Acadians Who Found Refuge in Louisiana, February 1764-early 1800s
[LAH-tee-ay]
ACADIA
According to an historian of the Acadian exiles in Maryland, Louis Latier, or Lasté, born in c1730, married Anne, daughter of Étienne Trahan and Marie-Françoise Roy and widow of Jean-Baptiste Benoit, at Louisbourg, Île Royale, in c1751, but the marriage likely took place at Port Tobacco, Maryland, in c1761, soon after the death of Anne's first husband. Louis Latier may very well have been a soldier serving in the French fortress at Louisbourg in the early 1750s before he ended up in Maryland, though most of the military and naval personnel at Louisbourg were deported to France in late 1758. Anne gave him at least three children, all born in Maryland during exile: Antoine in c1762, Paul in c1763, and Élisabeth in c1765.
[See also Book Four]
LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT
[For the family's travails during the Great Upheaval, see Book Six]
LOUISIANA: WESTERN SETTLEMENTS
Louis Latier, wife Anne Trahan, and six children, left Port Tobacco, Maryland, in early January 1769 aboard the English schooner Britannia. With them were sons Antoine and Paul and daughter Élisabeth/Isabelle Latier and Anne's three daughters by her first husband, Jean-Baptiste Benoit. Unfortunately, either through incompetence or ill luck, the Britannia missed the entrance to the Mississippi River and ran aground on the Texas coast at Espiritu Santo Bay. A Spanish patrol "rescued" the passengers and crew, and Spanish authorities held them at La Bahía for several months, suspecting them of being spies or smugglers. After the Spanish released them, the Latiers and their fellow passengers traveled overland to Natchitoches Post on the Red River, arriving there in late October.
Spanish authorities in Louisiana allowed them to settle where they wanted. The Benoit girls followed their uncle Pierre-Olivier Benoit, who had also arrived aboard the Britannia with his family, to the Acadian community of St.-Gabriel on the river above New Orleans, before moving on to the Opelousas District west of the Atchafalaya Basin.
The Latiers may also have moved to the Opelousas District after living for a time at St.-Gabriel.
CONCLUSION
The fate of the Acadian Latiers in Louisiana is difficult to determine. No member of the family appears in the church records of South Louisiana, at least not under the name Latier. So did Louis Latier and wife Anne Trahan have more children in Louisiana? Did their sons Antoine and Paul Latier create families of their own and perpetuate the name in the Bayou State?
This family should not be confused with the Lantier, sometimes called the Nantier, family, who came to Louisiana from France and Montréal during the late colonial period and settled in the Opelousas District. [See also Book Ten]
Sources: Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 104; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 152; Kinnaird, "The Revolutionary Period, 1765-81," 141; Wall of Names, 21; Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 154.
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) | ||
|
Atakapas (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 |
| Antoine LATIER 01 | Oct 1769 | Natc, StG? | born c1762, probably MD; son of Louis LATIER & Anne TRAHAN; in report of Acadians at Port Tobacco, MD, Jul 1763, with parents & 3 BENOIST orphans; departed Port Tobacco 5 Jan 1769, aboard English schooner Britannia; lost in the Gulf of Mexico & held by Spanish at La Bahia, TX; arrived Natchitoches Post, LA, 24 Oct 1769, overland from TX, age 7; settled below Bayou Plaquemine, St.-Gabriel District, with other Acadian exiles from the Britannia, Apr 1770? |
| Élisabeth/Isabelle LATIER 02 | Oct 1769 | Natc, StG? | born c1765, probably MD; daughter of Louis LATIER & Anne TRAHAN; departed Port Tobacco, MD, 5 Jan 1769, aboard English schooner Britannia; lost in the Gulf of Mexico & held by Spanish at La Bahia, TX; arrived Natchitoches Post, LA, 24 Oct 1769, overland from TX, age 4; settled below Bayou Plaquemine, St.-Gabriel District, with other Acadian exiles from the Britannia, Apr 1770? |
| Louis LATIER 03 | Oct 1769 | Natc, StG? | born c1730; married Anne, daughter of Étienne TRAHAN & Marie-Françoise ROY of St.-Famille, Pigiguit, & widow of Jean-Baptiste BENOIT, probably MD; in report of Acadians at Port Tobacco, MD, Jul 1763, with wife Anne, son Antoine, "orphans" [perhaps stepdaughters] Anne BENOIST, Rose BENOIST, & Marguerite BENOIST; departed Port Tobacco 5 Jan 1769, aboard English schooner Britannia with wife & 6 children; lost in the Gulf of Mexico & held by Spanish at La Bahia, TX; arrived Natchitoches Post, LA, 24 Oct 1769, overland from TX, age 39; settled below Bayou Plaquemine, St.-Gabriel District, with other Acadian exiles from the Britannia, Apr 1770? |
| Paul LATIER 04 | Oct 1769 | Natc, StG? | born c1763, probably MD; son of Louis LATIER & Anne TRAHAN; departed Port Tobacco, MD, 5 Jan 1769, aboard English schooner Britannia; lost in the Gulf of Mexico & held by Spanish at La Bahia, TX; arrived Natchitoches Post, LA, 24 Oct 1769, overland from TX, age 6; settled below Bayou Plaquemine, St.-Gabriel District, with other Acadian exiles from the Britannia, Apr 1770? |
NOTES
01. Wall of Names, 21, calls him Antoine LATIER. See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 152.
What happened to him in LA?
02. Wall of Names, 21, calls her Élisabeth LATIER.
What happened to her in LA?
03. Wall of Names, 21, calls him Louis LATIER. See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 152.
I have found this family in neither Arsenault, Généalogie, nor White DGFA-1, nor in any church record of South LA. Wood, Acadians in Maryland, 154, claims that he & Anne married at Louisbourg in c1751. This makes no sense in light of the age of 2 of his BENOIT stepdaughters recorded on the passenger list of Britannia in 1769--15 & 9, giving them estimated birth years of ... c1754 & c1760. Unless, as the MD census of Jul 1763 says, they were not his stepdaughters but kinswomen of his wife Anne.
What happened to him & his family after they reached Natchitoches? One of his "stepdaughters," Marie-Rose BENOIT, married a DELAFOSSE from Natchitoches but moved with him to the Opelousas District. Another "stepdaughter," Marguerite BENOIT, married a BROUSSARD from the Opelousas area. Did the LATIERs go to the Opelousas District as well? If so, why do none of them appear in the church records there? See Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, vols. 1-A, 1-B.
04. Wall of Names, 21, calls him Paul LATIER.
What happened to him in LA?
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