A FREE PERSON OF COLOR IN LOUISIANA'S BAYOU COUNTRY ACQUIRES LAND IN 1834

Manuscript document. Signed by George P. Riant, Jean Labarthe, and Ludger A. Fusilier. St. Martinville, St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. 1 May 1834. 1 page, 4to, 7 3/4 x 9 1/2 in., in French with English notation. Dockted to verso. 

A rare Louisiana document recording the acquisition of 5 arpents of land in St. Martinville, Louisiana by "Mr. Simon," a "homme de couleur libre," a francophone free person of color.

The document reads in part (in translation from French): "In consideration of the sum of eighteen dollars and eighty-seven cents by Mr. Simon (alias Simon Masie), a free person of color, I hereby declare that I have ceded to the said Simon Masie all rights and claims that I may have held regarding a tract of land comprising five arpents, situated within this parish - land which I had acquired at the public sale conducted by the Sheriff of St. Martin Parish to satisfy the payment of taxes due on the said land for the year 1829." The document then notes that the total cost includes the sale price plus 20% interest calculated over 9 months and 3 days. A note in the margin, penned in English, indicates that the transfer was recorded in the office of the Judge of the Parish of St. Martin on 1 May 1834, the same as the document itself. 

Louisiana was home to one of the largest populations of free people of color in the 19th century, as well as some of the wealthiest, especially in the Deep South. By 1803, roughly 1 in 6 of New Orleans' population was a free person of color. Shortly before statehood, the 1810 Census enumerated 7,585 free persons of color in the city. There were sizeable enclaves outside of the capital, however, including the bayou country. The period between statehood and about 1830 is considered the "Golden Age" of antebellum free black communities, when they lived with access to land and wealth with few restrictions.

The document here provides a rare glimpse of a man from the community in St. Martin Parish in bayou country who acquired 5 arpents of land. 
 

The document records the land transfer during a time when white Southerners, beginning to perceive a threat to the institution of slavery, feared that free people of color would collaborate with abolitionists. New legislation attempting to control African Americans, both slave and free, was instituted over the next 2 decades, inflicting restrictions and penalties on the free black community.

A rare survivor from the free Black community in Louisiana bayou country. 

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