Retourner à la fiche de: Jeanne DeLaGrandeTerre
Jeanne was among twenty women and children captured around 1702 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, in slave raids upon the Chitimachas tribe which occupied much of the Louisiana coast. The captives were taken to Mobile for sale. Francois Guyon dit Derbanne didn't return to Mobile until 1709, where he was appointed the keeper of the storehouses of the colony on Massacre Island. This is when Jeanne became the property of Derbanne who took her into his home to be his "housekeeper," a practice the parish priest frequently spoke out against. On 26 Jul 1710 their first child, Jean Baptiste, was baptized at Mobile at the age of about six months. No surname was listed and he was described only as being born of an Indian slave of Mr. Darbanne. According to Elizabeth Shown Mills the priest "then wrote a scathing indictment of him into the baptismal register."
Regardless they went on to have at least five more children. No surviving record can be found of the baptism of their five youngest children. On 14 Jan 1726 he and Jeanne formalized their relationship with a marriage contract and were married by a visiting priest from Los Adayes. From then on, she was not called "savage" nor her children called "metis." Jeanne was also baptized at some point since she served as godmother to baptized slaves of Native American and African descent.
Children:
Jean Baptiste né ca Jan 1710
Jean né ca 1716
Jeanne née ca 1720
Gaspard né ca 1724
Louise Marguerite née ca 1727
Pierre né ca 1730
The youngest three remained in Natchitoches; Jean Baptiste settled in Los Adayes; Jean Dion according to family lore settled among the Chitimachas; and Jeanne settled at Pointe Coupee with the soldier Francois Manne.
Source: Mills, Elizabeth Shown. "Bits of Evidence, No. 490 Jeanne de la Grande Terre, a Chitimachas Matriarch of the Cane River Derbannes." posted 3 Oct 2015 in Facebook group Forgotten People: Cane River Creoles.