APPENDICES

The BROUSSARD dit Beausoleil Party to the Atakapas District, 1765

Ages are as of 1765.  Many of the birthplaces are sheer speculation.01  Individuals with surnames in bold are male family heads or the eldest sons of widows.  

                                                                                   SYMBOLS:
#        Family heads who signed the DAUTERIVE agreement with Joseph BROUSSARD dit Beausoleil in early Apr 1765  
$        Individuals who appear on the 30 Apr 1765 card money exchange list in New Orleans (see <thecajuns.com/cardmoney.htm>)
+        Individuals who died at Atakapas in the first months of settlement, primarily those who perished in the epidemic of 1765
*        Individuals who probably left Atakapas in late 1765 to escape the epidemic

Hyperlinks take you to individual histories in the Acadian family pages, which contain many more details of each person's life.  Death/burials are in 1765, unless otherwise noted, and documented in Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, vol. 1-A.

NOTE:  Many of the individuals who survived the epidemic of 1765 can be found in the Apr 1766 Atakapas militia list/census found in Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth Century Louisianians, 124-25.

Chronology of Burials at either au premier camp d'en bas [at the first burial place lower down], au dernier camp d'en bas [at the last burial place lower down], or at La Pointe de Répose, as recorded by Father Jean-Francois de CIVRAY

NOTES

01.  In his essay entitled "Metamorphosis of Acadian Society in Late Eighteenth-Century Louisiana" at <www.acadianmemorial.org/english/ensembleencoreset.html>, Dr. Carl A. Brasseaux, the leading authority on the Acadians in LA, says:  "Most Attakapas Acadians (77.7 percent) were former residents of the Chignecto Isthmus area....."  But Dr. Brasseaux does not tell us how he arrived at this precise figure.

02.  In the burial record for Joseph dit Beausoleil in Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:137 (SM Ch.: v.1, p.78; SM Ch.: Folio B-1, Funeral), Fr. Jean-Francois says that the old resistance fighter was buried "at the Camp [place or location] named Beausoleil," & "at place called Beausoleil."  Was the place the Atakapas Acadians called Beausoleil the same place as premier camp d'en bas (the first place lower down) or dernier camp d'en bas (the last place lower down), terms used by Fr. Jean-Francois in several other 1765 Atakapas burial records?  How far apart were these first & last places of burial below the Poste des Atakapas, today's St. Martinville?  And where were they located exactly? 

03.  According to epidemic survivor Jean-Baptiste SEMER, who wrote a letter to his father in France dated 20 Apr 1766, New Orleans:  "We went to Attakapas ..., but as it was already the month of May, the heat being so intense, we started to work in too harsh conditions. ... Finally, we had the finest harvest, and everybody contracted fevers at the same time and, nobody being in a state to help anyone else, thirty-three or thirty-four died, including the children. ..."  Italics added.  See Mouhot, ed., "Letter by Jean-Baptiste Semer," p. 224; Bernard, Cajuns & Their Acadian Ancestors, 30.  Subtract the first 2 deaths on this list--Madeleine BROUSSARD, who died in childbirth, & her newborn daughter Marguerite-Anne THIBODEAUX, who died at birth, & probably Marie DUGAS, wife of Mathurin LANDRY, who also probably died in childbirth--& you have 37 deaths recorded by Fr. Jean-Francois from Jul to late Nov, very close to the numbers given in Jean-Baptiste SEMER's letter.  

[top of page, BROUSSARD Party 1765]

Copyright (c) 2006-10  Steven A. Cormier