Rosette Rochon (1767–1863) was an American placée and businesswoman, who was an important figure in the ''

Gens de couleur libres In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (; ) were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not enslaved. However, the term also applied to people born free who w ...

'' society of

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. She belonged to the most famous of the placées of New Orleans alongside Eulalie de Mandéville and

Marie Thérèse Metoyer Marie may refer to the following. People Given name * Marie (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** List of people named Marie * Marie (Japanese given name) Surname * Jean Gabriel-Marie, French compo ...

, and made a fortune on investments in dry goods, cattle, banking, slave trade and real estate business.

Life

She was born in 1767 in colonial Mobile, one of five children to the daughter of Pierre Rochon, a shipbuilder from a Québécois family (family name was Rocheron in

Québec Quebec is Canada's largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, New Brunswick to the southeast and a coastal border ...

), and his mixed race slave-consort Marianne.

Placée

Once Rosette reached a suitable age, she became the placée of a Monsieur Hardy, with whom she relocated to the colony of

Saint Domingue Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1803. The name derives from the Spanish main city on the island, Santo Domingo, which came to re ...

. During her sojourn there, Hardy must have died or relinquished his relationship with her; for in 1797 during the

Haitian Revolution The Haitian Revolution ( or ; ) was a successful insurrection by slave revolt, self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was the only known Slave rebellion, slave up ...

, she escaped to New Orleans, where she later became the placée of Joseph Forstal and Charles Populus, both wealthy white New Orleans Creoles.

Business activity

Rochon came to speculate in real estate in the

French Quarter The French Quarter, also known as the (; ; ), is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans () was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old Square" in English), a ...

; she eventually owned rental property, opened grocery stores, made loans, bought and sold mortgages, and owned and rented out (hired out) slaves. She also traveled extensively back and forth to

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

, where her son by Hardy had become a government official in the new republic. Her social circle in New Orleans once included

Marie Laveau Marie Catherine Laveau (September 10, 1801 – June 15, 1881)''Marie Laveau The Mysterious Voodoo Queen: A Study of Powerful Female Leadership in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans'' by Ina Johanna Fandrich was a Louisiana Creole practitioner of ...

Jean Lafitte Jean Lafitte ( – ) was a French pirate, privateer, and slave trader who operated in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He and his older brother Pierre spelled their last name Laffite, but English language documents of the time u ...

, and the free black contractors and real estate developers Jean-Louis Doliolle and his brother Joseph Doliolle. In particular, Rochon became one of the earliest investors in the

Faubourg Marigny The Faubourg Marigny ( ; sometimes called The Marigny) is a Neighborhoods in New Orleans, neighborhood of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Its boundaries, as defined by the City Planning Commission, are Rampart Street, North R ...

, acquiring her first lot from

Bernard de Marigny Jean-Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville (1785–1868), known as Bernard de Marigny, was a French- Creole American nobleman, playboy, planter, politician, duelist, writer, horse breeder, land developer, and President of the Louisian ...

in 1806. Bernard de Marigny, the Creole speculator, refused to sell the lots he was subdividing from his family plantation to anyone who spoke English. While this turned out to be a losing financial decision, Marigny felt more comfortable with the French-speaking, Catholic free people of color (having relatives, lovers, and even children on this side of the color line). Consequently, much of Faubourg Marigny was built by free black artisans for free people of color or for French-speaking white Creoles. Rochon remained largely illiterate, dying in 1863 at the age of 96, leaving behind an

estate Estate or The Estate may refer to: Law * Estate (law), a term in common law for a person's property, entitlements and obligations * Estates of the realm, a broad social category in the histories of certain countries. ** The Estates, representativ ...

valued at $100,000 (today, an estate worth a million dollars).

References

* The Strange History of the American Quadroon − Free Women of Color in the Revolutionary Atlantic World, by Emily Clark, The University of North Carolina Press, 2013. * Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century, by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Louisiana State University Press, 1995. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rochon, Rosette 1767 births 1863 deaths People from British Florida 19th-century American slave traders 19th-century American businesswomen African-American slave owners Women slave owners 19th-century American merchants Women slave traders