Trafficked to Louisiana

In 1838, forty men, women, and children were sold from Oak Hill Plantation. They were trafficked south, along the coast, and up the Mississippi River to Iberville Parish to work on a sugar plantation.

What was it like for Judy Gant to explain to her five-year-old son, Edmund, that they would never see the place he had known for his entire life?

They had been the legal property of James Monroe, and when he died Samuel Gouverneur, Monroe's son-in-law took over the plantation, but in 1838 Gouverneur sold all of them.

"To give you some idea of the affair G. would not record the will, & found that unless he did produce it, that he could not sell the slaves on the estate. Such being the case he did bring it forward...To end, it was a very black business, & one from which a deep stain will be fixed on his honor; "

-Eliza Monroe Hay to unknown, 1839

Eliza Monroe Hay was referring to her brother-in-law and cousin, Samuel L. Gouverneur in her 1839 letter. He married Eliza's younger sister, Maria, in the 1820's, and lived in New York. James Monroe moved in with the Gouverneurs, after the death of his wife, but had passed away only a year later. When he died, Samuel was the only close male family member left to inherit. Eliza's husband, George Hay, had died a year prior.

But Eliza was not happy with the choice that her father made. In her letters, she suggested that Samuel had manipulated her father into signing everything over to him in his will.

Samuel Gouverneur was 36-years-old when his father-in-law died. He lived in New York City with his wife, Maria, and their three children.

Samuel was in financial trouble and faced a difficult reputation. Newspapers dated April 29, 1826 stated that Gouverneur had been convicted of being a "swindler" by a grand jury.

In 1838, He made a deal with Christopher Adams Jr., a relative of his brother-in-law, Thomas McCall Cadwalader, to purchase all of the enslaved people from Oak Hill and take them to Iberville Parish Louisiana.

"Had the verdict of the Jury swept every dollar from my family and myself, my honor would have been promptly redeemed. You will learn with pleasure, which ought to animate the heart of one who prisides[sic]over the destinies of many, that event will not desolate our home, or bring affliction "to our hearth."

-Samuel Gouverneur to Pres. Andrew Jackson, 1836

Samuel Gouverneur and Christopher Adams met at the beginning of September in Philadelphia where they wrote up the contract.

Gouverneur hired George Kephart, owner of the Franklin and Armfield slave trading company to transport the enslaved community from Virginia to Louisiana onboard the Isaac Franklin.

They arrived in mid October 1838 after a two-week voyage down the coast of the United States. The enslaved families were off-loaded to the sweltering, noisy docks of the Port of New Orleans where they were inspected by Henry McCall.

Despite what must have been a terrifying experience, they were together, and together they forged a new community that outlasted slavery.

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