Good Morning POU!
Between 1718-1830, it became an accepted practice in Louisiana for white men (married and unmarried) to take black paramours. These relationships were often longstanding. Some historians have argued that free women of color desired to be the mistresses of white men because it improved their status and security as well as their children’s. Dozens of these women in the late eighteenth century acquired valuable property through their relationships with their white partners or fathers. By most estimates, a quarter of the houses along the main streets of New Orleans were owned by free blacks, many of whom were single women.
Eulalie de Mandéville
There were many other examples of white Creole fathers who reared and carefully and quietly placed their daughters of color with the sons of known friends or family members. This occurred with Eulalie de Mandéville, the elder half-sister of color to the eccentric nobleman, politician, and wealthy land developer Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandéville (President of the Louisiana Senate 1822-23). Taken from her slave mother as a baby, and partly raised by a white grandmother, 22-year-old Eulalie was “placed” by her father (at the time, the wealthiest man in Louisiana) with Eugène de Macarty, a member of the famous French–Irish clan in 1796. Their alliance resulted in five children and lasted almost fifty years.
Eugene Macarty, unlike most white Creoles, never married a white woman. (He never went back).
