For a rare day in this country of people of many colors, a lot of them are celebrating Juneteenth for the first time in their lives. Not only African-Americans, who have celebrated this day since 1866, but white people, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians - everyone - seems to be celebrating. This is mainly due to the recent killings of African-Americans by police over a period of several months, that culminated in the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Since that day, several other African-Americans have also died at the hands of police. Police who are supposed to protect and defend the general public. Protests for "Black Lives Matter" have sprung up throughout the United States, and spread around the entire world. It seems that white people are finally learning about and acknowledging the inherent systemic racial prejudice in this and other countries.
Juneteenth - a combination of June and nineteenth - is also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Liberation Day. It is (currently) a non-federal American holiday, and an official Texas state holiday, celebrated on June 19th. This is to commemorate the Union army general Gordon Granger, who announced federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas (on 19 June 1865) proclaiming that all slaves in the state of Texas were now free. The Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed the slaves almost two and a half years earlier. But the Civil War did not end until April 1865, and Texas was the most remote of the "slave states" with a very small Union Army presence - the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation had been extremely slow and inconsistent.
The most common mistake regarding this day is that it marked the end of slavery in the United States. It did not. Although this day marks the emancipation of all slaves in the Confederacy, the institution of slavery was still legal and existed in Union border states after June 19, 1965. Slavery within our nation did not end until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution on 6 December 1865, which abolished slavery in all of the US states and territories.
Celebrations of Juneteenth date back to 1866, at first involving church-centered community gatherings in Texas. It spread across the South, and seemed to become commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s, when it often centered around food festivals, raising monies for specific causes. In the 1970s it became a focus on African-American freedom and the arts. By 2000, Juneteenth was celebrated in most major cities across the US. The Mascogos, descendants of Black Seminoles, in Coahuila, Mexico, also celebrate Juneteenth.
..... So, what does this have to do with an older white woman in her mid-60s? I grew up in the South. My Dad was in the US Navy for 22 years, and he had friends of all colors. We were last stationed in Kingsville, Texas, outside of Corpus Christi. I hadn't yet turned 5, and our neighbors were Hispanic. I spoke Spanish almost as well as English - but with red hair, freckles, and greenish eyes, I was never taken as a Latino. Dad had told his CO that he was planning on retiring; he was an ADR1, and couldn't go any higher in rank. The base CO (not Dad's immediate CO), offered to make Dad an officer, with a large pay raise. He told Mom about it and she was very excited. She got angry when he told her he had turned the offer down, and signed his papers to leave after this enlistment was up. Mom asked Dad, "Why? Why did you turn it down?" Dad responded that he had been offered all of these things - but he had been told that if he accepted the offer, he could no longer be friends with anyone who was "colored, not white" and that he couldn't associate with anyone of color at home, either. Dad immediately refused.
So, having been born in Virginia, and having lived there, in Tennessee, and Texas, we then moved to north central Florida - Gainesville, where the University of Florida was located - upon Dad's retirement on my fifth birthday. I went to school and church with people of color. My elementary school was segregated - we were all white. But we had friends of color that I spent time with away from school. My junior-high school had a higher percentage of African-American students than it did white students, our Principal and Dean of Students were black, and about half of the instructors were people of color. I spent my school year in Florida, and my summers on the island off the coast of Virginia where my Mom grew up.
.... And now I live in Boulder, Colorado - a rather rich and snooty enclave of mainly white people. My best friend here in Colorado is the lady I share a two bedroom apartment with. She is African-American. She was born and raised in Denver, and was the first cheerleader of color for the Denver Broncos. (But she has lost her taste for organized, professional sports over the years... and, so have I.) Anyway, here in Boulder, being black, or a person of color, means you are not treated as an equal, even in this day and age. We were quite bumblingly followed by an assistant manager in an up-scale natural foods store here in Boulder - Alfalfa's, across from the Public Library. We had gone to the library and decided to stop in Alfalfa's to say hello to a friend who worked in the deli. As soon as we walked through the door, the assistant manager started to follow us - he tailed Beatrice so closely that when she stopped and turned around to look at an item she had just passed, that her chest almost knocked the man over. We had waved at our friend, who was busy, and then wandered into the pet food section to see what they carried for cats. When we called an complained, as well as writing a complaint to corporate headquarters, we each received a $25 gift card and were told that the assistant manager was on his lunch break and trying to decide what to buy for lunch, so he was wandering the store. - I'm certain he was just going to grab a can of cat food for his lunch!
.... Back to Juneteenth. I was appalled to find out that Beatrice, my best friend here in Colorado, knew only the names of two of her four grandparents, and none of her family history. (Of course, I've been working on my family history for 40 years...) So, first we got a DNA test done by 23AndMe. Then I started working on her family tree. Her family were slaves - except for her maternal great-great-great-grandfather - he was a French white slave owner in Louisiana.
Beatrice's third great grandmother was a slave named Hyacinthe, and it is believed she was part Native American as well as African. Her owner was (Lieutenant Chevalier Alexandre Francois Joseph DeClouet. When he died in 1816, an estate inventory was done, including his slaves: Hyacinthe is listed as a 35-year-old female slave, and along with her three children, Therese, Luc, and Arthanase, the group of four is valued at $45. After the dispersal of the estate goods, Hyacinthe and her family belonged to the owners of Marmalade Plantation. Marmalade was owned by Chevalier Francois Christophe de l'Homme; the husband of A.F. J. DeClouet's daughter, Charlotte Marie Josephine Toton DeClouet de l'Homme....
Since a great-great-grandson of Luc DeClouette is a DNA genetic match descendant of A.F. J. DeClouet, it is safe to assume that Luc's father was either the Lt. Chevalier A. F. J. DeCluet, or one of his two sons: Joseph Alexandre DeClouet, who earned a Spanish coat of arms; or Etienne DeClouet, who died from wounds suffered in a duel in 1811. Looking at where the sons were, and the year Luc DeClouette was born, I think it most likely that Hyacinthe's owner from the inventory was Luc's father.
And that Luc DeClouette is my friend Beatrice's second-great grandfather. And Luc ended up being owned by his own half-sister who was white.
The DeClouet Plantation in 1880
Dates are somewhat conflicted regarding Luc DeClouette. In the 1816 inventory, of property, his mother is listed as 35 years old, and Luc is listed as being 2. In the later Censi, in which he is enumerated, his age indicates that he was born in 1813. So he started life as a slave on the plantation owned by his father, at the time he was two, his owners were his half-sister and her husband. Apparently, Luc was educated - how and when we don't know, but, upon the death of Chevalier Francois Christophe de l'Homme, his half-sister made him manager of the plantation. This was quite a shock to neighbors along the Bayou Teche in Louisiana. And then came the Civil War. When Union troops approached the plantation house, they were met by Lu DeClouette, armed with pistols and a rifle. He was determined to defend and preserve his half-sister, and he succeeded.
After the Civil War ended, and Luc and his family were freed, he continued to manage the Plantation for his sister. And, after their freedom was granted, his sister gave him 160 acres of bottom land beside the Bayou Teche for him and his family. In the 1870 Census, Luc and his family are listed with the surname of his previous owner, Anglicized to Delhomme. Luc's job was listed as manager - of his half-sister's plantation. The 1880 Census lists him as a mulatto, employed as a planter, on 160 acres that he owns; also listed are his wife, Emelie, and three of their sons, Edouard, Luc, and Pierre Luc.
Luc died on 21 July 1885. His obituary was first published in The New Orleans Times-Picayune, and was then picked up and reprinted on July 25, 1885 by The New Iberia Enterprise. (Please remember the time an place where this obituary was written...)
"Death of an Esteemed Colored Man
Luc de Clouet died on Tuesday, 21st inst., at the age of 71 years, at his residence in the parish of Saint Martin, one mile above Breaux Bridge. It would be unpardonable on our part to let pass his departure from this world without a short notice, for until after the war, Saint Martin and Iberia formed but one parish.
Luc was born as a slave on the plantation of Mr. Chevalier Delhomme, and during all the time of slavery always proved himself to be a true and faithful servant. During the war, having remained the property of Mrs. Delhomme, after the death of his master, he was yet true to her and was her guardian and protector in the trouble of the invasion by Federal troops. After the war, having been set free, he stayed with his old mistress, taking her interests in all matters and managing her plantation with ability and good judgement. With a deep sense of regard for so much fidelity and attachment, Madame Delhomme gave him a farm adjoining her own of 160 acres of land. On that farm he prospered and raised a large family. Luc was always a true friend to white and black, and a law-abiding citizen. He has always been a staunch Democrat, invariably casting an open ticket and has never wavered from sound Democratic principles. Among the people of his color he was looked upon as an old patriarch. His advice and counsel were eagerly sought, and we have known many white people call for them in numerous cases. Moderate in his actions, honest in his dealings; true, kind and polite to all, his example should be a beacon light to most people. Many of his white fellow citizens went to bid him a last farewell at his death bed; many also were present at his burial to testify by their presence the great respect in which he was held by them. And does this not all tend to show that whenever true merit is concerned, the color line is entirely obliterated? May his soul rest in peace!"
** Please note that they have Luc's place of birth wrong.**
On Juneteenth, I contemplate the life, death, and obituary of my friend's second-great-grandfather. He was the son of a white plantation owner and a slave. At the age of 2, he was either inherited, or purchased by, his half-sister, who was 20 years older than he. He spent his life working for, and owned by, his half-sister. His half-sister and her husband had to give their permission for him to marry his wife, another slave; and when his children arrived, they were born into slavery, owned by their own aunt. He managed his half-sister's plantation after her husband died from a fever in 1856. He managed the plantation and defended his half-sister from Federal troops through the Civil War. He continued to manage her plantation until 1873, when he turned 60 years old. Then he concentrated on his own farm until his death. His half-sister died in 1881 at the age of 88. Luc died 4 years later, at the age of 71.
Did Luc and his immediate family ever celebrate Juneteenth?
I often lie in bed and wonder about his feelings about his life. He was born into slavery, and died a respected free man... I would love to be able to ask him questions.
I spend a lot of time thinking about a man named Luc DeClouette on Juneteenth each and every year.
