An 1854 Opelousas Courier notice printed in French and English calls the same men runaways and negres marrons. A four-step method for reading runaway notices as genealogical evidence.
Enslaved Ancestry
Reading the Estate Notice: Reconstructing Enslaved Families in St. Landry Parish, 1856
The Opelousas Patriot ran a June 1856 estate sale notice for thirty-three enslaved individuals in St. Landry Parish. Buried in the legal inventory are seven maternal family groupings. The record was created to transfer property. The work is to read it forward.