Acadians Who Found Refuge in Louisiana, February 1764-early 1800s
[BAHS-tuh-rahk]
ACADIA
Jean or Joannis Bastarache or Basterretche dit Le Basque, born in c1658 probably at Bayonne, in the Basque country of southwestern France, reached Acadia by c1684, the year he married Huguette or Agathe, a daughter of Pierre Vincent and Anne Gaudet, at Port-Royal. 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 Paradis, Nova Scotia. Jean and Huguette had five children. Their two daughters married into the Orillon dit Champagne and Girouard families. All three of Jean and Huguette's sons created families of their own:
Oldest son François-Marie, born at Port-Royal in c1687, married Agnès, daughter of Louis-Noël Labauve and Marie Rimbault, at Annapolis 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 at Port-Royal in c1696, married Angélique, daughter of Alexandre Richard and Isabelle Petitpas, at Annapolis 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 Forest and Françoise Dugas, at Annapolis Royal in 1724. Pierre died at Annapolis 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 Annapolis Royal in September 1733, age 75, so he evidently had not liked what he had seen on the big island. Jean, père's sons, like their father, remained in the Annapolis Royal area.
[For more of this family in pre- and post-disperal Acadia and Canada, see Book Three]
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According to Acadian genealogist Bona Arsenault, Jean, père 's brother Michel dit Le Basque also came to the colony, where he was known as a flibustier, or pirate. He brought with him a wife and two children, including a son, Edmond. Arsenault insists that in c1713, at Annapolis Royal, Edmond married Agathe de Saint-Etienne de La Tour, a descendant of former governor Charles La Tour. According to genealogist Stephen A. White, however, it was Edmund Bradstreet of County Tipperary, Ireland, a young lieutenant in the British service, who married Agathe de La Tour at Annapolis Royal, in c1712. The Bastaraches who ended up in Louisiana came from Jean, père's line, not Michel's.
LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT
[For the family's travails during the Great Upheaval, see Book Six]
LOUISIANA: RIVER SETTLEMENTS
The Mouton/Bastarache clan were among the earliest Acadians to reach Louisiana, coming from Halifax via St.-Domingue in 1765. They did not follow the 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 only 51. Louis Mouton, meanwhile, did not follow his kinsmen to the Attakapas District but remained at St.-Jacques. Marie-Modeste Bastarache lived to a ripe old age. She died at Baton Rouge 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. [See also Book Ten]
Sources: Arsenault, Généalogie, 401-05; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 388; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 601; 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, 266; White, DGFA-1 English, 17, 59.
Settlement Abbreviations
(present-day civil parishes that existed in 1861 are in parenthesis; hyperlinks on the
abbreviations take you to brief histories of each settlement):
Ascension |
Lafourche (Lafourche, Terrebonne) |
Pointe Coupée |
|||
Assumption |
Natchitoches (Natchitoches) |
SB | San Bernardo (St. Bernard) | ||
Attakapas (St. Martin, St. Mary, Lafayette, Vermilion) |
San Luìs de Natchez (Concordia) |
St.-Gabriel d'Iberville (Iberville) |
|||
Bayou des Écores (East Baton Rouge, West Feliciana) |
New Orleans (Orleans) |
St.-Jacques de Cabanocé (St. James) |
|||
Baton Rouge (East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge) |
Opelousas (St. Landry, Calcasieu) |
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.
Name | Arrived | Settled | Profile |
Anne BASTARACHE 01 | 1765 | StJ | born c1731, probably Annapolis Royal; daughter of Jean BASTARACHE & Angélique RICHARD; sister of Élisabeth/Isabelle & Marie-Modeste; married, age 21, Salvator, son of Sr. Jean MOUTON & Marie GIROUARD of Chignecto & brother of sister Marie-Modeste's future husband Louis, 24 Jan 1752, Beaubassin; at Restigouche with her family 1760; at Fort Edward, Pigiguit, early 1760s; arrived LA 1765, age 34; in Cabanocé census, 1766, probably the woman in the household of Salvador MOUTON; died probably Cabanocé before 1768, the year her husband remarried at New Orleans |
Élisabeth/Isabelle BASTARACHE 02 | 1765 | StJ, Atk | born c1747, probably Annapolis Royal; daughter of Jean BASTARACHE & Angélique RICHARD; sister of Anne & Marie-Modeste; probably at Restigouche with her older sisters 1760; married Jean dit Neveu, son of Jacques MOUTON & Marguerite CAISSIE of Chignecto, early 1760s, NS; arrived LA 1765, age 18; in Cabanocé census, 1766, probably the woman in the household of Juan MOUTON; moved to Attakapas District; in Attakapas census, 1777, called Elizabeth BASTARACHE, age 30, with husband, 1 son, & 1 daughter; buried Attakapas 1 Apr 1798, age 65[sic] |
Marie-Modeste BASTARACHE 03 | 1765 | StJ, BR | born c1733, probably Annapolis Royal; daughter of Jean BASTARACHE & Angélique RICHARD; sister of Anne & Élisabeth/Isabelle; probbly at Restigouche with her sisters 1760; married, age 27, Louis, son of Sr. Jean MOUTON & Marie GIROUARD of Chignecto & brother of sister Anne's husband Salvator, Oct 1760, Restigouche; on list of Acadians captured at Restigouche, dated 24 Oct 1760, with husband & child; at Fort Edward, Pigiguit, with family early 1760s; arrived LA 1765, age 32; in Cabanocé census, 1766, probably the woman in the household of Luis MOUTON; in St.-Jacques census, 1777, left [east] bank, called Marie BARASTARACHE, age 44, with husband, 1 son, & 2 daughters; in St.-Jacques census, 1779, unnamed, with husband & 3 others; buried St. Joseph Catholic Church cemetery, Baton Rouge, 4 Aug 1818, age 90[sic] |
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, the Port-Royal section, 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, 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 De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 11; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 115.
Anselme BASTARACHE was not her father but her brother. See Arsenault, 403. Her parents evidently were victims of the smallpox epidemic that struck the Acadian exiles in & around Québec from the summer of 1757 into the spring of 1758. Jean BASTARACHE died at Québec on 22 Dec 1757, & Angélique RICHARD on 9 Jan 1758. See White, DGFA-1, 81, 1379.
She probably married at Restgouche or Fort Edward, Pigiguit, where the MOUTONs & BASTARACHEs were held by the British in the early 1760s. See "Fort Edward, 1761-62." 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 De Ville, Acadian Coast, 1779, 24; De Ville, St. James Census, 1777, 18; "Fort Edward, 1761-62"; "Ristigouche, 24 Oct 1760"; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 115.
Copyright (c) 2006-19 Steven A. Cormier