Jenny, an eleven year old girl was purchased in Norfolk, Virginia by slave trader James Barnes Diggs and transported to New Orleans, Louisiana on the Brig Ajax, captained by Robert H. Banks of Norfolk, Virginia. The ship arrived in New Orleans on March 24, 1829. Jenny’s name appears on the manifest filed with notary Hugh Gordon on that date. She spent about a month in New Orleans, likely in one of the slave jails along the port.
Jenny was sold to Helene Vascone, the wife of Jacques Vitaut/Vitaud on April 21, 1829. The Vitauts lived in Nachitoches, Louisiana but clearly spent a significant amount of time in New Orleans. The Vitauts were planning a family when they purchased Jenny. Helene Vascone gave birth to a daughter, Marie Audelie Vitaut on December 16, 1830. It is likely Jenny was intended to serve as a nursemaid for the couple’s children.
The Vitauds were likely refugees from the revolution in Saint Domingue. Thousands of slaveholders fled the former French colony to the United States. They joined other displaced French colonists, the Acadians, in the parishes around New Orleans in the late eighteenth century. Refuges recreated much of French colonial culture in their homes and towns, including extensive slaveholding. Jenny would have been expected to learn French in order to communicate with the Vitaud family, and likely would have conversed in creole with other enslaved people in the area.
By 1840, Jacques Vitaud owned a home in St. James Parish, Louisiana on the left bank of the Mississippi, not far outside New Orleans. Although Helene and her daughter are not listed as part of the household, Jacques Vitaud listed one enslaved woman aged between 24 and 35, and one free black child under aged ten in his household. The enslaved woman may be Jenny, as she would have been approximately 22 when the census was taken.
Sources:
“Louisiana, Orleans Parish, Birth Records, 1819-1906”, database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:44H6-M1N2 : 18 November 2019), Jacques Vitaut in entry for Marie Audelie Vitaut, 1830.
“United States Census, 1840,” database with images, FamilySearch(https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHTD-5KH : 8 December 2020), Jacques Vitaud, St. James, Louisiana, United States; citing p. 263, NARA microfilm publication , (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll ; FHL microfilm .
Sale of Slave, April 21, 1829, Act. 114. Notarial Records of Joseph Arnaud, 1827-1829, Orleans Parish Notarial Archives, New Orleans, Louisiana. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-F3ZY-PZ1V?i=909&cat=152862
Appendix D: Surnames of some Saint-Domingue Refugee Families. The Acadian Memorial Archive. https://www.acadianmemorial.org/ensemble_encore2/cajunrootsd.htm