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Micro-Edition | DOI: 10.55520/YSF9HQNH
François Became More Ill Along the Way May 16, 1776 Emma Katherine Bilski Leila K. Blackbird Jessica Marie Johnson Transcribed by Emma Katherine Bilski Leila K. Blackbird Translated by Emma Katherine Bilski Leila K. Blackbird Annotated by Emma Katherine Bilski Leila K. Blackbird Encoded by Leila K. Blackbird E. G. Palazzolo Emma Katherine Bilski 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 1776-05-15-01 Facsimle available online at the Louisiana Colonial Documents Digitization Project. https://www.lacolonialdocs.org/document/14317. 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.
No description provided.
 “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).
No description provided.
 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.
No description provided.
 “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 Information about the wellness, illness, and medical treatment of enslaved people in colonial Louisiana is most often visible in the documentary record in instances when the finances of their enslavers became involved. Here, we can read about the illness and death—as well as the personality—of a skilled and well-respected hunter named François, only because his illness developed while he was being "rented out" to another man by his enslaver, which was a common practice in the colony.1 This record of François's journey also gives us a brief window into the movement of enslaved people around the Louisiana Colony. However, we must keep in mind the unreliability of the narrators of this document: two enslavers who each had financial stakes in the precise timing of François's illness, and thus the incentive to lie about it. How much of their interrogatory statements and testimony do you believe?
François se merecía algo mejor 15 de mayo de 1776 Transcripción
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 Año LM [ripped] D.n Juan B.ta Tounoir contra d.n Gabriel Peyroux Juez el s.or Livauday & Ess.no Garic
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 Dn Juan Btta Tounoir por mi poder en los autos seguidos contra Gabriel Peyrous sobre Covransa de pesos digo respondiendo al traslado que se me dio q. hes cierto no alquilo su mulato am.d de Valiere como lo tengo Expuesto en mi antecedente Escripto, pero bien a Carlos Tarascon y que me Equivoque sobre el nõbre, que quanto en el Fundo de la Causa hes como lo alegue y por esso me refiero a mi dho Escripto de 18, en cuya atencion Les ha de Servir VS.a mandar confirmar la sentencia de 16 y 6.tts dada por el Comandante de la punta Cortada y Condemnar el suso dho en las Costos por tanto___ A vs.a Suplico Se Sirva proveer y mandar como llevo pedido por ser de Justicia
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 costas y Juro no ser de malicia y en lo necessario & D Leonordo Mazange Autos. Proveyolo el Sr Dn Bernardo de Galvez Gov.or General de esta Prov.a Cavallero pensionado de la R.l orden distinguida de carlos tercero Intendente y imper tor General que lo firmo en diez y siete de mayo de mil sett.s setenta y nueve años Juan B.a Garic Esno pubco En dho dia mes y año hize saver yo El Es.no el Decreto que antecede a D.n Leonardo Mazange en persona Doy Fe___ Garic Es.no En La dhã Ciudad Dia mes y año hize saver el decreto que antecede a D.n Gabriel Peyroux en persona Doy Fé___ Garic Es.no
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 Ynterrogatorio por cuio tenor sera examinado el nom.do Tounoir en las dilig.s que sigue contra D. Gabriel Peyroux sobre cobranza de p.s de gastos q.e dice hizo en la enfermedad del mulato Fran.s esclavo de los bienes Caue, y encargado de ellos dho Peyroux en la forma siguiente___ 1.. Primeram.te como es cierto que en el mes de Agosto de 1775.. dho Peyroux subio a la P.ta Cortada a una dilig.a y q.e en ella supo q.e habia quatro dias q.e dho mu lato se havia enterrado, y murió en la casa de dho Tounoir , asociado del nom.do Tarascon a quien estaba alquilado desde muchos años; y q.e dho Tounoir dixo al citado Peyroux q.e como habia estimado tan to ál mulato, le hizo decir dos misas gracionsam.te 2 y q.e él y su Cunado Ozenne con algunas estacas, le habian hecho un ataud___ 2.. Ytt como es cierto q.e dho Peyroux saviendo q.e el di funto Caue habia armado el mulato siendo su Cazador, pidió el fusil, y dho Tounoir se lo dió con el chifle, pero Tarascon lo tomó de dho Perou 3.. Ytt como es cierto q.e los otros éfectos del mulato que dho Tounoir presentó al citado Perou, consistian en alg.a ropa de poco valor, qe dho Tounoir estaba convenido de vender p.a pagar los gastos del entierro; pero q.e haviendo sabido q.e dho Peyroux se informa ba de las circunstancias de la enfermedad, y muerte de dho mulato, se enfado, y no queriendo ven derlas, quiso haverlas tomar a dho Peyroux quien se recusó á ello; q.e entonces las hizo
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 llebar sobre la galeria de la Casa del padre Va lentin saviendo q.e comia con este; lo q.e mor tificó á dho Padre, quien dixo á dho Peyroux de hacerlas quitar, y con efecto las puso en deposito en la Casa del nom.do Missioner, ex presandole las vendiese p.a evitar superdida 4.. Ytt como es cierto q.e dixo haver pag.do dos pesos a quatro negros, p.a cargar el cuerpo de dho mu lato, declare a quien pertenecian, si los pago efectivam.te y si ellos los recivieron___ 5.. Ytt si no halló o recivió dinero, azeite, peleteria u otras mercansias pertenecientes á dho mu lato, o si no tiene conocim.to que otros hayan hallado o recibido___ 6.. Ytt si tiene conocim.to q.e dho mulato hiciese algun comercio particular, o si tenia algunos interes.es de comercio del trato con alg.o o si le era debido, quanto, y por quien___ 7.. Ytt si save q.e el fusil q.e reclamó y tomó Tarascon pertenecia á dho mulato, y el chifle q.e tam bien tomó, pertenecia á dho Tarascon___ 8.. Ytt si save q.e en el mes de Mayo de 1775 quando dho mulato subio de la N.a Orleans a la Punta Cortada en la misma piragua endonde iba dho Tounoir y el s.r Valiere le pertenecia, y á quien correspondian los efectos de que estaba cargada___
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 9.. Ytt si en dha piragua habia mercancias de trato y otras pertenecientes a dho mulato, y si las llevó al Rapidó___ 10.. Ytt si dho Tounoir era socio con dho Tarascon para el comercio de la P.ta Cortada, y si era su correspon diente por del Rapido___ 11.. Ytt si dho mulato habiendo llegado enfermo á la P.ta Cortada el 21 de Mayo de 1775. partió de ella p.a el Rapido el 7.. de Junio sig.te diga si estava enteram.te restablecido quando partió p.a el Ra pido ___ 12.. Ytt si sabe q.e dho mulato desde su propaganda, y durante su viage desde la P.ta Cortada hasta su buelta qe fué el 17. de Julio, siempre es tuvo enfermo___ 13.. Ytt como el dho mulato estaba entonces mui flaco, y tenia un tumor grueso como los dos puños debaxo la oquedad del estomago, cuia extre midad, era blanca y blanda, y q.e el dia sig.te 18.. de Julio el nombrado Dubertran Zirujano habiendolo visito, no quiso recetarle nada, y le dixo de ponerle cataplasmas de malvas sobre el tumor y de hacerle tomar, suero, y caldo de pollo___ 14.. Ytt como es cierto q.e dho mulato pidió con muchas instancias lo baxasen a la N.va Orleans, y q.e di xo asi mismo q.e si su ámo no queria pagar
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 el Viage, q.e él mismo lo pagaría de su dinero. diga por q.e no lo envió a la Ciudad___ 15.. Ytt como es cierto q.e el difunto Bertonvill Ziru janoe, habiendo entrado p.r contingencia en la Casa de dho Tounoir, y visto al mulato enfermo, di xo q.e p.a salvarle la vida, era indispensable abrirle el tumor, y q.e dho mulato tambien lo clamaba con muchas instancias; diga por q.e no se le abrió___ 16.. Ytt como es cierto q.e durante su enfermedad, el dho mulato no estaba en cama, y se paseaba y q.e ordinariam.te iba á sentarse a la orilla del camino R.l cerca de la barrera del patio de dho Tounoir p.a tener la facilidad de conversar con los pasageros; y q.e la mañana del dos de Agosto, lo hallaron muerto en su cama___ 17.. Ytt como es cierto q.e en el tiempo q.e dho mulato subió a la P.ta Cortada con dho Tounoir, estava alquilado a dho Tarascon___ 18.. Ytt como es cierto q.e es practica recibida y observ.da en esta Prov.a q.e los esclavos alquilados, ya sea por contrato, o sin él, están obligados á curarle las enfermedades los Arrentarios, ó á embiarlos á sus ámos p.a dho efecto G. Peyroux
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 Declara.n En la Ciudad de la Nueva Orleans a los quatorze de Junio de mil sette Cientos settenta y nuebe años; yo el Es.no en Virtu de la Commicion a mi Conferida Recivi Juram.to de D.n Juan Bãpta Tounoir que lo hizo por dios nrõ señor y una Senal de Cruz conforme a drõ so cuyo cargo prometio decir Verdad y Examinada por el tenor del pedim.to anteced.te a cada una de sus preguntas dixo lo Siguiente___ A la primera Pregunta dixo que era Falso su Contenido; y que Consta del Recivo que tiene presentado haver pagado cinco pessos a su cuñado nomdo Ozenne por haver echo un ataud y Responde___ A la Segundo dixo que es cierto que entregó a D.n Gabriel Peyroux el dho fusil y chifle pensando que pertenecia al mulato pero despues supo que perteneia al contrario a dho tarascon el que le
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 fue preciso Valerse de la Authoridad de uno de los Alcaldes de esta Cuidad y no fue sin trabajo q.e lo restituyo al dho tarascon y responde___ A la tercera dixo que el dho peyroux queria obligar el declarante de hazer subastar en publica Almoneda alguna Ropa de dho mulato y q.e el no quiso diciendole que era el amo de dho mulato y que podia hazer de ella lo que quisiera y la mando en la casa de su morada y responde___ A la quarta dixo que es Cierto su Contenido pero que no haze memoria de los amos a quien pertenecian dhos negros y responde___ A la quinta dixo que no sabe nada de lo que le pregunten y responde___ A la sexta dixo que lo ygnora y Responde___ a la septima dixo que se Refiere a lo que tiene declarado a la Segunda y Responde a la Octava dixo que quando el mulato Subió a la punta Cortada subio en un
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 Batò perteneciente al declarante assi que las efectos de q.e estava Cargado y responde___ A la nona dixo que en la piragua que mando al Rapido no havia otra mercancias que las Suyas proprias del declarante y responde___ A la Decima dixo que es Cierto su Contenido y Responde___ 1.. a la ondecima dixo que sabe que el mulato estava un poco indisposto quando subió al Rapido por lo que el Conductor de la piragua lo dexo quieto y no la hizo tra vajar y Responde___ A la Duodecima dixo que no estava mas con el dho mulato y que no save si durante esse tiempo ha sido enfermo el dho Mulato y responde___ A la Decima terza dixo que el dho mulato quando Baxo del rapido estava muy mal y q.e tenia un tumor bastante grueso en el umblico de modo que no fue possible Baxarlo en la Ciudad y responde___ A la decima quarta dixo quiero decir a la pregunta Anteced.te que es Cierto que cumpleo con lo que mando el Zirujano contenido en
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 dha pregunta y Responde___ A la Decima quarta dixo que es Falsa su Contenida que solo el Declarante pregunto a los Cirujanos que el mulato no podia Aguantar el Viaje y que Ynfaliblem.te moreria Antes de llegar por lo que no lo Envio y Responde___ A la Decima quinta que el declarante hizo hazar una junta de tres Zirujanos que havia en la punta Cortada nom.dos Gaudeau Guichandue y Dubertrand los que Juntos no fueren del parescer del nombrado Ber tonville y Responde___ A la Decima sexta dixo que todo su Contenido es Falso que desde su llegada dho mulato no se levanto mas de la Cama a donde Fallecio y responde___ A la Decima septima Dixo que es Cierto su Contenido y responde___ A la Decima Octava Dixo que Ygnora su Contenido y Responde que lo que ha Declarado es la Verdad en Cargo de su Juramento fho y que es de
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 Edad de treinta y siette Anos y firmo de que yo el Es.no doy fée___ Jn B.ta Tounoir Ante mi Juan B.a Garic Es.no puco
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ISSN 2167-1257 | DOI 10.55520/6ZH06EW2
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