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(SLAVERY.) Detailed list of 310 enslaved people on a large Louisiana sugar plantation. [10] manuscript pages, including title page reading "List of slaves on Saint St. James Plantation," 12¼ x 8 inches, stitched; minor wear and foxing. St. James Parish, LA, 1853-1856
A six-page list of 310 enslaved people as of 30 March 1853, with ages given for each, is arranged by family group. Names of a few additional children are inserted. Several are noted as deceased, with cholera is named as the cause of death for three of them. Most of the notes are in English, with a few in French. A 66-year-old woman named Melly is noted as a "sage femme" (midwife).
Following this list is a 2-page list of dozens of births and deaths extending from 1853 to early 1856; family relationships are often noted. The final page is a register titled in French "Ages and names of the horses."
St. James was a large-scale sugar plantation located in Louisiana between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. It was one of several owned by Pierre Michel La Pice de Bergondy, or Peter Lapice (1797-1884), whose family had been major sugar plantation owners in Saint Domingue and fled during the Haitian Revolution. He was one of the largest slave-owners in this section of Louisiana, and was known for technical innovations to increase production, including the first five-roller cane mill in the state. See Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Louisiana, page 534. He is not named in the volume, but it is accompanied by a worn original envelope bearing the name of his son: "Bergdony La Pice de Bergondy, papiers de familie."
