Landrys in Louisiana

Before there were digital cameras or computers; before there were footprints on the moon; before there was FM radio, photography, or Morse Code; before there were cars, dandy horses, or hot air balloons; and before there was a Declaration of Independence; there were Landrys in Louisiana. Or was it Louisianne or Luiciana? Whatever you want to call it and whoever it was owned by, a Landry was there two hundred and fifty years ago.

In St. Martinville, a wall was erected to honor those Acadian Exiles who made it to Louisiana. You can see our ancestors Augustin Landry, Marie Madeleine Babin, and their son Joseph Ignace on the list.

After spending about 100 years in Acadie, which is the area of modern day Nova Scotia, our Landry family was part of the Grand Derangement that was started in 1755.  Thousands of Acadians were driven from their lands by the English.  Even though the Acadians tried to maintain a neutrality in their community in North America, they still fell victim to the ravages of wars between England and France in the 1700s.  After their homes were burned and they were separated from their families, they were boarded onto ships and carried to places where they were mostly not welcome.  Some of them didn’t survive the passage.

Some of those survivors were our Landry family, who at the time consisted of Augustin Landry (b. 1719) and his wife Marie Magdelena Babin (b. 1725).  With them were a daughter named Marie and a son named Joseph Marie from his first marriage, a son named Joseph Ignatius (b. 1748-our ancestor), daughter Marguerite, and a son Mathurin.  There was another child, too. He was either Louis (according to Daddy), or she was Madeleine (according to the Wall).  (I have found further documents that show that there definitely was another daughter named Madeleine.  No Louis, so my dad was incorrect this time.  It happens.)  (2021- Oops.  More investigation shows that there was also a Louis Landry born in 1769.  So there was a Madeleine and a Louis.  Daddy was correct after all!) The family spent some years in Maryland where one or two of the youngest children may have been born.

There were other family members that were exiled in Maryland as well.  I don’t know all of the details, but some of Augustin’s close family were there.  He actually had two sisters (Bridgitte and Anne Marie) that died in Maryland during their time of exile there.  They did not have many fond memories of their stay in Maryland.

Then there was a spark of hope in 1767.  The Spanish crown was in possession of land along the Mississippi River and they were looking for people who were willing to populate the area.  Somehow the Landry family heard this news and it sounded promising.  So they loaded up all of their worldly possessions – two trunks is what they were known to have – and went to Louisiana.  And sure enough, they were given a land grant encompassing 8 arpents frontage along the Mississippi River at St. Gabriel (about 6 miles from where I work).

And now we get to the whole reason I am telling this story!  I found a document the other day that I was very excited to find.  I had read about it on someone’s information about Augustin, but had not seen it.  After Augustin had been in Louisiana a couple of years, the Spanish king must have gotten a little worried about the people he had given land to.  So once they had grown accustomed to having the land and putting much labor into developing it, they were required to swear their allegiance to Spain.  After decades of arguing with the English about oaths of fidelity and trying to maintain neutrality, the only thing it got them was a harsh eviction notice and a dozen years of being nomads.  They were probably read to just sign on the dotted line.

August Landry made his mark to signify his unconditional oath of allegiance to Spain in 1769.

In this case, it was more of an “X marks the spot.”  Obviously Augustin could not read or write.  At least that’s what I infer from someone who cannot write his own name.  Wouldn’t that be the first thing you’d learn to write? Not that I’m implying that there was something wrong with him.  We are all a product of our time and our experience.

And if he couldn’t read or write, it amazes me how people learned the news of their relatives in different places.  There was no TV or telephone, but the Acadians did hear news of their families in Louisiana one way or another.  I suppose those that could write wrote to those that could read.  The news spread, and many more of them came here to start anew.  And the Landrys were among them.

When the cotton gin was invented and made its way to Louisiana, a Landry was there to use it.  When the telegraph came around, I’m sure some of those Landrys could read and write and make use of it.  The same could be said for many more innovations through the years.

In fact one Landry in Louisiana is typing words on a computer this instant and a short time after that quite a few other Landrys and their kin all over the world will have access to those words.  Quite a bit of a difference from the ancestor they will be reading about.

Have read about.

For more information about my Landry family’s Exile experience, check out this post:

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 1 – Landry/Babin