Henriette Delille, like many other women who entered religious life over the centuries, came from a prosperous and influential family. Henriette was born in 1812, the youngest of the four children of Marie Josephe Diaz. Her mother was described in the records as une femme de couleur libre (a free woman of color), a quadroon.

Henriette's brother, Jean, was about nine years old at her birth. Her sister Cecile was about five. Another brother who would have been three years old at Henriette's birth ahd died in infancy. While the fathers of Jean [Jean Delille] and Cecile [ Juan Bonille] are known, Henriette's father has not been positively identified. It is clear that no matter who he was, he took little or no interest in his daughter.

Henriette was not only surrounded by her immediate family, she was also blessed with a family and family traditions that extended far beyond that of her mother and siblings, her grandmother, Henrietet Laveau, for whom she was named, had been born into slavery, as had her mother before her.

Henriette Laveau died when Henriette was only two years old. Despite this loss, Henriette enjoyed the care of aunts and uncles and great-aunts and great-uncles, as well as cousins who were scattered about the city. She had relatives among the Boisdore, Dubreuil, Roche, Roig, Foucher, Baham, Rouzan, Morant, Crocker, and Bell families, all of whom appear in Henriette Delille's family records.

Although the family that surrounded young Henriette was crucial to her formation of her identity, family meant more to her than just aunts, uncles, and cousins. Henriette came to understand her position in the community, her identity as a devout Catholic woman of color, from her family. That was what had been handed down to her through the four generations of women who preceded her.

The first of Henriette'e ancestors of whom we have evidence was her

great-great-grandmother and her great-great-grandfather. Her great-great-grandmother was an African woman who was brought in bondage to Louisiana during the years that France governed the colony. This African slave woman, who originated the lineage from which Delille descended, was named Marie Ann by her godmother, Marianne Piquery, at her baptism in 1745.

The baptismal record noted that the slave Marie Ann belonged to Claude Joseph Dubreuil. But Dubreuil was more than just Marie Ann's owner, he was also the father of her three children, Marie Ann, Cecile, and Etienne. Dubreuil moved from Mobile to New Orleans in 1718, he was responsible for designing and building much of South Louisiana's canal and levee system.

He also built the Old Ursuline Convent, which is the oldest standing building in the Mississippi River Valley. Dubreuil's plantation was located at Tchoupitoulas, which is the ground upon which the present day Alton Oschner's Medical Foundation stands.

Despite Dubreuil's relationship to Marie Ann and their children, he failed to free them. Instead, they were freed more than a decade after Dubreuil's death by one of his legitimate sons, Claude Joseph Dubreuil, Jr. the document in which Marie Ann was freed identifies her children as the half siblings of Claude Joseph Dubreuil, Jr. Marie Ann's children and grandchildren were freed a few years later. The children took their father's surname, Dubreuil, after they were freed in the 1760s and 1770s. it was one of these half siblings, Cecile, who was Henriette's great-grandmother.

Soon after they were freed, Marianne and Cecile Dubreuil began to accumulate property, which secured their positions in the community. By the end of the eighteenth century they were among the wealthiest women in New Orleans.

Both women lived on Royal Street, near the St. Louis Cathedral. They both owned houses and slaves. Neither married; instead, each formed liaisons with white men. It was that tradition of women of African descent cohabiting with white men that gave New Orleans its colorful reputation for quadroons and quadroon balls. However, this romanticized version of history does not reflect the harsh realities that free women of color faced. Free women of color in eighteenth and nineteenth century New Orleans had few choices.

There were few free men of color for them to marry and they were prohibited by law and tradition from marrying whites, though some did. All in all, their lives were never easy. The men they accepted into their lives came and went, almost always leaving the women to raise their children with little or no support.

The Church contributed to the security of the women within the community. Henriette's great-great-grandmother, Marie Ann, was baptized soon after their birth. Marie Ann's children had their children baptized. As one generation succeeded into the next, the women expanded their roles within the Church.

The women not only had their children baptized, they also served as godmothers to the children of other slave women. The tradition of godparenting was passed down through consecutive generations. Henriette Laveau, Cecile Dubreuil's daughter , and Marie Josephe Diaz, Henriette Laveau's daughter, and Henriette Delille, Marie Josephe Diaz' daughter, obligate themselves to a multitude of children.

For further information, write:
Hariette Delille Commission Office
6901 Chef Menteur Highway
New Orleans, LA 70126-5290
Fax (504) 241-3957
EmailSylviathib@aol.com