Marie the Natchez

Although the fate of the Natchez who made it to Saint Domingue after being sold into slavery is not fully known, some of the survivors do appear in local records of the colony. One case, from the inventory of a deceased planter in 1737, Gilles Bourgouin, lists a Marie priced as 900 livres. This find comes from a Haitian genealogy group on social media, which occasionally shares interesting information, documents, and oral traditions. What is interesting about this case from 1737 is the identification of the enslaved Marie as being of the Natchez nation. She was likely part of the 164 Natchez brought to Le Cap in 1731. Was she a domestic on the habitation of Bourgouin? All we can say is that she was living in Saint Louis du Sud and was around 25 years old in 1737.