Transitions by Mike Hormek - HTML preview

Chapter 1

Thomas, a tall, lanky character with a flat Cajun accent, wore comfortable cloth bib overalls called

"slops." By every account, he should have been a field laborer, not a successful nineteenth-century South Louisiana plantation owner. His family immigrated to the Atchafalaya Basin during the exodus from Nova Scotia, circa 1765 to 1788, when 3,000 Acadians settled the tangled swamps during a fabled diaspora, chronicled in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's love-starved, epic poem, "Evangeline." Living conditions were deplorable, but who else but Cajuns would want to live in a mosquito, alligator-infested swamp doing work no one else wants. The resilient Acadians were impoverished, enslaved, imprisoned, and exiled—yet they thrived.

Their language, a mixture of French and Canadian English, was challenging, misunderstood, and difficult to understand. Illiteracy was rampant, and their children were sometimes removed and forced into fieldwork. The Cajuns relied on their kind for survival, including marriage, as French settlers rejected them. Thomas was an only child. He never married, though Cajuns began marrying outside their own during the Civil War.

Thomas had no known heirs. His parents, Joseph and Marie Thibodeaux, were in their early thirties when they arrived at the vast Atchafalaya Basin in 1788. He recalled a constant early struggle to survive. Their shelters were placed on the water's edge, as road travel was non-existent. Transportation was by boat. The heat and humidity were overbearing, and the regular impromptu thunderstorms mes-merized the displaced, hearty population.

Their canoes were cypress bark. These were sturdy, dugout pirogues, essential for survival.

Meals of alligators and other swamp creatures were on the menu. White-tailed deer bore essential furs and meat, as did other abundant swamp critters like nutria, rabbit, raccoon, and squirrel. Corn and vegetables grew on cleared fields, and life became more manageable, though a strict reliance on each other was critical for survival.

The Acadians became expert hunters and trappers. The Cajun colonies were self-sufficient only after many families settled, and no one was allowed into their realm except for traders, sailors, soldiers, artisans, and missionaries. Their heritage grain crops needed to be more sustainable in swampy Southern Louisiana. They were grown only in the North and transported south to the colonies. Fish, fruit, and cattle were traded surplus. Some Acadians obtained jobs on tobacco and sugar plantations outside the black slave community.

It was uncommon for Acadians to enslave people, as few Cajuns accumulated wealth during that period. However, Thomas did, although how remained a lifelong mystery. In the early days of their settlement, his parents worked on the plantation as overseers of the field workers. They were farmers when they lived in Canada, so they had basic agricultural knowledge.

Thomas and his parents learned that the plantation owners had no heirs, were of retirement age, wanted to preserve the plantation, and were distrustful of anyone buying it and honoring their wishes.

Nevertheless, they offered the place to his parents. The sale was for little money, as they were poor.

However, the plantation owners no longer condoned slavery. Joseph and Marie could not afford em-

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ployees to replace the enslaved people and were afraid to free them for fear they would flee altogether.

So, against the wishes of the former owners, the enslaved people remained in place. Several landown-ers during those periods experienced slave uprisings, and they formed a coalition to protect one another from the nuisance of enslaved people. Hangings were a common, if not an unsightly remedy.

Boro, an enslaved person, was a known area troublemaker who frequently escaped. A vigilante group chased and rounded him up and lynched him on the Thibodeaux plantation. Thomas was 15 at the time, 21 when unknown assailants murdered his parents. The enslaved people resented Boro's lynching, considering it unjust. Joseph and Marie were respected among the enslaved, as they treated them well. Thomas's parents respected the French custom of Code Noir. The Black Code that protected enslaved people from abuse.

It was instead the vigilante group that instilled fear among blacks. Mutilated and hanged enslaved people set a powerful example of the high price paid by a troublemaker. The vigilantes did not believe in nor did they follow The Black Code, which gave enslaved people a semblance of rights, in -

cluding the right to marry and the right not to be tortured by their owners, and forbade the separation of married couples and children from mothers.

Missionaries instilled the among the enslaved people. Mixed marriages were strictly forbidden, enslaved person punishment was allowed, and the coalition did not tolerate free enslaved people.

Thomas hired an experienced white overseer, John, and promoted a black driver, Moses, to handle the 20 or so field workers and three inside help at the place they called "The Big House".

For the next several years, Thomas and his overseers farmed tobacco, cotton, and sugar, and Thomas promoted another black driver, Adam. He took an occasional fancy to the mature slave girls, remembering not to solicit those who were married, as his father did, as the mistake cost him and his mother their lives.

Joseph, Thomas's father, solicited a married slave girl, N'Tumba. In the course of the affair, the woman's husband, Gess, discovered them entering the sleeping bedroom. The next day, the overseers found the bodies, their throats cut. The staff was afraid and did not respond to the sound of the incident when it happened. Thomas was asleep and did not hear anything. Gess escaped but was caught in the Atchafalaya swamp days later by the Vigilantes. He was hung by his feet, upside down from a cypress tree branch hanging over the water, and left to die. Mosquitoes and water moccasins writhed around him until he succumbed. They untied him., and he became alligator food.

Lydia was Thomas's lover of choice, though no love was involved. She was a tall, slim woman with broken English, though she spoke Cajun French well.

She was of light complexion, almost mulatto. Still, he did not think there was anything other than black in her heritage, as her paperwork contended she was of strict African origin. Her family entered the U.S. from the Congo via Haiti. Like many enslaved people that came from the Congo, Lydia practiced La Voodoo, or ancestry worship, derived from Syncretism and Roman Catholic influences in Haiti. Thomas tolerated the Voodoo out of respect for his parents., who were proponents of The Black Code.

After many overnight stays, Lydia became pregnant. She never fought against his advances, as Thomas was known to deliver as many as 20 lashes for insubordination. Lydia, along with an accom -

plice, ran to New Orleans. There was a group there that protected runaways, disguising them as formerly enslaved people.

Thomas had a bull terrier he used on deer hunts. It was a good tracking dog. He and the over -

seers tracked the couple through the swamp and caught them. Mosquitoes, gnats, and the elements took a toll on their bodies, but they were okay. Because Lydia was pregnant, Thomas did not want to harm the baby when he delivered her punishment. He dug a hole in the ground and forced her to lie face

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down with her stomach in the hole so as not to put any pressure on the baby. He delivered 20 lashes to each woman. The healthy baby girl, a Mulatto, named Sally, was born 30 days later in the year 1860.

The disagreement about the institution of slavery came to a head when eleven Southern states, beginning with South Carolina, left the Union in 1860, leading to one of the most misunderstood events in American history. Louisiana seceded on January 26, 1861. Jefferson Davis, a former U.S. senator and Secretary of War, was elected President of the Confederate States of America by the members of the Confederate Constitutional Convention. When President Lincoln became president in 1860, Louisiana possessed over 331,000 enslaved people or 47 percent of its population.

Louisianians prepared themselves accordingly. By the time the war began, Thomas had his plantation well positioned. The sugar, tobacco, and cotton crops flourished, and corn, potatoes, and vegetables were plentiful.

Fort Sumpter, S.C., was considered a Union stronghold and was fired upon by the South Carolina militia on April 12, 1861. The Confederate Army did not exist. The U.S. Army stationed there surrendered, beginning the Civil War. While many male Lousianians volunteered to fight, the men of New Orleans were not as enthusiastic and more skeptical. Thomas cut a deal with the newly-formed Confederate Army to provide food from the plantation to support the war effort. In turn, he was made exempt from military service. Plantation crops were deferred to New Orleans when General Mansfield evacuated the city without a fight after 5000 men left the Crescent City to join the Union Army.

As the war progressed, Louisianans embraced Guerrilla warfare and relied only on the militia and themselves for protection from Union soldiers. The locals violently rebuffed attempts by rogue Union soldiers to pillage plantation crops and supplies, as they preyed on local civilians and businesses for survival. These miscreants comprised draft dodgers, deserters, and outlaws. The war in Louisiana was confusing, at best. No one knew what was going on. The Union controlled the entire lower Mississippi River, dividing the Confederacy into two parts.

Discord among the enslaved people increased as word spread about New Orleans protecting runaways and free enslaved people. "Maroon" communities proliferated in the swamps, aiding and abetting runaways. They had access to food and supplies, and Native American Tribes assisted them.

They provided safe passage to New Orleans, where a safe Camp, Parapet, was established upriver by a General Phelps. The Confederates believed they were in charge of the destiny of the world, ignoring the chaos created by slavery. A considerable struggle prevailed between enslaved people, enslavers, and the Union.

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