Isaac Gaines

(1847-1923)

Isaac Gaines was born into slavery at Evergreen Plantation on September 26, 1847. Six months later, on April 30th of the following year, his mother Phoebe held him in her arms as he was christened at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. His given name was Gilbert, and it was what his family, friends, and the enslaved community at Evergreen called him all of his life.

Phoebe and Lewis Epps, alias Gaines, along with their infant daughter Nancy, had been sold away from their home in Virginia and brought to the slave market in New Orleans, where slave trader George Davis sold them to Lezin Becnel just two years prior to Isaac’s birth. Though Isaac was born to American parents, his assimilation into the Creole culture of a south Louisiana sugar plantation was begun at birth. He was baptized into the Catholic faith and likely spoke both English and French.

When Union gunboats came upriver and threatened the plantations of St. John the Baptist and neighboring parishes, Isaac was fifteen years old. The men who owned him and his family, Lezin and Michel Becnel, had both enlisted in the Confederate army and gone off to fight. Evergreen Plantation was seized by the Second Louisiana Native Guard and became the site of the provost marshal headquarters as well an encampment for Union soldiers. Enslaved people up and down the river took refuge at Evergreen, seeking their freedom, and the plantation grounds soon acted as a contraband camp as well. The Union army dubbed escaped slaves “contraband,” property that had been confiscated from the enemy.

After the Native Guard departed, Evergreen Plantation was confiscated by the United States government. The sugar produced there would be the property of the Union army. Isaac worked in the fields, bringing in the crop, until the 80th United States Colored Infantry appeared in the area. The regiment was assigned to patrol St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes. Isaac left the plantation and enlisted in the regiment on August 20, 1864. He claimed to be twenty years old; in reality, he was a few months shy of seventeen. It is likely he did not know the actual year of his birth and so estimated his age. He stood five foot six inches tall and declared his occupation that of a farmer. For volunteering, he received a $200 bounty from the government. It is likely that the name Isaac Gaines, which he would be called for the rest of his life, was assigned to him upon enlistment. Union army officers were frequently confused by Creole slaves’ names and often assigned them easily pronounceable Anglo-American names instead. Thus he would register to vote and appear on all census records as Isaac Gaines for the rest of his life.

After the war, Isaac returned home to St. John the Baptist parish, but he did not take up work at the plantation where he was born. He chose to labor elsewhere, bringing in the cane on other plantation’s fields. He married Martha Williams and had at least four children with her: Louis (named for his father), David, Mary, and Isaac. After being widowed in the early 1880s, Isaac met Minerva Johnson. On Christmas Eve 1889, they married and brought together their blended family of numerous children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. Their home was always open to those in need; they took in any family member who needed a place to stay.

The Gaineses moved up and down the west bank of St. James and St. John parishes, working at various plantations and struggling to get by until Isaac was awarded a pension for his service in the army due to his old age and disabilities. His 1890 pension claim stated that he was suffering from bloody flux, bowel disease, and malarial fever, and upon examination by physicians, he was diagnosed with rheumatism and cardiac weakness as well. He endured constant pain in his right shoulder due to a dislocation many years before that had never properly been treated or fully healed. At first his claim was rejected because he could not prove through doctors’ affidavits all of his ailments. He had lacked the money necessary to be under a doctor’s care for an extended period of time. Ned Edwards and Sam Dangerfield, who had also been enslaved with Isaac at Evergreen Plantation, testified on his behalf in his pension claim.

Isaac died on September 27, 1923, just one day after his seventy-sixth birthday. He was buried in Magnolia Cemetery, the final resting place for members of the First Baptist Church of Vacherie, which he and his wife attended. Minerva continued to receive benefits as his widow, allowing her to purchase a modest lot of land for $100 on which she could build a small house and live out the rest of her life. Because of Isaac’s service, she had enough to live on until her death in 1930.