The Rising Economic Power of Free People of Color in the 1780s

Abstract

In 1782, Julien Raimond, now a successful indigo planter in Aquin parish, married for the second time. Racial prejudice had increased significantly in the decade since his first wife and cousin died, but so had Raimond’s wealth. At the age of 26 he had been worth 35,000 livres. Now, at age 37, Raimond owned two indigo works, land, nearly 100 slaves, and other property worth 202,000 livres. His new spouse was someone he had known almost all his life, his neigh-bor, Françoise Dasmard Challe. In 1760 she had married the French immigrant Jacques Challe (chapter 2), but in 1774 Ile had returned to France without her or their children. Since that time Raimond had advised Françoise about her plantation, which had 51 slaves and was worth over 177,000 livres. In 1777 Françoise’s mother Julie drafted a testament leaving half her estate to her daughter and the other half to Raimond, “in order that he remember her in his prayers.” When Jacques Challe died in France in 1780, he left most of his property to his widow, including seigneurial land in France that had cost him 90,000 livres. The local court appointed Julien Raimond guardian of the Challe children.¹