[BAY-lyle, beh-LYLE]
ACADIA
Emmanuel, fils, son of
Emmanuel LeBorgne and Catherine Pleneau, was born at
Calais in c1610. Emmanuel, fils married Jeanne, daughter of Jacques François
and Jeanne Gouillon, at St.-Marguerite, La Rochelle, in
February 1635, became a
wealthy merchant at La Rochelle, and was named Seiur du Coudray, chevalier de l'ordre de Saint-Michel. During the early 1640s, he secured a
business partnership with Acadian governor Charles Menou, sieur d'Aulnay de
Charnisay, and in fact became the governor's chief creditor. D'Aulnay died in
a boating accident in Acadian in May 1650. After securing papers from the dead governor's father verifying
his claims, LeBorgne sent an expedition to Acadia
to seize what assets he could
of d'Aulnay's estate to satisfy what he claimed was a 260,000-livres
debt. Meanwhile, LeBorgne sent his second son, Alexandre, still a boy, to
Boston in 1651 to make peace with the New Englanders and to press his
father's claims in Acadia. The senior LeBorgne himself did not
go to Acadia until 1653. Meanwhile, his men reeked havoc in the colony.
LeBorgne nevertheless recouped little of the debt before the English seized Acadia again in
1654. At the end of that year, after the surrender of Port-Royal, LeBorgne
left his eldest son, 18-year-old Emmanuel du Coudray, as a hostage at Port-Royal and
returned to France. From 1657 to 1667, the French crown considered
Emmanuel LeBorgne to be the
proprietary governor of the colony, but he never returned to Acadia. Emmanuel, fils
eventually was released by the English, never married, and died au service du roi in August 1675, at age 39,
the same month his father died at La Rochelle, age 65. Emmanuel,
père's youngest son, Nicolas, born in c1643, became a priest, so he,
too, did not create a family of his own.
Emmanuel, père's second son, Alexandre
LeBorgne de Bélisle, born at La Rochelle in c1640,
went to Acadia with his father and older brother when he was still a boy, and
it is he who became the progenitor of
the LeBorgne de Bélisle family in Acadia. He married Marie de Saint-Étienne de La Tour, daughter of former governor Charles La Tour and
La Tour's second
wife Jeanne Motin de Reux, former governor d'Aulnay's widow, in
c1675. Their daughters married into the Girouard dit
de
Ru, D'Amours de Plaine, Rodrigue dit de Fonds, and
Duperié families. However, before he settled down with Marie and started his own
family, Alexandre made his own mark in Acadian history. During the
English occupation of the colony, in May 1658, when he was only 18 years
old, the young nobleman, at the head of a force of 50 men, seized La Hève on
the Atlantic coast from the English. Sir Thomas Temple, the English
governor, counterattacked. Alexandre was wounded in the fight and
brought to London as a prisoner, where he remained for a number of years. In 1668, French authorities
made Alexandre governor of Acadia in place of his father, and he remained in this position,
in absentia or otherwise, until Acadia became a royal French colony; thus,
Alexandre was the last proprietary governor of French Acadia. He
became seigneur of Port-Royal after he returned to Acadia in 1670 and died
there in c1693, in his early 50s. He fathered seven children by Marie, two of
them sons who remained in Acadia and created families of their own.
Alexandre's older son Emmanuel
LeBorgne de Bélisle, born
in c1676 at Port-Royal, married Cécile, a daughter of
Pierre Thibodeau, at Port-Royal in c1698; they had only one child, a
daughter, Marie, who married Jean Bertrand of Plaisance, Newfoundland.
Younger son Alexandre, fils, married Anastasie,
a daughter of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, the famous capitaine de sauvages,
and an Abenaki woman named Mathilde, at Pentagouët, Maine, in December 1707,
during Queen Anne's War. Alexandre, fils and Anastasie had eight
children, including two sons: Alexandre III, born in
c1708; and Jacques in c1710. Alexandre, fils and Anastasie's daughters married into the Rondeau, Dupont
Duvivier, and Robichaud families. Alexandre III married
Marie, daughter of Jean LeBlanc and Jeanne Bourgeois of
Minas, at Grand-Pré in January 1731. They must have been cousins because the
Church had to grant them a dispensation to marry. Alexandre III died in
August 1744, when he was only 36, but not before giving Marie at least five
sons: Alexandre IV, born in c1736; Anselme (probably named after his paternal great-uncle, Bernard-Anselme
d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin,
also a famous "captain of Indians") in c1738; Jean-Pierre, called Pierre,
in c1740; Joseph-Marie in c1742; and Mathurin in 1744. Jacques married
Marie-Anne Maurice probably at Annapolis Royal in c1730.
Marie-Anne gave him a son, Jacques, born in c1731, who married Cécile,
daughter of Claude Doucet and Marie Comeau,
at Annapolis Royal in January 1752.
[For more of this family in pre- and post-disperal Acadia and Canada, see
Book Three]
LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT
[For the family's travails
during the Great Upheaval, see
Book Six]
LOUISIANA: RIVER SETTLEMENTS
Anselme LeBorgne de Bélisle,
age 29, wife Anne Babin, age unrecorded, and their infant son
Paul came to Louisiana with the second contingent of Acadian exiles from
Maryland in 1767. They settled with other Maryland exiles in the new Acadian community of St.-Gabriel d'Iberville,
upriver from New Orleans. They also lived at Ascension, on the river below
St.-Gabriel. Anne died at St.-Gabriel or Ascension in the late 1760s or
early 1770s, and Anselme remarried. He and his new wife settled on
upper Bayou Lafourche.
LOUISIANA: LAFOURCHE VALLEY
SETTLEMENTS
During the late 1780s and early 1790s, Spanish officials
were counting Acadian Bélisles on upper Bayou Lafourche:
Marguerite LeBorgne de Bélisle,
wife of Amand Landry, died in Assumption Parish in 1831, in her late
50s.
Françoise-Hélène LeBorgne de
Bélisle, wife of Lucas Alexandre Landry, died in Assumption Parish in December 1841,
age 69.
Marie LeBorgne de Bélisle
died in Assumption Parish in May 1843. The priest who recorded her
burial said that she was age 73 when she died but mentioned no
husband.
Descendants of Anselme LEBORGNE DE BÉLISLE (c1738-1817; Emmanuel, Alexandre,
Alexandre, fils)
Anselme, son of probably Alexandre
LeBorgne de Bélisle III
and Marie LeBlanc, born at
Grand-Pré in c1738, was exiled to Maryland in 1755. He married fellow
Acadian Anne, daughter of Paul Babin and Marie LeBlanc
of l'Assomption, Pigiguit, probably in Maryland. They came to Louisiana in 1767 and
settled at St.-Gabriel d'Iberville and Ascension on the Upper Acadian Coast.
Anselme remarried to Marie-Josèphe, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Dupuis
and Élisabeth LeBlanc of Grand-Pré, on the Acadian Coast in the late 1760s or early 1770s. Spanish
officials counted them at Ascension in 1777; they owned a single slave. They moved to
upper Bayou Lafourche probably in the late 1780s; Spanish officials counted
them at Assumption in 1788; they still owned only a single slave. A
decade later, they held three slaves. Their daughters married into the Landry
family. Anselme died in Assumption Parish in February 1817, age 80.
None of his three sons seem to have fathered sons of their own, so, except
for its blood, this line of the family did not survive in the Bayou State.
1
Oldest son Paul, by his
father's first wife, born
probably at Annapolis, Maryland, in October 1766, died at Ascension in
August 1791, age 25, and did not marry.
2
Joseph-Anselme, by his
father's second wife, baptized
at St.-Jacques, age unrecorded, in May 1778, probably remarried to Marie
Azélie, daughter of fellow Acadian Joseph Duhon and widow of Augustin
LeBlanc, at the Paincourtville church, Assumption Parish, in
September 1850; Joseph was in his early 70s. Joseph Anselme died in
Assumption Parish in November 1851, age 74. He and his
wife (or wives) seem to have had no sons, so his line of the family died
with him.
3
Youngest son Auguste, by
his father's second wife, born
at St.-Jacques or Ascension in c1782, died near Paincourtville, Assumption
Parish, in May 1855, age 73, and does not seem to have married.
NON-ACADIAN FAMILIES in LOUISIANA
The LeBorgne/Bélisle
family from Acadia should not be confused with the family
that sprang from Jacques-Antoine LeBorne or Borne of
Valenciennes, France, who came to Louisiana in 1718 as an engagé
contracted to the Demeuves Concession, which was supposed to have gone to
the Red River valley but was established, instead, at Taensa, near
present-day Norco, St. Charles Parish. After the concession failed,
Jacques-Antoine remained in the colony and settled on the nearby Lower German
Coast. Descendants of Jacques-Antoine
Borne, like many residents of the German Coast, moved into the
Lafourche valley during the late colonial and early antebellum periods. Some of them married
into Acadian families and are still found in Lafourche valley parishes today.
A French
officer named Bellile was serving in Louisiana in 1766.
During the late colonial period, a French Creole family lived just upriver from New
Orleans at Chapitoulas and spelled their name Bélisle and Belille,
the same way the Acadian Anselme spelled his name.
A free Negro named Titon Bellille
lived in New Orleans during the late 1700s.
CONCLUSION
The LeBorgne de Bélisles
were true aristocrats in Acadia. One of them served as the last
proprietary governor of the colony during the 1660s, and some of them held seigniorial
lands at Port-Royal and in the Minas Basin. Only one member of the
family came to Louisiana. Anselme Le Borgne de Bélisle of Minas
was exiled to Maryland in his late teens. He married a fellow Acadian in Maryland, was
counted at Annapolis in July 1763, and his first son was born there a few
years later. The family came to Louisiana in 1767 and settled on the
Upper Acadian Coast, where Anselme's wife died, and he remarried to another
Acadian. He and his
new wife settled on upper Bayou Lafourche. She gave him several
daughters and at least two more sons.
After Anselme LeBorgne de
Bélisle's younger sons
Joseph-Anselme and Auguste died in Assumption Parish in the 1850s, the names Bélisle and Le Borgne
disappear from the church records of South Louisiana. Except for its
blood, then, this noble Acadian family did not survive in the Bayou State.
The family's name also is spelled
Belhisle, Bélile, Béllille, Bélleisle, Béllisle, Bogne dit Bélile, Borgne, Debilile, dit Béline,
Laborgne, Le Borgne, Leborgne dit Belleisle, LeBorn, LeBorne, Velila.
[See also
Book
Ten]
Sources: Arsenault,
Généalogie, 405-08, 1100-01, 2415; BRDR, vols. 1a(rev.), 2, 3, 6, 7, 8;
Clark, Acadia, 107, 119, 132-34; Clément Cormier, "Le Borgne de
Belle-Isle, Alexandre," in DCB, 1:435-36; Griffiths, From Migrant
to Acadian, 77; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the
Colonies, 154; Oubre, Vacherie, 29; Robichaux, German
Coast Families, 34, 36, 118-22; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century
Louisianians, 65, 129, 134, 257, 264, 370, 404; Mason Wade, "Le Borgne,
Emmanuel," in DCB, 1:433-35; White, DGFA-1, 6, 136, 1024-31,
1100-01; White, DGFA-1 English, 218-19;
Winston De Ville,
"Isleños
at Valenzuela in 1784," in Harper, Mississippi Valley Mélange,
9:76; Wood, Acadians in Maryland,
37,
83.