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Micro-Edition | DOI: 10.55520/YSF9HQNH
Baptiste Is Freed by the Spanish Governor January 23, 1790 LCDDP: 1790-01-23-02 Leila K. Blackbird Jessica Marie Johnson Transcribed by Leila K. Blackbird Emma Katherine Bilski Translated by Leila K. Blackbird Annotated by Leila K. Blackbird E. G. Palazzolo Encoded by Leila K. Blackbird Emma Katherine Bilski E. G. Palazzolo 2024 Scholarly Editing: The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing http://www.scholarlyediting.org Association for Documentary Editing 2024 kol kol Scholarly Editing: The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing is freely distributed by the Association for Documentary Editing and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Scholarly Editing: The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing Co-Editor in Chief Noelle Baker Kathryn Tomasek Consulting Editor Silvia Glick Co-Managing Editor Robert Riter Jenifer Ishee Technical Editor Micro-Editions Editor Raffaele Viglianti 41 2167-1257 Louisiana Historical Center 1790-01-23-02 Facsimle available online at the Louisiana Colonial Documents Digitization Project. https://www.lacolonialdocs.org/document/16821. Fugitivity Fugitivity is a keyword in Black studies that captures the physical, metaphysical, armed, and everyday resistance of enslaved Africans and their allies against any and all aspects of enslavement. Rashauna Johnson, describing the “slave space” that was New Orleans, points to the specific geography of the region as lesson in fugitivity: Nonetheless, enslaved persons appropriated the places assigned them toward their own ends, a point that broadens the received gendered geographies of slave resistance. Because New Orleans was an important port city, it offered a diffuse set of pathways for escape – and recapture. If the politics of place could oppress, slaves reasoned, movement could also become an avenue to freedom. The connectedness that made the city’s location so desirable to merchants and imperial officials – its land passageways, river outlets, and Atlantic access – gave runaways an array of escape options. The fugitives redefined themselves in local “geographies of resistance,” or fled to other parts of the Atlantic World.
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 “Camera looking from water to stand of cypress along shore.” Louisiana Ecology and Conservation: Percy Viosca Jr. Collection, Louisiana Digital Library, Baton Rouge. https://louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/lsu-sea-pvc%3A263. However, fugitivity is a term encompassing more than marronnage (which is the act of absconding from enslavers and being out of reach of slaveholding authorities, even if temporarily). Fugitivity describes active and intentional resistance, as well as the acts of imagination and refusal that Africans and people of African descent engaged in against slaveholders’ gendered racial capitalistic regime. Fred Moten writes: What's at stake is fugitive movement in and out of the frame, bar, or whatever externally imposed social logic—a movement of escape, the stealth of the stolen that can be said, since it inheres in every closed circle, to break every enclosure. This fugitive movement is stolen life, and its relation to law is reducible neither to simple interdiction nor bare transgression. Part of what can be attained in this zone of unattainability, to which the eminently attainable ones have been relegated, which they occupy but cannot (and refuse to) own, is some sense of the fugitive law of movement that makes black social life ungovernable, that demands a para-ontological disruption of the supposed connection between explanation and resistance. Fugitivity is a keyword in Black studies, and Keywords for Black Louisiana draws on insights from Black studies to better understand the sources Africans and their descendants appeared in, as well as to better interpret the individual and communal acts of resistance. Stories with this keywordMiguel and Pedro Escaped with María JuanaMaría Juana Sues for Her FreedomMama Comba's GombeauLuison Claims Her FreedomJeannot Testifies in the Case of the Disappearance of Enslaver CorbinAntoine Is Willing to Burn It All Down Kinship Keywords for Black Louisiana views “kinship” and the battle for kin as central to Black life in the so-called New World. Kinship is the glue that knit Africans together in Gulf Coast Louisiana. Building and rebuilding fictive, chosen, and biological kin that reshaped bonds broken through the slave trade and the forced relocations of bondage in the New World occupied Africans and people of African descent from the moment of their initial capture on the African continent to the end of their lives. Larry Powell writes: Few aspects of African tradition were felt more strongly by slaves fresh from the homeland than a commitment to kinship. Severed from bloodlines, they invented new family ties on the spot. Fictive kinship was one type. Slaves acquired new siblings and new elders. But these arrangements were ad hoc and informal, anchored in nothing more solid than the sands of sentiment. Gender, age, and reproductive capacity played an important role in kinship relations and rebuilding kinship and community. As Jessica Marie Johnson writes, Understanding the role intimacy and kinship played in black women’s lives highlights black women’s everyday understanding of freedom as centered around safety and security for themselves and their progeny. Safety, particularly safety from intimate violence, and security lay at the heart of decisions to secure or reject patrons, partners, lovers, and other kin. Black women’s intimacy with individuals ranged along the spectrum of coerced to strategic, from fraternal to sexual. Determined to build community and make generations, imagining futures that were, if not beyond bondage, at least buttressed against harm, they cultivated, protected, and defended kinship networks. They engaged in a range of practices meant to safeguard their bodies and their legacies. At times this included legitimating kinship ties through formal sacred institutions like the Catholic Church. Stories with this keywordThe Two-Year-Old Son of Marianne Dies from Worm DiseaseCatalina Swears She Hasn’t Harbored María JuanaJuan Francisco Is Interrogated about María JuanaMaría Juana Sues for Her FreedomMarie Aram Secures Her FreedomMaria and Carlota Gain Their FreedomMama Comba's GombeauJeannot Testifies in the Case of the Disappearance of Enslaver CorbinJanette and Pierre: Children Enslaved on the Same PlantationHypolite Is Sold at Public AuctionGuillermo, Catalina, and Her Children Are Sold at AuctionGuillermo, Catalina, and Her Children Are InventoriedFrançois Became More Ill Along the WayChef Dominique and Family Stay TogetherCatharina Knows Her WorthBaptiste Is Freed by the Spanish GovernorAntoine Is Willing to Burn It All Down Manumission Manumission is the act of freeing and being freed from slavery “while the institution of slavery continues,” as described by Rosemary Brana-Shute and Randy J. Sparks. Manumission was a critical act and strategy enslaved people engaged in as they struggled for control over their lives, selves, and kinship networks. It was differentiated from emancipation, the legislative acts and actions (i.e., US Civil War) nominally freeing all enslaved people, wholesale or conditionally (i.e., with apprenticeship), across a given slaveholding society. Manumission was executed by individual enslavers on behalf of their respective property (enslaved people) through formal (i.e., legal) action. Manumission was regulated by imperial and national officials in all slaveholding societies, but the rules of manumission varied across empire, region, and even between towns or colonial outposts. In French Louisiana, manumission was regulated by a succession of Code Noirs (1685, 1724) which determined the guidelines enslavers needed to follow to complete an act of manumission. In Spanish Louisiana, the French ordinances were replaced by Spanish manumission law guided by the Siete Partidas, eighteenth-century Spanish imperial law, and the bandos de buen gobierno. The differences were stark between the two colonial periods. For example, during the French period, enslavers were required to secure ratification of the Superior Council for any manumissions. In the Spanish period, not only could enslavers directly manumit their enslaved property, but enslaved people could also appeal to the Spanish Cabildo (Louisiana's governing body during the Spanish period) for their freedom. Coartación, the process of appealing for your freedom, allowed a critical mass of Africans and people of African descent to secure their freedom. The audacity, creativity, and resistance practice of enslaved people demanding their legal freedom from their owners through coartación laid the foundation for the free population of color that would emerge in the later years of the eighteenth century. Stories with this keywordJuan Francisco Is Interrogated about María JuanaMaría Juana Sues for Her FreedomMarie Aram Secures Her FreedomMaria and Carlota Gain Their FreedomCatharina Knows Her WorthBaptiste Is Freed by the Spanish GovernorAntoine Is Willing to Burn It All Down Wellness Keywords for Black Louisiana views “wellness” expansively and radically to encompass an array of practices. For Africans in Gulf Coast Louisiana, wellness meant more than their physical health. Enslavers demanded control over Africans’ bodies, minds, and futures (via their reproductive labor). Wellness, for Africans, meant wresting control of their whole selves from enslavers. Wellness could mean body autonomy (laboring as they wished, playing as they wished, imbibing food and drink as they wished). It could mean spiritual practices that protected and preserved African systems of belief or maintained ways of organizing the supernatural that varied from Catholic doctrine. It could mean play, mischief, or even behavior the French marked as crimes, such as theft or running away, since these crimes often created space for broader wellness practices (feasts, gatherings, and marronnage).
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 Plate 23 of David Boilat’s Esquisses sénégalaises: physionomie du pays, peuplades, commerce, religions, passé et avenir, récits et légendes (Paris: P. Bertrand, 1853). Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed September 6, 2023, https://slaveryimages.org/database/image-result.php?objectid=998. Along with misreading wellness practices as crimes, enslavers also misread wellness practices as superstition. In 1734 Le Page du Pratz, for example, described the creation of gris-gris, protective devices composed of natural and inanimate materials, as being “very superstitious and attached to their prejudices.” As Gwendolyn Midlo Hall notes, Reference to grigri is found in New Orleans court records in 1773. Charms ritually fabricated and worn for protection, as well as charms intended to harm others, have kept their African names to the present day. Zinzin, an amulet of support or power in Louisiana Creole, has the same name and meaning in Bambara. Grisgris, a harmful charm, comes from the Mande word gerregerys. The words zvanga and grisgris are still widely used in New Orleans by speakers of English as well as by Creoles.
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 “Grisgris, Water Bottle & Pouch,” Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections, accessed September 6, 2023, https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-6eda-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99. Stories with this keywordMama Comba's GombeauLuison Claims Her FreedomJanette and Pierre: Children Enslaved on the Same PlantationHypolite Is Sold at Public AuctionThe King's Doctor Certifies that Hypolite Is Very SickHypolite Seeks Treatment from the King's DoctorGuillermo, Catalina, and Her Children Are Sold at AuctionGuillermo, Catalina, and Her Children Are InventoriedFrançois Became More Ill Along the WayChef Dominique and Family Stay TogetherCatharina Knows Her WorthAntoine Is Willing to Burn It All Down After the death of Lt. Gov. Francisco de Cruzat, two Indian freedom suits were brought against his estate and heirs by his Native slaves, Pierre Morsu and Marie Paget. Born into slavery along with their Black-Native half-brother Baptiste Bourguignon, all three siblings successfully sued their enslavers for their freedom. Baptiste was enslaved separately in Ste. Geneviève, Upper Louisiana, by Manuel Bourguignon and, despite his mixed-race status, also obtained manumission. This is important, because this is the first successful attempt at using Spanish-Indian law for Black-Native freedom in the Louisiana Territory.1
Baptiste y su familia demandan libertad 23 de enero de 1790 Transcripción
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 Present.do antemi oydia de la fha por las mismas partes sin firmas por expresar no sauenlo haser Nueva Orleans veinte y tres de enero de mil sete cientos nov.ta años doy feé___ Perdomo. Pedro Morsu y Baptista Bourgiñon Yndios mestiso y Sambo, ante V.S. en la mejor for ma que haya lugar en drõ parecemos y Decimos: que alnuestro conbienes se nos ad mita Informacion de tgõs, y que los que presentaremos Juramentados en forma y sin diferirnos, declaren si nos cono sen por hijos naturales de Cathalina Yn dia natural, de nacio Chi , y madre de la mestisa nombrada Maria Paget ; cuyas declaraciones evaquadas que sean, se nos entreguen originales para usar del drõ que nos compreta: Portanto A.V.S. Sup.mos se sirva proveer y man dar hacer como pedimos, con Just.a costas, juramos no proceder de malicia y en lo nesesario &.a
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 Present.do Ante mi oydia dela fha por la mis ma parte sin forma por ex presar no sa verlo haser Nu eva Orleans tre inta de Enero de mil setecientos Noventa años doy feé___ Perdomo. Bautista Yndio sambo, y esclavo de Manuel Bourgingon en la mejor forma que haya lu gar en drõ ante V.S. me presento y Digo: que me hallo supiendo la pena de cautiberio en poder del citado Manuel Bourgignon hace tiempo de dos años por haverme com prado ante de M.ma Laflor quien igualm.te me tuvo asu serv.o baxo la misma esclavitud; y siendo siento y sa bedor de la gracia que me conceden las Leyes del Reyno , oponiendose estas Vigoro samente ala prievanza de la libertad que deven gozar los de mi clase, y deseo so de disfrutar la como todo otro acre edor â ella, ocurro ala justificacion de V.S. afin de que se sirva compeler al precitad Bourgignon me otorge la co respondiente carta de Libertad; y pa ra que el Tribunal venga en conocimiento de las juntas causas sobre las que fundar.
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 Vistoy: Libreso el Despacho Correspondiente con Ynsercion al Escrito aforar onze y treze y esta Provid.a al Comandante al Puesto de Ylinuses D.n Manuel Pérez iefecto de que haya como parecer antesi a Manuel Bourguiñon y le obligue a que presente el titulo de Adquisición que tiene de Baptista Yndio, y confiando por el haver sido vendido des pues al Siete de Diciembre del año pa sado demil Seteciento y sesenta y nueve, le obligara al citado Bourguignon à entregarte su cartadeventa dejandole el orõ. avaluo para que lo repita con tia q.ta haya lugar lalicencia de pesos recividos. Estevan Miró, Liz.do , Postigo Proveyolo el S.r D.n Estevan Miró Brigadier de los R.s Extõz Gov.or é Ynt.e de esta Prov.a por S.M. que lo firmio en onze de mayo demil setecientos Noventa años___ Rafael Perdomo, Sno Pubco Nn En dho dia lo hize saver a D.n Antonio Mendez doy feé___ Perdomo.
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ISSN 2167-1257 | DOI 10.55520/6ZH06EW2
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