge is a row of houses once known as Freetown, housing former slaves. Adams, Marthell T. Robinson. How many of Hendersons freed slaves took his offer, either way, is not known; ironically his Destrehan Plantation 30 years later served as the Rost Colony, a post-Civil War refuge of the Freedmans Bureau for slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation but having no wherewithal to support themselves and their families. Construction of Waterford Units 1 & 2 began in May 1971. The details of the ill-fated 1811 slave revolt are told elsewhere on this site. Whitney Plantation? 26). Some of these children married free blacks in St. Charles and St. James parishes as well (Haydel 40). Creoles of Color in the Bayou Country. In March 1863, two months before the first siege of the port, he took the oath of allegiance to the Union in Baton Rouge, but his plantation was still raided by Union troops while he was away by Colonel Fuller, a few officers and lots of soldiers, most former slaves and free men of color who had signed on with the Native Guard and were encamped near Port Hudson. The following generation if children of a quadroon and a European were called octoroons for one-eighth black blood. There was always concern by the planters that slaves would rise up and kill them, burning their properties and wreaking havoc on the whole area. (Oubre 109-110) By the 1830 census, Vacherie Folse showed four households with a total of 91 people: 50 whites and 41 blacks, who are not identified as to how many were slaves or free people of color (Oubre 103). Adorea LeBlanc Sorapuru, whose great-great-grandmother was Marguerite Trepagnier, ties the Sorapurus to Ormond Plantation because Trepagniers nephew Pierre was the first owner of Ormond. The term Creole Negro first appears Oct. 5, 1767 in the inventory of Albert Sexnaires estate. Because some records are missing and some marriages between white men and free women of color were recorded outside the parish or the state, it is very likely that other such marriages occurred before 1834. How about people kept into Waterford Plantation? Nevertheless, the colony continued to prosper. Texaco, Shell Oil, Apache and other companies steal gas and oil from our land to this very day. Harrell has uncovered numerous examples of white people in Southern states entrapping black workers into peonage slavery slavery justified and enforced through deceptive contracts and debt, rather than claims of ownership even though peonage was technically outlawed in the United States in 1867, four years after the Emancipation Proclamation. On May 14, 1912, the Hymelia Crevasse ripped through the levee above Killona and below Lucy (in St. John the Baptist Parish), near the site of Hymelia Plantation (originally known as Kennermore or Killmore Plantation). These were indebted at commissary shop having such things as suits, chocolate, smoke and you can money, told you Harrell, who as well as discovered Waterford Plantation ideas from inside the Whitney Plantation ideas. I AM DONE. Anne was a girl Marcelin Haydel had bought at a slave market in New Orleans as a gift to his wife Azelie. This database is a compilation of information on over four thousand slaves from Louisiana who were involved in manumission (the formal emancipation from slavery) between 1719 and 1820. This type of control knows no skin color or national origin boundary. LeConte claims these two men were the only slaveholders at the time, thus contradicting Blume and other German Coast historians. They also owed on medical bills, which she said could total more their entire months wage. Although Gehmans research here provides a comprehensive and detailed composite of facts, her essay is by no means the complete story. Seriously I would love to know the slaves that were on the plantation in the 70s. Honoratos son with wife Felicite Gravier (married 1789), Francois Honor Destrehan, later moved to New Roads, Louisiana and dropped the surname Destrehan: his descendants became surnamed Honor, including the currently well known U.S. General Russell Honor (source: Ingrid Stanley). They certainly were in financial trouble at commissary store to have things like suits, chocolate, smoke and you may money, said Harrell, who along with discover Waterford Plantation facts inside the Whitney Plantation info. They raised chickens and pigs, selling excess eggs and meat to the master. The Marmillon Plantation was abandoned by Government agents about two weeks later, having 850 Negroes of all ages who had access to the fruits and gardens (Webre Valsin Marmillion 130). There is also the question of what happened to the slaves given to the early farmers of the German Coast when the Germans fled the area for New Orleans as they did in spring 1748 when the Choctaw raided a farm on the German Coast only a few miles north of N.O., killed the husband, scalped the wife and took the daughter and a black slave prisoner. I do not advocate taking advantage of people when they are down, but human nature always seeks to advance our own individual interests over all others. In Louisiana, the term freedmen was used for slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, and legal documents no longer used the initials fpc for free people of color after the names of blacks, since everyone was now free. Another example of consequences for injuring a slave is Lachaise who August 11, 1762 was imprisoned for having kicked a Negress belonging to Dupart. Hardy De Boisblanc reported that the whole city cried out against this punishment leaving it unclear if the punishment was kicking the slave or Lachaise being sentenced to prison, though July 8, 1765 a Negress named Marie is transferred by deBoisblanc to two young girls surnamed Dupre and Thomas with instructions that their parents may not dispose of the slave. In the early 1770s Francois Lemelle moved both his white family and the family of color west to the Opelousas frontier (Brasseaux, Creoles of Color, 19). The sequence of the listing indicates that the poultry may have been more valuable than the slaves. Slavery is still happening all over the world, mostly to women and children. We promised not to ever betray the believe and you will wont bring aside the labels so youre able to somebody.. Mahier was at the time trying to convince Federal officers in Baton Rouge to spare his plantation; his horse and fine Mexican saddle and bridle were taken from him by those same officers, and he was forced to walk home. Quite a few also had children with slaves and free women of color. Flagg was joined in 1872 by Georg Michael Hahn, liberal Republican Governor of Louisiana during the contentious year of February 1864 to March 1865. Businessmen of this class from St. Domingue (Haiti) and the West Indies traveled through the Louisiana Territory and sometimes stayed. Tens of thousands of native peoples in various tribal family groups roamed the marshes and uplands, living for periods on the high ground along the rivers. Europe was recovering from the brutal Thirty Years War and these illiterate peasant farmers had little hope of eking out a living as subjects of a king or duke in their homeland. Les Voyageurs Vol. They also owed on scientific expenses, hence she told you you will total significantly more the entire months wage. While we dont know much about Marie Ceciles parents who were probably farmers, we do know that the Gaillards of New Orleans of that era were wealthy people of color and well educated. In rural areas of St. Charles Parish, as in other parishes, the degree of segregation depended on the situation. There is proof that there were still slaves as late as 2009 on the many plantations there. Wow! She was the daughter of John Greer Greeves, a Quaker from Northern Ireland and his liaison with Marie Toutan Forstall, free woman of color in N.O. One or those corporations is Bunge Grand Elevator in Destrehan, LA. I see now that all were not really freed. Thomas R. Shields owned Aventine Plantation in Adams County, Mississippi. Many of these slaves were purchased by German Coast planters, and though the majority of the free blacks remained in New Orleans, a few sought work upriver. Another commentator, Bouligny, likens them to the workers in Europe at the time (Blume 118). They referred to themselves as peons, meaning, You cant get away because they were in debt.. Vol. Though he died a debtor, he had remained true to his principles. As children were born from liaisons between European men and slave women in the colony, and freed by their fathers who sometimes appeared as the childs godfather on the baptism record they formed a small but rapidly expanding community of free people of color. His parents got him into high school in Tuscaloosa, AL where they had gotten the factory jobs. Girls recounted with saw their children getting leased off to almost every other plantations, and daughters molested and you will raped because of the straw employer otherwise foreman whom supervised gurus, she told you. However, as people move into and out of the parish for jobs and family there is more diversity. I recently realized that a neighbor from my childhood had her personal slave, right in the heart of Washington, D.C.! February 2, 1748 Remy Poisot dit Bourginiot sold a Negro named Patt to Pierre Garcon dit Leveille. Originally, a school was located on the old Trinity Plantation upriver from present-day Killona and called Trinity. The first Negroes in the late 1720s were listed by the Company of the Indies as piece dIndie as they were entered in their shipping papers to camouflage their identities as Africans, since technically African slaves were not permitted (Dart 464). We were children. The captives stated they knew of other runaway groups hiding in the swamps along Lake Pontchartrain. In 19th Century Louisiana, free people of color were customarily identified by their skin shade and features that indicated the mixing of African with European. The cook took her revenge by feeding the bird parsley and it died of mysterious causes (interview with Doris Alexander 2016). As the strikers rampaged down River Road towards the parish courthouse, they freed stock and assaulted resisters, the mob swelling to nearly 500 persons. An example of a master-slave relationship in this early period is Jean Baptiste Honor Destrehan who arrived from France in Louisiana in 1730, and was soon appointed Treasurer of the colony. It called for all of his slaves to be freed and to choose between a $500 passage to Liberia or an acre of land, a cabin, mule, cow and other supplies to start out as a free man. (Yoes 128) This was in keeping with the Back-to-Africa movement supported by large slaveholders such as John McDonogh at the time. 1-13. . Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago, IL 2009. I often wondered about how the slaves made it after slavery. They still hold the power. By March 19, a special troop train from New Orleans set out to help the stricken plantations, which by now totaled 18; it arrived March 20. Studies have shown slaves remained on Killona plantation until 1970s "They chatted about just how difficult it had been in the running out of eating for eating," she told you. Early on, the governor and other functionaries realized that if Le Cote des Allemands were to become the breadbasket of the colony, and save the capital New Orleans from starvation as intended, the young German couples and single men would need more hands to complete the back-breaking labor of clearing the land, tilling the soil and protecting crops from floods, hurricanes, occasional Indian raids, insects and seasonal drought, all this in a hot and humid climate very different from that of their homeland. This kind of practice went on well into the 1950s. Becnel, Joan Weaver et al. The Commandant of the German Coast, Karl Fredrick Darensbourg, was appointed to supervise the early settlers and enforce the law, meager as it was in the isolated areas some 25 miles upriver from New Orleans. It should be noted that there is a second woman of color at that same time named Catalina Destrehan from whom some of the Honores might descend. On the eve of the Civil War the U.S. Census Bureau took the St. Charles Parish Census of 1860 showing 258 households, 53 of them free people of color, or approximately one in five. Many people continued to work on the same small farms or as share croppers and were friendly to each other. Though not stated in the record, it intimates that Marguerite might have been the companion of the bachelor Giardin for many years, and that her three children were his as well. New York, They discussed exactly how difficult it actually was regarding the running out of eating to consume, she told you. After marrying officially in 1873, the couple had five more children: Victorin 1874; Louis ca. LSU Press 1995. Some didnt need to leave friends at the rear of. The churches co-exist within a block of each other on Killona Drive. This is actually very similar to the situation today where so many Americans are carrying 70%-80% debt loads that they cannot possibly pay off. For this story, the housing my father-in-laws family lived in had very basic electricity, but it had no indoor plumbing. This is blaring and glaring truth of slavery in the USA. Read more 0 The 1804 Census of St. Charles Parish, as detailed in Slave Records in Mid-to-Late 1700s section above, shows 113 free people of color, compared to 713 whites and 1582 slaves. A close friend of President Abraham Lincoln, Hahn lost his bid for the U.S. Senate after Lincolns assassination, despite being elected in January 1865. These two letters appear in Les Voyageur Vol. The nuclear power plant went into operation Sept. 24, 1985. The young couple married at the St. Louis Cathedral and lived in New Orleans to raise their four children: Armand, Felix, Marguerite and Yvonne. That same year the 1731 census was also the earliest mention of slaves among the settlers with a specific owner: Ambroise Heidel [Haydel], wife, 2 children, 1 engag and 3 Negro slaves. They didnt need certainly to go public involved since the several of him or her remained employed by those same anybody and you will dreaded retaliation, she said. We are left to assume that they continued working their masters property and protecting the elderly, women and children left behind. Slaves could also be rented out for labor, sex, crafts and domestic service. She is the matriarch of a large Lemelle family of free blacks whose descendants today can be found throughout the state. The meaning here of Creole would be to distinguish between slaves arriving directly from Africa and thus new to the conditions and culture of Louisiana, and Creoles or first or second-generation slaves who knew their way around and were acclimated to the climate, language, and culture. He must have been a man of means, yet we know little about him except for the episode in 1808 when he was fined for harboring and abetting slaves (see The 1811 Slave Revolt section below). I was born and raised in Killona in 1958, we did not live on a plantation, and everyone must have hid the fact that there were slaves there well into the 1970s, most people that lived on Waterford plantation was able to move the house they were in to where they wanted to. I would like to know more about the lease and current status. The others were tried, convicted and hanged in New Orleans. Conrad, Glenn R. The German Coast: Abstracts of Civil Records of St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes 1804-1812. Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. There were also Haydels, Tregres, etc. On the Cutting Edge The Breauxs. Les Voyageurs Vol. Keller, Gerald J. A few of those cemeteries have survived despite the church buildings being torn down. Mixtures of African and Indian were called grif (male) or griffe (female). A person born of an African mother and European father, for example, was called a mulatto (pejorative term derived from mule). Free people of color first show up in a few official records of St. Charles Parish in the 1770s, but by the 1804 census there are 113 of them classified as such (Conrad, St. Charles Parish, 389). 32 # 1, March 2011, pp 47-51. Bouki Fait Gombo: A History of the Slave Community of Habitation, Haydel (Whitney Plantation) Louisiana 1750-1860. (Biever in On To New Orleans! The modest plots of land granted them on their arrival in Louisiana by Bienville (John Law had gone bust and his Company reverted to colonial rule) were not free, because the settlers who were penniless were forced to sell their products to the Company in exchange for food, tools, seeds and other necessities at set prices. Over time, she said this new contemporary slaves performed hop out Waterford Plantation as their offspring been able to sit in university or purchase a home. The recording of runaway slave groups existed in the prior decade on the German Coast. 1973 is actually, not way back, Harrell told you off in the event that twenty-first century submissives in the end remaining Waterford Plantation. White refugees, most of mixed race, lived there as well (Yoes 130, Milan 45-47). The code noir that regulated ownership and treatment of slaves in the colony dictated that slaves could only be owned by Catholics. He and his comrades were arrested in August 1769, bringing the short-lived independence to an end, and on Oct.24, 1769, he was convicted of high treason.