Francisca Montreuil was a baker in Spanish New Orleans who bought herself and her children out of slavery one signature at a time, then built an estate that crossed into American rule. This is her documented record.
Women's History Wednesday
Rose Nicaud of the French Market: The Coffee Woman the Legend Could Not Hold
Rose Nicaud sold coffee in the French Market for forty years. Born enslaved and sold six times, she became a free woman of color named in the city’s own record. This is her full documented story, beyond the legend.
The Deed Before the Eulogy: Henriette Delille, the Free Woman of Color Who Bought Her Institution
In 1850 Henriette Delille, a free woman of color in New Orleans, signed a notarized act of sale and bought the land for the institution she founded. This is her documented record, anchored to the deed.
Titine of Opelousas: The Woman Who Ran the Old Bank Hotel
Celestine Perrault, known as Titine, ran a large hotel in Opelousas for at least a quarter century. Three generations of her family lived under that roof. A Justice of the Peace kept his office there. This is her documented record.
Aurelia Godfrey Mitchell: The Lafayette Parish Widow Who Built the South Liberty Oil Field
Aurelia Godfrey Mitchell was born in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, in 1859 and died in Liberty County, Texas, in 1940. Between those two dates she built an oil and gas estate the Supreme Court of Texas construed twice. The wells still produce under her name today.
Marguerite Scypion: The Louisiana Decree That Outlasted Three Sovereigns
Marguerite Scypion’s freedom argument rested on a 1769 decree by the Spanish Governor of the Province of Louisiana against Indian slavery. Her family fought thirty-one years to make the courts read it as the freedom of every descendant of an Indian woman.
Marguerite and the Margarita Case: A Legal History of One Woman’s Fight for Her Children in Colonial Louisiana, 1764–1808
Marguerite was born in Africa, transported to colonial Louisiana, given a fraudulent emancipation, and re-enslaved. In 1782 she filed her own lawsuit. She won the freedom of four children. This is her documented record.