Marie Therese Coincoin

Born a slave.
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http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/f/o/s/Jeremy-Foster-Loui...
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Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times edited by Janet Allured, Judith F. Gentry

https://books.google.com/books?id=R4KXWIdbqToC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=...
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The Forgotten People: Cane River's Creoles of Color By Gary B. Mills, Elizabeth Shown Mills

https://books.google.com/books?id=SfqtAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT130&lpg=PT130&d...

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Isle of Canes By Elizabeth Shown Mills https://books.google.com/books?id=MejQcZJVqPoC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=th...

The profile photo for Marie Thérèse Coincoin is erroneously credited to "The album of Michael Frances Smith."

To the contrary, that family chart is one of eight family charts that I created for my historical novel ISLE OF CANES. If the chart carries the proper (and ethical) attribution to its creator and the publication in which it appears, I would have no objection to the chart being used here at Geni. That attribution should be this: Elizabeth Shown Mills, ISLE OF CANES: A HISTORICAL NOVEL (Provo: Ancestry, 2005), xxii.

Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG

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Potential African names for Coincoin and Parents Marie louise dite MariotteBirth1747DIFFERENTNatchitoches, Natchitoches, Louisiana, USADeath2 May 1815DIFFERENT Family InfoFatherFrancoise dit Choera (-1758) MotherMarie Gertrude dit Gimby Francoise (-1758)SpousenewChildren Marie Louise (1767-) Marie Francoise (1772-) Andres (1776-) Marie Adelaide (1780-)

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When Metoyer met Coincoin in about 1767, he was about 23 years old and Coincoin was 25. He met MARIE THEREZE COINCOIN 1767 in Placee Relationship, daughter of FRANCOIS and MARIE FRANCOIS. She was born 1742 in Cane River, LA, and died 1816 in Cane River.

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Important Family Charts from "Isle of Canes", by Elizabeth Shown Mills

https://books.google.com/books?id=MejQcZJVqPoC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=th...

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COMMENTS

Chris_AQC There are many families that are confusing Marie Therese Coincoin (African slave) 1st spouse (Placage Relationship) of Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer with Marie Therese Eugenie Buard (French white women) and 2nd spouse of Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer. Note: Slaves could not get married to their Masters so a contract was drawn up called “Placage Relationship.” Any time you see marriage of a slave in Ancestry.com it is actually a “Placage Relationship!” 27 Jul 2014

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CONAND COUSINADE Web Site Updated on July 13 2015

Marie Therese Metoyer (born Coincoin) 1742 - 1816 Adds: occupation Birth: 1742

Occupation: GUERISSEUSE [ Personne qui tente de guérir des maladies mais qui utilise des techniques non reconnues par la médecine traditionnelle. Synonyme : charlatan Traduction anglais : faith healer] *

Death: 1816 Family members Husband: Claude Thomas Metoyer Daughter: MARIE SUZANNE Anty (née Metoyer) 1768 - 1830 Geni Smart Match™ Confirm this match to add this profile to Marie Thérèse "Marie Thérèse dite Coincoin" dite Coincoin (born Francois)'s Geni profile.

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Occupation: GUERISSEUSE'

HEALER, -euse , noun. and adj. A. - . Employment noun person or therapy that heals. Time and prolonged rest are the true healers [ the breakdown of horses ] ( Garcin , Vet Guide. 1944 , p. 159). - . In partic person who heals, outside of the legal medical practice, by magic or empirical processes under mysterious gifts or using personal recipes. Consult a healer. Herbalist and healer, a little witch and filling the house with the smell of herbs ( A. France , Ameth Ring. 1899 , p. 159): 1. The continued success of charlatans, like the Magi, the miracle workers, bone setters, diviners and healers , due to many factors. It is powered, in part, discouragement excusable and constantly renewed credulity of patients and their families cope with long illnesses, painful, recurrent, known, serious or difficult to cure. Bariéty , Coury , Hist. med., 1963 , p. 814. - . In fig . One who heals moral evils gentlemen, you are not of self-love healers suffering, wounded vanity of emmaillotteurs ( Chateaubr. , lib Opin on press.. 1818 , p. 197) : 2. He did not dare to question his mother because she was silent, finding no doubt painful subject (...). She would be sixteen soon, it penetrated better the open wound they suffered all three (...) and she wanted so much to be the mediator, the healer , handing the arms of one another both parents beloveds. Zola , Truth, 1902 , p. 69. B. - adj. Employment heals.

Reference: http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/gu%C3%A9risseuse

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https://books.google.com/books?id=HfmtAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA409&lpg=PA409&d... Excerpt from The Forgotten People about Coincoin Approximate Death (Page 55)

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From "Slaves & Slave Masters:

The ten Franco-African children born of the union of Coincoin and Pierre Metoyer were: + 17. I. Nicolas Augustin Metoyer, b. 22 Jan. 1768.J8 + 18. 11 . Marie Susanne Metoyer, twin of Augu stin. )~ + 19. Ill. Louis Metoyer, b. ca. 1770 when no priest was at the post to perform and record baptisms. It is probable that his baptismal was performed by a visiting pastor from Los Adaes and that the record was entered into the now-missing church records of that Spanish poSt,40 + 20. IV. Pierre Metoyer, b. ca. 1772 and bapt. in that same period. + 21. v. Dominique Metoyer, b. co. 1774; it is probable that he, too, was bapt. by a Spanish missiona ry. 22. VI. Marie Eulalic Metoyer, b. 15 Jan. 1776 and bapt. the following 28 Jan. by the newly-arrived post curate, who registered her baptism under the epithct "father unknown," then proceeded to file his charges against the man he "knew" to be res ponsible. Eulalie is mentioned in her father's will of February 1783. but not in his will of 27 April 1801. Apparently she died in the interim .~\ + 23. vii. Antoine Joseph Metoyer, b. 26 Jan. 1778.42 24. Vlll. Marie Fran~oi se Rosa lie Metoyer, b. 9 Dec. 1780, apparently died before 1783 because she is nol mentioned in her father's will.4) 25. ix. Pierre Toussaint Metoyer, the only son of Coincoin and Pierre who did not marry, was apparently the victim of unrequited love.

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Smart Match:

Marie Thérèse Metoyer (born Coincoin) 1742 - 1816 Birth: Aug 22 1742

 natchitoches (natchitoches parish) (louisiana) (usa) Death:	1816

 natchitoches (natchitoches parish) (louisiana) (usa) Family members Husband:	 Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer 1744 - 1815 Children:	 marie suzanne Conand (née Metoyer) 1768 - 1838 Louis Metoyer 1770 - 1801 Dominique Metoyer 1774 - 1839 Antoine Joseph Metoyer 1778 - 1838 Pierre Toussaint Metoyer 1782 - 1863 Nicolas Augustin Metoyer 1768 - 1856 Pierre Metoyer 1772 - 1833 Eulalie Metoyer 1776 - ? Marie Françoise Rosalie Metoyer 1780 - ? François Metoyer 1784 - 1862 Geni Undo confirm

This profile was confirmed as a match and is available on Marie Thérèse "Marie Thérèse dite Coincoin" dite Coincoin (born Francois)'s Geni profile.

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Research Credits: Added by: Rodney Metoyer on August 4, 2008 Managed by: David LeDe and 6 others

Marie Therese Coincoin •Event: Partners 1768 in Natchitoches Parish, LA

•Event: Slave 1768 in Date of purchase, Natchitoches Parish, La.

•Event: Granted Freedom 1778 in Natchitoches Parish, LA

Excerpts and extractions from Mills, Gary B., "The Forgotten People," (page citations shown).

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Marie Thereze "Coin Coin" was born a slave in 1742 in the house of Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, the first commandant of the Natchitoches military and trading outpost. St. Denis founded Natchitoches as a fort in 1714, and it has remained the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Louisiana.

"Tradition among the descendants of Marie Thereze also insists that, in addition to the official languages of her time, French and Spanish, Marie Thereze was fluent in an African dialect and that she was well trained by her parents in the native use and application of medicinal herbs and roots." p. 4.

Coincoin was the daughter of Francois and Marie Francoise, slaves of St. Denis. The ingenious entrepreneur, St. Denis, brought Francois to the Natchitoches post around 1735 during a period in which the French colonial government has suspended the African slave trade. (p. 2) St. Denis conscientiously attended to the religious welfare of his slaves; ergo Francois was baptised, given a Christian name, and married to one of St. Denis' household slaves, Marie Francois, less than two weeks after his baptism on December 26, 1735.

"The only clues to [the African origins of Francois and/or Marie Francoise] are the African names which they gave to three of their eleven children. Documents in the successions of both St. Denis and his wife often refer to Marie Gertrude by the name of Dgimby; Francois, Jr., was known by a name written variously . . . as Choera or Kiokera; and Marie Thereze was repeatedly identified as Coincoin, Quoinquin, KuenKuoin, or other variant spellings.

"One authority in African linguistics believes these names . . . belong in all probability to a linguistic group in the Gold Coast/Dahomey region. The name Coincoin is considered the most conclusive clue; its phonetic equivalent, Ko Kwe, is the name reserved for second-born daughters by the Glidzi dialect of the Ewe linguistic group which occupied the coastal region of Togo. Marie Thereze, called Coincoin, was, according to the church and civil records of the Natchitoches post, the second-born daughter of Francois and Marie Francoise." p. 3.

Francois and Marie Francoise were able to "instill in their children a respect for their African heritage . . . and with a family solidarity which characterized their descendents for the next two and a half centuries. * * * In French Louisiana . . . Article XLIII of the Code Noir proclaimed by Governor Bienville in 1724 specifically stated:

"Husbands and wives shall not be seized and sold separately when belonging to the same master; and their children, when under fourteen years of age, shall not be separated from their parents, and such seizures and sales shall be null and void. The present article shall apply to voluntary sales, and in case such sales should take place in violation of the law, the seller shall be deprived of the slave he has illegally retained, and said slave shall be adjudged to the purchaser without any additional price being required." -- p. 5

"St. Denis died on June 11, 1744 when Coincoin was only 1 or 2 years of age. It took twelve years to settle his estate, but in September, 1756, the final partition of his slaves was executed and the entire family of Francois and Marie Francois was inherited by the widow (who was the granddaughter of Captain Diego Ramon, commandant of the Presidio del Norte on the Rio Grande). Less than two years later, an apparent epidemic struck the St. Denis household. On April 16, 1758, the widow St. Denis was buried at the Natchitoches post. Three days later her slaves, Francois and Marie Francoise, were also interred. At this time, Coincoin was about 16 years old.

Soon, the slaves of the St. Denis household were partitioned again, this time among the children and grandchildren of the deceased commandant and his wife. There was no alternative now to separating the orphaned children of Francois and Marie Francoise. By lot, each of the six heirs was assigned one or two of the slave children. Marie Thereze, called Coincoin, and her brother Jean Baptiste (age 18) were inherited by Pierre Antoine Juchereau de St. Denis, the youngest son of the deceased commandant.

"At the same time, it was a fundamental principal of slavery in North America that much of a young female slave's value was dependent upon her ability to produce more slaves. Marie Thereze well fulfilled this duty. In 1759, the year following her acquisition by young St. Denis, the seventeen-year-old girl gave birth to her first child. This daughter, Marie Louise, was described by colonial records as being of full Negro blood. In 1761, while still the property of St. Denis, Marie Thereze produced her second daughter; this one, also black, was named for the mother, Thereze."

"At some point between 1761 and 1766 Marie Thereze and her two daughters became the property of her master's youngest sister, Marie des Nieges de St. Denis, wife of Antoine Manuel Bermudez y de Soto; but no record of the conveyance is extant. During this period a visiting priest, Father Ygnacio Maria Laba, baptized her third child, Francoise; the infant's racial composition was not specified. Again in 1766 Marie Thereze gave birth, this time to a son, Jean Joseph. The baptismal record of this child indicates an improvement in Marie Thereze's status, for this time she was allowed to choose his godparents herself. The godfather was her brother Jean Baptiste, still the slave of Pierre Antoine de St. Denis. The godmother was Marie Louise, Marie Thereze's oldest daughter." p. 9.

In 1762, by the terms of the Treaty of Fontainbleau, Louis XV of France ceded the Louisiana colony to his cousin, Charles III of Spain. This cecession had an impact later upon the fortunes of Marie Thereze in her concubinage with Metoyer. After the death of St. Denis, Coin Coin became the slave of St. Denis' daughter, Mme. DeSoto.

When CoinCoin met Metoyer in about 1767, she was about 25 years old and he was 23. "Yet, despite her years and the factors that prematurely aged colonial women, Marie Thereze was to attract the affection of this sophisticated, city-bred Frenchman who was, in fact, two years her junior, and was to hold his affection until she was well into the fifth decade of her life." Apparently, it was only shortly after Metoyer arrived that he persuaded Mme. de Soto to lease to him her Negro slave. "In payment for her services he promised her owners to provide her room and board, and Marie Thereze moved into the home of Metoyer. In 1771 this arrangement was made illegal when the Cabildo at New Orleans ruled that owners of slaves were henceforth prohibited from hiring them out. As in the case of many such regulations, however, enforcement at the posts as distant as Natchitoches was extremely lax. In this instance the parties involved had a double advantage, for the commandant at the post was the brother-in-law of Mme. de soto, Athanase Christophe Fortune De Mezieres. The de Soto-Metoyer lease agreement was not canceled after the passage of the new law." p.12

"It was Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer and Marie Thereze Coincoin who were the immediate progenitors of the Cane River Creoles of color. The first children of this French-African alliance were born in January of 1768, a set of twins. The boy was given the name of Nicolas Augustin, apparently after his grandfather, Nicolas Francois Metoyer, and the girl was given the name of Marie Suzanne, the name borne by her father's stepmother in France, Susanne Vinault. Both children were baptized into the Catholic faith the following month, and Catholic the family has remained, for the most part, throughout the two centuries that have followed."

The next children to be born to the couple, as best as can be determined from the records, were Louis in 1770, Pierre in 1772, Dominique in 1774, Eulalie in 1776, Antoine Joseph in 1778, Marie Francoise Roselie in 1780, Pierre Toussaint in 1782, and Francois in 1784.

In July 1778, Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer purchased Coincoin from Mme. de Soto along with a son of Coin Coin's who had been recently born [Antoine Joseph].

Shortly afterwards in 1778, Metoyer granted Coincoin her freedom in order to avoid the "Code Noir" provision which forbade a master from fathering children by his own slave, the penalty for which was the loss of the slave and the child; the sale of both for the benefit of the hospital; and the prohibition against freedom for either.

Interesting facts....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melrose_Plantation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Metoyer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&con...

Check out this Video and click the link below. Look at the one indicated

"A Video History of Cane River"

http://www.frenchcreoles.com/Cane%20River/cane%20river.htm

http://canerivertrading.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/MetoyerCTP...

The Ten children of Marie Thérèze CoinCoin and Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer 1. Nicolas Augustin (Papa Gistane (Gee-STAHN)/Grand-Père) Metoyer (1768-1856) 2. Marie Suzanne Metoyer (1768-1838) 3. Louis Metoyer (c. 1770-1832) 4. Pierre Metoyer (c. 1772-1833) 5. Dominique Metoyer (1776-1839) 6. Eulalie Metoyer (1776-1788/1801) No known issue 7. Antoine Joseph Metoyer (1778-1838) 8. Marie Françoise Metoyer (1780-1783) No known issue 9. Pierre Toussaint Metoyer (1782-1863) No known issue 10. François Metoyer (1784-1862) Once the liaison between Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer and Marie Thérèze CoinCoin was forcibly terminated Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer married Marie Thérèze Buard, widow of Étienne Pavie. The marriage took place on 13 October 1788 at the post of St. Jean Baptiste des Natchitoches. Together they had three children. Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer (12 March 1744 - 30 Sept 1815) and Marie Thérèze Buard Pavie ( - 1813) 1. Pierre Victorin Metoyer (05 Sept 1789 - ) 2. Marie Thérèze Elizabeth Metoyer (14 Nov 1790 - ) married Louis Narcisse Prudhomme I ( - ) m. 23

Sept 1806. He was the son on Manuel Prudhomme and Catherine Lambre.  3. François Benjamin Metoyer (11 July 1794 in Natchitoches, La. – 07 Dec 1845 in Natchitoches, La.) 

married Marie Aurora Lambre (04 July 1798 - 01 Sept 1877) m 17 June 1813. The bride was the 

daughter of Remigio (Remi) Lambre and Suzanne Prudhomme. See “The Natchitoches Genealogist”, Oct 

1989 issue for Aurora’s Last Will and Testament.  Prior to her liaison with Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer, Marie Thérèze CoinCoin had  already given birth to four children listed below. Information from The Forgotten People:  Cane River’s Creoles of Color by Gary Mills.  Marie Thérèze CoinCoin (1742 - Circa 1816) and Chatta Unknown ( - ) Name of mate courtesy of Elizabeth Shown Mills. He was an Indian belonging to a western tribe.  1. Marie Louise dite Mariotte (1759 – 03 May 1815) married an Unknown Indian ( - )  2. Marie Thérèze Don Manuel (1761 - 04 Feb 1831) Death is recorded at St. Martinsville Church. She  married Louis Victoriano Ramos ( - ) Marie Thérèze Don Manuel was taken to St. Landry des  Opelousas by Don Manuel de Soto and his family, but her mother CoinCoin eventually obtained her  and her son’s freedom. She and her son, and probably two other children remained in St. Landry  Parish, see Mills. It is believed that this family is now known as Victorian and are the Victorian’s of  St. Landry and Calcasieu Parishes.  3. Françoise Unknown (1763 - ) married an unknown Frenchman ( - )  4. Jean Joseph Unknown (1766 - c. 1851) Buried in Cloutierville at age 85. 

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Metoyer

^ The identification of Marie Thérèse Coincoin as Marie Thérèse Metoyer is a misnomer. At no point in her life did she use this name. All documents that she created identify her by the surname Coincoin (or a variant spelling of that name). Only one document during her lifetime assigned her the name Metoyer and that document was created by a Washington, D.C. land office official who had no personal knowledge of her. In 1806, her son Pierre Metoyer traveled to the U.S. land office at Opelousas, Louisiana, to file a claim on her behalf, calling her "his mother, Marie Thérèse, free negresse" (no surname). When the paperwork was submitted to Washington, a case label was created for the file, whereon the son's surname was assigned to her. See Claim B2146, Marie Thérèse, free Negresse, 1806 document filed under OPEL: May 1794 (the date of the Spanish patent), Opelousas Notarial Records, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge; and Serial Patent 437,269, Marie Thérèse Metoyer, RG 49, National Archives; Mills, "Marie Thérèse Coincoin (1742–1816): Slave, Slave Owner, and Paradox," discusses these records in greater detail.

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http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=799

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https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/quicklesson-16-speculatio...

CASE AT POINT Identifying “Coin Coin” of the 1820 U.S. Census

The colonial Louisiana outpost of Natchitoches produced an extraordinary African-American woman whose life has been studied by many scholars from many fields: Marie Thérèse dite [1] Coincoin, born and baptized in August 1742.[2] Dozens of original records chronicle her life, as both a slave and a freed woman, from her infancy through her declining years. No record exists for her death or burial. The 1820 census of Natchitoches Parish includes a household headed by someone called, simply, “Coin Coin.”

The one-line entry recorded for this household gives us the following detail:[3] “Coin Coin”

•1 free colored male, aged 45 and over •2 free colored females, aged 45 and over •1 free colored female, aged 26 through 44 •1 person engaged in agriculture •4 free colored persons, total

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http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/f/o/s/Jeremy-Foster-Loui...

Descendants of Marie Therese Coincoin

8. DOMINIQUE3 METOYER (MARIE THERESE2 COINCOIN, FRANCOIS1) was born 1774 in Natchitoches Parish, LA, and died 1839 in Natchitoches Parish, LA. He married MARIE MARGUERITE LECOMPTE, daughter of MARIE FRANCOISE LECOMPTE. She was born 1780 in Natchitoches Parish, LA.

Notes for DOMINIQUE METOYER: Metoyer Purchases His Two Slave Children, Dominique & Sister From St. Denis' Daughter Courtesy of Northwestern University Library Archives Natchitoches Courthouse Archives Book of Conveyances. Translation and transcription made by J. Sills in October, 1973, adhering as closely as possible to original spelling and word order.

Natchitoches Courthouse Archives. Book of Conveyance #15, Doc. #1473. Translation by J. Sills, Dec. 15, 1973.

Today, the seventh day of the month of April, one thousand seven hundred eighty, before me, Jean Louis Borme, Captain of the Militia, Commandant at the Post of Natchitoches, and in the presence of the witnesses here and after named, performing the duties of a Notary and Public Writer for lack of one in this place, there appeared, in person, Dame Marie de Saint Denis Desoto, a settler residing in this said place, who has voluntarily recognized and acknowledged having this day sold and delivered, from this day on and forever, to the Sr. Pierre Metoyer, also a settler residing in this place at the same time, and accepting for himself, his heirs and assigns, two little slaves, Dominique, six years old, and a little mulatress his sister, about four years old that the said lady guarantees against any claims, debts, and mortgages what so ever, and recognizes having had and received from the said Sr., the buyer, in cash, the sum of four hundred piastres for the price of the above mentioned two little slaves. It was thus done and passed at Natchitoches, the day and year as above, in the presence of Messieurs Miguel Melcho? And Louis DeBlanc, witnesses, who have signed with the above mentioned parties and with me, the said Commandant, where of I bear witness.

Metoyer Miguel Menchaca? Louis De Blanc witness Borme Marie de St. Denis

More About DOMINIQUE METOYER: Fact 1: mulatto

More About MARIE MARGUERITE LECOMPTE: Fact 1: mulattress

Children of DOMINIQUE METOYER and MARIE LECOMPTE are:

	i.	 	JOSEPH DOMINIQUE4 METOYER, d. May 13, 1816, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	ii.	 	LOUIS FLORENTIN METOYER, m. MARIE THEODOZE CHAGNAU, January 19, 1830, Natchitoches Parish, LA; b. Abt. 1810.

	More About LOUIS FLORENTIN METOYER: Fact 1: mulatto

	More About MARIE THEODOZE CHAGNAU: Fact 1: quadroon

	More About LOUIS METOYER and MARIE CHAGNAU: Marriage: January 19, 1830, Natchitoches Parish, LA

	iii.	 	MARIE LISE METOYER, m. LOUIS TOUSSAINT LECOURT; b. November 01, 1817, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	iv.	 	MARIE LOUISE THEOTIS METOYER, m. MARIN RACHAL.

	v.	 	MARIE MARGUERITE METOYER, m. JOSEPH EMMANUEL DUPRE, August 19, 1830, Natchitoches Parish, LA; b. August 13, 1811, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	More About JOSEPH DUPRE and MARIE METOYER: Marriage: August 19, 1830, Natchitoches Parish, LA

33. vi. MARIE SUSANNE METOYER, b. September 1801, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	vii.	 	MARIE PIERRE METOYER, b. April 19, 1803, Natchitoches Parish, LA; m. PIERRE MISSION RACHAL, February 08, 1820, Natchitoches Parish, LA; b. 1800, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	More About MARIE PIERRE METOYER: Fact 1: mulattress

	More About PIERRE MISSION RACHAL: Fact 1: quadroon

	More About PIERRE RACHAL and MARIE METOYER: Marriage: February 08, 1820, Natchitoches Parish, LA

34. viii. NARCISSE DOMINIQUE METOYER, b. February 25, 1805, Natchitoches Parish, LA. 35. ix. JEAN BAPTISTE DOMINIQUE METOYER, b. November 1808, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	x.	 	MARIE SILVIE METOYER, b. December 19, 1809, Natchitoches Parish, LA; m. JOSEPH VALLERY LACOUR, February 02, 1822, Natchitoches Parish, LA; b. 1798, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	More About JOSEPH VALLERY LACOUR: Fact 1: quadroon

	More About JOSEPH LACOUR and MARIE METOYER: Marriage: February 02, 1822, Natchitoches Parish, LA

36. xi. MARIE CELINE METOYER, b. June 04, 1813, Melrose, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	xii.	 	JOSEPH OSEM METOYER, b. May 06, 1815, Natchitoches Parish, LA; m. CATHERINE DAVID.

	xiii.	 	MARGUERITE ARTHEMISE METOYER, b. January 24, 1817, Natchitoches Parish, LA. 37.	xiv.	 	AMBROISE CHASTAIN METOYER, b. 1818, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	xv.	 	MARIE CEPHALIDE METOYER, b. January 01, 1820, Natchitoches Parish, LA; m. JEAN BAPTISTE MARRIOTTE DIT ST. VILLE; b. 1801, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

9. ANTOINE JOSEPH3 METOYER (MARIE THERESE2 COINCOIN, FRANCOIS1) was born 1778 in Natchitoches Parish, LA, and died 1838 in Natchitoches Parish, LA. He married MARIE PELAGIE LECOURT, daughter of BARTHELEMY LECOURT and MARIE LECOMPTE. She was born 1784 in Natchitoches Parish, LA.

More About ANTOINE JOSEPH METOYER: Fact 1: mulatto

More About MARIE PELAGIE LECOURT: Fact 1: octroon

Children of ANTOINE METOYER and MARIE LECOURT are:

	i.	 	MARIE SUSANNE4 METOYER, b. July 04, 1802, Natchitoches Parish, LA; d. February 28, 1803, Natchitoches Parish, LA. 38.	ii.	 	MARIE ASPASIE ANASTHASIE METOYER, b. May 24, 1804, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	iii.	 	JOSEPH ANTOINE METOYER, b. November 22, 1807, Natchitoches Parish, LA; m. MARIE DORALISE COINDET, June 25, 1831, Natchitoches Parish, LA; b. 1818, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	More About JOSEPH ANTOINE METOYER: Baptism: Name: Joseph Metoyer

	More About JOSEPH METOYER and MARIE COINDET: Marriage: June 25, 1831, Natchitoches Parish, LA

39. iv. MARIE DESNEIGES METOYER, b. 1806, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	v.	 	MARIE CELINE METOYER. 40.	vi.	 	MARIE ELINA METOYER, b. November 15, 1821, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	vii.	 	JOSEPH ZENES METOYER, b. August 12, 1818, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	viii.	 	ST. SYR HYPOLITE METOYER, b. 1828, Natchitoches Parish, LA; m. FLORESTINA; b. 1834, LA.

10. FRANCOIS COINCOIN3 METOYER (MARIE THERESE2 COINCOIN, FRANCOIS1) was born 1784 in Natchitoches Parish, LA, and died 1862 in Natchitoches Parish, LA. He married (1) MARGUERITE LAFANTASY July 23, 1804 in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, daughter of CHRISTOPHER POISSOT and FRANCOISE. He married (2) MARIE ARTHEMISE MELON June 27, 1815 in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, daughter of VICTORIA MELON. She was born 1795 in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, LA.

More About FRANCOIS METOYER and MARGUERITE LAFANTASY: Marriage: July 23, 1804, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana

More About FRANCOIS METOYER and MARIE MELON: Marriage: June 27, 1815, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana

Children of FRANCOIS METOYER and MARGUERITE LAFANTASY are: 41. i. MARIE ADELAYDE4 METOYER, b. 1804, Natchitoches Parish, LA. 42. ii. JOSEPH FRANCOIS METOYER, b. January 15, 1807, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

Children of FRANCOIS METOYER and MARIE MELON are:

	iii.	 	FRANCOIS VILCOUR4 METOYER.

	iv.	 	MARIE SUSETTE METOYER, b. January 24, 1817, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

	v.	 	OLIVER "OD" METOYER, b. 1818, Natchitoches Parish, LA; m. CATHERINE; b. 1830, LA.

	vi.	 	JOSEPH CLERVIL METOYER, b. January 30, 1819, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

11. MARIE LOUISE3 MARRIOTTE (MARIE THERESE2 COINCOIN, FRANCOIS1) was born 1759 in Natchitoches Parish, LA. She married UNKNOWN.

Notes for MARIE LOUISE MARRIOTTE: Coincoin Purchases the Freedom of Her Daughter Marie Louise Courtesy of Northwestern University Library Archives

Natchitoches Courthouse Book of Conveyance #26, Doc. #2596 Translated by J. Sills, December 1973

Today, the twenty-ninth day of the month of January of the year one thousand, seven hundred ninety-five, before me Don Louis Charles DeBlanc, Captain of the Infantry of the Armies of the King, Civil and Military Commandant of the Post of Natchitoches and dependency, performing the duties of Notary and Public Writer in the absence of one at this post: was present Marie Thereze Coincoin, a free Negress, residing at this Post, who declares and acknowledges having, by these presents, of her pure and entire will, without any coercion, but of her very own accord, given and granted liberty to the woman named Marie Louise, her slave and her daughter whom she purchased from the Sr. Pierre Dolet, by a sale signed with the Clerk of Court, to the end that from this day on and in the future, she may Peacefully enjoy the aforesaid liberty, with all the privileges accorded to freed persons, without experiencing the least impediment on her part, nor on that of her heirs or assigns.

Thus being her will, (she) wishes and intends it be accomplished, and to that end declares it firm, stable, and forever irrevocable, and in the contrary case, she gives power to the Law of the S.N. to take knowledge of her affairs and to force her to the execution of these presents, as having the force of a legal judgment, and renounces once and for all, the slavery of the said Marie Louise, her slave and her daughter, who thanks her mother for it, and promises to behave as an honest woman and under obedience to our laws; for thus it was done and passed at the said place of Natchitoches, the same day and year as in the heading, in the said presence of the Sieurs Francois Rouquier and Paul Marcollay, witnesses, and I , the above mentioned Commandant, who have signed with the said Marie Thereze Coincoin, who, not knowing how to write, has made her ordinary mark of a cross, whereof I bear witness, Rouquier, Louis De Blanc, Ordinary mark of Marie Thereze Coinquin Paul Mercollay Witness

More About MARIE LOUISE MARRIOTTE: Fact 1: mulattress

More About UNKNOWN: Fact 1: white man

Child of MARIE MARRIOTTE and UNKNOWN is: 43. i. MARIE ADELAIDE4 MARRIOTTE, b. 1780, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

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Tree Match Info from MYHeritage on 05-01-13:

Marie Thereze Partners (born Coincoin) MyHeritage family trees 

Cordero-Ellison Family Tree Web Site, managed by Samantha Ellison (Contact) Birth: 1742 - Cane River, Louisiana, USA Death: 1816 - Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, USA Parents: Francoise Slave, Marie Slave (born Francois) Siblings: Unknown Francois, Jean Baptiste, Marie Therese Buard, Unknown Barnabe, Marie Jeanne, Marie Louise, Unknown Bonaventure, Unknown Hyacinthe, Unknown Marguerite Husband: Louis Juchereau De St Denis Husband: Unknown Multiple Partners Husband: Claude Thomas Metoyer Children: Marie Louise Partner (born Mariotte), Marie Thereze Manuel, Unknown Francoise, Jean Joseph, Marie Suzanne Metoyer, Nicholas Augustin Metoyer, Louis Metoyer, Pierre Metoyer, Dominque Metoyer, Marie Eulalie Metoyer, Antoine Joseph Metoyer, Marie Francoise Metoyer, Pierre Toussaint Metoyer, Francois Metoyer ++++++++++++++++

Marie Thérèse Metoyer (born Coincoin) MyHeritage family trees  bouchinet sylvie in canton Web Site, managed by thierry canton (Contact) Birth: Aug 22 1742 - natchitoches (louisiana) (u.s.a)  Death: 1816 - natchitoches (louisiane) (u.s.a)  Husband: claude thomas pierre metoyer  Children: marie suzanne conand (née metoyer), nicolas augustin metoyer, louis metoyer, pierre metoyer, dominique metoyer, eulalie metoyer, antoine joseph metoyer, marie françoise rosalie metoyer, pierre toussaint metoyer, françois metoyer 

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Metoyer

Marie Thérèse Metoyer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Marie Thérèse dite Coincoin[1] (August 1742 – 1816) was notable as a free médecine, planter, and businesswoman in Natchitoches Parish. She was freed from slavery by her master Claude Thomas Pierre Métoyer, with whom she had a long liaison and ten children. She and her descendants established a fabled community of Créoles of color along the Cane River, including what is believed to be the first church founded by free people of color for their own use, St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church, Natchez, Louisiana. It is included as a site on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

Contents [hide] 1 Early life and family 2 Slavery and freedom 3 African origin 4 In popular culture 4.1 Sources 5 References [edit]Early life and family

Coincoin was born at the Louisiana French outpost of Natchitoches, the fourth of eleven children of François and Marie Françoise. The parents were both Africans enslaved by the post's founder and commandant, Chevalier Louis Juchereau de St. Denis; they were married in the parish church just three weeks after François' baptism in December 1735. This suggests that their marriage, like their religious "conversion," was dictated by their master. As children, Coincoin and her sister Marie Louise ditte[2] Mariotte[3] were trained in pharmacology and nursing. These skills helped provide livelihoods when the women gained their freedom as adults. Their other nine siblings would remain enslaved at various colonial posts from Natchitoches to Pensacola.

[edit]Slavery and freedom

Coincoin became the young mother of five children (born of a union with an American Indian slave, according to tradition). About 1765 her mistress leased Coincoin to a young French merchant, Claude Thomas Pierre Métoyer, who made Coincoin his concubine. After Métoyer freed her in 1778, their liaison continued until 1788. That year he married another Marie Thérèse, a white French Créole widow. Métoyer assisted Coincoin in acquiring a grant of 68 acres (280,000 m2) of alluvial river bottom land and gradually manumitted[4] the surviving eight of the ten children she had borne to him.

As a free woman, Coincoin earned her livelihood as a médecine,[5] a planter of tobacco, and a trapper. She sold meat at the post. She also shipped barrels of oil and bargeloads of tobacco to market at New Orleans.

About 1794 she applied for a Spanish grant and was awarded the standard 800 arpents (about 666 acres) of land. She located her grant in the piney hills, west of Cane River, for use as a vacherie (cattle range) and hired a Spaniard to operate it for her. Like many other freed slaves in colonial Louisiana, Coincoin bought slaves to labor for her as her own health began to fail. By the time she divided her property among her children in Spring 1816, in anticipation of death, her three slaves had increased to 16 through bearing children.

Coincoin has long been a popular figure in Louisiana lore. She is frequently said to have owned large estates, including Cane River's fabled Melrose Plantation. In the late twentieth century, historians documented that this land was granted to and the structures built by one of her sons, Louis Métoyer.[6][7] Coincoin lived a life of frugality and service to others, investing all her income into the purchase of freedom for her children born into slavery before her liaison with Métoyer, and their descendants.

The example she set, and the religious and moral values she instilled in her offspring, were the guiding forces of an exceptional community built by her children and grandchildren on Cane River. Her eldest son Augustin Metoyer donated the land for a church at Isle Brevelle, Natchez. In 1829 he commissioned his brother Louis to build the structure, St. Augustine Parish Church. It is believed to be America's first church built by free people of color for their own use.[8]

Coincoin's grave is no longer marked. Although the small bousillage[9] cabin shown as hers on a contemporary land survey no longer stands, the site has been defined by archeological study.

[edit]African origin

Tradition holds that Coincoin's African-born parents retained their culture, and some evidence supports that. No known document identifies the African birthplace of either parent. Coincoin and four of her siblings carried African names as dits.[10] One Africanist historian proposed in the 1970s that the African Coincoin (spelled variously by French and Spanish scribes) was the name used by second-born daughters among those who speak the Glidzi dialect among the Ewe of coastal Togo.[11]

The historians Mills and Mills found evidence that Coincoin was the second-born daughter in her birth family. Other possible origins of the name Coincoin, together with the names of her siblings discovered by Elizabeth Shown Mills, are being studied by the Africanist Kevin MacDonald at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, University College London.[12]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Documenting a Slave’s Birth, Parentage, and Origins (Marie Thérèse Coincoin, 1742–1816): A Test of “Oral History” http://historicpathways.com/download/coincoin.pdf

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http://historicpathways.com/download/coincoin.pdf

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https://www.facebook.com/MaisonDeMarieThereseCoincoin/timeline

Maison de Marie Therese Coincoin shared a link. January 15 In “Documenting a Slave’s Birth, Parentage, and Origins (Marie Therese Coincoin, 1742-1816): A Test of ‘Oral History’” author and Natchitoches area historian Elizabeth Shown Mills again presents the life story of Louisiana’s foremost historical female figure. The article focuses on debate over Coincoin’s place of birth (Louisiana vs Africa) and related issues, this following some scholarly speculation by Dr. Kevin MacDonald that Coincoin may have been born in Africa, his study of Coincoin being part of his academic search for traces of Africa in the New World, the so-called African diaspora. Below are the few quotations from Mill’s scholarly article, those phrases in passing, pertaining to the academic debate on the origins of the Maison de Marie Therese Coincoin (National Register of Historic Places). Mills is a genealogist and historian and not an archaeologist or historical architect, and therefore, not an expert on the Maison de Marie Therese and its authenticity. Mills relies on the findings of the 2001 NPS HABS Report and the UCL/NPS 2001 – 02 archaeological evaluation of the site for her conclusions on the maison, but not on the first and only archaeological investigation (by NSU) to excavate immediately around the standing structure. The document was published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly 96 (Dec 2008):245-66) and is available in its entirety online in the public domain at: http://historicpathways.com/download/coincoin.pdf

“On the eve of his marriage to a friend’s widow in 1788, he gave Coincoin sixty-eight acres off one side of his plantation. Metoyer retained possession of their children born before 1778 and eventually manumitted them when they reached their twenties, thirties, and forties.” [This refers to the adjacent Cane River plantations of Pierre Metoyer and Marie Therese Coincoin.]

“As a free woman, Coincoin grew tobacco, made medicine, and trapped bears and turkeys, shipping their by-products to market in New Orleans. With her earnings and at great sacrifice, she bought freedom for three children from her first union and several grandchildren.” [Traces of medicinal herbs at or near her plantaton’s home site include a toothache tree (indigenous to the area) and a strange medicinal flowering plant near the Cedar Bend Plantation. In 1792 Pierre allowed neighboring Coincoin to use his flatboat or keelboat to send her products to market in New Orleans.]

“9. Coincoin offers a case in point: a “tradition” created in 1978. In the 1970s, amid heated debate over her contribution to local history, a son of the last white owners of Melrose tore the siding off the oldest building standing on her first tract of land, found the interior construction to be bousillage (a mud and deer-hair compound Creole America used well into the 1800s), and wrote a feature article in the local newspaper detailing his “amazing discovery” and the “evidence” that “proved” Coincoin lived there rather than at Melrose. He argued that because the house stood on land given to her by Metoyer and because its material and construction methods were in use during her life, it was her home. Nowhere in that two-page article was any prior local tradition mentioned. Nonetheless, the National Park Service’s official history of the house now asserts: “Local tradition holds that the Maison de Marie Thérèse is the house where Coincoin lived while she was managing her plantation.” (Emphasis added.) See Joseph H. Henry, “Discovery of Bousillage Cabin Substantiates True Story,” Natchitoches Times, 16 April 1978, pages 8a–9a; and National Park Service, “Maison de Marie Thérèse,” Cane River National Heritage Area (http:www. nps.gov/history /nr/travel/caneriver/mai.htm).” [The Maison de Marie Therese Coincoin is indeed bousillage-entre-poteaux-sur-solle (bousillage between posts on sills) on brick piers. Its sills, posts and beams are all hand hewn with an adze. Wrought iron hardware is found in the cabin. Its construction type is typical of the late 1700s in the area. It sits exactly on the home site as indicated in the 1794 Pierre Maes survery of Coincoin’s plantation, even the axis is correct. The validity of the Maison de Marie Therese having been the home of Coincoin does not disconnect the tradition of Coincoin from Melrose Plantation or disprove that Coincoin may have spent her very last days in the Yucca House at Melrose Plantation, the home of her son Louis, or the nearby house of her son Augustin. There is no “tradition”that the Maison de Marie Therese site is the home location and plantation of Coincoin, it is known fact. The sound “Coincoin” has been thought to be as the sound of a duck as to a child, hence in the 20th century at Melrose Plantation, famed “primitive” artist Clemetine Hunter would paint ducks reminiscent of the oral tradition of Coincoin. In the case of the Maison de Marie Therese, the “Duck Test” indeed applies, pun intended, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” Why all the pressure to call it a goose, no longer abstruse (rhyme intended)?]

“The current National Park Service’s Web site for the misnamed ‘Maison de Marie Thérèse’…” [I argue the name of the maison is accurate.]

“…excavations of an abandoned dwelling site on her sixty-eight-acre homestead turned up numerous distinctly African artifacts and construction techniques—all dating to her [Coincoin%E2%80%99s] residency period.” [The first archaeological expedition (by NSU in 1978-79) to the Maison de Marie Therese concluded that the Maison de Marie Therese was the house of Coincoin but only a few African or Native American artifacts were then located (four). The second archaeological expedition to the site (by UCL/NPS in 2001-02 found more African and Native American artifacts, all but a few sherds 50 m or so from the standing structure known as the Maison de Marie Therese. The first expedition found pottery dating to the late 1700s around the standing structure, the second found such pottery about 50 m away in Coicoin’s midden but the team failed to dig within 12 m of the standing structure.]

“Clearly, when slaves in Coincoin’s household wanted to convert, she arranged it; otherwise, she appears to have respected their spiritual beliefs. Similarly, she may have allowed them to infuse other aspects of their African heritage into their lives and work—whether pottery making or the construction of out-buildings.”

[Future excavations at the Maison de Marie Therese Maison may reveal African artifacts from Coincoin herself or her slaves.]

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founding and prosperity of the Cane River Creole colony

http://www.margaretmedia.com/images/uploads/pp1-19.pdf

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Cane River’s Creoles of Color

http://www.frenchcreoles.com/Cane%20River/cane%20river.htm

Creoles http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/creoleculture.ht

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Metoyer Marie Thérèse Metoyer in Wikipedia

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http://canerivertrading.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/MetoyerCTP...

The Ten children of Marie Thérèze CoinCoin and Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer

1. Nicolas Augustin (Papa Gistane (Gee-STAHN)/Grand-Père) Metoyer (1768-1856) 2. Marie Suzanne Metoyer (1768-1838) 3. Louis Metoyer (c. 1770-1832) 4. Pierre Metoyer (c. 1772-1833) 5. Dominique Metoyer (1776-1839) 6. Eulalie Metoyer (1776-1788/1801) No known issue 7. Antoine Joseph Metoyer (1778-1838) 8. Marie Françoise Metoyer (1780-1783) No known issue 9. Pierre Toussaint Metoyer (1782-1863) No known issue 10. François Metoyer (1784-1862) Once the liaison between Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer and Marie Thérèze CoinCoin was forcibly terminated Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer married Marie Thérèze Buard, widow of Étienne Pavie. The marriage took place on 13 October 1788 at the post of St. Jean Baptiste des Natchitoches. Together they had three children. Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer (12 March 1744 - 30 Sept 1815) and Marie Thérèze Buard Pavie ( - 1813) 1. Pierre Victorin Metoyer (05 Sept 1789 - ) 2. Marie Thérèze Elizabeth Metoyer (14 Nov 1790 - ) married Louis Narcisse Prudhomme I ( - ) m. 23

Sept 1806. He was the son on Manuel Prudhomme and Catherine Lambre.  3. François Benjamin Metoyer (11 July 1794 in Natchitoches, La. – 07 Dec 1845 in Natchitoches, La.) 

married Marie Aurora Lambre (04 July 1798 - 01 Sept 1877) m 17 June 1813. The bride was the 

daughter of Remigio (Remi) Lambre and Suzanne Prudhomme. See “The Natchitoches Genealogist”, Oct 

1989 issue for Aurora’s Last Will and Testament.  Prior to her liaison with Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer, Marie Thérèze CoinCoin had  already given birth to four children listed below. Information from The Forgotten People:  Cane River’s Creoles of Color by Gary Mills.  Marie Thérèze CoinCoin (1742 - Circa 1816) and Chatta Unknown ( - ) Name of mate courtesy of Elizabeth Shown Mills. He was an Indian belonging to a western tribe.  1. Marie Louise dite Mariotte (1759 – 03 May 1815) married an Unknown Indian ( - )  2. Marie Thérèze Don Manuel (1761 - 04 Feb 1831) Death is recorded at St. Martinsville Church. She  married Louis Victoriano Ramos ( - ) Marie Thérèze Don Manuel was taken to St. Landry des  Opelousas by Don Manuel de Soto and his family, but her mother CoinCoin eventually obtained her  and her son’s freedom. She and her son, and probably two other children remained in St. Landry  Parish, see Mills. It is believed that this family is now known as Victorian and are the Victorian’s of  St. Landry and Calcasieu Parishes.  3. Françoise Unknown (1763 - ) married an unknown Frenchman ( - )  4. Jean Joseph Unknown (1766 - c. 1851) Buried in Cloutierville at age 85. 

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http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Mildred-Methvin/WE...

Marie Thereze Coincoin (b. 1742, d. 1817)

Marie Thereze Coincoin (daughter of Francois and Marie Francoise) was born 1742 in (born a slave, home of Louis Juchereau de St. Denis)/Natchitoches Parish, LA, and died 1817 in Natchitoches Parish, LA. She married Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer on Abt. 1766 in Natchitoches Parish, LA, son of Nicolas Francois Metoyer and Marie Anne Drapron.

Notes for Marie Thereze Coincoin: Excerpts and extractions from Mills, Gary B., "The Forgotten People," (page citations shown).

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Marie Thereze "Coin Coin" was born a slave in 1742 in the house of Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, the first commandant of the Natchitoches military and trading outpost. St. Denis founded Natchitoches as a fort in 1714, and it has remained the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Louisiana.

"Tradition among the descendants of Marie Thereze also insists that, in addition to the official languages of her time, French and Spanish, Marie Thereze was fluent in an African dialect and that she was well trained by her parents in the native use and application of medicinal herbs and roots." p. 4.

Coincoin was the daughter of Francois and Marie Francoise, slaves of St. Denis. The ingenious entrepreneur, St. Denis, brought Francois to the Natchitoches post around 1735 during a period in which the French colonial government has suspended the African slave trade. (p. 2) St. Denis conscientiously attended to the religious welfare of his slaves; ergo Francois was baptised, given a Christian name, and married to one of St. Denis' household slaves, Marie Francois, less than two weeks after his baptism on December 26, 1735.

"The only clues to [the African origins of Francois and/or Marie Francoise] are the African names which they gave to three of their eleven children. Documents in the successions of both St. Denis and his wife often refer to Marie Gertrude by the name of Dgimby; Francois, Jr., was known by a name written variously . . . as Choera or Kiokera; and Marie Thereze was repeatedly identified as Coincoin, Quoinquin, KuenKuoin, or other variant spellings.

"One authority in African linguistics believes these names . . . belong in all probability to a linguistic group in the Gold Coast/Dahomey region. The name Coincoin is considered the most conclusive clue; its phonetic equivalent, Ko Kwe, is the name reserved for second-born daughters by the Glidzi dialect of the Ewe linguistic group which occupied the coastal region of Togo. Marie Thereze, called Coincoin, was, according to the church and civil records of the Natchitoches post, the second-born daughter of Francois and Marie Francoise." p. 3.

Francois and Marie Francoise were able to "instill in their children a respect for their African heritage . . . and with a family solidarity which characterized their descendents for the next two and a half centuries. * * * In French Louisiana . . . Article XLIII of the Code Noir proclaimed by Governor Bienville in 1724 specifically stated:

"Husbands and wives shall not be seized and sold separately when belonging to the same master; and their children, when under fourteen years of age, shall not be separated from their parents, and such seizures and sales shall be null and void. The present article shall apply to voluntary sales, and in case such sales should take place in violation of the law, the seller shall be deprived of the slave he has illegally retained, and said slave shall be adjudged to the purchaser without any additional price being required." -- p. 5

"St. Denis died on June 11, 1744 when Coincoin was only 1 or 2 years of age. It took twelve years to settle his estate, but in September, 1756, the final partition of his slaves was executed and the entire family of Francois and Marie Francois was inherited by the widow (who was the granddaughter of Captain Diego Ramon, commandant of the Presidio del Norte on the Rio Grande). Less than two years later, an apparent epidemic struck the St. Denis household. On April 16, 1758, the widow St. Denis was buried at the Natchitoches post. Three days later her slaves, Francois and Marie Francoise, were also interred. At this time, Coincoin was about 16 years old.

Soon, the slaves of the St. Denis household were partitioned again, this time among the children and grandchildren of the deceased commandant and his wife. There was no alternative now to separating the orphaned children of Francois and Marie Francoise. By lot, each of the six heirs was assigned one or two of the slave children. Marie Thereze, called Coincoin, and her brother Jean Baptiste (age 18) were inherited by Pierre Antoine Juchereau de St. Denis, the youngest son of the deceased commandant.

"At the same time, it was a fundamental principal of slavery in North America that much of a young female slave's value was dependent upon her ability to produce more slaves. Marie Thereze well fulfilled this duty. In 1759, the year following her acquisition by young St. Denis, the seventeen-year-old girl gave birth to her first child. This daughter, Marie Louise, was described by colonial records as being of full Negro blood. In 1761, while still the property of St. Denis, Marie Thereze produced her second daughter; this one, also black, was named for the mother, Thereze."

"At some point between 1761 and 1766 Marie Thereze and her two daughters became the property of her master's youngest sister, Marie des Nieges de St. Denis, wife of Antoine Manuel Bermudez y de Soto; but no record of the conveyance is extant. During this period a visiting priest, Father Ygnacio Maria Laba, baptized her third child, Francoise; the infant's racial composition was not specified. Again in 1766 Marie Thereze gave birth, this time to a son, Jean Joseph. The baptismal record of this child indicates an improvement in Marie Thereze's status, for this time she was allowed to choose his godparents herself. The godfather was her brother Jean Baptiste, still the slave of Pierre Antoine de St. Denis. The godmother was Marie Louise, Marie Thereze's oldest daughter." p. 9.

In 1762, by the terms of the Treaty of Fontainbleau, Louis XV of France ceded the Louisiana colony to his cousin, Charles III of Spain. This cecession had an impact later upon the fortunes of Marie Thereze in her concubinage with Metoyer. After the death of St. Denis, Coin Coin became the slave of St. Denis' daughter, Mme. DeSoto.

When CoinCoin met Metoyer in about 1767, she was about 25 years old and he was 23. "Yet, despite her years and the factors that prematurely aged colonial women, Marie Thereze was to attract the affection of this sophisticated, city-bred Frenchman who was, in fact, two years her junior, and was to hold his affection until she was well into the fifth decade of her life." Apparently, it was only shortly after Metoyer arrived that he persuaded Mme. de Soto to lease to him her Negro slave. "In payment for her services he promised her owners to provide her room and board, and Marie Thereze moved into the home of Metoyer. In 1771 this arrangement was made illegal when the Cabildo at New Orleans ruled that owners of slaves were henceforth prohibited from hiring them out. As in the case of many such regulations, however, enforcement at the posts as distant as Natchitoches was extremely lax. In this instance the parties involved had a double advantage, for the commandant at the post was the brother-in-law of Mme. de soto, Athanase Christophe Fortune De Mezieres. The de Soto-Metoyer lease agreement was not canceled after the passage of the new law." p.12

"It was Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer and Marie Thereze Coincoin who were the immediate progenitors of the Cane River Creoles of color. The first children of this French-African alliance were born in January of 1768, a set of twins. The boy was given the name of Nicolas Augustin, apparently after his grandfather, Nicolas Francois Metoyer, and the girl was given the name of Marie Suzanne, the name borne by her father's stepmother in France, Susanne Vinault. Both children were baptized into the Catholic faith the following month, and Catholic the family has remained, for the most part, throughout the two centuries that have followed."

The next children to be born to the couple, as best as can be determined from the records, were Louis in 1770, Pierre in 1772, Dominique in 1774, Eulalie in 1776, Antoine Joseph in 1778, Marie Francoise Roselie in 1780, Pierre Toussaint in 1782, and Francois in 1784.

In July 1778, Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer purchased Coincoin from Mme. de Soto along with a son of Coin Coin's who had been recently born [Antoine Joseph].

Shortly afterwards in 1778, Metoyer granted Coincoin her freedom in order to avoid the "Code Noir" provision which forbade a master from fathering children by his own slave, the penalty for which was the loss of the slave and the child; the sale of both for the benefit of the hospital; and the prohibition against freedom for either.

More About Marie Thereze Coincoin: Baptism: 24 Aug 1742, Natchitoches Parish, LA. Burial: Unknown, Natchitoches Parish, LA.

More About Marie Thereze Coincoin and Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer: Granted Freedom: 1778, Natchitoches Parish, LA. Partners: Abt. 1766, Natchitoches Parish, LA. Separation: 1788, Natchitoches Parish, LA. Slave: 1768, Date of purchase, Natchitoches Parish, La..

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1069-2002May10.html Up Through Slavery Marie Therese Coincoin was in bondage for 44 years. Yet she freed her children and became a slave owner herself.

By Ken Ringle Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 12, 2002; Page F01 To study a people's history without understanding the family structure from which it evolved is to confront a robot and pretend one feels a pulse.

-- Elizabeth Shown Mills

Coincoin's eldest son, Nicolas Augustin Metoyer, founded the Church of St. Augustine near Melrose. Whites sat in back. (Northwestern State University of Louisiana - Watson Memorial Library, Cammie G. Henry Research Center)

NATCHITOCHES, La.

No one knows where Marie Therese Coincoin lies buried, but it's easy to think of the 250-year-old live oak in front of Melrose Plantation as her family tree. Its kinked and elbowed limbs stretch 100 feet or more in every direction. They're hung with Spanish moss and coated with an opportunistic bit of hitchhiking botany that in dry weather looks like nothing so much as dead and rusty lace. All the plant needs, however, is one opportunity -- a single rainstorm -- to green into leafy lushness and prosperous coexistence with the tree. It's called the resurrection fern.

The story of Marie Therese Coincoin and her descendants is as improbable as the resurrection fern, yet it's all but unknown despite its ample documentation. It flies in the face of almost everything we think we know about slavery: Melrose Plantation was built not only by former slaves but for them. It is also a cautionary tale for those tempted to simplify history or underrate the astonishing capacities of the human spirit, past or present.

"I tell people her story is my family history," says Kitchery La Cour, 22, who guides visitors through the plantation house. "And they say, 'How is that possible? How could she have achieved so much if she was a slave?' They act like life doesn't have a lot of layers where they come from. Like it does in Louisiana."

The second daughter of African slaves on the Louisiana frontier, Marie Therese Coincoin was 25 in 1767 when she caught the eye of a well-born Frenchman newly arrived in what was then a French colonyceded to Spain. She was two years older and had already had four children, but Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer was so taken with her beauty that he arranged with her owner to live with her for 19 years in defiance of church and political censure. He fathered 10 children by her and ultimately set her free with 68 acres of land.

She had been a house slave all of her life in one of the most brutal regions for North American bondage. But now free, she went to work in the fields at 44, trapping bear and growing indigo and tobacco. Colonial records detail the bateau cargo of 300 bearskins and two barrels of bear grease she shipped to New Orleans in 1792, along with 9,900 rolls of tobacco.

Gradually she managed to buy all of her children out of slavery, starting with four black children, two daughters and two sons, born before she met Metoyer. She acquired more land and 16 slaves of her own, beside whom she labored in the fields. By the time she died around 1817 at age 75, she and her children had amassed nearly 12,000 acres of plantation land -- most of which they would retain until after the Civil War -- and at least 99 slaves. They had also built their own Catholic church, which still stands. White people sat in the back.

Her descendants would become the wealthiest family of free Negroes in the United States -- the embodiment of the French-speaking gens libre de couleur, or free people of color, whose Creole culture distinguishes Louisiana to this day.

Theywould leave as a monument to their industry the lushly beautiful Melrose Plantation, in the Cane River region south of here, where cattle today graze pecan-shaded pastures dusted gold with wild mustard, and where the resurrection fern flourishes before the gracefully galleried mansion her son finished in 1833. It took him 30 years to build.

Yet far more significant than the wealth Marie Therese Coincoin left behind was her example of finding limitless possibility in the face of apparently insuperable odds.

"It's a very American story," says Elizabeth Shown Mills, the uncredited co-author of her late husband Gary Mills's "The Forgotten People" (LSU Press), the still-definitive and meticulously documented 1977 study of Coincoin and her descendants. "But it doesn't mesh with anybody's idea of how slavery worked, which is probably why it's so little known. I wonder what the reparations people would do with it?"

Bondage on the Bayou

Though the essential outrage of slavery -- ownership of one human by another -- has never changed since slavery's birth in prehistory, how that ownership shaped the lives of those enslaved varied enormously in North America. As University of Maryland historian Ira Berlin notes in his masterful 1998 slavery study "Many Thousands Gone" (Harvard University Press), the differences were not merely from plantation to plantation but from region to region, and generation to generation. CONTINUED 1 2 3 4 Next > Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1069-2002May10.htm

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http://alliesofrome.com/?page_id=853 Marie Thérèse Coincoin July 10th, 2011 Posted in Jul, 10 2011

(August 1742-1816) was notable as a free médecine, planter, and businesswoman in Natchitoches Parish. She was freed from slavery after a long liaison and ten children with Claude Thomas Pierre Métoyer. She and her descendants established the community of Créoles of color at Isle Brevelle, including what is believed to be the first church founded by free people of color for their own use, St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church, Natchez, Louisiana. It is included on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

Marie-Therese was one of the most successful entrepreneurs in colonial America. Coincoin became the young mother of five children (born of a union with an American Indian slave, according to tradition). About 1765 her mistress leased Coincoin to a young French merchant, Claude Thomas Pierre Métoyer, who made Coincoin his concubine. After Métoyer freed her in 1778, their liaison continued until 1788, when he married another Marie Thérèse, a white French Créole widow. Métoyer gave Coincoin a tract of 68 acres (280,000 m2) of alluvial river bottom land and gradually manumitted the surviving eight of the ten children she had borne to him.

As a free woman, Coincoin earned her livelihood as a médecine, a planter of tobacco, and a trapper. She sold meat at the post. She also shipped barrels of oil and bargeloads of tobacco to market at New Orleans.

About 1794 she applied for a Spanish grant and was awarded the standard 800 arpents (about 666 acres) of land. She located her grant in the piney hills, west of Cane River, for use as a vacherie (cattle range) and hired a Spaniard to operate it for her. Like many other freed slaves in colonial Louisiana, Coincoin bought slaves to labor for her as her own health began to fail. By the time she divided her property among her children in Spring 1816, in anticipation of death, the three African-born adults whom she had purchased had created a household of 16 slaves.

Coincoin has long been a popular figure in Louisiana lore. She is frequently said to have owned large estates, including Cane River’s fabled Melrose Plantation. In the late twentieth century, historians have shown that this land was granted to and built on by one of her sons, Louis Métoyer. Coincoin lived a life of frugality and service to others, investing all her income into the purchase of freedom for her pre-Métoyer children, grandchildren, and other youth in the neighborhood.

The example which she set, and the religious and moral values which she instilled in her offspring were the guiding forces of an exceptional community built by her children and grandchildren on Cane River. Her eldest son Augustin Metoyer donated the land for a church, St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church, and commissioned his brother Louis to build it in 1829 at Isle Brevelle, Natchez. It is believed to be America’s first church founded by free people of color and built for their own use.

Coincoin’s grave is no longer marked. Although the small bousillage cabin shown as hers on a contemporary land survey no longer stands, the site has been defined for archeological study.

Learn more about Marie Therese online: Washington Post Wikipedia®

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Portions of text reprinted from Wikipedia® (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License) Image of Marie Thérèse Metoyer-Coincoin taken from the public domain.

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http://pinterest.com/shareemichelle/1700-s/ Marie Thérèse ditte Coincoin, (1742-1816) was a free médecine, planter, and business woman in Natchitoches Parish. She was freed from slavery by her master Claude Thomas Pierre Métoyer, with whom she had ten children. Her descendants established a community along the Cane River. Look her up! Portrait by Jules Lion, a French free-man-of-color living in New Orleans. (More portraits at link by another free-man-of-color in that era, Julien Hudson)

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Credit to: Deanna Laws Marshall for research references!!! Thank you...

Marie Thereze ditte CoinCoin (Coincoin) Birth: August 24, 1742 Natchitoches, Natchitoches, LA, USA Death: 1816 (74) Natchitoches, Natchitoches, LA, USA (http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/f/o/s/Jeremy-Foster-Loui...) Immediate Family: Daughter of Francois and Marie Francoise Wife of Claude Thomas Metoyer Mother of Nicolas Augstin Metoyer; Marie Suzanne ditte CoinCoin; Louis Metoyer; Pierre Metoyer; Dominque Metoyer and 5 others 'Added by: Deanna Laws Marshall on March 8, 2012 Managed by: Deanna Laws Marshall'

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•Event: Partners 1768 in Natchitoches Parish, LA

•Event: Slave 1768 in Date of purchase, Natchitoches Parish, La.

•Event: Granted Freedom 1778 in Natchitoches Parish, LA

Excerpts and extractions from Mills, Gary B., "The Forgotten People," (page citations shown).

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Marie Thereze "Coin Coin" was born a slave in 1742 in the house of Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, the first commandant of the Natchitoches military and trading outpost. St. Denis founded Natchitoches as a fort in 1714, and it has remained the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Louisiana.

"Tradition among the descendants of Marie Thereze also insists that, in addition to the official languages of her time, French and Spanish, Marie Thereze was fluent in an African dialect and that she was well trained by her parents in the native use and application of medicinal herbs and roots." p. 4.

Coincoin was the daughter of Francois and Marie Francoise, slaves of St. Denis. The ingenious entrepreneur, St. Denis, brought Francois to the Natchitoches post around 1735 during a period in which the French colonial government has suspended the African slave trade. (p. 2) St. Denis conscientiously attended to the religious welfare of his slaves; ergo Francois was baptised, given a Christian name, and married to one of St. Denis' household slaves, Marie Francois, less than two weeks after his baptism on December 26, 1735.

"The only clues to [the African origins of Francois and/or Marie Francoise] are the African names which they gave to three of their eleven children. Documents in the successions of both St. Denis and his wife often refer to Marie Gertrude by the name of Dgimby; Francois, Jr., was known by a name written variously . . . as Choera or Kiokera; and Marie Thereze was repeatedly identified as Coincoin, Quoinquin, KuenKuoin, or other variant spellings.

"One authority in African linguistics believes these names . . . belong in all probability to a linguistic group in the Gold Coast/Dahomey region. The name Coincoin is considered the most conclusive clue; its phonetic equivalent, Ko Kwe, is the name reserved for second-born daughters by the Glidzi dialect of the Ewe linguistic group which occupied the coastal region of Togo. Marie Thereze, called Coincoin, was, according to the church and civil records of the Natchitoches post, the second-born daughter of Francois and Marie Francoise." p. 3.

Francois and Marie Francoise were able to "instill in their children a respect for their African heritage . . . and with a family solidarity which characterized their descendents for the next two and a half centuries. * * * In French Louisiana . . . Article XLIII of the Code Noir proclaimed by Governor Bienville in 1724 specifically stated:

"Husbands and wives shall not be seized and sold separately when belonging to the same master; and their children, when under fourteen years of age, shall not be separated from their parents, and such seizures and sales shall be null and void. The present article shall apply to voluntary sales, and in case such sales should take place in violation of the law, the seller shall be deprived of the slave he has illegally retained, and said slave shall be adjudged to the purchaser without any additional price being required." -- p. 5

"St. Denis died on June 11, 1744 when Coincoin was only 1 or 2 years of age. It took twelve years to settle his estate, but in September, 1756, the final partition of his slaves was executed and the entire family of Francois and Marie Francois was inherited by the widow (who was the granddaughter of Captain Diego Ramon, commandant of the Presidio del Norte on the Rio Grande). Less than two years later, an apparent epidemic struck the St. Denis household. On April 16, 1758, the widow St. Denis was buried at the Natchitoches post. Three days later her slaves, Francois and Marie Francoise, were also interred. At this time, Coincoin was about 16 years old.

Soon, the slaves of the St. Denis household were partitioned again, this time among the children and grandchildren of the deceased commandant and his wife. There was no alternative now to separating the orphaned children of Francois and Marie Francoise. By lot, each of the six heirs was assigned one or two of the slave children. Marie Thereze, called Coincoin, and her brother Jean Baptiste (age 18) were inherited by Pierre Antoine Juchereau de St. Denis, the youngest son of the deceased commandant.

"At the same time, it was a fundamental principal of slavery in North America that much of a young female slave's value was dependent upon her ability to produce more slaves. Marie Thereze well fulfilled this duty. In 1759, the year following her acquisition by young St. Denis, the seventeen-year-old girl gave birth to her first child. This daughter, Marie Louise, was described by colonial records as being of full Negro blood. In 1761, while still the property of St. Denis, Marie Thereze produced her second daughter; this one, also black, was named for the mother, Thereze."

"At some point between 1761 and 1766 Marie Thereze and her two daughters became the property of her master's youngest sister, Marie des Nieges de St. Denis, wife of Antoine Manuel Bermudez y de Soto; but no record of the conveyance is extant. During this period a visiting priest, Father Ygnacio Maria Laba, baptized her third child, Francoise; the infant's racial composition was not specified. Again in 1766 Marie Thereze gave birth, this time to a son, Jean Joseph. The baptismal record of this child indicates an improvement in Marie Thereze's status, for this time she was allowed to choose his godparents herself. The godfather was her brother Jean Baptiste, still the slave of Pierre Antoine de St. Denis. The godmother was Marie Louise, Marie Thereze's oldest daughter." p. 9.

In 1762, by the terms of the Treaty of Fontainbleau, Louis XV of France ceded the Louisiana colony to his cousin, Charles III of Spain. This cecession had an impact later upon the fortunes of Marie Thereze in her concubinage with Metoyer. After the death of St. Denis, Coin Coin became the slave of St. Denis' daughter, Mme. DeSoto.

When CoinCoin met Metoyer in about 1767, she was about 25 years old and he was 23. "Yet, despite her years and the factors that prematurely aged colonial women, Marie Thereze was to attract the affection of this sophisticated, city-bred Frenchman who was, in fact, two years her junior, and was to hold his affection until she was well into the fifth decade of her life." Apparently, it was only shortly after Metoyer arrived that he persuaded Mme. de Soto to lease to him her Negro slave. "In payment for her services he promised her owners to provide her room and board, and Marie Thereze moved into the home of Metoyer. In 1771 this arrangement was made illegal when the Cabildo at New Orleans ruled that owners of slaves were henceforth prohibited from hiring them out. As in the case of many such regulations, however, enforcement at the posts as distant as Natchitoches was extremely lax. In this instance the parties involved had a double advantage, for the commandant at the post was the brother-in-law of Mme. de soto, Athanase Christophe Fortune De Mezieres. The de Soto-Metoyer lease agreement was not canceled after the passage of the new law." p.12

"It was Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer and Marie Thereze Coincoin who were the immediate progenitors of the Cane River Creoles of color. The first children of this French-African alliance were born in January of 1768, a set of twins. The boy was given the name of Nicolas Augustin, apparently after his grandfather, Nicolas Francois Metoyer, and the girl was given the name of Marie Suzanne, the name borne by her father's stepmother in France, Susanne Vinault. Both children were baptized into the Catholic faith the following month, and Catholic the family has remained, for the most part, throughout the two centuries that have followed."

The next children to be born to the couple, as best as can be determined from the records, were Louis in 1770, Pierre in 1772, Dominique in 1774, Eulalie in 1776, Antoine Joseph in 1778, Marie Francoise Roselie in 1780, Pierre Toussaint in 1782, and Francois in 1784.

In July 1778, Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer purchased Coincoin from Mme. de Soto along with a son of Coin Coin's who had been recently born [Antoine Joseph].

Shortly afterwards in 1778, Metoyer granted Coincoin her freedom in order to avoid the "Code Noir" provision which forbade a master from fathering children by his own slave, the penalty for which was the loss of the slave and the child; the sale of both for the benefit of the hospital; and the prohibition against freedom for either.

Interesting facts....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melrose_Plantation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Metoyer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&con...¬Found=true+

Check out this Video and click the link below. Look at the one indicated

"A Video History of Cane River"

http://www.frenchcreoles.com/Cane%20River/cane%20river.htm

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Marie Thérèse dite Coincoin CoinCoin (1752 - c.1816) Daughter of Francois (Togo, Africa) and Marie Francoise Francoise (Togo, Africa) Wife of Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer Partner of Choctaw Chicito Mother of Marie (Coincoin); Jean Joseph; Marie Therese Don-Manuel; Nicolas Chicito and 10 others Sister of Marie Louise dit Marriotte * and Barnaby David LeDe

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http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=799

KnowLA: The Encyclopedia of Louisiana History, Culture and Community KnowLA is a comprehensive, dynamic online reference guide to the history and culture of Louisiana. The encyclopedia is accessible to anyone with a web-enabled device, free of charge. Marie Therese Coincoin (1742 – 1816) Marie Thérèse, called Coincoin, a freed slave in colonial Natchitoches, is an icon of American slavery and Louisiana’s Creole culture. As a bondswoman who became a free planter and entrepreneur, she symbolizes female selfdetermination in a world that imposed economic, legal, and sexual subservience on all women. As the mother of two diverse sets of children born between 1759 and 1785, she personifies the way slavery undermined the stability of slave families. Her successes and those of her offspring reflect the critical skills needed by free people of color to navigate political and racial currents in antebellum America. Two of their institutions—Melrose Plantation and St. Augustine’s Church on Isle Brevelle, founded by her sons Louis Metoyer and Nicolas Augustin Metoyer—are historical landmarks that preserve Cane River’s Creole culture. Early Life Coincoin’s life straddled three political regimes: French, Spanish, and American. Each significantly affected her. At her birth in 1742, Louisiana was a French colony in which the Code Noir governed Africans and their offspring. The code’s respect for families allowed her African-born parents, known only by their baptismal names François and Marie Françoise, to marry in a Catholic ceremony in 1736. It also enabled them to keep their family intact through twenty-two years of marriage. However, the economic interests of slaveholders, also protected by the Code, Related Searches: Definite Article Bible Encyclopedia Online Reference Materials Reference Online Online Dictionary And Thesaurus World Book Encyclopedia In The Free Online Encyclopedia Download Dictionaries Page 1 of 5 http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=799 5/12/2013 offered few opportunities to escape servitude. Thus, economic realities split Coincoin’s birth family after the deaths of her parents and her master’s widow, Mme. Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, in an epidemic when Coincoin was sixteen. While the tribal origins of Coincoin’s parents go unstated in extant records, the African names they gave to her and four siblings (Coincoin, Dgimby, Choera, Chocra, and Yancdose) provide clues that linguists are now exploring. Life in Slavery French colonial social policies condoned Coincoin’s sexual exploitation, and the subsequent transfer of Louisiana to Spain subjected her to the age-old practice of punishing female victims of that abuse. She would use both violations of her person as a pathway to freedom. In 1767, Coincoin’s new mistress (and godmother) rented her to a French bachelor, Pierre Claude Thomas Metoyer, by whom she bore another ten children. Prosecuted for these pregnancies by the parish priest, who branded her a “public prostitute,” she was sentenced to the lash and public humiliation. In the wake of this punishment, which was not exacted upon the man she sexually served, Metoyer bought her freedom. When he eventually set her aside for a legal wife, he deeded her his unpatented interest in a small tract of sixty-seven acres, as an economic start for her and their younger, free-born children. Life as a Freedwoman As a freedwoman, Coincoin created an existence that now seems both emblematic and enigmatic. Contrary to modern expectations, she displayed no antipathy for the institution of slavery. Like many other freedwomen in Spanish Louisiana, she accepted slavery as an economic and social exigency and used it to create a legacy that has endured across two centuries. Toward this end she was aided by Spain’s legal code, Las Siete Partidas, which granted free land, encouraged manumissions, and mandated compulsory emancipations for slaves when kinsmen or benefactors offered a fair price. Manipulating these legal and economic systems, Related Searches: Definite Article Bible Encyclopedia Online Reference Materials Reference Online Online Dictionary And Thesaurus World Book Encyclopedia In The Free Online Encyclopedia Download Dictionaries Page 2 of 5 http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=799 5/12/2013 Coincoin purchased the freedom of six children and grandchildren; she also obtained a land grant that was vast in acreage though poor in quality. With the help of her younger children, Coincoin operated a modest tobacco farm on her original homestead. She trapped wildlife to sell its byproducts at market and manufactured medicines, a skill— apparently learned from her African-born parents—for which she and her freed sister, Mariotte, were noted at the post. Eventually, she employed a Spaniard to oversee a vacherie (cattle ranch) on her piney-woods grant. As her children matured and began their own enterprises, and her advancing age and the physical effects of fifteen childbirths limited her ability to labor, Coincoin bought a young African woman to assist her—and ultimately, two African males. The relationship that developed between her and her enslaved “property” perhaps reflected her ambivalence between the culture she had embraced as a Louisiana native and the African traditions her parents would have taught her to respect. As a seemingly devout Catholic, Coincoin made certain that each child borne by her bondwoman was baptized the next time a priest visited their outlying plantation. However, contrary to the practice of other Catholic slaveholders of her region, she did not force her African slaves to convert to Christianity. The Congolese Louis chose baptism two years after he arrived at the post, the Congoborn Marguerite waited at least twelve years, and the Quissay Harry was never baptized at Natchitoches. By the eve of Coincoin’s death in 1816, under a far more restrictive American regime, she had accumulated an estate of more than a thousand acres and sixteen slaves—thirteen of them the children and grandchildren of Marguerite. Coincoin’s own offspring, in the decades that followed, built upon her foundation, creating an agricultural empire that made them the wealthiest free family of color in the nation. Legacy Coincoin’s legacy is commemorated at historical sites along Natchitoches’ Cane River, the seat of an enduring Creole society preserved by her Metoyer offspring. Melrose Plantation, developed by her son Louis Metoyer but often erroneously attributed to her, Related Searches: Definite