The Beaurepaire Family: Freedom to Slavery and Back Again

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The house today marked 727-729 Burgundy Street, relatively unchanged since the early 1800s, has a history that reflects the tricky navigation of enslavement and freedom by a family called the Beaurepaires. On August 25, 1828, Louis Beaurepaire, a free man of color, bought the residence from Brazile Raphael Crocker, also a free man of color. Beaurepaire had a relationship with an enslaved woman named Agathe Leveille, owned by Felix Grima, who lived around the corner at the famed Grima house located at 820 St. Louis Street.

The lives of the Grimas and the enslaved people they owned were intertwined for generations. For example, Agathe’s mother, Sophie, had been in the possession of Felix’s mother, possibly since Sophie’s birth around 1790. By 1852, Sophie remained with the Grima family, in the same household, but had been emancipated, and was living there as a free woman of color.

Agathe and Louis had four children, Charlotte, Louise, Henry, and Eugene. All four were baptized at St. Louis Cathedral and listed with their mother’s and father’s names. The sons were skilled tradesmen; Henry was a tailor and Eugene was a carpenter. While slaveowners often wanted enslaved people to be skilled, they avoided giving formal instruction and apprenticeships to enslaved people, for fear that an enslaved person would become aware of their propensity for independent financial survival and attempt escape.

Between 1846 and 1851, the Grimas emancipated all four Beaurepaire children. Henry and Eugene, valued at $1600 together, or nearly $50,000 today were willed to Felix by his mother in January of 1851. By April he emancipated them. In order to free Henry and Eugene, Felix had to submit a petition to the judge and the municipality at large. He had to specify that they had skills that would allow them to live independently and contribute financially, as well as testify that they had not committed any crimes:

“They were born and have been brought up in the home of petitioner’s late mother, and have shown themselves extremely attached to the whole of petitioner’s family to whom they have constantly been rendering great services—that they have always been good, faithful, and obedient servants, have constantly shown themselves respectful toward the white population, and that their conduct has constantly been exemplary in every respect.”

The municipality had responded with unanimous approval.

Unfortunately, by 1862, all the Beaurepaire children except Eugene had died of illness. In 1856 Eugene purchased a 32-year-old enslaved woman named Jane from the Grimas for $800. Throughout the Civil War Era, we don’t see much of Eugene or Jane in the records. However, in 1870, Eugene marries a woman named Marie Jeanne Daniel. Eugene died only two days later. What happened to the mysterious Jane? Why did Eugene purchase her from the Grimas in the first place? While these facts are not laid out explicitly, Eugene’s will makes it seem that Jane was, in fact, Marie Jeanne, and his purchase was one made so that they could be together.

In 1874, Marie Jeanne Daniel inherited the home you’re standing in front of at 727-729 Burgundy Street. Despite the fact that Louis Beaurepaire’s wife remarried, the courts granted the home as an inheritance to Eugene, but since he had died four years before, the property went to his wife, Marie Jeanne. The Grima Family assisted Marie Jeanne to ensure she received her rightful part of Eugene’s estate. Alfred Grima, one of Felix’s sons, served as her attorney and helped file her petition in 1871. Another Grima son, Edgar, drew up the inventory of Eugene’s estate. Felix Grima testified to their relationship. The courts recorded:

“[he had] known Jeanne Daniel upwards of 25 years, during which interval of time she was for a number of years a servant in his family. That witness was well acquainted with the late Eugene Beaurepaire even since his birth, and never lost sight of him up to the time of his death. That the said Eugene Beaurepaire was born in the house of the witness’ family from the consummation of [an enslaved] servant of the name of Agathe and one [Louis] Benjamin Beaurepaire, who never were united in marriage, and both of whom have departed this life for many years past, having had together several other children, all of whom are dead. That it is to witness personal knowledge that the said late Eugene Beaurepaire left no ascendants, no legitimate descendants, and no lawful or legitimate collateral.”

The total value of the estate was $2,540, or $79,023 today. The house you’re looking at was part of that estate.

We can only guess why the Grimas treated the Beaurepaires differently from the other 30 people they enslaved. Perhaps the Grimas favored them because of their lineage in a line of enslaved persons who had belonged to the Grimas for multiple generations. Perhaps they knew Louis Beaurepaire as a friendly neighbor and felt responsible for his children in some way. Perhaps because of Louis’ standing as a successful, independent, free man of color, they believed that his children deserved a life with more opportunity. Whatever their reasoning, it was not due to a distaste for slavery as an institution as he continued to build his fortune off the slave trade as a notary in New Orleans.

In 1876, Marie Jeanne sold the property on Burgundy Street.