Categories: History, Migrations, Slavery

André MASSE /mahs/ is reported having been born in Grenoble, France around 1710.

By the 1740s, transactions in the French Province of Louisiana’s registry indicate land successions to André MASSE in what would become (in 1756) the military Poste-des-Attakapas, on Bayou “Teÿch” (Tèche) near present-day Charenton.

There, he established a Cattle Ranch, which appears to have been maintained almost exclusively by about 20 slaves (half from the Senegambia region, half Louisiana Creoles, the children of those Senegambians).

Beginning in the 1760s, Masse began emancipating each of his slaves, first in the Pointe-Coupée military post, then in the Attakapas and New Orleans. By the 1770s, all were freed.

We know that one of the Atákapa-Ishak Indian chiefs, named Jupiter, was affiliated with Masse’s slaves, as he frequently appears as a godfather to Masse’s slave baptisms, witness to numerous civil transactions and as the grandfather of one of Masse’s former slaves. Jupiter was a griffe sauvage, son of an African and a local (presumably, Atákapa).

André MASSE “affranchi,” born c. 1720 in Togo, a former slave of Masse, married twice, first to Catherine “Catiche,” an Atákapa and second to Thérèse dite La Bombe, from the Caneci nation. André affranchi and Catiche are the ancestors of all Houma and Chitimacha tribe members today (specifically the NAQUIN, VERDUN/VERDIN, SÉNET(TE), DAUPHIN, JACOT, GAUBERT/GOBERT, VERRET(TE) and GRÉGOIRE families and all those descending from them).

By the 1750s, another Grenoble native, named Jean Antoine Bernard d’HAUTERIVE (aka DAUTERIVE), obtained a large tract of land bordering Masse’s and the two immediately became local business partners.

Simultaneously, Spanish Colonial records in Spanish Tejas show Masse as having a Hacienda in what’s now Texas along the Brazos River (Rodney, correct me on the river, if I’ve faulted).

Meanwhile other sources, such as Maurine BERGERIE’s “And they tasted Bayou Water” (now out of print), suggest that Masse was also pirating the Caribbean.

In 1765, when about 193 Acadians arrived on Bayou Tèche, Masse and Dauterive disputed with Acadians for trespassing their lands and moved their ranches further north; Masse’s from Spanish Lake just outside of New Iberia to the Vermilion River and Dauterive’s encompassed all of present-day St Martinville.

Some sources state that Masse donated his land to the Acadians further south, where they were trespassing. But colonial records in St Martin parish do not support this. Nor is there a single document suggesting that Masse sold any of it to Acadians.

In fact, the only conveyance for Masse was a lease to a Martin BOUILLON in 1783.

No succession exists for him in St Martin Parish (records begin in 1760).

Several of Masse’s freed slaves used the surnames MASSE and SÉNET(TE) interchangeably. Three in particular stand out: Euphrosine (who was consort of Irishman John WHITE, she also had children for Charles dit Charlot ESCADRON alias St. Pierre, native of Illinois), Élisabeth “Babet” (wife of Louis SAM, hdcl) – these last two are sisters – and Victoire (consort of Andrés HERNÁNDES of Valladolid, Spain).

Rodney has shared a probate in Opelousas calling for a Family Meeting for the tutorship of Silvestre HERNÁNDEZ in 1827 in Opelousas. Both parents (Andrés HERNÁNDES and Victoire MASSE/SÉNET) were deceased and “a council of family members meet in order to find someone to adopt him cause he was a minor. The family list of Cousins included: Silvestre MORALES, Narcisse JEAN-PIERRE, Jean-Pierre JEAN-PIERRE, Pierre Esope Sam FUSELIER, Louis DAMAS. Esope said that his parents lived together as husband and wife.”

Silvestre MORALES was the son of Juan MORALES of the Canary Islands and Marie-Anne SAZÉMÉ (aka Marie-Anne MASSE, daughter of Sazémé – an Atakapa and Marianne-Marguerite MASSE* – négresse libre) but was married to Félicité Eléonore HERNÁNDEZ, sister of Silvestre HERNÁNDEZ, the minor.

*Marianne-Marguerite MASSE was the daughter of Ingui “Jean” MASSE (Manega nation) and Marie (Sénégal nation) and was otherwise the concubine of Pierre “Bonhomme” MASSE, son of Pierre MASSE and Lisette MASSE and half brother to Françoise MASSE and Magdeleine MASSE (their names become important in a bit).

(Alexandre-)Narcisse JEAN-PIERRE and Jean-Pierre JEAN-PIERRE were brothers, sons of Jean-Pierre SÉNET(TE), native of New Orleans, mulâtre libre, former slave of Jean Baptiste Alexandre SÉNET (his son, Baptiste, obtained land concessions along Bayous Lafourche and Tèche and there lived in concubinage with Marie JUPITER, a daughter of the same Chief Jupiter above) with unknown mother. Alexandre-Narcisse JEAN-PIERRE, aka Alexandre-Narcisse SÉNETTE lived in concubinage with Scholastique Julie OLIBEROS, aka Julie OLIVIER, the daughter of Ursulo OLIBEROS or OLIVERA of Havana, Cuba and Céleste GUILLAUME-FUSELIER (her name becomes important soon).

Pierre Ésope Sam FUSELIER was a son of the Opelousas and Attakapas Military Commandant Gabriel FUSELIER de la Claire with his freed négresse mistress Jeanette, a native of New Orleans. Ésope married Magdeleine MASSE, the one mentioned above, the daughter of André MASSE of France with Lisette MASSE, the one who later married Pierre “Bonhomme” MASSE, one of Masse’s former slaves.

Louis DAMAS was the son of Joseph Damas CARRIÈRE and Joséphine FUSELIER, the sister of Ésope and Guillaume; children of Gabriel FUSELIER de la Claire and Jeanette.

Now, in order for Louis DAMAS to be a cousin of Silvestre HERNÁNDEZ, Silvestre’s mother, Victoire MASSE/SÉNETTE, has to be a relative of Gabriel FUSELIER de la Claire’s mistress Jeanette, the one from New Orleans.

What I theorize, based on this family meeting, is that Jeanette FUSELIER was related to Jean-Pierre SÉNET of New Orleans and that Victoire, Euprosine and Babet were either nieces, first cousins or siblings of Jean-Pierre and Jeanette, and that Victoire, Euphrosine and Babet were purchased by André MASSE and brought to the Attakapas – to later meet up with their relatives further up the Tèche (Was it coincidence? Was it purposeful – that Masse arrived there around same time as FUSELIER de la Claire and that their slaves were freed around same time and intermarried?).

These were the only MASSEs that used the SÉNET name interchangeably.

I should mention here that some online sources identifies André MASSE of France as Édouard MASSE and Edward MASSE (those of Kitty COURTS of New Iberia, for example). Although I’ve never seen an original record where he signed his name as such. A brother, perhaps?

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There is a lot to deduce from these interactions (that never appear in Louisiana History nor US history textbooks, for that matter).

A) Clearly cattle grazing, as known in what’s now the US, was born from the coming of horses and cattle from Spaniards and the vast plains of the US Southwest and Mississippi delta.

B) Geopolitical boundaries that did exist between Louisiana and the larger Spanish empire of the southwest (Tejas, Arizona, Nuevo México, California, México, Cuba, Canarias etc) seemed to blur while Louisiana was Spanish, before and after.

C) To what extent were Frenchmen like André MASSE trading with Spaniards in the Southwest, Central America and Caribbean and what were the consequences in the Bayou Tèche region (and Louisiana, in general).

D) In the 1740s, we’ve reason to believe that Europeans and Africans along the Tèche were numerically minute (we could be wrong), so their culture had to have been immensely compromised, altered, adapted in order to a) survive and b) procreate and flourish in the region. This is a relationship that no federally recognized population will entertain (because Blood Quantum is partially what got them their recognition and showing too much African and European seems suspect) – so most deny any trace of African lineage (but will favorably mention European).

E) What did the Atákapa-Ishak (who mostly fled to the Texas Louisiana border parishes (Calcasieu) and Southeast Texas by the 1830s), Chitimacha, Tunica-Biloxi and Natcitoches (living in the Opelousas District) learn from their Wolof, Manega and Senegal relatives? How did that shape their lifestyles? Language? And vice versa?

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This note is really to gather historians who dig in primary sources to help track down André MASSE.

Anyone with any leads on primary sources in Spanish Tejas, colonial Caribbean or Pointe-Coupée, Natchitoches, Opelousas or Orléans military districts; please step up!

Masse’s clan formed the nucleus for the future population on Bayou Tèche.