| Notes |
- Also "Jean Joseph Fouque." I have seen him listed as the child of Lazare Fouque (1714-1791) and Claire Julien (1718-1792), but this connection needs verification. For one thing, that couple seems very much located in France.
Joseph Fouque appears as the owner and seller of several properties in the Vieux Carré Digital Survey as early as 1788.
In 1805, "Joseph Fougue" appears in the New Orleans City Directory living at 21 Rue Royal South; this directory seems to be a census taken after the Louisiana Purchase.
His household has:
2 males over 16
3 males under 16
2 females over 16
2 females under 16;
no free persons of color;
1 male slave over 16
2 male slaves under 16
4 female slaves over 16
4 female slaves under 16
A "Wid. Fouque" appears in the 1810 census for New Orleans; household has 1 male 26-44, 1 female 16-25, and 2 slaves (if it is in fact the correct entry--the handwriting makes me unsure whether it's the right person). I'm not sure how this could be him or his wife, if it's the correct entry to begin with.
This entry appears in the 1811 New Orleans directory:
Fouque, Joseph . . . negociant, merchant . . . 21 Royale
A "Joseph Fouque" appears 131 times in the Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy database as a buyer and seller of slaves between 1807 and 1813 in New Orleans, though about four transactions appear earlier, in the 1790s. Many of the slaves are given an African tribe (Wolof, Mina, Makwa, Hausa, etc.) for "African Ethnicity." (The importation of slaves was banned in 1808; these may have been in the U.S. for a while, or come from the Caribbean, or be illegal late imports.)
Many of the records took place on 8 Feb. 1813 with the seller as "Estate's (Deceased Master) Name: Fouque." It seems that he had bought a sugar planatation which was liquidated at his death. The newspaper Courier de la Louisiane lists a sale by his creditors on 29 March 1813 of "a very fine sugar plantation situate about three leagues above New Orleans on the right bank of the river purchased by the said Joseph Fouque from Mr. A Harang"; 58 slaves were to be sold.
He apparently attempted to start a large plantation, but failed; discussion of his problems the with project, and their causes, appears in Thomas Ingersoll, Mammon and Manon in Early New Orleans: The First Slave Society in the Deep South, 1718-1819 (Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1999): 276-79.
The Parish Court Index for New Orleans gives this entry:
Plaintiff: Fougue, Jh., Syndics of the Creditors of;
Defendant: Vignaud, J.
Number: 238
This worked its way to the Louisiana Supreme Court, who heard the case in July of 1820. The first is Bernard et al. v. Vignaud; and "Fougue's syndics v. Vignaud," heard in 1820.
A suit was filed against Vignaud, alleging that he had defrauded the estate of several minors—relatives—to whom he had been appointed a tutor. He had taken possession of a $5,000 estate when he became their tutor. The case was about a tutor's liability, whether or not he had taken an oath to be one.
The plaintiffs were the "children of Catherine, lately widow Bernard, in her life time a merchant of New Orleans," who died "sometime in our about the month of December, 1810," when "they were all minors; one of them (John Anthony) became of age shortly before bringing the suit; the others are still minors [in July 1820]." Fouque was the vendor of property now in the hands of Vignaud, who is being sued for recompense.
Fouque was "the defendant's [Vignaud's] father-in-law" (226). Later it says that "the wife of the defendant . . . is the witness's daughter" (234).
On 9 March 1855 Widow Desiree Vignaud, nee Fouque, died, aged 76. (Obit in the Bee/L'Abeille, 1855-03-10, Pg. 1 col. 4). Names mentioned in the obit include Vignaud, Menard, Oebruichen, and Guesnard. Son is O. Vignaud. The "widow Vignaud" appears in the 1850 census for New Orleans (4th Ward) in the house of her son Oscar Vignaud (born about 1814), married to Heloise, with four children, and two others, perhaps sisters of Oscar, named Annette and Clementine.
She would have been born, then, about 1780. This leaves two possibilities. First, I might need to revise the birth date of Joseph.
Second, this Desiree d. 1855 may be the sister of Joseph Fouque, and Desiree and her brother Joseph may have had a father also named Joseph--and thus maybe this *father* Joseph Fouque is being called to the stand in this case. And perhaps it is father Joseph who tried to start the plantation as well. And perhaps, then, it is this father Joseph who died in 1813? There is no Joseph Fouque in the NOLA death indices, however. [2, 3]
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Abt 1775 - 1813 (~ 38 years)
Marie Elizabeth Le Mercier Duquesnay
1764 - 1844 (79 years)
