Phelonise Haydel Dangluse Part III: 1868- 1885

Phelonise Haydel’s Creole heritage had always been a defining factor of her life. This was particularly true in her old age. By the time she was in her seventies, she was entirely reliant upon the charity of her adopted daughter Philomene and her grand nephews. She had no other means of supporting herself. The money brought in from the sale of the land given as a bounty to her husband for service in the War of 1812 was long gone. There was no way to have made it stretch over three decades. She had to find another way to survive. Once again Jean Baptiste Monplaisir Dangluse’s military service would prove beneficial.

She turned to an attorney named Clarke for assistance. He filed Phelonise’s application for a widow’s pension. J. D. St. Herman and Jacques Meffre Rouzan, Creoles of color who had served with her husband and been close to the family for over sixty years, acted as witnesses on her behalf. Phelonise anxiously awaited money from the federal government for her late husband’s participation in the Battle of New Orleans.

Unfortunately she had a hard fight ahead of her. Pension agents and the federal government were perplexed by Phelonise and her husband’s Creole names. On some records she was Felonise, on others Phelonise. Documents contained the name Monplaisir Dangluse and Jean Baptiste Dangluse. American bureaucrats’ ignorance of the French language and Creole customs jeopardized Phelonise’s chances of ever receiving a pension. Her illiteracy, common amongst elderly formerly enslaved individuals, also prevented her from effectively managing her case.

John Benton, special agent from the Pension Bureau, was tasked with determining the validity of Phelonise’s claim. With Felix Delille acting as his interpreter, Benton began making inquiries in 1881. Benton wrote the following about the case and his interactions with Phelonise Haydel Dangluse:

‘Phi’ in French (so says my interpreter) is pronounced ‘Fe.’ The applicant is old and very poor, and I may add very respectable, and will anxiously await the disposition of her case, hoping that it may be such as will enable her to get out of her present cheerless and uncomfortable quarters into something more befitting her age and enfeebled condition.

I will add that the applicant speaks and understands English so poorly that without the assistance of an interpreter it would be almost impossible to get anything like a correct understanding of her case from her; and this fact may account for the. . .confusion into which her case has been thrown by her attorney Mr. Clarke, who does not appear to understand French, nor engage the services of a clerk or interpreter who does.

This was post-war New Orleans, and the movement toward Americanization was almost complete. Creoles were outnumbered, and French was no longer the dominant language. Over the course of her lifetime, Phelonise had witnessed the flags of Spain, France, the United States, the Confederacy, and, once again, the United States fly over her home. She had observed the city’s evolution from Francophone and Catholic domination to a place where Creoles were struggling to hold on to their culture. They were outnumbered and no longer the cultural and political force they had once been.

Jean Baptiste Etienne Dangluse death certificate, showing that Phelonise was born a Haydel.

The American pension claims agents had been confused by Phelonise’s first name. When Benton questioned her further about her surname, Phelonise’s strong Creole heritage was once again revealed. “[I have] always been addressed and referred to by [my] friends and acquaintances as Madam Monplaisir, in accordance with the custom of the creoles to address a wife or widow by her husband’s Christian name,” Phelonise said on January 13, 1881. It is likely that translator Felix Delille confirmed this tradition.

After meeting with Phelonise, John Benton sought out her adopted daughter. Now forty-two and married for a third time, Philomene’s life had gone through its share of twists and turns. Shortly after her divorce, she began a relationship with a French immigrant named Louis Eugene Simonin. They were living together in 1870 when she gave birth to her last child, a daughter she christened Valentine. On February 19, 1874, when Louis Simonin was seriously ill, he and Philomene were married by a justice of the peace. Four days later, she was a widow. Fourteen months after Simonin’s death, Philomene wed Auguste Louis Ostalier. Also a French immigrant, Ostalier had resided with the Simonins, signed as a witness at their marriage, and was close friends with the family. Louis Simonin was the wine bottler at the Cosmopolitan Restaurant, an establishment on Royal Street near Canal that offered “all the delicacies of the season” and “also choice wines of all kinds.” Auguste Ostalier kept the wine cellar there and was involved in a professional organization for waiters and chefs. He soon had Philomene’s sons, George and Jean Baptiste, working in the industry. George was the “pantryman” at the Cosmopolitan, and Jean Baptiste worked there as a laborer.

Image from Richard Campanella. For his excellent article on the Cosmopolitan, see https://richcampanella.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/article_Campanella_Preservation-in-Print_2016_Feb_Cosmopolitan-1.pdf

Pension agent Benton visited Philomene Dangluse Ostalier at her home on Toulouse Street, just a few blocks from where her husband and sons worked. He had questions about her mother. She told him that she had known the Dangluses “from her earliest recollection. . .having been raised from infancy by them.” She remembered witnessing their wedding ceremony, which took place when she was around nine years old. Philomene also explained that since childhood Dangluse “had borne the ‘petit non’ [nickname] Monplaisir. When applying for a bounty he had [me] assist him as [I] could read names and dates both in print and in writing.” Philomene had to “look amongst his papers for his discharge.” She also revealed that his final resting place was in an unmarked grave at St. Barthlomew’s cemetery across the river.

Two months after Phelonise’s case was examined by the pension agent, she celebrated the marriage of her grandson George to Adele Texier. Adele’s mother was a free woman of color and her father a white man from France. He had two families; one with his French wife and children, and the other with Adele’s mother Josephine and her siblings. On January 15, 1882, Phelonise became a great-grandmother and Philomene a grandmother. Anna Bertha Lorenzo was born to George and Adele. Her parents’ birth certificates both had the word “colored” written after their names, but little Anna’s had the word “white.” Beginning in 1870, Philomene and her sons George and Jean Baptiste and daughter Valentine had crossed the color line. For over a decade, legal documents and census records had classified them as white.

Phelonise did not live long after meeting her first great grandchild. She died on May 27, 1882, at her grand nephew Arthur Gayaut’s home in Algiers. She had only been receiveing her pension for a little over a year. Gayaut inquired if the pension could cover some of her final medical bills and funeral expenses.

Soon after the passing of her mother, Philomene became ill with uterine cancer. She died on October 27, 1885, at the age of 47. The deaths of their mother and grandmother severed any connection George, Jean Baptiste, and their little sister Valentine had with slavery and the plantations where their family had been enslaved in St. John the Baptist parish. All three children chose to identify as white. Soon one was contemplating leaving behind family and old memories in Louisiana and making the move to a place where he could leave all trace of his past behind him.

Phelonise Haydel Dangluse Part II: 1850- 1868

The next decade held great challenges and struggles for Phelonise Haydel Dangluse and the grandniece she had adopted. Phelonise and Philomene remained loyal to each other in the midst of desperate circumstances. Their strong bond carried them through violence and suffering.

Mother and daughter’s return to the city was at first fortuitous and filled with promise. Phelonise purchased a lot in Faubourg Franklin (now St. Roch) on April 14, 1856. She paid $350 in cash to John Lorenzo Jr. Five days later, Philomene married Lorenzo.  

At the time, it seemed like a good match. Philomene and John had similar backgrounds. Both were of mixed race. John’s father, John Lorenzo Sr., was a fruit merchant from Italy. He owned property on Decatur Street, several slaves, and had accumulated personal wealth. Originally his surname was Lorenchiti, but to adapt to the Creole city, he began referring to himself as Lorenzo, a Spanish surname. He had relationships with two different free women of color, which produced a son and daughter. Unlike Philomene, John Lorenzo Jr. was born free. He was also acknowledged by his father as his natural son and inherited property from him. John was employed as a clerk for his father’s business.

Philomene’s emancipation was formally acknowledged under law less than two months after her marriage. Marcian Belfort Haydel appeared before the Police Jury in St. John the Baptist parish and asked for a special allowance for Philomene and her sister Germine to remain in the state after they were freed. Haydel and his son George were also preparing to free Philomene’s mother and siblings. Yet she would always consider herself to be Phelonise’s daughter.

Marcien Belfort Haydel spent years trying to emancipate Phelonise and Germine. Here is the notice of the emancipation in both English and French.

Any optimism that Phelonise had felt at her adopted daughter’s marriage soon faded. John Lorenzo did not seem interested in working or supporting his growing family. Philomene, eighteen years old at the time she wed, became a mother within her first year of marriage. She had three children in four years. George was born in 1857, Jean Baptiste joined the family in 1859, and Leandre soon followed in 1861.

In addition to being a layabout, John Lorenzo abused Philomene. Every day she endured physical violence and abusive language. She struggled to raise her three young children and support them financially through her own labor. Her mother Phelonise was also subjected to ill treatment at the hands of John Lorenzo. Mother, daughter, and grandsons lived in turmoil, fearing for their lives. While the nation was in the midst of a Civil War, Philomene found herself fighting a daily battle in her own household.

Finally Philomene had enough. On July 25, 1864, she filed for divorce. She appeared before the Sixth District Court in New Orleans and presented her case, telling Judge Charles Lamont that Lorenzo had “abused [her] with shameful words,” making their continued living together “unsupportable,” and that the “brutal Acts. . .lately committed by her husband upon her person in beating and seriously wounding her” compelled her to seek the protection of the court by applying for a divorce.

While her suit was pending in court, Philomene made her home with her adopted mother Phelonise at 224 Columbus St. She also retained the custody and guardianship of her children. The court ordered John Lorenzo to pay Philomene $20 per month in alimony to support herself and their children.

Lorenzo’s response was typical of that era. He attempted to defile Philomene’s character. He told the court that he had been a “kind and affectionate husband and father and that his said wife had been false and unfaithful and disregarding her marriage vows.” He claimed she had acted in ways “unbecoming a wife and mother,” that she abused and abandoned him and their children. He even went so far as to claim that she had “frequented a house of ill fame” and been guilty of adultery. He wanted custody of the children and for Philomene to pay for all court costs.

The suit came before the Sixth District Court for a final hearing in November 1864. Philomene appeared in a public courtroom and stood before the judge. The desperation of her situation certainly motivated her. Yet it’s important to remember that countless women were in her situation and never spoke up. She showed remarkable courage and strength at a time when society would have preferred her to remain a victim.

Her testimony focused particularly on an incident that took place that summer. At six o’clock in the morning of July 5th, Lorenzo beat Philomene, leaving her face and nose covered with blood. She said, “He struck [me] so violently that the blood flowed from [me.] Previous to this he insulted [me], grossly accusing [me] of unchastity and told [me] [I] was a whore and a maquerelle [French for brothelkeeper].”

Philomene revealed that for five years, almost her entire marriage, and certainly years that were formative for her children, “the house [was] continually in an uproar.” Witnesses testified to Lorenzo’s violent behavior and aggression.

The court sided in favor of Philomene. They allowed her a separation of bed and board from Lorenzo. Yet Philomene did not adhere to the ruling. “Yielding to the obsessions of her husband. . .who continually beset her with the most flattering promises of good behavior and affectionate and tender deportment for the future,” on February 12, 1865, Philomene gave Lorenzo another chance. “She consented to wipe out the past and return to the cohabitation with her husband.  . .he was not long in breaking most faithlessly his vows and protestations and resumed his former bad and shameful conduct, daily abusing her with the most shameful and unbecoming words.”

According to Philomene, John Lorenzo’s “conduct daily grew worse and threats took such a menacing appearance that fearing to be submitted to the maltreatments already committed by her said husband on her person and being subjected to the beatings received by her, and fearing for the safety of her life,” she left him on April 18, 1866. She “sought refuge” at the home of her aunts, the Misses Haydels. These ladies were actually her great aunts, sisters of her adopted mother Phelonise and grandmother Celeste, all born at Evergreen Plantation and now residing in New Orleans. This demonstrates the deep and abiding connections that remained long after they left the plantation and the continued importance of family that dominated the Creole experience, both slave and free.

Her Haydel aunts took her in as well as her children George, age nine, Jean Baptiste, age seven, and Leandre, the baby at five years old. Just a few months later, in September, her youngest song Leandre. Not only did she have to endure the loss of her young son, but she also continued to receive threats and abuse from her estranged husband. The situation had become unbearable. In November 1868, she again sought protection from the court when things reached a breaking point.

She told the judge that she had “always behaved as a dutiful wife and in the most tender and becoming manner towards her husband but to no avail---and that it is absolutely necessary that the bonds which unite her to. . .John Lorenzo be forever dissolved.” She asked that the court approve of her residence at her Haydel aunts’ home on Burgundy Street in the French Quarter. Philomene was in destitute circumstances, and John Lorenzo was ordered to pay $30 a month to support her and their children. She also asked that he pay all court costs.

Stanislaus Arnould, a neighbor of the Lorenzos, appeared as a witness for Philomene. He said that during supper one evening he heard a noise and commotion in the rooms occupied by Phelonise Dangluse, Philomene, and the Lorenzo family. Phelonise and Philomene were shrieking and crying for help. Arnould and the landlord hurried to the scene and found John Lorenzo beating and maltreating Phelonise and Philomene. Arnould had to use violence against Lorenzo to stop him from further harming his wife and mother-in-law. Arnould threw Lorenzo out of the house, but he continued to abuse his wife and mother-in-law “publicly on the banquette [sidewalk] applying to them the most abusing and insulting epithets, and it was only on the threat of the landlord to have him arrested that said Lorenzo went away.”

Arnould spoke of numerous occasions of Lorenzo disturbing the peace. Philomene always “politely requested him to go away. . .that she would have nothing to do with him since he could neither support her and his children, when he would abuse and insult her, repeatedly, even at night” coming around and banging on the door and threatening her. Arnould described Philomene as “a hardworking woman” with becoming conduct who “supported herself and children by her own exertions.”

Philomene’s brother Arthur Gayaut also appeared before the court and spoke of daily threats of violence, constant insults, and beatings.  He made it clear that Philomene worked to maintain the family. Lorenzo “did not support his wife and children. . .it was [Philomene] who by her own exertions and work provided for his wants and those of their children and her own ones.” Gayaut shed even more light on Philomene’s experience. He said he had “never heard any person insult another more violently than [Lorenzo] did insult his sister.”

Once again the court found in Philomene’s favor. She was granted a divorce and custody of her children. Philomene’s ability to obtain a divorce can be traced back to the influence of French and Spanish civil law. While the rest of the country’s legal system was based on British common law, Louisiana still adhered to most of the tenets of civil law established in its colonial days.

According to Sara Brooks Sundberg’s study of women and property in early Louisiana, the state “contradicts accepted ideas about early American women’s ‘enforced dependence’ under the law.” Women in Louisiana had legal recourse against grievances from their husbands. They could go before the court and request a separation of property if their husbands mismanaged or endangered their inheritance. They could also sue for a separation of bed and board if abuse or adultery could be proven. However Sundberg’s study found that Anglo American women were less likely to benefit from these Louisiana laws due to ethnicity and custom. Creole women, aware of the laws and products of a culture that accepted the use of them, were far more likely to take advantage of the protections the law provided them. Many would assume that because she was a free woman of color, Philomene’s circumstances were more limited than a white woman’s. While this may be true in some cases, the reality is that because of her Creole heritage, she was more likely to use the court system to her benefit than her Anglo American counterparts.

The fact that Philomene was able to obtain a divorce in the 1860s was remarkable. In 1867, there were only 0.3 divorces for every 1000 marriages in the United States, totaling 10,000 divorces nationwide. Some states like Louisiana and Indiana allowed for divorce, but many others did not. South Carolina did not permit divorce of any kind. New York granted divorces only on the condition that neither spouse could remarry.

In fact, many judges across the country would have been unmoved by Philomene’s situation. In 1861, a New York judge refused to grant a divorce to a wife whose husband had beaten her unconscious, stating that “one or two acts of cruel treatment” were not proper grounds for divorce. The New York Times ran an article entitled “Wives Be Obedient Unto Your Husbands,” followed the next month with another piece called “Is a Black Eye Sufficient Ground for Divorce?” It featured an incident in which a husband tried to cut his wife’s throat.

Not only was Philomene educated and savvy enough to understand the law and utilize the court system, she also proved to be truly courageous. There was a serious stigma attached to divorce in that era. She was of limited means in a society in which men were expected to work and provide for their families. She also had young children depending upon her. Philomene must have truly feared for her life. She took the steps necessary to remove herself and her children from a brutal and terrifying situation. Philomene chose to live and to have a future even when the society around her at the time might have condemned her for it. Standing by her through it all, providing comfort, support, and refuge, were her adopted mother Phelonise, her biological mother Pamela, and her Haydel aunts. She came from strong women who had endured slavery and made new lives for themselves. She would not be broken.

Phelonise Haydel Dangluse. Part I: 1800-1850

Phelonise was born into slavery around the year 1800 at Evergreen Plantation. Her mother, Jacinte, was one of the first people enslaved on the plantation. Jacinte had also been born on there and baptized at the nearby Catholic Church in 1780. She and her mother Marianne were the property of Christophe Haydel. Records indicate that Marianne may have been from St. Domingue (present-day Haiti). Thus when Phelonise was born, multiple generations of her family had lived on the plantation. Her family and the family that owned hers---the Haydels---had been the first to establish the plantation on the banks of the Mississippi River during the colonial era, a time fraught with disease, warfare, famine, and constant labor. Not only had the two families been inextricably linked from the beginning, they were now in fact each other’s family, related by blood. For Phelonise’s father was a Haydel. Whether her father was Christophe’s son George, his brother Jean Jacques, or his nephew Jean Jacques Jr. has not yet been determined. Phelonise adopted the surname Haydel, as did her siblings, just as any daughter would take her father’s name.

Though all her life she was called Phelonise by her family, she appeared on plantation inventories and other documents as Arthemise. This was a common naming trend during an era when plantation owners often gave the enslaved Greek and Roman classically inspired names. Slaves often rejected these names when associating with their own families and communities.

Phelonise was raised to be a domestic, cleaning the house ,serving her white relatives, and catering to their every need. Phelonise and all of her siblings were of mixed racial ancestry and worked in the big house. When she was fourteen years old, she served as godmother at her sister Germine’s baptism. Her brother died in infancy, but her five sisters lived to adulthood and were all known as the Misses Haydels.

Christophe Haydel died shortly after Phelonise’s birth. The plantation, as well as Phelonise, her mother, and her siblings, were inherited by Christophe’s daughter, Magdelaine Haydel Becnel. Magdelaine ran the plantation for the next three decades, until her death in 1830, when the property went up for sale. The proceeds were to be divided amongst her heirs. This meant that Jacinte and her children would be sold apart. Phelonise and her sisters were each purchased by a different Haydel or Becnel family member. Phelonise became the property of Jean Jacques Haydel Jr., Magdelaine’s first cousin as well as son-in-law, for he was married to her daughter Clarisse. He purchased Phelonise for $400. She was described as a Creole mulatto domestic slave. She spoke French, was a member of the Catholic Church, and was both culturally and genetically connected to the man who owned her. She left Evergreen Plantation, where she had been born and raised, the only home she had known for thirty years, and was brought to Jean Jacques Haydel’s nearby plantation. But she would not remain there long.

Four years after she left Evergreen, Phelonise was freed by Jean Jacques Haydel. It was 1834, and she was around 34 years old. Though she had no children of her own, she remained very close to her sisters and especially her niece Pamela, the daughter of her sister Celeste. Records indicate that it is likely that Pamela was the daughter of Marcien Belfort Haydel. Their relationship illustrates the tangled web that characterized the Haydel and Becnel family trees, both free and enslaved. Marcien Belfort Haydel was Jean Jacques Haydel Jr.’s son. Like his father before him, he owned his own daughter. Pamela had a relationship with a man named Jean Gaillot, who had also married into the Haydel family. The couple had many children together. They could not marry, because interracial marriage was illegal in Louisiana and because slaves could not enter into a marriage contract. Even though their father, Jean Gaillot, was free, Pamela’s children remained enslaved, for all slave children had to take the status of their mother.

After she gained her freedom, Phelonise moved to New Orleans. This urban center had the largest population of free people of color in the South. The majority of them were Creoles like Phelonise. In this community, she found a sense of belonging. She began a relationship with Jean Baptiste Montplaisir Dangluse, a native of St. Domingue (present-day Haiti) who had arrived in New Orleans after the revolution there. Dangluse was a veteran of the War of 1812 and fought at the Battle of New Orleans. On December 19, 1814, he joined Major Louis Daquin’s Second Battalion of free men of color from Haiti. These soldiers played a crucial role in the victory on the plains of Chalmette. Their commanding officer urged them forward, calling out, “March on! March on, my friends, march on against the enemies of the country!” in French. They surprised the British force and weakened them in preparation for the major battle to come, prompting General Andrew Jackson to tell them, “You surpass my hopes.” In the midst of the actual battle, they were commanded to stay in reserve but pushed forward to the British line and proved themselves once again. Recalling the performance by the Second Battalion and the death of British General Edward Packenham on the battlefield, Andrew Jackson said, “I have always believed he fell from the bullet of a free man of color.”

For the rest of his life, Dangluse spoke frequently of his military service in defense of the city at the time of the British invasion. It was clearly a defining moment in his life. He was particularly proud that he had been accepted into the grenadier’s company because he was so tall. Dangluse was closely tied to the Haitian Creole community in the city, further expanding Phelonise’s contacts in the community of free people of color. Yet she never lost touch with her niece Pamela and her grand- nieces and nephews in the country.

A decade after her own manumission, Phelonise succeeded in freeing her grand- niece and namesake. Marcien Belfort Haydel was willing to emancipate Pamela’s daughter Phelonise, likely his own granddaughter. Though the little girl was named after her great aunt, she was called Philomene all her life, possibly her middle name. Philomene was described in the sale and emancipation documents as a six-year-old quadroon, indicating ¼ African ancestry. Phelonise purchased her for $120, with the understanding that she would care for the child while Marcien Belfort Haydel sorted out the bureaucracy required to emancipate her. The laws were always changing, making it harder to free slaves, and at only six years old, Philomene did not meet the age requirement.

By entering into a contract for Philomene’s freedom and taking in the child, Phelonise essentially adopted her. Her grandniece became the child she never had and was raised in her home. Philomene considered Jean Baptiste Dangluse to be her father and took on his surname. She was present when her adoptive parents were married on March 29, 1847, at Annunciation Catholic Church on Marais Street in New Orleans. The Dangluses lived just blocks away from the church on Spain Street. But soon they would move across the river to Freetown, an area settled by free people of color that would later be called McDonoughville.

The reason for the move was a result of Dangluse’s military service. He received a bounty from the federal government, which he used to obtain the land in McDonoughville. By 1850, the small family had established a home there, and Philomene was attending school. She would be the first generation of her maternal line to be literate. It was forbidden by law to teach a slave to read and write. Now that she was free, Philomene could have an education.

Jean Baptiste Dangluse died on May 27, 1851, at three o’clock in the afternoon. He was around fifty-seven years old. Phelonise reported her husband’s death at the recorder’s office and made her mark on the death certificate as she was unable to sign her name. On this document, as on all legal documents, she declared her maiden name as Phelonise Haydel, an indication that her father was one of the white Haydel men related to the woman who had owned her.

Now in addition to being free, Phelonise Haydel Dangluse was a widow of property. For the first time in her life, she owned land and a house. Along with the forty- acre bounty that her husband had received, Phelonise was given an additional 120-acre bounty as a widow of a veteran of the War of 1812.  Unfortunately a crevasse, a break in the river levee, inundated the property and caused such significant damage that Phelonise chose to sell the land to a broker. She and Philomene moved back to the city in the 1850s in reduced circumstances.

To be continued in Part II.

CATHERINE Part Two: Emancipated from the Bonds of Slavery

One month after her son Charles’s death and less than a year after arriving at Evergreen Plantation, Catherine became pregnant with her second child.  She had not married anyone in the enslaved community on the plantation.  Her child’s father was the man who legally owned her and her unborn baby.

Lezin Becnel, forty-two years old and the proprietor of Evergreen Plantation, had lost his first wife Josephine in 1842.  He was left a widow with two young sons and soon remarried.  His second wife, Fanny de Baconnais, died just two years into their marriage in 1848.  In six years time, Lezin had been widowed twice.  Did he send his factor and agent Christoval Toledano to the slave market that fateful day to purchase a woman for companionship or something more?  Or did Lezin merely tell him he was in need of a skilled seamstress and was surprised by the connection that developed between them?  Catherine’s relationship with Lezin will be forever marked by the fact that she was enslaved.  As his property, she did not possess the right to consent.  He could do with her as he wanted.  Yet further evidence shows that whatever the origins of their relationship, Lezin grew to deeply care for her and the children they had together.

On October 17, 1852, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Virginia was born.  Catherine held her new daughter in her arms while out in the fields the enslaved laborers were beginning to harvest the cane crop.  Grinding season was the busiest time of year on the plantation.

Julian Vannerson, Unidentified Girl, likely Mary Mildred Botts Williams, 1855. Daguerrotype. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.

The little girl would be known by several names, each a variant of the other.  It appears her mother named her for the home she had once known long ago, perhaps in remembrance of the family she had forever lost.  Records have her as Marie Virginie, Mary Virginia, Virginia, Marie Eugenie, and Eugenie.  The connecting link is “Ginny” or “Jenny,” a nickname for both Virginia and Eugenie.  This is probably the name most people called her, just as her mother was also known as Kate.

Catherine returned to St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, the place where she had baptized and buried her son Charles, on April 7, 1853.  It is quite possible that this was not the first time she had entered the church’s doors since laying to rest her son, for that day she was prepared to be baptized into the Catholic faith along with her six month old daughter.  Had she gone willingly, embracing Catholicism as part of her new life and culture in Creole Louisiana?  Or had Lezin insisted on her conversion?  Was she persuaded, coerced, or wholly satisfied with her choice? 

It appears Catherine had been able to select her own godparents.  Adam and Pauline, both Creole slaves, stood beside her as she received the sacrament.  She forged bonds and made friends amongst the enslaved domestics.  Like Catherine, Adam and Pauline were both of mixed race and had always worked in the big house. 

Father Mina recorded the baptism of Lezin and Catherine’s daughter in the parish’s baptismal record book for slave and free people of color : “Marie Eugenie mulatresse born 17 October 1852 at 4 pm. . . Lezin Becnel is master of her and her mother and has declared her free.”  Her godparents were white cousins of her father’s, Irma and Pierre Roussel.  Lezin chose to acknowledge his daughter and take steps to free her.

Lezin and Catherine had second child together in December 1855.  They named him Edgard.  Is it mere coincidence that the daughter was named for her mother’s place of birth---Virgnia---and the son was named for his father’s---Edgard, Louisiana? 

After Edgard’s birth, racial tensions heightened in Louisiana and across the South.  Free people of color were held in increased suspicion, and a movement to strip them of their rights began.  There was a push to make any slave who was emancipated leave the state.  In an effort to limit the free black population of Louisiana, the state legislature prepared to enact legislation that would prohibit emancipation.  This new law would take effect on March 6, 1857.  Lezin would have been aware of this impending threat to the future of Catherine and his children.  He decided to take prompt action.

Lezin Becnel was required to publish his petition for emancipation in the official newspaper of the parish.

On March 4, 1856, the suit Lezin Becnel vs. The State of Louisiana came before the court in his home parish.  S. M. Berault represented him, and Emile Legendre, district attorney, acted on behalf of the state.  Lezin presented a petition for the emancipation of three slaves: Catherine, a mulatto woman age 24, Marie Virginie, a Creole quadroon age 3, and Edgard a 3 month old Creole quadroon boy.  The case was taken up for trial.  Twelve jurors deliberated on it, including several with the surnames Becnel and Haydel, Lezin’s relatives.  Lezin put up three bonds of $1000 each---one for each slave---and his first cousin Pierre A. Becnel acted as his security on the bonds.  The court also required the testimonies of two witnesses “as to good character and sober habits of said slaves.”

The jury delivered a verdict in favor of the emancipation of Catherine, Marie Virginie, and Edgard, and gave them permission to remain in the state.  The foreman delivered and read in open court in the now long gone original St. John the Baptist parish courthouse that Catherine and her babies were “hereby emancipated from the bonds of slavery and declared free.” 

The seemingly unimaginable had occurred.  Catherine, torn apart from her family and sold first as a young child, examined and analyzed like a beast of burden on the auction block, then later sold seven times in three and a half years---she was free.  The law recognized her as a human being, not a piece of property.  Catherine, who had held her baby son Charles in her arms as he died, enduring unspeakable loss, could now go to sleep at night knowing that her living children were free.  They could never be sold away from her, as she had been taken from her mother.  They would have a future with opportunities she could never have imagined. 

Then just nine months later, at the very end of grinding, when what was left of the cane was frozen to the ground due to temperatures in the thirties, Catherine awoke to discover that Lezin was dead.  On December 28, 1856, at the age of forty-six, the man who had given her freedom had died.  They had doted on their children together; she had known that he would always take care of them and provide for them.  With his death came not only sorrow but an ominous and uncertain future.

Raids on the German Coast: Conflict in Colonial Louisiana 1749-1750

The impoverished Germans sought new lives in Louisiana, but in doing so began occupying land on which Native Americans had lived for centuries. For the Germans, who were already coping with disease and the hardships of clearing the swamps and making a home in a challenging climate and difficult land, the threat of attack from Native Americans proved especially daunting. Meanwhile Native Americans, who had a history of cooperating with the French and assisting them in surviving in the new colony, felt angered and betrayed. They had lived, worked, hunted, and wandered freely along the banks of the Mississippi long before any Europeans had even thought of settling there. This was not a New World to them, but an ancient and old one.

Choctaw Village near the Chefuncte, by Francois Bernard, 1869, Peabody Museum – Harvard University.

French colonial Louisiana also suffered pushback from the British, who were penetrating deeper into the frontier and threatening French territory. The two superpowers were almost constantly at war with each other. They involved Native Americans in their rivalries and incited violence against each other through nearby tribes. Ultimately this dynamic would lead to the French and Indian War. Though we think of this as being primarily a New England event, it actually had lasting implications for Louisiana. After England defeated France, the French would cede Louisiana to the Spanish, preferring to have an ally take the colony rather than their enemies.

Native Americans were crucial to the survival of the early colony and contributed many unique elements to the cultural heritage we now call Creole. Their cane basketry, dugout canoes that were precursors to pirogues, use of filé were all adopted by the French. Their foodways contributed to some of the defining parts of Creole cuisines, including alligator, shellfish, crawfish, frog legs, and waterfowl. Their language is forever present in our geography: place names, waterways, parishes, and towns all bear names with Native American roots. Even Louisiana’s unique moniker, The Bayou State, is derived from the Choctaw word bayuk (bayou).

What follows are excerpts from letters written by the Marquis de Vaudreuil, colonial governor of Louisiana from 1743 to 1753, to Antoine Louis Rouillé, French minister of Marine and Colonies. They reflect conditions along the German Coast (Côte des Allemands) when Christophe Heidel (Haydel) was coming of age. Just two years after these letters were written, he married and started a family. His daughter Magdelaine, born at a time when the French flag flew over Louisiana and the Heidels feared conflict with neighboring Native Americans, gave birth to her children when Spain controlled Louisiana. At the time of her death, the stars and stripes had been raised over the land, Louisiana was officially a state in a country that had not existed at the time of her birth, and the frontier atmosphere of early Louisiana was a distant memory.

Governor Pierre Rigaud Cavagnol Marquis de Vaudreuil. Molinary, Andres (Painter). COURTESY OF THE LOUISIANA STATE MUSEUM.

March 3, 1749

[M. de Vaudreuil, the governor] also states that the English do not cease, in peace as in war, to work at setting the nations against the French, and that some traders who had armed the Choctaw party that attacked the village of the Germans, having bought the daughter of one of the inhabitants [who had been] carried off by this party, took her to Carolina, where it has been learned that the governor was doing everything in his power to induce other parties to make raids upon Louisiana.

July 27, 1749

I have the honor to send you by the first vessel that departs for France the map of the German coast, on which will be marked the places by which the enemies may come to make their raids there and the one where I think it would be advisable to establish a post.  I am having this map made by Sieur Saucier, whom I have brought with me from Mobile, since he is the man who is best fitted to travel through this almost impassable country and since he has already several times examined the swamps, streams, and ravines by which the Indians may make their way to the settlement of the Germans.  

All that I can assure you, my lord, is that I will neglect nothing to assure this colony of a perfect tranquility as well as that I will strive for its increase.  

February 1, 1750

The new recruits who are to come on this vessel would be of great assistance in the circumstances.  We have so few people here that M. de Vaudreuil cannot without impairing the service or disturbing the posts form a detachment that would be necessary and even indispensable to protect the German quarter against the incursions of the Choctaws.  The minor attacks that this nation has made in that quarter have struck terror into it and obliged part of those settlers to withdraw to town with their families. Their lands are abandoned, and in addition to the delay in their settlement and in that of the colony that that causes, the town is deprived of the comforts that those settlers provided for it by their industry and their thrift.

From Mississippi Provincial Archives Vol. V., French Dominion, 1749-1763, Collected, Edited, and Translated by Dunbar Rowland and A.G. Sanders, LSU Press, 1984.

Marie Josephine Lennen Becnel: A Portrait

Little remains to document Josephine Lennen’s brief life. She left no letters, appeared only as a number on census records, and never had her name featured in a newspaper. Her children, only five and three years old at her death, probably held just a few cherished memories of her.

Josephine was born on September 21, 1816, and baptized at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church on February 16, 1817. She was named for her mother, Josephine Marmillion. Josephine’s father, Michael Lennen, was a native of Ireland and practiced medicine. He wed Josephine Marie Magdelaine Marmillion in 1804, and this fortuitous marriage united him with the oldest and most powerful residents of St. John the Baptist parish. Josephine Marie Magdelaine, the daughter of P. E. Marmillion and Françoise Haydel, was named for her maternal aunt, Magdelaine Haydel Becnel, the matriarch of Evergreen Plantation. In fact, her aunt Magdelaine and grandfather Christophe Haydel stood as her godparents at her 1787 baptism.

Thus Josephine Lennen had ties to Evergreen Plantation from birth. The plantation had been established by her great-grandfather, was the childhood home of her grandmother, and later the home of her great-aunt. Her mother’s marriage to an outsider, an Irish immigrant, was of little consequence. As a member of the Haydel, Becnel, and Marmillion families, she was considered a Creole demoiselle, a young girl of the elite native-born planters.

When Josephine was eighteen years old, she married Lezin Becnel II. This match would have pleased her parents. Josephine and Lezin shared a great grandfather, old Christophe Haydel, the founder of Evergreen Plantation. Their grandmothers, Magdelaine and Françoise, were sisters and had a close relationship. Two years after their 1834 wedding at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, they brought their first child, a son named Lezin III after his father and grandfather, to be baptized there. Another son, Michel Alcide, was born in 1838.

Like most Creoles in St. John the Baptist parish, Josephine’s family lineage resembled more of a complicated web than a tree. Her husband Lezin’s father had died when he was very young, and and his mother Mathilde did not remain a widow for long. She married prominent plantation owner Valsin B. Marmillion, who happened to be Josephine’s maternal uncle. Thus Mathilde, Josephine’s mother-in-law, was also her aunt by marriage.

Though she left no diaries, papers, or many written documents, Josephine did leave behind one treasure that reveals much about her life: a fine portrait painted by Luigi Marie Sotta circa 1841. A native of Italy, Sotta came from a family of artists and studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. His work was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1833 and 1838, and one of his portraits was on display in Versailles. That Lezin Becnel commissioned Sotta to paint himself, his wife, and his mother says a great deal about the Becnels’ place in society.

In her portrait, Josephine appeares young and with a spare beauty, an almost modern simplicity. Her deep brown eyes hold much in their depths. She has fine cheekbones, dark hair, and at twenty-five, was still youthful. She appears to be dressed in mourning, wearing a black dress with fine lace around the collar and sleeves. Who she was mourning remains unknown, but in their portraits, her husband and mother-in-law wore black as well.

Of particular interest is Josephine’s necklace, comprised of a locket or pendant and then a diving bird with a heart in its beak. The color suggests jet black mourning jewelry that indicated a loss, and the locket or pendant could possibly have contained the hair of a lost loved. Yet it remains uncertain if the necklace was memorializing the death of a close family member or a solemn symbol of Josephine’s intense piety. It was a French Saint Esprit necklace; the dove represented the Holy Spirit. Similar necklaces appear in other portraits of Creole women of that era.

In selecting to wear it for her portrait, Josephine conveyed something about herself to future generations. She chose a piece of jewelry that could be worn for fashion, love, or remembrance. In an 1892 biographical essay profiling her youngest son, Michel Alcide Becnel, Josephine was described as “a devout member of the Catholic Church.” Having a Saint Esprit necklace would support this devotion.

Tragically Josephine died on June 13, 1842, at the age of twenty-five, soon after sitting for her portrait. Josephine’s strong Catholic faith, an integral part of her Creole upbringing, was embraced by her husband and children and remained an important part of their lives long after her death. Her husband Lezin II served as one of the church’s trustees, and her eldest son Lezin III wrote of his close friendship with a priest and his observation of holy days of obligation and confession even in the chaos of the Civil War. Her youngest son, Michel Alcide, was interred in St. John the Baptist Catholic cemetery, the same final resting place as Josephine. 1,800 people attended his funeral Mass, and their voices echoed through the same church that had once heard his mother’s whispered prayers.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SLAVE COMMUNITY

Evergreen Plantation provides an excellent model of the evolution of Louisiana’s slave society from the colonial era into the early national and then antebellum periods.  In 1790, upon the death of her husband Pierre, Magdelaine Haydel Becnel opened his succession.  An inventory was made of the Becnels’ property.  Surviving records document a total of fourteen slaves.  All of the Becnels’ slaves were described as negroes (black) with the exception of twenty-six year old Therese, listed as a metis, or of an indeterminate mixture of European and Native American ancestry.  Though worth 350 piastres, Therese was “granted her freedom by the authority of a judge due to her Indian heritage,” in keeping with Spanish laws of the time.  By 1790, Indian slavery was illegal and was nearing an end in practice. 

The Becnels’ also had a family group of slaves, including a mother, Marie Joseph, and her two sons and two daughters, worth together 650 piastres.  As ordered by the Code Noir, Marie Joseph and her children were inventoried together and could not be sold separately, as the children appeared to be under the age of ten. Eight male slaves were included in the inventory, valued at a total of 2850 piastres.  All possessed French names, with the exception of Tetemac, and ranged from twenty to thirty years of age.  None of the men were Creole, or born in the colony. Two were Bambara, two Fulbe/Pular, and the rest of various African groups, including Mandingo, Moor, Soso, and Konkomba.  Four shared the Mande dialect or language, while the other four spoke another West African language.

By 1810, Magdelaine Becnel significantly increased her wealth through sugarcane production, a burgeoning new crop due to Etienne de Bore’s successful crystallization of sugar on a commercial scale in 1795. According to the St. John the Baptist parish census of 1810, Magdelaine Becnel owned forty slaves, making her the largest slaveholder of the parish’s twenty-five households headed by women. In the 1820 census, she appeared as “Widow Becnel and Son,” indicating that she had made her son a partner in a plantation that included ninety slaves, seventy-three of whom were engaged in agricultural labor.  Thirty of the fifty women on the plantation and twenty-five of the forty men there were between the ages of twenty-six and forty-five.  There were ten children of each gender, and ten women over forty-five as compared with only five men over forty-five.

Upon Magdelaine’s death in 1830, a significant portion of her inventoried estate consisted of ninety-four slaves.  With twenty-seven female slaves and sixty-seven male slaves on the plantation, the sex ratio was severely skewed.  While most of the men worked in the cane fields as carters, plough hands, or laborers, most of the women functioned as domestics, serving as cooks, children’s nurses, washerwomen, and maids.  Some of the slaves were afflicted with entropied limbs, including Albert and Lenhem, whose right hands were damaged, and Cloe, whose feet did not function.  Several American male field hands were listed as being “fourteen years in the country” or “eight years in the country,” suggesting that they were familiar with the labor associated with a sugar cane plantation and had adapted to life in Creole Louisiana.  This detail may have been mentioned to entice buyers to pay more for them, as Creole slaves often fetched higher prices than American. 

Of special interest is Sally, a thirty-year-old American negresse who was “good for nothing” and worth only 5 piastres, the lowest priced slave under the age of sixty.  Perhaps she was physically or mentally handicapped, considered defiant, or a habitual runaway.  Magdelaine’s estate inventory contained another aberration: Sam, a thirty-year-old American griffe listed with his two-year-old child, together worth 400 piastres.  Usually slave children were inventoried with their mothers and when a mother was absent due to sale or death, the child was listed alone as an orphan.  This child, whose name was omitted in place of the classification “orphan,” was estimated with his father, indicating that they would remain together as a family unit.

Nearly three decades later, Magdelaine’s great-grandson, Lezin Becnel, and his brother Michel were operating the plantation, which now had a work force of ninety-six adult slaves and twenty-one slave children, for a total of 117 enslaved individuals.  With sixty-seven adult male slaves and twenty-nine adult female slaves, the sex ratio on the plantation was still skewed in favor of women.  In contrast, there were six male children and fifteen female children.  Sixteen of these slaves served as domestics, probably managed by Amelia Becnel, Lezin’s wife.  Of these sixteen, ten were women, emphasizing that house slaves were typically female.  While the slaves’ names remained primarily French, some names indicate the Anglo-American influence and the influx of American slaves, who often had last names from previous owners, including Starling, Tom Brown, and William Boone.

 On the eve of the Civil War, the Becnels had amassed $150,000 in real estate and $125,000 in personal property. Evergreen had grown into a major plantation complex and could be considered representative of a typical Creole plantation of its time.           

Magdelaine Haydel Becnel: Creole Matriarch and Entrepreneur

Magdelaine Haydel Becnel rose to a position of power and authority at time that most people today would not consider particularly supportive of women’s rights. Upon the death of her husband Pierre in 1790, Magdelaine assumed the role of head of household and family matriarch. She gave birth to eight children, four boys and four girls, the eldest eighteen at the time of his father’s death. She also inherited Evergreen from her father Christophe Heidel. Though Magdelaine could easily have left the management of the plantation to her son or one of her brothers, or possibly even sold the plantation for a nice profit, she chose not only to keep the plantation but to manage it herself. In the 1810 census of St. John the Baptist parish, Magdelaine Haydel Becnel appears as “Veuve Becnel” (French for “Widow Becnel”) and the head of her household. Living with her were a boy and girl under the age of ten, two boys and two girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six, all presumably her children or grandchildren, and forty slaves. At this time, due to the death of her son Drausin and his wife during the smallpox epidemic of 1804, she also served as the guardian of Pierre Clidamont Becnel, her grandson.

Magdelaine witnessed the flags of France, Spain, and the United States fly over Louisiana. Born in 1754 when France controlled Louisiana, she spent her married life under Spanish rule. Her transformation of the plantation into a thriving sugarcane operation occurred simultaneously with the Americans’ rise to power. In addition to running her own successful agricultural enterprise, Magdelaine encountered cultural shifts and challenges to her family’s identity. With the onslaught of Americans into the vast new territory, all mostly Anglo, Protestant, and English speakers, Louisiana natives like Magdelaine realized the unique nature of their culture. Because of this, natives of Louisiana began to redefine themselves not as Frenchmen or Spaniards but as Creole, also known as l’ancienne population or l’ancienne regime. Aware of their cultural bond, Creole Louisianians united and challenged what they perceived as an American assault on their politics, law, religion, language, and culture. Determined to maintain their position of power in Louisiana as well as to assert the superiority of their culture, Creoles continued to speak French, resist republican government, worship as Catholics, and strengthen their distinct traditions. Laussat described the collision of cultures that occurred at the ball celebrating the transfer of Louisiana from France to the United States.

Hoisting of American Colors Over Louisiana, Painting by Thure de Thulstrup

Although it was their fathers, brothers, and husbands who struggled for power in the political arena, Creole women stood as the guardians of their culture in the midst of the chaos of what they deemed an invasion, insisting that only French be spoken at home, raising their children as good Catholics, and instructing them in proper etiquette and matters of class. Magdelaine Becnel proved no exception. Her children married other Creoles, her obituary was printed only in French, and her home remained in the Creole architectural style during her lifetime, no mere coincidences. As the matriarch of her family, she provided for her children and grandchildren spiritually and monetarily, but perhaps she also provided stability by instilling in them the importance of tradition in a society facing enormous change. However, while Creole society was based in many ways on paternalism, it was not decidedly male-dominant. From the beginning, women in Louisiana possessed more rights than women in other sections of the country, including the South. Deviating from the norm, Creole women possessed dower rights and the right to own property independent of their husbands. Even in the earliest days of colonial Louisiana, Creole women sued for divorce and were active participants in other legal suits as well. Most telling of all, a large number of Creole women owned and operated their own plantations, thus turning the typically patriarchal household into a matriarchy. The lack of stability in early Louisiana, stemming from the fact that it was both settled later and more sparsely inhabited, led to a broader role in society for women. With the coming of the Americans and their cultural ideas, including the notion of paternalism that dominated the rest of the Anglo South, Creoles’ views of women became more constricted, yet throughout the nineteenth century, the older and more fluid idea of women’s roles would remain pervasive.

1831 Survey of Landholdings along the Mississippi River in St. John the Baptist parish, including Veuve Becnel’s. General Land Office Records, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior.

In 1810, eighty-five women, including Magdelaine Haydel Becnel, headed households in the river parishes of St. John the Baptist, St. James, and Ascension. These parishes contained nine hundred and forty-eight households. Nine percent of households in these parishes were headed by women. Seventy-three percent of these women owned slaves. Perhaps one of the reasons women like Magdelaine were capable of living as heads of their own households was due to their wealth as slaveholders. Sixteen of the eighty-five women, or nineteen percent, owned ten or more slaves.

In contrast to the large number of women who owned their own plantations and headed their own households in the Creole sugar parishes of St. John, St. James, and Ascension, parishes in North Louisiana, dominated by Protestant Anglo Americans who grew cotton instead of sugar, had far fewer women in such authoritarian roles. Ouachita, Catahoula, and Concordia parishes bordered the river, like the River Parishes, and would eventually produce much of the state’s cotton and develop a plantation culture of its own. In 1810, of the five hundred and thirty-two households in these three north Louisiana parishes, only seventeen were headed by women. Thus, only 3.2 percent of households in these three northern parishes in the cotton belt were headed by women, compared to 9 percent of the households in the River Parishes that had women as heads.

While differences such as population and economic status might have influenced this statistic, cultural differences between the predominantly Anglo American parishes in the north of the state and the Creole parishes in the south certainly contributed to the number of households run by women.