Napoleon's Gift (2 page)

The
Vieux Carré,
as Granny calls it is the French Quarter, and the oldest part of New Orleans. Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded New Orleans, or
La Nouvelle-Orléans
, as Granny says too, in 1718. The city is centered on the French Quarter, or what she also says is the
“Old Square”
.
Jean Fafitte’s
Absinthe House,
Madame Soleil’s
and
Chevalier’s
are notorious for some bad juju.

That means
they are always up to no good.

I had
heard the stories about Madame Soleil’s, but I stayed clear of it anytime I was sent to town. I would see the gentleman callers, and was surprised they were the very wealthy of the city. I’d also seen the ships come in, with wealthy travelers from far off, and would sometimes sit and watch, trying to figure out from where they came, what it would be like to live there, and if they had any colored people there. Unfortunately, Granny and Madame Soleil were sworn enemies, so she believed Madame Soleil would cause me harm, just because. Therefore, anytime I went to town, she would remind me to stay away from it.

I
did not know if I truly believed Madame Soleil was a voodoo priestesses, but I did feel very peculiar anytime I was ever near her. Equally, Madame Voule’s was notorious for some bad
juju
as well. That was one place, if I had to pass it, I would much rather walk in the streets, with the prospect of being driven over by wild horses, than to walk on the same side of the street as it. I remembered Celia from Basil-leaf regaling me with stories of chicken heads, feet and such. I thought it quite funny, until she told me about a séance, enormous amounts of blood, and the boy who went missing from Harbor.

I made it a point never to go that way again.

As for Madame Soleil’s, one would have to have lived under a giant rock to have no notions of what the goings on there were.

Although prominently a thing for the west,
“the girls”
as they were often call by those in town, could be found in many different places throughout the United States Granny said. She also said it was a quickly growing profession.  Already present in most of the Louisiana Territory when the United States purchased us from France, Granny said it spread to major cities like New York and Chicago. Granny also said there were saloons and outposts in the west. 

She explained that b
rothels could be found in all different areas, and these same brothels ranged from makeshift tents, to dignified mansions, even portable brothels that traveled around the country.

This to me was the most disturbing.

  Considering that prostitution had been around in the west before the west became a part of America, it makes sense that prostitutes were some of the first to populate and establish businesses in the west; they played a significant role in developing areas.  Granny said, prostitution continued, and soon after became generally accepted in
“red-light”
districts, districts with brothels who displayed red lights, thus, much of the French Quarter.

The
Napoleon House
is centered on the French Quarter as well. Its name derives from the fact that its building was intended to be a residence for Napoleon Bonaparté after his exile. However, a local plot to bring Napoleon to Louisiana in 1821 was halted with news of Napoleon’s death. Yet, we still cherish it, because after all New Orleans is French through and through, even if the new white settlers will not see it as such.

The river in front of the city
is filled with steamboats, flatboats, and sailing ships. Despite its dealings with the slave trade, New Orleans has the largest and most prosperous community of free persons of color in the nations, who are educated, and some even own property. Moreover, this was before the
Emancipation Act
was ever created.

I
did not know many myself, but Granny swore this was true.

Nevertheless
, I was not the usual colored girl either.

Not only was
I educated nearly from birth, but also Mr. Jones Junior was my father. It did not mean I had some kind of special privilege, because I still worked the house even if I was free. However, I was able to stay in the room when he would keep company, and Adèle his God niece and I were the best of friends, even if she was white. As well, as a child, I could not be disciplined, unless Mr. Jones did it himself. In addition, well, he seemed as if he loved me of a sort, so those occasions were few and far. I did not really know that much about him. He seemed sullen most of the time. I could see the pain in his eyes, when he thought no one was there, and I often wondered what caused it.

He was a very studious man as well, because most often whenever I encountered him, he always had his nose in a book, papers, or such. He was a very handsome man too, and I could easily see why my mother fancied him;
nonetheless, I was not privy to their relationship, except to know that Granny said he loved my mother.

For the last year,
he had been terribly sick, and it seemed like no mater what the doctor did, he just did not get any better.

Granny said it might be Consumption, which was why he had very few visitors.

I sighed again as I walked into the garden with the baskets.

We were living in what the whites call
ed
The Reconstruction
. President Lincoln had been shot five years ago, and President Jackson tried to bring the country back to its former glory. Fortunately, for us, Mr. Jones’ Plantation was spared, his monies intact, and we weathered through that storm. Although free now, it really was not much different, since Louisiana had the largest state for free blacks in the first place. Not to mention, as far as France was concerned, coloreds were free there anyway.

Granny once read me a
quote from a pamphlet by
Olympe de Gouges
, called
Reflections on Black People
, which said,
“Why are Black people enslaved? The color of people’s skin only suggests a slight difference. There is no discord between day and night, the sun and the moon and between the stars and dark sky. All is varied; it is the beauty of nature. Why destroy nature’s work?

I must say, I have to agree with this completely.

Granny says, even before
de Gouges’
pamphlet in 1789, critics attacked the slave trade and slavery in the colonies. France had several colonies in the Caribbean, the most important of which was Saint Domingue, which is where Granny was from. They had 500,000 slaves in 1789 and they provided the labor for sugar, coffee, and cotton plantations. The behavior of slaves and the actions of slave owners in the colonies was regulated by a series of royal edicts, called the
Code Noir
, or slave code.

When the Revolution began in 1789
, the free mulattos of Saint Domingue discussed the rights of free blacks.
Vincent Ogé
presented the views of his fellow mulatto property owners to a meeting of the white planters in 1789.

Both groups sent their representatives to France to demand representation in the National Assembly. There were those in the National Assembly who believed in rights for blacks and worked for abolition of slavery. Some were members of the
Society of the Friends of Blacks
, a French abolition organization.

However, there was not much support for abolition among the revolutionaries. They also argued for full rights for free blacks.
Granny said there were about 28,000 free blacks and mulattos in St. Domingue, many of whom owned slaves of their own. Moreover, revolutionaries who were more radical continued to urge abolition.
Olympe de Gouges
, who also championed the rights of women; pamphlet
Reflections of Black People
, urged improvement of the situations of slaves and free blacks.

Granny also
said that one of the most successful black commanders was
Toussaint L’Ouverture,
a self-educated former domestic slave. Like Jean François and Biassou, he initially fought for the Spanish crown in this period. After the British invaded Saint Domingue, L’Ouverture decided to fight for the French if they would agree to free the slaves.

Sonthonax proclaimed an end to slavery on 29 August 1793. L’Ouverture worked with a French general, Étienne Laveaux, to ensure all slaves would be freed. He brought his forces over to the French side in May 1794 and began to fight for the French Republic. Many enslaved Africans were attracted to Toussaint’s forces. He insisted on discipline and forbade wholesale slaughter.

In 1801, L’Ouverture issued a constitution for Saint Domingue, which provided for autonomy and decreed that he would be governor-for-life, calling for black autonomy and a sovereign black state. In response, Napoleon Bonaparté dispatched a large expeditionary force of French soldiers and warships to the island, led by Bonaparté’s brother-in-law Charles Leclerc, to restore French rule. They were under secret instructions to restore slavery, at least in the formerly Spanish-held part of the island.

The numerous French soldiers were accompanied by mulatto troops led by Alexandre Pétion and André Rigaud, mulatto leaders who had been defeated by Toussaint three years earlier. During the struggles, some of Toussaint’s closest allies, including Jean-Jacques Dessalines, defected to Leclerc. L’Ouverture was promised his freedom if he agreed to integrate his remaining troops into the French army. L’Ouverture agreed to this in May 1802. He was later deceived, seized by the French and shipped to France. He died months later in prison at
Fort-de-Joux
in the Jura region.

Granny believes this is what
facilitated colored people on their way to freedom in France. However, in New Orleans, we have not been treated as slaves. Although the Civil war ended, we continued to do what she called reconstruct.

This came about
in ‘
65’
.

Presidents Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Johnson, who became president on
April 15, 1865 after Lincoln’s death, took a moderate position designed to bring the South back to as normal as soon as possible, while the
Radical Republicans
, as they call themselves, used Congress to block the moderate approach, impose harsh terms, and upgrade the rights of the Freedmen, former slaves.

The views of Lincoln and Johnson prevailed until the election
last year, which enabled the Radicals to take control of policy, remove former Confederates from power, and enfranchise the Freedmen. A Republican coalition came to power in nearly all the southern states and set out to transform the society by setting up a free labor economy, with support from the Army and the Freedman’s Bureau.

The
Radicals were upset at President Johnson’s opposition to Congressional Reconstruction, Granny said, and they tried to file impeachment charges, but the action failed by one vote in the Senate. Ulysses S. Grant supported Radical Reconstruction, and enforced the protection of Africans in the South with the
Force Acts
passed by Congress. Grant used both the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. military to suppress white insurgency, and support Republican reconstructed states. Southern Democrats, who strongly opposed African equality to whites, were constantly opposed to this, and we had seen many of the damages they had done over the last year.

Three years ago,
Granny told me that Congress removed civilian governments, and put the former Confederacy under the rule of the U.S. Army. The army conducted new elections in which the freed slaves could vote, while whites who had held leading positions under the Confederacy were temporarily denied the vote, and were not permitted to run for office.

This caused for a barrel of mess.

White men not being able to vote, Granny said this was why so many were angry. However, Mr. Jones was one of the smart ones she said. Mr Jones kept his money in a London bank, so when war broke out, his monies and such, were protected, because it was not in the United States.

I sighed as I looked at the rows in the garden. Although
the merciful lord blessed us, many of our neighbors could not say the same.

Although free, the picking
s were slim for coloreds, which was why many of them were immigrating to France. Here, they worked a life of a domestic, and even if they were free, many were still treated in the slave mentality by whites, mind you, not the French. This was also, why many of the girls I knew worked the waterfront, because men would always be men, and sometimes it was easier to sell one’s body, then a fresh batch of sweet potatoes.

I knew I was blessed, and thanked the lord for it everyday.

I checked the basil first, and it looked very green. I broke a sprig, brought it to my nose, then inhaled.

I loved the smell of
fresh basil.

I knew Granny wanted some sweet potatoes for Ms. Millie, so I picked a couple of those, placed them in the second basket and turned towards the rows of chard, okra, and onions.