Customer Reviews

Louisiana Colonials: Soldiers and Vagabonds

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Winston de Ville is easily one of the most quickly recognized names in Louisiana genealogy, since he has been translating, organizing, and interpreting original sources for the rest of us for nearly half a century. Still, there is a tendency to take his large body of work -- four dozen books and several hundred journal articles -- for granted, and it behooves us to remind ourselves of the necessity of periodically going back to those resources. Winston specializes in the French and Spanish colonial periods, where his skills in 18th century language and handwriting are especially useful, and this early volume is typical, having been produced when he was Head of Special Collections at the Mobile Public Library. (It was also published in a limited edition of only 250 copies, so if you don't already own it, it may be difficult to find. Virtually every public library in Louisiana should own a copy, however.) The original documents are housed at the Archives des Colonies in Paris, but transcripts are available at the Library of Congress. The body of the book is a straightforward series of passenger lists of seven ships that arrived at New Orleans from various French ports in 1719 and 1720. Most were imported under authority of the Company of the West, the same organization with whom John Law was associated in colonizing the German Coast. Each ship brought an assortment of soldiers, prisoners, individuals exiled by royal order (several of the lists include numerous "dealers in contraband salt"), and "vagabonds sent from Paris and other places." Not the cream of society, these folks. Each listing includes name, age, place of origin, height and hair color, and occupation. It should be noted, too, that the soldiers were not professionals. Their occupations include butcher, brush-maker, silversmith, hosier, weaver, and many others, as well as "laborer." Only sergeants and cadets (who are described as sieurs, or gentlemen) have no other occupation listed. And almost none of these nominally military personnel ever left Louisiana again. There are two indexes, one of personal names (including plenty of dit names) and one for places of origin, as well as a brief glossary of French occupational terms. While this isn't the sort of book one would sit down and read straight through, I enjoy doing exactly that. There's something about reading through a routine document produced nearly three centuries ago, a piece of work that was never meant to be of interest to anyone except the clerk's immediate superior, that brings the past into focus. People really lived here. And our ancestors were really people. It's good to be reminded of that.