Slave owner, was born in New Orleans,Louisiana, to a freed slave and a white man (their names are unknown). She never experienced slavery herself,and her life as a slave-owning African-American woman was far removed from thr common experience of most African Americans in North America.This anomaly can be explained in part by the political and social turbulence of early New Orleans.By the time Euffrosina was Forty-two,she lived under French,Spanish, and American rule.In 1791 at the age of fourteen,she was placeed (committed) to the white Spaniard colonial Don
Nicolas Vidal, the auditor de guerra, the Spanish colonial governor.In this
lofty position,Don provided military and legal counsel for both Louisiana and West Florida. Both the Spanish and the French legislated against racial intermarriage as way of maintaining pure white blood, this legislation did not stop from cohabitating with African American women.Many French and Spanish military military officials sent to help govern the territory would take bi-racial mistresses during their time in Louisana.Because these unions continued to occur in opposition to the law, and extralegal institution called placage developed to provide some formality, as well as some economic and social advantages for the African-American women.
The placage system that brought Don and Eufrosina together developed out of slavery. Many white men freed female slaves after having sex relations with them.especially if children had resulated.Some of these women encouraged their daughters to also cohabitate with white men. As the system became established,,placage realtionships usually occurred between rich whites and free African-American, who emerged as an
"upper class" within their communities. Free African-American women usually referred white men wishing to enter into this type of realtionship to one of the girl's parents (usually the mama) who asked for certain concessions. Once both parties came to an agreement,a ceremony often took place, and then the formal relationship commenced.
While this system developed out of oppression, Eufrosina and other free African-American women did benefit from it in certain ways.In new Orleans' racially stratified society,incre9ased whiteness brought more social status and relative financial security for oneself and one's children.
While it certain that many women were forced into these realtionships,some most certainly chose placage (and its possible benefits) over marriage to a free African-American man.Any benefits were tenuous because the placage system was never legally binding.Whether coerced or voluntary in the beginning,it seems quite possible that Don & Eufrosina had genuinely realtionship.The couple had at least two children who grew to adulthood during their fifteen years together: Merecedes (Merced) Vidal and Caroline Maria Vidal.
In 1800 Spain secretly transferred Louisiana back to the French.With in three years Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana to the United States.This
decision affected Don and Eufrosina greatly. They decided to move to Spanish Florida rather than remain in Louisiana under American rule.
Florida would not become American territory until 1819.
When DON DIED IN 1806, Although he had previously sired another child while stationed in South America ( through another placage relationship),
he left his estate to Eufrosina and their daughters.This was an extremely
unusual act and one that would have been illegal had they stayed in New Orleans.Their daughter Merced later saused an international stir by petitoning President Andrew Jackson to help her recover her deceased daddy's document. Andrew requested these documents from the Spanish Floridian government, and when he did not received the documents.
After Don's death, Eufrosina exhibited considerable business acumen by buying a brick-making business and acquiring a number of slaves. (She owned thirteen by 1840.) Where there is no written record of Eufrosina's
throughts about slavery, she proably maintained views more akin to Spanish sentiments than those associated with English North Americans,
allowing her slaves to buy their freedom at a fair market price.Even after
the Florida colonial government had outlawed the practice of self-purchase, she continued to buy slaves and hire them out until they could turn a profit for her; free them, and subsequently buy more slaves. In
Eufrosina case,slavery seems to have remained primarily a source of labor.Historian Virginia Gould has demonstrated that free African American women in Gulf Cost cities distinguished themselves from the race-based empathy toward slaves. African American slave owners on the Gulf Coast such as Eufrosina's actions directly opposed the increasingly prevalent idea in the American South that slaves had no right to freedom;
Eufrosina behavior also contradicts gender and racial solidarity theories of some contemporary historians. Eufrosina's life clearly demonstrates the complexity of slavery and freedom in and around the Gulf Coast at the turn of the dawn of the nineteenth century.
No comments:
Post a Comment