Eufrosina Hinard

Eufrosina Hinard also Hisnard (1777 – after 1819), was a businesswoman who lived in New Orleans and Pensacola, Spanish West Florida. Hinard, a free mixed-race woman, owned and bought slaves and allowed them to purchase their own freedom.

Biography

Hinard was born in 1777 in New Orleans to a freed black slave.[1][2] Her father was a free white man, and as Hinard's mother had been freed, Hinard was also born free.[2]

In 1791, she was placéed to Nicolás María Vidal, a legal counselor to the governor of Spanish Louisiana.[2][3] She had two daughters with Vidal: Carolina Maria Salome and Maria Josefa de las Mercedes.[2][3][4] Although Vidal was not listed on the children's baptism records,[3] Hisnard and Vidal's daughters were accepted as part of Vidal's social circle without scandal.[5]

Hinard and her daughters lived in New Orleans until 1803, when it was ceded to the French at which time they moved with Vidal to Pensacola, Spanish West Florida.[6]

When Vidal died in 1806, he left his estate and his slaves to Hinard and her daughters.[2] Fighting for the estate was not easy and led to Hinard and her daughters confronting Andrew Jackson over the controversy.[7]

Hinard rented out her slaves and purchased more slaves.[4] While it was becoming difficult, if not impossible, for slaves to purchase their own freedom from their owners in the United States, Hinard still allowed the practice with her own slaves after the cession of Spanish East and West Florida to the U.S.[2] Hinard considered her slaveholding as a "business practice, not a human condition."[8] Her slaves could pay their purchase price, plus interest, in order to earn their freedom.[4] Hinard also owned a brickworks in Florida.[9]

Hinard is the fourth-great-grandmother to Creole chef Leah Chase.[7]

References
  1. "Dictionary of Louisiana Biography - V". Louisiana Historical Association. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  2. Gould, Virginia (1997). "Hinard, Eufrosina". In Hine, Darlene Clark; Thompson, Kathleen (eds.). Facts on File Encyclopedia of Black Women in America: The Early Years, 1819-1899. New York: Facts on File. pp. 105–106. ISBN 0-8160-3425-7. OCLC 35209436.
  3. Spear, Jennifer M. (2001). "'Clean of Blood, Without Stain or Mixture'". In Lindman, Janet Moore; Tarter, Michele Lise (eds.). A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-5017-1763-5.
  4. Madden, Annette (2000). In Her Footsteps: 101 Remarkable Black Women from the Queen of Sheba to Queen Latifah. Berkeley, California: Conari Press. pp. 99–100. ISBN 978-1-57324-553-1.
  5. Martínez y Gálvez, Inmaculada (1998). La Mujer y la Vida Familiar en Nueva Orleans (1763–1803) [Women and Family Life in New Orleans (1763–1803)] (PDF). XIII Coloquio de Historia Canario-Americana & VIII Congreso Internacional de Historia de America (in Spanish). Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. pp. 1380–1394. ISBN 84-8103-242-5. Retrieved December 18, 2018.
  6. Gould, Virginia Meacham (1997). "'A Chaos of Iniquity and Discord'". In Clinton, Catherine; Gillespie, Michele (eds.). The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 238–239. ISBN 978-0-19-511242-9.
  7. Smolenyak, Megan (2019-06-02). "The Louisiana Roots of Leah Chase, Queen of Creole Cuisine". Medium. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  8. Hine, Darlene Clark; Thompson, Kathleen (1998). A Shining Thread of Hope. New York: Broadway Books. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-307-56822-9.
  9. Niven, Steven J. (10 March 2015). "A Cane River Tale: From Slave to Free Woman to Slave Owner". The Root. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
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