The African American Experience in Louisiana

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vernacular places that may not be immediately recognizable as historically significant based on their appearance, but have stories that endow them with great significance. There are also many properties that hold much of their potential significance beneath the ground in the form of archaeological remains. This section organizes properties into different types in order to facilitate the identification of their place within the context established by the “Background History and Development” narrative. Suggested National Register of Historic Places registration requirements are provided for each type. The last three sections of the document identify the geographic parameters of the context, the identification and evaluation methods of properties, and major bibliographical references. Page 3 of 123
BACKGROUND HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT Birth of a Creole Culture: People of African Descent in French and Spanish Colonial Louisiana, 1699-1802 French Colonial settlement of Louisiana began in 1699 with the expedition of Iberville and Bienville. Although there is evidence that Iberville had interest in acquiring African slaves for the colony as early as that year, records indicate that he had no success in this until 1709 and then could only secure a small number. The 1708 census of Louisiana includes no persons of African descent and the 1712 census, just ten. 4 The colonists attempted to use Native Americans as enslaved laborers, but these efforts were met with great resistance and proved unproductive. In 1719 the first of many slave ships from Africa arrived in Louisiana. Estimates of the numbers of slaves who arrived in Louisiana throughout the years vary widely, but the more recent scholarship, which takes into account the mortality during the horrific middle passage and enumerates the people who actually disembarked and lived on in Louisiana, helps us to envision the rapidly growing African population of colonial Louisiana. The first two slave ships of 1719 together landed approximately 450 enslaved Africans. With ships bringing between 87 and 464 people each, by 1743, approximately 5,951 Africans had arrived in Louisiana. 5 However, the survival rate among the enslaved Africans once in Louisiana was not good in the first years. By 1721, the census recorded only 680 Africans of the estimated 2000 who had been brought into the colony by that point. 6 In the first decades of the importation of slaves, during which the Company of the Indies had a monopoly over the trade, a majority of enslaved Africans came from Senegambia, a region lying between the Senegal and Gambia rivers of West Africa. 7 During the second half of the eighteenth century, the origins of enslaved Africans in Louisiana increased greatly. Baptismal records of 1801-1802 from St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans include Sierra Leone, the Windward Coast, Gold Coast, Bight of Benin, Bight of Biafra, and Central Africa as well as Senegambia and the Americas as places of origins for enslaved persons. 8 Colonial records indicate the African nation and African culture groups irregularly with varying terms and accuracy, but do present enough information to be sure that the enslaved population of Louisiana by the end of the eighteenth century was comprised of Mandinkas, Fon, Bambara, Fanti, Gambians, Senegalese, Guineans, Yorubas, Igbo, and Angolans among others. 9 In addition, 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 14. 6 Daniel H. Usner Jr., “From African Captivity to American Slavery: The Introduction of Black Laborers to Colonial Louisiana,” in The African American Experience in Louisiana: Part A, ed. Charles Vincent (Lafayette: University of Southwestern, LA, 1999), 45, first published in Louisiana History, 20 (1979): 25-48. 7 Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, “Senegambia During the French Slave trade to Louisiana,” in The African American Experience in Louisiana: Part A, ed. Charles Vincent (Lafayette: University of Southwestern, LA, 1999), 7-10, first published in Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992), 28-34. 8 Thomas N. Ingersoll, “The Slave Trade and the Ethnic Diversity of Louisiana’s Slave Community,” ,” in The African American Experience in Louisiana: Part A, ed. Charles Vincent (Lafayette: University of Southwestern, LA, 1999), 72, first published in Louisiana History, 37 (1996): 133-61. 9 Thomas Marc Fiehrer, “The African Presence in Colonial Louisiana: An Essay on the Continuity of Caribbean Culture,” in Louisiana’s Black Heritage, ed. Robert R. MacDonald et al (New Orleans: Louisiana State Museum, 1979), 11. Page 4 of 123
Page 1 and 2: The African American Experience in
Page 3 and 4: TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary
Page 5: of the city of New Orleans, beautif
Page 9 and 10: apprenticeships with skilled artisa
Page 11 and 12: Coartación seems to have been assi
Page 13 and 14: freeing slaves in all its colonies,
Page 15 and 16: slaying of his son. An immediate an
Page 17 and 18: to 129 at Parlange in Pointe Coupé
Page 19 and 20: was apparently different when they
Page 21 and 22: indicative of their individual weal
Page 23 and 24: the cleanliness and comfort of the
Page 25 and 26: chartered in 1848 and its building
Page 27 and 28: a horse, tanning leather or making
Page 29 and 30: which should go hand and hand with
Page 31 and 32: difficult to distinguish between th
Page 33 and 34: near riot with groups of African Am
Page 35 and 36: egan actively opening schools and p
Page 37 and 38: according to the terms of the contr
Page 39 and 40: estimated thirty-four whites and 15
Page 41 and 42: continued to vote in Louisiana unti
Page 43 and 44: suddenly being free with no wealth
Page 45 and 46: Bogalusa even established separate
Page 47 and 48: Into this situation entered the Rev
Page 49 and 50: provided some of the best facilitie
Page 51 and 52: their predecessors. 229 Two months
Page 53 and 54: State Historic Preservation Office
Page 55 and 56: example of this is the way that seg
Page 57 and 58:
architecture or Criterion B signifi
Page 59 and 60:
as the home and meeting place of De
Page 61 and 62:
African architectural antecedents,
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Opelousas. 238 A private home used
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owner was the State of Louisiana, w
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to the ongoing struggle of African
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documented house of an African Amer
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6. Cemeteries Plantation cemeteries
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would suffer from a loss of setting
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adding the benefits of modern techn
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commissioned to design would play i
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1850s, serving free children of col
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eligious, there were some parochial
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Iberville Parish when it was docume
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housing just grades one through fou
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A compromise between the demand of
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uildings for African Americans vers
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loss of location or setting for som
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In order to be eligible for the Nat
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African American artists many times
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locks of the street, just a dozen r
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Masonic organization for African Am
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founded in 1883 (Figure 92). The bu
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uildings or structures. Possible ex
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Pontchartrain Park course, now rena
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J. Political This property type is
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K. Military Although the history of
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was likely the only place in Donald
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A careful evaluation of all buildin
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eviction by white landlords should
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4. Towns and Settlements Towns and
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preserving the history of this remo
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GEOGRAPHICAL DATA This context is l
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etween Louisiana’s historic resou
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Edwards, Jay D. “Shotgun: The Mos
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Vlach, John Michael. “The Shotgun
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The African American Experience in Louisiana

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