Introducing a fantastical new project from Louisiana writer and historian Clark Taylor.

In the fall of 2009, I was doing research at the Amistad Research facility on the campus of Tulane University when I learned of the existence of a cache of pages from what looked to be a collection of poems. After some cursory reading, it became obvious that rather than a collection of individual poems, it was in fact a singular, long work of epic poetry.

A fellow researcher, who shall remain anonymous for a variety of reasons, explained that the pages had been discovered in the attic of a house then undergoing renovation after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The hundreds of pages were stuffed into a cracked leather pouch, which itself had suffered much over the nearly two hundred years, but the contents seemed to have weathered the years fairly well, kept as they were in a well-sealed cedar chest. I was able to acquire the papers. The manner by which this occurred shall also remain hidden.

The long poem, running some hundreds of stanzas, was written in a poetic style — eleven-line stanzas with an AA-BB-CC-DD-EEE rhyme scheme — previously unknown or unused by poets of the early 19th century, when the poem seems to have been composed. Given the value of writing paper of the day, the undertaking may have been the work of a man (or woman) of some means, though during the era there were many people employed as “scriveners,” engaged in the mindless, yet vital work of copying legal and business papers for attorneys, businessmen and the like. It is possible that the author was able to work on the poem while at work in that capacity, but I do not know. By this time, mass-produced rag paper had been well-developed and the early versions of metal nib pens had been introduced, so access to the numerous pages, ink and pen with which to pursue this was certainly available to even people of modest means.

The author’s name is Rufus Pembroke and he signs an opening letter describing his process as “Mardi Gras Day 1824,” though since I cannot locate any reference to Pembroke, nor any works that seem to resemble this work, I cannot be sure as to any provenance for the poem. If anyone is able to locate the author in any archives, I would very much like to find out more, but after nearly fifteen years, I have been unable to find even so much as a signature from a Rufus Pembroke of that time period. It is very possible that the author’s name is a nom de plume.

Once in possession of the pages, I set to work trying to recreate the poem. The greatest trouble — besides ensuring a faithful rendering of the handwriting into type — was finding an order for the pages which had been put away in a higgledy-piggledy fashion. There was rhyme, but no reason.

This work continues, even to this moment. I will be putting up the poem on this site as I continue to sort and transcribe the work.

ABOUT THE POEM

“The Legend of Ti-Sainte” delves into the history of Colonial Louisiana and intermixes actual and fictional historical characters, intertwining their lives in an effort to establish a heretofore unrecognized persona: a sort of patron saint of Mardi Gras named Jean-Baptiste Sauvole, but known to all as “Ti-Sainte” or “little saint”. According to the narrative, he was born in dramatic fashion on March 3, 1699 (Mardi Gras Day), the same day that Iberville rediscovered the mouth of the Mississippi River. Importantly, his mother’s life takes up much of the narrative as a witness to the earliest days of the colony, with the amazing assertion that she was the lover and wife of the somewhat mysterious Antoine Sauvole¹, the first governor of Louisiana. According to the narrative, Lanme’a “Marie” Sauvole was the illegitimate daughter of a white French slave master on the island nation of San Domingue, now known as Haiti. Her mother was an African Creole enslaved woman living in the master’s home. 

The poem asserts that Sauvole was the son of a wealthy French businessman living and working in San Domingue. The young Antoine fell in love with the beautiful Lanme’a but their forbidden relationship was ended when Sauvole was sent away to sea.  Under the protection of another pirate, Laurens de Graff (or De Graaf), who sailed on behalf of the French in the Caribbean, Lanme’a and Antoine were secreted to De Graff’s home for a brief period. During that time, she and Antoine conceived the child who would become Ti-Sainte. As the father of the child who would become Ti-Sainte, Sauvole arises more prominently in our consideration of his role as a founder of the French colony which first formed along the Mississippi coast, moved to what is now Mobile and then eventually settled in what is now New Orleans.

Lanme’a subsequently sold to a pirate named Benjamin Long) Long seems to be the alias of a pirate named Henry Every who, after a short but illustrious career, disappears into history in 1696. He arises as the antagonist in the story, pursuing Lanme’a as his purchased slave, while aiding British interests in the Gulf and in Britain’s wars against France. 

Once rescued, Lanme’a (taking the name Marie) sailed to help establish the colony with Antoine and then spent her life in proximity to Jean-Baptiste de Bienville, whom everyone recognizes as the Father of Louisiana. While his brother Iberville is credited with the “discovery” of the mouth of the Mississippi, what becomes obvious is that Bienville and Sauvole were the principal “discoverers” of the true nature of the region and that the Mississippi River (then known as the St Louis or Colbert variously) was only part of a large and relatively ancient network of waterways, primarily coastal in utility. The southern portion of the Mississippi and it’s remote “birdsfoot” delta were actually little used by natives of the region and were only sparingly used by the colonists and the French and Spanish and freeboot smugglers, pirates and businesses seeking survival and wealth. Navigating up the river, against its flow and treacherous current full of fallen trees and whatever else was carried to its frayed and ever-changing exit into the Gulf, was a dangerous and time-consuming journey. The better way in — and the one used for centuries by the many tribes who plied the coastal waters for trade and interaction — was across Lake Bourne and Lake Ponchartrain entering the bayou now called St John’s with a short portage to the river (also achievable through the Manchac area) and upriver to Indian settlements, nations and hunting grounds throughout the interior of what would become the United States and into Canada. For the earliest Louisiana Gulf Coast colonists, this meant dealing with the Indian tribes throughout the area, but especially the Natchez, whose regal Sun King ruled a powerful tribe whose trade and interrelations and influence moved up and down the portion of the river from what is now Natchez, Mississippi to the coast. New Orleans, then, is a much more complex story and one which the poem engages.

As a historian, I could not help but be compelled by Pembroke’s account of these settlements and believe it brings some new understanding of the founding of the Gulf Coast and its importance to understanding Colonial America in a new, more complete way. For too long, the focus of American settlement has gone through an English eye, when in fact, the Gulf Coast region — which included the Caribbean, the coast of Mexico and even South America — supplied much of the economy of Europe during this volatile period of global warfare and competition between Spain, France and England. One of the only reasons for this blindness is simply that much of the documentation, business and indeed cultural change took place in French or Spanish and once the Americans gained independence (thanks in no small part to the support of France) “English” became the lingua franca and subsequent early efforts of the American Founders (especially Thomas Jefferson) eliminated, bought out or simply refused to deal with polities and business relationships which had been developed over the previous two centuries. In one of the more devastating moments, Jefferson, elected in 1800 in a very contentious election which upended American economics in favor of the slaveholders, immediately cut diplomatic ties with the Haitian government, run by former slaves who had rebelled and taken control of what had been once of the most productive regions of the Caribbean. His predecessor, John Adams had established a working relationship with Haiti and its brilliant leader Toussaint Louverture, a relationship which was poised to direct the wealth of the sugar cane growing region (which had at one point provided at least one third of France’s economy) to and through the ports of America. Adams had gone so far as to send a permanent emissary to the newly founded former slave colony — the only such nation in history — and had begun what might have proved to be a very successful partnership for the fledgling nation. However, once Jefferson took office, he called back the emissary and cut off all economic and political ties. This allowed France, under the rule of Napoleon, to send a force of thirty thousand soldiers to the colony in hopes of taking back their profitable land and returning the half million inhabitants to their former status as enslaved workers. Needless to say, this did not work out. Along the way however, the French imprisoned Louverture (he died in a French prison), lost many of their troops to yellow fever and the determination of the Haitians to “live free or die” as the saying went back then, and gave up on their efforts to reclaim their colony. Immediately thereafter, Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, made a deal with Spain for its held land along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts and voila, America tripled in size.