A History Of The Breaux Family

ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
A History Of The Breaux Family
Addendum To The Allendom Papers

ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
PART 5

Upward Mobility...

Our ancestors, the river Acadians, chose instead to beat the French "aristocracy" at their own game, first by educating themselves, then by becoming educators, lawyers, politicians and successful businessmen and women in Antebellum Louisiana. But prior to the Civil War, there was just one road to agriculture/capitalistic success. Though the evidence is clear that in their relationships with their slaves, our ancestors never forgot the horrors of their own past, eventually they left the fields, moved into a Big house, and prospered in a slave economy. By 1810, 72% of the farms in St. James owned slaves.

We found a translation of a book containing the conveyance records of St. James (1782-1787) at the courthouse at Convent, all written in French: wills, slave and land sales, marriage contracts involving property-money transfers, etc., that helps us keep track of the fortunes of our branch of the Breauxs. To put it simply, ALEXIS and MARGUERITE did very well, very fast. (NFS: The use of "senior" and "junior" to differentiate between generations with the same name is accomplished in French by using "pere" and "fils", respectively.)

When MARGUERITE died at the age of 63 in 1786 (ABD-7), she and ALEXIS had four sons; HONORE (33), Joseph (36), Charles (33) and Alexis fils (21), and two daughters, Marie (29), and Anastasie (23). We are a bit confused about how inheritance were divided -- history says that lands had to be divided among surviving sons but the records we saw had money, property and lands going all over the place. Apparently, women held property in their own right also.

HONORE, living on the land next door with his family, received "objects and a slave amounting to 929 piastres.

"... although it is impossible to come up with any kind of equation
between 18th century piastres and 20th century dollars, a careful review
of other transactions in the document gives us some reference for the
amounts involved. For example, an average size farm of 5 or 6 arpents
(about 1/4 mile wide by 11/l miles deep) with a small house, fences, and
maybe an outbuilding, went for around 500 piastres, as did a fully-grown
male slave. HONORE’s three brothers received sums of 981, 34, and 105
piastres each.

Elsewhere in the document, it appears that ALEXIS receives or purchases a family of slaves, "Portion of Alexis pére: a Negro named Pierre, Creole of Jamaica, age about 25 years; his wife of the Congo nation, age 25 years; their daughter, Francoise, age 5 years; and Pierre, age 18 months. Estimated value of all five is 1600 piastres". Although reading about some of our ancestors purchasing others of our ancestors can be difficult, we were struck by the fact that this family of slaves were purchased or passed along intact -- certainly different from many of the other stories to come out of the South. Makes one wonder . . .might Acadians respect for the bedrock of family have carried over into their slave ownership? (NFA: This could be a very productive area for future sleuthing. Our time was too limited to pursue this avenue, but slave records and sales are available and we met a fascinating volunteer at the library who specializes in African-American genealogy. See resource appendix C.)

It is apparent that slaves were inherited and in view of all these Breaux living close together, buying up adjoining farms to increase the family holdings and buying out the sons who move away to keep the lands intact, might not CELESTINE be a second generation -- or more -- slave family member? Where did that "puffy brown hair" and brown skin come from anyway"? EDOUARD, JR. was only 20 when LEONTINE was born and the birth of a second child a few years later suggests a level of commitment beyond just a lustful, youthful folly. EDOUARD JR. appears to have genuinely loved CELESTINE and their children. We don’t know CELESTINE’s age, but she bore EDOUARD, Jr. a son 23 years later, so she cannot have been much older than 20 herself when their relationship began. Might they have known one another as children?

We have some gaps in our knowledge about HONORE and MAGDELEINE’s family which initially caused us some problems in trying to figure out relationships on the Braud plantation a generation later, when it appears that the senior Edouard was the eldest of several brothers. (NFS: The information is out there -- census and especially church records from the early 19th century should clear things up in short order.)

We know that their fist child, Marie, was born in 1774, and there was probably a son named Hippolyte that followed some time later. We also know for sure that EDOUARD, SR., was born on May 22, 2793, and there appears to have been one more son, Marcél, born in 1795. MAGDELEINE was born in 1751, making her 42 at EDOUARD, SR., birth (44 at Marcél.’s), so he must have been one of the babies in the family, not the eldest.

When EDOUARD, SR. was 17, his father, HONORE passed away, leaving MAGDELEINE (59) in charge of the family. A year later, according to an original document we found at the Convent courthouse, (C), written in French, she bought a piece of land for EDOUARD from Jerome Gaudet, next door. The document goes on for several incomprehensible (to us, anyway) pages, but my poor strained-to-the-limit French managed to make out the size -- 3 arpents x 40 arpents (approximately 600 ft. river frontage x l - l/2 miles deep) -- bordered by the lands of Joseph Cloitré (Charles Gaudet’s stepson). Jerome Gaudet -- son of Charles, who harbored ALEXIS all those years ago -- signed the document in clear flowing script while MAGDELEINE made a mark. A few years later, we found EDOUARD SR.’s signature on another document in the book -- ALEXIS’s grandson could now read and write.

Rosalie Cloatré

She was a young girl of sixteen when the eight-year-old EDOUARD took possession of the land next door. She must have known him all of her life, their families were linked by land and marriage, bonded by friendship of at least 30 years and quite probably long before that -- stretching back beyond the days of exile to their grandparents’ days in old Acadia. Her grandmother, CECILE and EDOUARD’S grandfather, ALEXIS, were sister and brother.

We last saw CECILE ca 1771 when she returned from the aborted attempt to settle in Natchez and married her brother’s friend, Charles Gaudet. Certainly another of our remarkable Breaux women: she’d lost her husband, GEORGE CLOATRE during exile, shortly after the birth of her third child and not long before they were to leave for Louisiana. (A-3).

When her two brothers jumped ship in St. James, she continued on alone with her children, JOSEPH (7), Magdeleine (6) and Charles (2) and her orphaned nephew, Joseph Breaux (15), to get her land grant and to try to make a go of it in Natchez/ She was all of 30-years-old.

Charles Gaudet was 39 and living alone on his farm next door to his younger
brother, Jerome’s, when CECILE came down from Natchez and captured his attention. Since he would not have qualified for a land grant without a wife and/or children, we can assume he had suffered some grievous losses in the recent years. He appears to have been a good man -- he’s risked losing his land and being deported to shelter his friend and family, and there is no doubt when one sees his generosity in later years to his stepchildren, that he loved CECILE’S children as his own. Their son, Michél, was born in 1773, followed 2 years later by (Probably his brother’s namesake) Jerome.

The census-taker of 1777 notes on the record that he is quite confused by which children are Cloatré’s and which are Gaudets and proceeds to hazard a guess. (He guesses wrong.) Apparently, no one at the farm considered it important enough to clarify for the census-taker.

In the spring of 1785, the land conveyance records indicate that Charles and CECILE sold a piece of Charles’ land (4 arpents) to his young stepson, Charles Cloatré (19). The entry is noteworthy because CECILE is involved, making her mark on the document next to her husband’s. Although other women appear in the records -- mostly widows conducting business -- this is unusual and indicates that CECILE may have actually shared ownership of their assets, beyond her position as spouse. Not that this sale left Charles and CECILE exactly land-poor since two weeks earlier, they’d picked up the farm adjoining their land on the other side for 1500 piastres -- a tidy little parcel of some 6 arpents

"...on which there is a large amount of cleared land, a house,
a storehouse, two Negro cabins, and a quantity of fenced enclosures."

A year-and-a-half later, Charles Cloatré married and another hint of the affluence of the Gaudet/Cloatré clan appears: Charles’ land was valued at 600 piastre and his new wife brought a dowry of 600 in silver from her parents. Standing for Charles at his wedding are his brother, JOSEPH, and his stepfather, Charles Gaudet. Both the groom and his brother signed the document. Charles and CECIL’s children can also read and write.

Two months after his brother, Charles, became a landowner, JOSEPH CLOATRE bought his own farm in the summer of 1785. Sounds like a pretty good deal; according to the records,

"...The land contains 8 arpents front and has several fenced
enclosures on it. It is well attended by the free Negro, Colas, who
resides on said farm. The sale amounted to 430 piastres".

Colas is interesting -- we keep bumping into free Negroes in the records, and within two generations, a family of blacks (not mulattos or "coloreds"), will actually own a farm a few miles or so down the road from the Breaux plantation.

The reason for all this scrambling for a place of his own becomes evident three weeks when the marriage contract between JOSEPH COATRE and MARIE PORRIER appears.

A Woman of Means...

Marriage contracts seem to be limited in the records to unions where property and/or goods or dowries are involved. In Marie’s case, her mother MAGDELEINE RICHARD had passed away and she had just lost her father, JEAN POIRRIER, in January. There were 5 minor children (under 21) who, with her and some older brothers, shared the proceeds of a very impressive estate. Jean Baptiste Cantrelle, a relative of the commandant of St. James whose signature appears on all of the county documents, purchased the family home. The sale of several "habitations" etc., brought in 7,465 piastres, and after everything was tallied up, trusts set up for the minor children, bills paid and debts settled. MARIE walked away with a cool 1167 piastres and change which she brought to her marriage contract. The estate must have taken a while to shake down and settle out -- 8 months after their marriage, another entry indicates, "Paid to JOSEPH CLOATRE on the 21 February 1786 the amount of 300 piastres at 45% for two cows adjudged to his wife, MARIE PORRIER, an heir."

Ten years after their marriage, on November 13, 1795, MARIE and JOSEPH celebrated the birth of their daughter, ROSALIE. (D-8) We have not done any sleuthing on the Cloatré family, (NFS: should be fairly easy to do if anyone’s interested -- there is a genealogy already published on the Cloatrés that we ducked into just long enough to get her birth date, so we have no details on her siblings.) Her parents were what appears to be a transition generation -- signed their marriage contract, but MARIE’S brother, Jean, only made a mark. Later developments indicate that both families regarded education very highly.

Both of ROSALIE’S parents came from prominent families and it is probable that she grew up in comfortable surroundings, possible even very comfortable by local standards.

The weekly "bals de maison" must have come ‘roun’ to their house from time to time and ROSALIE must have danced with young EDOUARD, just two years her senior, well before his mother bought the property nearby for him when he was 18.

Considering how close knit and interrelated Acadian society was, we would have expected marriages to begin occurring in the mid to late teens and early twenties, but with a few exceptions here and there, (Catholic records very pointedly refer to "minor" daughter or son when it occurs -- was the custom influenced in any way by religious principles?), quite a few marriages appear to be contracted after the age of 21. We did notice a lot of bachelors purchasing land months to years prior to their weddings, so perhaps it was customary to leave the next and get your house up and running prior to taking the plunge. At any rate, EDOUARD and ROSALIE were 23 and 20 respectively when they finally married on January 15 of 1816 (ABD-7).

Two months later, ROSALIE was pregnant and their Christmas present for that year was a brand new baby girl, Mary Elise (Eliza) born on December 23rd. Their first son, Emîle, came along three years later on June 10, 1819.

EDOUARD lost his mother MARIE MAGDELEINE, widow of HONORE, in the spring of 1821 when she was 70-years-old. Born a Breaux, she was a distant cousin and likely a member of the first wave of Breaux who’d arrived in Canannocé in 1765, three years before our branch. Her death marked the end of an era, the passing of the generation who could remember the days of exile. The stores were still being told -- weddings were grand merry social affairs, always highlighted with tales of ancestors and events plucked from 200 years of family history -- but they were passing into the realm of legend. EDOUARD and ROSALIE would play a new role in our family’s story.

Within two months of MAGDELEINE’S death, ROSALIE was pregnant again, and the following March (1822) their son, Sylvanîe was born, followed by Marcél in the summer of 1825 and EDOUARD, JR. in the year after that (1826). Their second daughter, Marie, came along in the spring of 1828, a third, Elise, in 1831, followed quickly by another boy, Bienvenü in 1832. (There may have been other children who didn’t survive infancy or childhood about which we don’t know,and there is a girl, Olphida, born in 1836 and living with them in 1850, who we originally thought was their 9th child but now we’re not so sure.) The family spoke French as did all the rest of the community, but their business was now conducted in dollars.

Antebellum St. James Parish, Louisiana...

Our next close look at our family comes in 1850 when EDOUARD, SR. (57) is clearly the paterfamilia of the family’s ancestral lands -- grown now into a successful plantation, probably planted in sugar. (11) The Gaudet plantation still lies right next door, headed now by J.K. (30) (probably a "Jerome", either CECILE’s stepson, grandson or grandnephew) with his brothers and the widow Eugene (49). EDOUARD, SR. and ROSALIE’S firstborn son, Emîle (31), had married one of the Gaudet girls, Azemá (28), on August 2, 1843 when they were 24 and 21-years-old. Must have been quite a joyous affair, a reuniting of two families who already shared so much history. Many marriage records of the time list one or maybe two witnesses for the bride or groom, but the listing for this event includes EDOUARD, SR., two of the Gaudets, two from the Bergeron family, (who live on the opposite side of the Breaux plantation down river), and a Joseph Perrin. Safe to say, this first wedding in the next generation of Breauxs must have been a splendid and elaborate celebration.

By 1850, Emile (31) and Azemå (28 had their own farm, tucked in between the Breaux’ and Gaudets’ plantations, and a little girl, Emika (5) and son, Camille (3). There is also a Theodule Melancon (30 living with them.

Son, Bienvenu (18) was still living at home in 1850, but a couple of years later, he, too, finds his wife close by in the Bergeron family. On June 3, 1852 Bienvenu (2) and Marie Amelie Bergeron (18) tie the know in what was probably another blowout Breaux wedding. This time the official witness list includes EDOUARD SR. (59), ROSALIE (57), his brother, Sylvanie (30), Marie Amelie’s older brother, Jean Baptist (25), J.K. Gaudet (32), Leon Arceneaux (46), (the head of the family who lives beyond the Bergerons), and C.H. Chevet (25) -- a local school teacher from France. Lord only knows what the guest list must have looked like! Bienvenu and Marie Amelie settled in on the down river side of the Breaux plantation, tucked up next to the Bergeron and Arceneaux lands.

Sylvanie (3) was still living at home. We couldn’t help thinking of him as the "stalwart Sylvanie", as he kept showing up on successive census records, eventually listed as the manager/overseer of the plantation, while EDOUARD, SR. and ROSALIE were still living but were, thanks to him, retired. At the age of 38 he is still there, apparently having married Elizabeth Blanchard -- 25-years-old and born in Baton Rouge. His name also pops up frequently as a witness to various births, weddings and transactions so he must have been well-liked. The plantation seems to have grown and prospered under his care -- hence, "The Stalwart Sylvanie".

Then there is "poor Eliza" -- EDOUARD SR. and ROSALIE’S firstborn, the Christmas baby of 1816. We can only speculate about poor Eliza (as we came to think of her), who just keeps showing up year after year on the census records, growing older, unmarried and living at home. The last time we looked, in 1860, she was 45-years-old. Unlike Sylvanie, her name seems to appear nowhere else in any records, so we can only speculate: might she have been retarded? Otherwise handicapped? The census records from 1850 on, include a box labeled, "deaf, dumb, blind, insane, idiot, pauper, or convict" and no check marks ever appear next to her name, but in an age when virtually all women married she remains a puzzle. Are we overlooking the obvious? Might she have been gay? Or was there a birth defect that somehow rendered her healthy but "unsuitable"?

To On The Shoulders Of Giants Part 6

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