Benjamin Laurent Millaudon
Benjamin Laurent Millaudon | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1786 Avignon, France |
| Died | 1868 |
| Nationality | French, then American |
| Occupation(s) | Merchant, real estate investor, railroad developer, planter |
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Benjamin Laurent Millaudon (1786–1868) was an wealthy merchant, real-estate investor, and railroad developer of early 19th-century New Orleans.[1] Described as a "self-made tycoon", he had emigrated to the United States from Avignon, France around 1802.[2] In additional to his mercantile investments, he owned huge and lucrative sugar plantations worked by hundreds of slaves.[2][3]
Biography
[edit]The Historic New Orleans Collection holds documents from Millaudon's life and career, including the Benjamin–Millaudon Papers (90-21-L), which relate to business between Millaudon and future Confederate cabinet officer Judah P. Benjamin, and the Millaudon and Gardanne Family Papers (2015.0073), which relate to two of his children, Philippe Millaudon (1823–1855), and Jeanne Henriette Millaudon Gardanne (1821–1902), and to Millaudon's legal ownership of 490 people who were enslaved to sugar work at Millaudon Plantation, which was "located in the vicinity of present-day Marrero on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish and encompass[ed] roughly eight square miles."[4]
A coastwise slave-ship manifest from 1837, held at the New-York Historical Society, lists "Lawrence Millaudon" and George Lane as the consignees of a shipment of 73 enslaved people sailing from Alexandria, Virginia, to New Orleans on the brig Isaac Franklin.[5] His railroad interests included cofounding the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad.[3] The 1856 steamship Laurent Millaudon was either named for him or built by him.[1]
Just before the American Civil War, Millaudon sold his million-dollar (in 1859 currency) sugar plantation to his son.[2] In 1862, there was a violent altercation involving whips, axes, and guns, between Henry Clement "H.C." Millaudon, the overseer (Millaudon's son, who had purchased the property from his father in 1859, along with 443 slavehands). The result was that H.C. Millaudon was killed, and several people were wounded before 150 slaves self-emancipated and left the plantation for good en masse.[6] After the war, investors from Boston who had purchased the plantation relatively cheap hired Chinese immigrant laborers to take the slaves' place.[6]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Cuevas, John (2014-01-10). Cat Island: The History of a Mississippi Gulf Coast Barrier Island. McFarland. pp. 143–144. ISBN 978-0-7864-8578-9.
- ^ a b c Campanella, Richard (2020-05-06). The West Bank of Greater New Orleans: A Historical Geography. LSU Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-8071-7366-4.
- ^ a b Lobban, Michael; Williams, Ian (2020-09-03). Networks and Connections in Legal History. Cambridge University Press. p. 217. ISBN 978-1-108-49088-7.
- ^ Eichhorn, M. L. (Summer 2015). "Millaudon and Gardanne Family Papers (2015.0073)" (PDF). The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly. XXXII (3): 24. ISSN 0886-2109.
- ^ "[Manifest of the Brig Isaac Franklin] | New York Historical Society". digitalcollections.nyhistory.org. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
- ^ a b Jung, Moon-Ho (2006). Coolies and Cane: Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of Emancipation. JHU Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-8018-8281-4.
External links
[edit]- Millaudon, Laurent; Boswell, William; Greeves, John G. "Sale of Land from Laurent Millaudon to John G. Greeves". Charles F. Heartman Manuscripts of Slavery Collection, Xavier University of Louisiana, Archives and Special Collections – via JSTOR.
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- 1786 births
- 1868 deaths
- French emigrants to the United States
- 19th-century American businesspeople
- American slave owners
- Businesspeople from New Orleans
- 19th-century American planters
- People from Avignon
- Sugar plantation owners
- Sugar industry of Louisiana
- American sugar industry businesspeople
- American people stubs