Jacques Esnoul de Livaudais

Notes:

Sieur de la Livaudais. La Livaudais is a small village near St. Jouan des Guerets, about five miles below Saint-Malo.

He was a sailor with letters of marque -- essentially, a royally-commissioned pirate for France. He died when his ship L'Entreprenant was lost at sea, and a memorial service was held for him at the cathedral of Saint-Malo on 14 Apr 1698.

Jacques married Marie Marguerite Guillamette Lajaloux du Verger on 18 Dec 1695 in Saint-Malo, Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, France. Marie (daughter of Oliver le Jaloux and Guillemette Nicolas) was born in of St. Servan, Saint-Malo, Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Jacques married Marie Geneviève Babin dit Lasource on 3 Jan 1733 in St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans, Louisiana, New France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 16 Jun 1807, New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana

Marie married Santiago Bénigne de Fontenette before 1754 in Louisiana. Santiago was born in Burgundy, France; died in Havana, Cuba. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 22 Apr 1754
• Alternate death: 22 Apr 1816
• Alternate death: 22 Apr 1818, St. Martinville, St. Martin, Louisiana

Notes:

According to the (approved) 28 Oct 1965 SAR application of Dr. Lionel Thomas Wolford, Jacques Fontenette was a "Brigadier of the Carabiniers, Province of Louisiana" in which capacity he "served with his Company under Dr. Bernardo de Galvez, Gov. of Louisiana against the British in 1779-81."

According to Jane G. Bulliard (citation details below), he was a "natif de St. Carlos de la Mississippi". Our first thought was this might mean he was born in the town on the Mississippi now called St. Charles, Missouri, but that place appears to have been founded in about 1769.

From "Négresses Libres and the Republic" (citation details below):

One of the many prominent Louisiana Creoles to resettle at the nascent Attakapas District was Jacques Bénigne FONTENETTE fils, known in the Spanish provincial era (1762-1803) as Santiago. He had been born at the Tchapitoulas District on 21 April 1754 to Royal Surgeon and Councillor Jacques Bénigne DE FONTENET père, M.D., of Bourgogne, France and Marie-Geneviève ESNOUL-DE LIVAUDAIT, a Louisiana Creole of an illustrious history in colonial and provincial Louisiana.

Like many of his bourgeois Creole, Canadian, French, and Spanish contemporaries, Jacques fils entered the military. He eventually rose to the ranks of brigadier of the Company of Detached Carabiniers, By 1790, Jacques fils resettled at the Attakapas District, owning land and a plantation near Église Saint-Martin, southwest Louisiana’s first permanent Catholic Church, in St. Martinville. He did not arrive alone. In 1804, he made several donations of slaves and land to free people of color, and liberty to slaves:

* to Marie-Louise – négresse libre: a 30-year-old négresse créolisée [Creolized negress] slave named Tétie, who he had purchased by civil act in New Orleans from Mr COIRIN;

* to André (age 21) and Nanette (16) – mulâtres slaves belonging to him, children of Julie – négresse: freedom;

* to Marie-Louise – négresse libre, and to her 9 mulâtre children Jacques dit Coco, Pouponne, Zénon, Joseph, Pierrot, Pétion, Hortance, and Thérence, as well as to André and Nanette – both mulâtres libres born of a different mother to Marie-Louise: land at Isle à Labbé, on the eastern side of Bayou Têche, measuring 5 arpents frontage by 40 arpents depth, for all 12 to share in equal portions

* to Pouponne – mulâtresse libre: an 11-year-old négritte slave named Rozine who, like Tétie, he had purchased by civil act in New Orleans from Mr COIRIN.

All of these mulâtres and mulâtresses consistently used the FONTENETTE surname, and are presumed to be Jacques fils’s natural children. When Jacques fils contracted marriage to Charlotte Louise PELLERIN, an Attakapas Creole, in 1800, he brought to their marriage 30 heads of slaves, among other valuables. I have no documentation yet, but it is possible that Julie and Marie-Louise, and their children, were among those unnamed slaves in the civil marriage contract.

In any case, Jacques fils was no “petit habitant” or peasant. Witnesses to his marriage to Charlotte read like an encyclopedia of French and Spanish colonial and provincial Louisiana’s most decorated military officials, including Louis Chevalier DE VILLIERS – captain of the Mixed Legion of the Mississippi, Charles OLIVIER de Vézin – who had served as Regidor Perpétuel [Permanent Alderman] of Spanish Louisiana [...], Marin LE NORMAND – lieutenant of the Legion of Mississippi, Barthélemy GRÉVENBERT, Louis Pelletier DE LA HOUSSAYE – captain of the Legion (Charlotte’s brother-in-law), Alexandre Chevalier DE LA HOUSSAYE (also Charlotte’s brother-in-law), Louis and Jean-Baptiste PELLERIN (Charlotte’s brothers) – both officers in the Fixed Spanish Louisiana Regiment.

Whether Jacques fils fathered Julie and Marie-Louise’s children, is unimportant. What is noteworthy is his conscious decision to give them all a fair shot in life during a period when the fate of most peoples of color in European colonies, like Spanish Louisiana, revolved around permanent servitude, for generations. Jacques fils, like many of his ilk, chose a different path, and he should be recognized for his fortitude and generosity.

Jacques married Louise Charlotte Celeste Pellerin on 10 Jul 1800 in Attakapas, St. Martinville, Louisiana. Louise (daughter of Louis Gérard Pellerin and Marie-Marthe Hubert de Bellaire) was born about 1766; died on 21 Jul 1825 in St. Martinville, St. Martin, Louisiana; was buried on 22 Jul 1825 in St. Martinville, St. Martin, Louisiana. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]