Phelonise was born into slavery around the year 1800 at Evergreen Plantation. Her mother, Jacinte, was one of the first people enslaved on the plantation. Jacinte had also been born on there and baptized at the nearby Catholic Church in 1780. She and her mother Marianne were the property of Christophe Haydel. Records indicate that Marianne may have been from St. Domingue (present-day Haiti). Thus when Phelonise was born, multiple generations of her family had lived on the plantation. Her family and the family that owned hers---the Haydels---had been the first to establish the plantation on the banks of the Mississippi River during the colonial era, a time fraught with disease, warfare, famine, and constant labor. Not only had the two families been inextricably linked from the beginning, they were now in fact each other’s family, related by blood. For Phelonise’s father was a Haydel. Whether her father was Christophe’s son George, his brother Jean Jacques, or his nephew Jean Jacques Jr. has not yet been determined. Phelonise adopted the surname Haydel, as did her siblings, just as any daughter would take her father’s name.
Though all her life she was called Phelonise by her family, she appeared on plantation inventories and other documents as Arthemise. This was a common naming trend during an era when plantation owners often gave the enslaved Greek and Roman classically inspired names. Slaves often rejected these names when associating with their own families and communities.
Phelonise was raised to be a domestic, cleaning the house ,serving her white relatives, and catering to their every need. Phelonise and all of her siblings were of mixed racial ancestry and worked in the big house. When she was fourteen years old, she served as godmother at her sister Germine’s baptism. Her brother died in infancy, but her five sisters lived to adulthood and were all known as the Misses Haydels.
Christophe Haydel died shortly after Phelonise’s birth. The plantation, as well as Phelonise, her mother, and her siblings, were inherited by Christophe’s daughter, Magdelaine Haydel Becnel. Magdelaine ran the plantation for the next three decades, until her death in 1830, when the property went up for sale. The proceeds were to be divided amongst her heirs. This meant that Jacinte and her children would be sold apart. Phelonise and her sisters were each purchased by a different Haydel or Becnel family member. Phelonise became the property of Jean Jacques Haydel Jr., Magdelaine’s first cousin as well as son-in-law, for he was married to her daughter Clarisse. He purchased Phelonise for $400. She was described as a Creole mulatto domestic slave. She spoke French, was a member of the Catholic Church, and was both culturally and genetically connected to the man who owned her. She left Evergreen Plantation, where she had been born and raised, the only home she had known for thirty years, and was brought to Jean Jacques Haydel’s nearby plantation. But she would not remain there long.
Four years after she left Evergreen, Phelonise was freed by Jean Jacques Haydel. It was 1834, and she was around 34 years old. Though she had no children of her own, she remained very close to her sisters and especially her niece Pamela, the daughter of her sister Celeste. Records indicate that it is likely that Pamela was the daughter of Marcien Belfort Haydel. Their relationship illustrates the tangled web that characterized the Haydel and Becnel family trees, both free and enslaved. Marcien Belfort Haydel was Jean Jacques Haydel Jr.’s son. Like his father before him, he owned his own daughter. Pamela had a relationship with a man named Jean Gaillot, who had also married into the Haydel family. The couple had many children together. They could not marry, because interracial marriage was illegal in Louisiana and because slaves could not enter into a marriage contract. Even though their father, Jean Gaillot, was free, Pamela’s children remained enslaved, for all slave children had to take the status of their mother.
After she gained her freedom, Phelonise moved to New Orleans. This urban center had the largest population of free people of color in the South. The majority of them were Creoles like Phelonise. In this community, she found a sense of belonging. She began a relationship with Jean Baptiste Montplaisir Dangluse, a native of St. Domingue (present-day Haiti) who had arrived in New Orleans after the revolution there. Dangluse was a veteran of the War of 1812 and fought at the Battle of New Orleans. On December 19, 1814, he joined Major Louis Daquin’s Second Battalion of free men of color from Haiti. These soldiers played a crucial role in the victory on the plains of Chalmette. Their commanding officer urged them forward, calling out, “March on! March on, my friends, march on against the enemies of the country!” in French. They surprised the British force and weakened them in preparation for the major battle to come, prompting General Andrew Jackson to tell them, “You surpass my hopes.” In the midst of the actual battle, they were commanded to stay in reserve but pushed forward to the British line and proved themselves once again. Recalling the performance by the Second Battalion and the death of British General Edward Packenham on the battlefield, Andrew Jackson said, “I have always believed he fell from the bullet of a free man of color.”
For the rest of his life, Dangluse spoke frequently of his military service in defense of the city at the time of the British invasion. It was clearly a defining moment in his life. He was particularly proud that he had been accepted into the grenadier’s company because he was so tall. Dangluse was closely tied to the Haitian Creole community in the city, further expanding Phelonise’s contacts in the community of free people of color. Yet she never lost touch with her niece Pamela and her grand- nieces and nephews in the country.
A decade after her own manumission, Phelonise succeeded in freeing her grand- niece and namesake. Marcien Belfort Haydel was willing to emancipate Pamela’s daughter Phelonise, likely his own granddaughter. Though the little girl was named after her great aunt, she was called Philomene all her life, possibly her middle name. Philomene was described in the sale and emancipation documents as a six-year-old quadroon, indicating ¼ African ancestry. Phelonise purchased her for $120, with the understanding that she would care for the child while Marcien Belfort Haydel sorted out the bureaucracy required to emancipate her. The laws were always changing, making it harder to free slaves, and at only six years old, Philomene did not meet the age requirement.
By entering into a contract for Philomene’s freedom and taking in the child, Phelonise essentially adopted her. Her grandniece became the child she never had and was raised in her home. Philomene considered Jean Baptiste Dangluse to be her father and took on his surname. She was present when her adoptive parents were married on March 29, 1847, at Annunciation Catholic Church on Marais Street in New Orleans. The Dangluses lived just blocks away from the church on Spain Street. But soon they would move across the river to Freetown, an area settled by free people of color that would later be called McDonoughville.
The reason for the move was a result of Dangluse’s military service. He received a bounty from the federal government, which he used to obtain the land in McDonoughville. By 1850, the small family had established a home there, and Philomene was attending school. She would be the first generation of her maternal line to be literate. It was forbidden by law to teach a slave to read and write. Now that she was free, Philomene could have an education.
Jean Baptiste Dangluse died on May 27, 1851, at three o’clock in the afternoon. He was around fifty-seven years old. Phelonise reported her husband’s death at the recorder’s office and made her mark on the death certificate as she was unable to sign her name. On this document, as on all legal documents, she declared her maiden name as Phelonise Haydel, an indication that her father was one of the white Haydel men related to the woman who had owned her.
Now in addition to being free, Phelonise Haydel Dangluse was a widow of property. For the first time in her life, she owned land and a house. Along with the forty- acre bounty that her husband had received, Phelonise was given an additional 120-acre bounty as a widow of a veteran of the War of 1812. Unfortunately a crevasse, a break in the river levee, inundated the property and caused such significant damage that Phelonise chose to sell the land to a broker. She and Philomene moved back to the city in the 1850s in reduced circumstances.
To be continued in Part II.
