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.
Spanish Louisiana
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.