Monsanto family
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The Monsanto family is a historical
Dutch Empire and to the Americas at Curaçao. The family arrived in Louisiana in the 1760s, and one of their members, Isaac Monsanto, was one of the wealthiest merchants in New Orleans. The family engaged in the Atlantic slave trade and owned African slaves at their plantations at Natchez, Mississippi (this was later known as Glenfield Plantation
) and Trianon, New Orleans. Not including their former estate in New Orleans, by the 1780s, the Monsantos kept 51 slaves for their personal use and sold other enslaved African people to Louisiana plantations.
History
The Monsanto family were
Atlantic Sea to Curaçao in the Caribbean, which was then part of the Netherlands Antilles
.
In the aftermath of the
Spanish Louisiana. The transfer was actually gradual and in a state of flux during the time that the Monsanto family arrived. Previously, Jews were technically barred from living in French America from 1685 onwards under the terms of the Code Noir, though this was not enforced as strictly during the political flux of the mid-1700s and so the Monsanto family were able to operate. This and the end of the Seven Years' War, which meant the opportunity for trade with Europe, attracted Jews to New Orleans who had been involved in the slave trade in the Caribbean (ie - Curaçao, Jamaica and Saint-Domingue)[2] and also the inter-American slave trade between the Caribbean and territories bordering the Gulf of Mexico
.
Indeed, it was Isaac Monsanto (died 1778) who was the first member of the family to arrive in
Point Coupee, still part of Spanish Louisiana. Isaac Monsanto would dip in and out of New Orleans itself with little suppression from the Spanish authorities, now that the Sephardim's economic influence had been reduced.[4] The governor Luis de Unzaga Amézaga 'le Conciliateur', characterized by his tolerance and also with Sephardic origins, signed the visas for the merchant Isaac Monsanto and his son Jacob Monsanto, who had businesses between Manchac, Mobile and Pensacola and from 1774 in New Orleans too again.[5]
The Monsanto sisters settled in
Lowland Scot, was involved in local politics in West Florida. During the American Revolution, Manchac was captured by the Spanish ending Monsanto influence there.[4] After the death of her husband in 1779, Angélica Monsanto married another Lowland Scot, Dr. Robert Dow and returned to New Orleans. After the death of Isaac, the brothers Manuel, Benjamin and Jacob Monsanto continued on their merchant activities. As well as the earlier slave plantation at Trianon, Benjamin Monsanto and his wife Clara owned a 500-acre slave plantation on St Catherine's Creek near Natchez, Mississippi from 1787 onwards (this was later known as Glenfield Plantation).[6][7] During this time the Monsantos kept 51 Africans as their slaves for personal use (Benjamin owned 17, Angélica owned 8, Eleanora owned 4 and Manuel owned 12) and sold other enslaved Black people to slave plantations owners in Louisiana.[8] One of the biggest slave deals Benjamin Monsanto engaged in occurred in 1785, when he traded thirteen "Negroes" for three thousand pounds of indigo.[4] As well as slaves and indigo, they also traded in liquor, clothes, silverware, lumber, fabric, tea, tobacco, soap, animals furs and horses.[4] As a multilingual and cosmopolitan family who could speak French, Spanish and English, the Monsantos were effective operators among the various different European settlers in the area and even after their "official" expulsion from New Orleans still had strong contacts with the local establishment. Manuel and Jacob Monsanto were back living at Toulouse Street in New Orleans by the mid-1780s.[4] Benjamin Monsanto (died 10 October 1794) was appointed by Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, the Governor of Spanish Louisiana, to teams of citizens who dealt with inventories and appraisals of the slave plantation estates of deceased neighbours.[9] Benjamin Monsanto had a brother, Manuel Jacob Monsanto, who was also prominent in Louisiana, he was known for his involvement in the slave trade where he dealt in African slaves (he engaged in twelve such contracts between 1787 and 1789).[10][11]
A scion of the Monsanto family was Mauricio Méndez Monsanto (1835–1891) who had business operations based out of
Vieques in Puerto Rico
, who was ennobled by the Spanish for his role in Vieques' commercialisation.
See also
References
Footnotes
- ^ Ford & Stiefel 2012
- ^ a b c d Ford & Stiefel 2012, p. 37
- ^ a b c Bauman 2011, p. 14
- ^ a b c d e f g Ford & Stiefel 2012, p. 38
- ^ Cazorla, Frank, G. Baena, Rosa, Polo, David, Reder Gadow, Marion (2019) The governor Louis de Unzaga Amezaga (1717-1793) Pioneer in the birth of the United States of America and in the Liberalism. Foundation Malaga. page 75
- ^ Karp 1969, p. 198
- ^ Glenfield Plantation (10 September 2019). "Our History".
- ^ Friedman 1999, p. 179
- ^ Turitz & Turitz 1983, p. xii
- ^ Marcus 1959, p. 456
- ^ Rosenbloom 2014, p. 116
- ^ Ehrlich 1997, p. 3
Bibliography
- Bauman, Mark K (2011). Jewish American Chronology: Chronologies of the American Mosaic. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0313376054.
- Ford, Emily; Stiefel, Barry (2012). The Jews of New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta: A History of Life and Community Along the Bayou. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1614237341.
- Friedman, Saul (1999). Jews and the American Slave Trade Paperback. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765806606.
- Ehrlich, Walter (1997). Zion in the Valley, 1807-1907: Volume I, The Jewish Community of St. Louis. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0826210988.
- Karp, Abraham J (1969). The Jewish Experience in America: The Emerging Community. American Jewish Historical Society.
- Korn, Bertram Wallace (1961). Jews and Negro Slavery in the Old South, 1789-1865. Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel.
- Korn, Bertram Wallace (1969). The Early Jews of New Orleans. American Jewish Historical Society.
- Marcus, Jacob Rader (1959). American Jewry: Documents; Eighteenth Century; Primarily Hitherto Unpublished Manuscripts. Hebrew Union College Press. ISBN 0878051783.
- Rosenbloom, Joseph R. (2014) [1960]. A Biographical Dictionary of Early American Jews: Colonial Times through 1800. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0813154312.
- Turitz, Leo; Turitz, Evelyn (1983). Jews in Early Mississippi. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 0878051783.