APPENDICES

Acadians Who Found Refuge in Louisiana, February 1764-early 1800s

BASTARACHE

[BAHS-tuh-rahk]

ACADIA

Jean or Joannis Bastarache dit Le Basque, born c1658 probably at Bayonne, in the Basque country of southern France, reached Acadia by 1684, the year he married Huguette, a daughter of Pierre Vincent.  They settled on the upper south shore of Rivière-au-Dauphin, now the Annapolis River, miles above the village at Port-Royal, near present-day Paradise.  Jean and Huguette had five children, three of whom were sons who created families of their own:  

Oldest son Francois-Marie, born in c1687 at Port-Royal, married Agnès, daughter of Louis-Noël Labauve, at Port-Royal in c1714.  They had five children, including two sons, but neither of them seems to have married and created families of their own.  

Jean, fils, born in c1696 at Port-Royal, married Angélique, daughter of Alexandre Richard, at Port-Royal in c1721.  Jean, fils died at Québec in 1757 during Le Grand Dérangement.  

Youngest son Pierre, born at Port-Royal in c1702, married Marguerite, daughter of René Foret, at Port-Royal in 1724.  Pierre died at Port-Royal in 1751, age 50.  

In 1707, Jean dit Le Basque and his family were still on the river above Port-Royal.  When the British took over the colony in 1714, Jean left Port-Royal on the French vessel La Marie-Josèphe for Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island, probably to look at land there.  He died at Port-Royal in September 1733, age 75, so he obviously had not liked what he had seen on Île Royale.  

Meanwhile, Jean, père 's brother Michel dit Le Basque also came to the colony, where he was known as a pirate.  He brought with him a wife and two children, including a son, Edmond, who married Agathe de Saint-Etienne de La Tour, a descendant of former governor Charles La Tour, in c1713 at Port-Royal.  The Bastaraches who ended up in Louisiana came from Jean, père's line, not Michel's

Jean, père's sons, like their father, remained in the Port-Royal area.  

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s, scattered this family to the winds.  Members of Francois-Marie Bastarache's family ended up on the island of Martinique.  Pierre, fils was exiled to South Carolina in the fall of 1755 but escaped and made his way back through the North American wilderness to his family in Acadia.  After the French and Indians War ended in 1763, he and his family joined fellow exiles on the Baie Ste.-Marie in Nova Scotia.  Jean, fils's son Anselme took his family to Yamachiche, Québec.  Other Bastaraches settled at Bouctouche, on the western shore of New Brunswick.  Some of Michel dit Le Basque's descendants settled at Tracadie, on the upper western shore of New Brunswick.  Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and until the Acadian reunions of the mid-twentieth century, they may even have forgotten the others existed. 

Just before and during Le Grand Dérangement, two of Jean, fils's daughters married Moutons from Chignecto:  Anne married Salvator, and Marie-Modeste married Salvator's brother Louis.  A third daughter, Isabelle, seems to have followed her older sisters into exile at Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs.  After the British broke up the Acadian refuge at Restigouche in late 1760, the Bastarache sisters probably went to Halifax while their husbands were being held as prisoners of war in Fort Edward, Nova Scotia, formerly Pigiguit.  Isabelle married Jean dit Neveu, a cousin of her Mouton brothers-in-law, at Halifax.  After the war ended and they were released from Fort Edward, the Mouton brothers probably went to Halifax to rejoin their families.

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

The Mouton/Bastarache clan were among the earliest Acadians to reach Louisiana, coming from Halifax to New Orleans via St.-Domingue in 1765.  They did not follow the Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil party to the Bayou Teche valley, however, but settled in the established Acadian community of Cabanocé/St.-Jacques, now St. James Parish, on the river above New Orleans.  Anne died at Cabanocé by 1768, in her 50s, the year her husband Salvator remarried.  In the late 1760s or early 1770s, Isabelle followed her husband Jean dit Neveu and Salvator's sons Marin and Jean to the Teche Valley, where the Mouton family thrived.  She died along the Teche in April 1798; the priest who recorded her burial said she was 65 years old, but she was 51.  Louis Mouton, meanwhile, did not follow his kinsmen to the Atakapas District but remained at St.-Jacques.  Marie-Modeste Bastarache lived to a ripe old age.  She died at Baton Rouge, on the river above St. James, in August 1818; the priest who recorded her burial said she was 90 years old, but she was "only" 85.  

CONCLUSION

No male Bastarache reached Louisiana, only the three daughters of Jean Bastarache, fils.  But the blood of Jean dit Le Basque survived in the Bayou State through the descendants of the Moutons from Chignecto.  

The family's name also is spelled Barastarache, Basque, Basterretche, Bastrash.  

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 401-05; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 388; Historical Atlas of Canada, 1: plate 29; "The Origins of the BASTARACHE, BASTRASH and BASQUE Families," AGE, May 2008, 45; White, DGFA-1, 80-82; White, DGFA-1 English, 17.  

Settlement Abbreviations 
(present-day parishes that existed during the War Between the States in parenthesis; hyperlinks on the abbreviations take you to brief histories of each settlement):

For a chronology of Acadian Arrivals in Louisiana, 1764-early 1800s, see Appendix.

The hyperlink attached to an individual's name is connected to a list of Acadian immigrants for a particular settlement and provides a different perspective on the refugee's place in family and community. 

NOTES

01.   Wall of Names, 23, calls her Anne BASTARACHE; Arsenault, Généalogie, 403, calls her Anne BASTARACHE, daughter of Jean BASTARACHE & Angélique RICHARD, says she was born in 1731 but gives no birthplace, that she married Salvator MOUTON of Beaubassin but gives no date or place of marriage, gives his parents' names, & says that she died in LA but gives no date or place of burial; Arsenault, pp. 2560-01, her husband's profile in the LA section, calls her Anne BASTARACHE, gives her parents' names, says they were from Port-Royal, details her marriage, & says her children were daughter Anne-Préxède [MOUTON], born 1754, no birthplace given, son Jean [MOUTON], born c1755, no birthplace given, son Marin [MOUTON], born c1758, no birthplace given, & daughter Céleste [MOUTON, born c1761, no birthplace given.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 115.  

She was the mother of Jean MOUTON dit Chapeau, founder of the city of Lafayette, & the paternal grandmother of Alexandre MOUTON, who became LA's first popularly elected governor.

02.  Wall of Names, 23, calls her Isabelle BASTARACHE; Arsenault, Généalogie, 404, calls her Isabelle BASTARACHE, daughter of Jean BASTARACHE & Angélique RICHARD, says she was born in 1735, that she married Jean MOUTON dit Neveu of Beaubassin, sans doute son of Jacques MOUTON & Marie CAISSY, but gives no date or place of marriage, & that she died in LA but gives no date or place of burial; Arsenault, pp. 2561-62, her husband's profile in the LA section, calls her Élizabeth BASTARACHE, does not give her parents' names, says she married c1763 but gives no place of marriage, & says her children were Jean-Frédéric [MOUTON], born c1765, no birthplace given, son Sylvestre [MOUTON], born c1768, no birthplace given, & daughter Madeleine [MOUTON], born 1773, no birthplace given; Hébert, Southwest LA Records, 1-A:39 (SM Ch.: v.4, #142), her death/burial record, calls her Isabelle BASTARACHE of Acadia, says her parents were Anseme & ____ of Acadia, & that she died at age 65.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 115; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 11.

Anselme BASTARACHE was not her father but her brother.  See Arsenault, p. 403.  

She probably married at Halifax, where the MOUTONs & BASTARACHEs were still being held by the British in 1763.  Wall of Names, 23, lists Isabelle & Jean dit Neveu as man & wife when they reached LA in 1765.

03.  Wall of Names, 23, calls her Marie-Modeste BASTARACHE; Arsenault, Généalogie, 403, calls her Marie-Modeste BASTARACHE, daughter of Jean BASTARACHE & Angelique  RICHARD, says she was born in 1733, that she married Louis MOUTON of Beaubassin but gives no date or place of marriage, gives his parents' names, & says she died in LA but gives no date or place of burial; BRDR, 3:75 (SJO-11, 1), her death/burial record, calls her Marie-Modeste BASTARACHE, age 90 yrs., wid. of Louis MOUTON, but does not give her parents' names.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 115; De Ville, St. James Census, 1777, 18; De Ville, Acadian Coast, 1779, 24.

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Copyright (c) 2006-11  Steven A. Cormier