In The Flow of Time – July 2, 2024
Research sometimes goes into dark places.
I have stumbled across the journal of Benjamin Latrobe. He’s an architect, working in New Orleans circa 1819, on the city’s water works. Latrobe was architect for the US Capitol. This is a highly accomplished, literate, multi-lingual American of English heritage. He’s describing sights, sites, sounds, mores, and more, of life in New Orleans. He’s a great raconteur, a traveler, and writer.
He has a lovely description of the beautiful ladies of New Orleans. However, he sees the other side as well. In his rooming house, he personally witnessed a whipping. A highly capable slave named Sophy failed in a task. As a result Madame Tremoulet had her stripped naked, tied to a bedpost, and whipped the slave herself. But the woman’s daughter intervened, essentially “you’re too delicate for this. Let’s get one of the men.” Who continued with the beating.
Then he recounts hearsay, some stories he’s heard in the same vein.
“Madame —— is another of these hell cats. Her husband is a very amiable man, president of the Bank of Louisiana, whom she had driven to seek a divorce, but the matter has been compromised lately. She did actually whip a negress to death, and treated another so cruelly that she died a short time afterwards. Mr. —— , a principal merchant of this place, stated the facts to the grand jury, but it was hushed up from respect to the lady’s husband.”
Caroline Trudeau, one of Marie Laveau’s white aunts, daughter of Charles (“Don Carlos”) Trudeau, was married to Thomas Urquhart, president of the Bank of Louisiana. Fill in the blank. Odds are really good she whipped her own slaves to death, twice.
White privilege, brutality, and racism, right there, a bit too close to home, recorded in passing by Benjamin Latrobe.
