Fazendeville was a small, historic, African American community in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, United States. Located near the Freedmen's Cemetery in the parish, this village was razed during the 1960s as part of an expansion of the Chalmette National Battlefield in the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve.Pena, Allison, H. Fazendeville - Highlighting Invisible Pasts and Dignifying Present Identities, National Park Service, 2000. Available as PDV via Chapman, Ron. "Fazendeville." New Orleans, Louisiana: New Orleans Magazine, Renaissance Publications, December 28, 2004.Fender, Jessica. "'People want to get in their car right now and just drive': TV series tours St. Bernard Parish." New Orleans, Louisiana: Nola.com, October 5, 2020.Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve: Chalmette Unit: Cultural Landscape Report, pp. 1-5, 24, 30-31, 33, 37-40, Illustration 2.3, 43, 46-47, Illustration 2.4, 53-54, 68, Illustration 2.6, 71-74, 78-81, Illustration 2.7, 86-88, 91, 102, 107, 118-119, 126-127, Illustrations 3.1, 3.3 and 3.4, 152, 163-183, 193, 199-200, 203-209, 216-218, Illustration 4.1, 227, 230-231, 235, 239-240, 243-248, and Illustration 5.1. Atlanta, Georgia: Cultural Resources, Partnerships and Science Directorate, Southeast Regional Office, National Park Service, May 2022.
It was known to residents who lived there as "The Village."Abrams, Eve. "The Defeat of Fazendeville," in 64 Parishes. New Orleans, Louisiana: Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, retrieved online October 10, 2022.Jackson, Joyce Marie. "Life in the Village: A Cultural Memory of the Fazendeville Community." Washington DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Historical Park, 2003.Abrams, Eve. "Fazendeville, the town razed to make way for the Chalmette National Monument," in "All Things New Orleans." New Orleans, Louisiana: WWNO 88.9 FM, January 8, 2015.
A significant percentage of the village's displaced residents resettled in New Orleans' Ninth Ward.Jackson, Joyce Marie. "Declaration of Taking Twice: The Fazendeville Community of the Lower Ninth Ward," in American Anthropologist, Vol. 108, No. 4, pp. 765-780. Arlington, Virginia: American Anthropological Association, December 2006.
History As it matured, the self-contained village of Fazendeville grew to have its own general stores, a one-room schoolhouse which taught first through eighth grades, two benevolent societies, and the Battle Ground Baptist Church. The main street was Fazendeville Road, which ran from St. Bernard Highway to the River Road which formerly ran along the base of the Mississippi levee. "The houses were situated on the east side of the road. An open pasture lay behind the houses. It was used for a baseball field," according to Chapman. "A large grove of pecan trees flourished west" of a "millrace (a channel whose current is used to power a mill wheel)."Chapman, Fazendeville.
Multiple structures in the village were built using a narrow, rectangular architectural style popularized after the Civil War, which was known as the shotgun house."Fazendeville, Louisiana," in "Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve." Clemson, South Carolina: Open Parks Network, Clemson University, retrieved online October 12, 2022. Individual rooms were placed behind each other, one after another, between a front and rear door, giving rise to the description that a bullet fired from a gun at a home's front door would be able to travel straight through to the back door without hitting anything in between.Campanella, Richard. "Shotgun geography: the history behind the famous New Orleans elongated house." New Orleans, Louisiana: NOLA.com, February 12, 2014.
Mid-Late 1800s In 1854, the land on which the village would be built was listed as part of the succession of Jean Pierre Fazende, a "free man of color", and was inherited by his son of the same name. At the end of the American Civil War, the younger Fazende divided what had been agricultural land into lots and sold them to recently freed slaves, which led to the start of the Black community by 1867.O'Connell, Kim. "Swamp Fever At Jean Lafitte National Historical Park And Preserve." Park City, Utah: National Parks Traveler, December 20, 2019. The Battle Ground Baptist Church was subsequently established on April 16, 1868. "A one-street community of 33 lots evolved over the years," according to historian Ron Chapman, who notes that the 1888 state census documented a total of seventeen families who were residents of the community that year.Chapman, Fazendeville.
Social structures within the village also began to emerge during this time. In 1881, residents of Fazendeville formed the Progressive Mutual Aid and Benevolent Association "to provide medical treatment and other kinds of relief for its members, including the cost of burial," according to The St. Bernard Voice, which reported on the sixty-first anniversary of the organization's establishment in its September 26, 1942, edition. "The organization was patterned after the St. Maurice Society, and among those who first guided its destinies were Homer Charles, Carl Cook, Chas. C. Cager,"Charles Cager, Oldest Inhabitant of Fazendeville, Is Badly Injured." Arabi, Louisiana: The St. Bernard Voice, August 9, 1930, front page (subscription required)."C.C. Cager Passes On." Arabi, Louisiana: "The St. Bernard Voice, February 4, 1933, front page (subscription required). Sebastien Smith and Sol Calvin, who were among the original settlers of the village.""Progressive Association Is Sixty-one Years Old: Founded at Fazendeville It Accomplished Much in the Field of Charity." Arabi, Louisiana: The St. Bernard Voice, September 26, 1942, front page (subscription required).
On New Year's Day in 1890, Fazendeville residents commemorated President Abraham Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation with a special program involving an oration by Warren W. Beals of Michigan, speeches by the Rev. E. Nicholas, C.C. Cager, Carl Cook, and Leopold Charles, and a concert presentation by the Chalmette Brass Band."News Items in The Voice 25 Years Ago." Arabi, Louisiana: The St. Bernard Voice, January 16, 1915, p. 5 (subscription required). According to music historian, Fazendeville had a very active concert band presence during the early 1890s with performances in the village by the Chalmette Brass Band and other ensembles covered frequently by area newspapers.Koenig, Karl. Music in the Parishes Surrounding New Orleans: Plaquemines," pp. 60-61. Lafayette, Louisiana: Basinstreet.com, September, 2016. Nearly eight years later, on Christmas Eve in 1898, The St. Bernard Voice reported that Fazendeville civic leaders planned to hold a special entertainment event to raise public improvement funds to provide for the installation of sidewalks in the village."Want Side-Walks: Residents of Fazendeville After Improvements." Arabi, Louisiana: The St. Bernard Voice, December 24, 1898, p. 3 (subscription required). In 1899, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans reported that Fazendeville residents were planning another special event to raise additional public improvement funding."In St. Bernard." New Orleans, Louisiana: The Times-Picayune, January 26, 1899, p. 13 (subscription required).
Early 1900s In April 1902, residents of Fazendeville approved a plan to create a new school for local children that would be operated from the basement of the village's Progressive Hall."In St. Bernard." New Orleans, Louisiana: The Times-Dispatch, April 29, 1902, p. 9 (subscription required). On October 12 of that same year, civic leaders hosted a festival to raise funds in support of the First Ward Colored School. According to The St. Bernard Voice, "The idea of giving a festival for the improvement of their school building originated with a number of the progressive citizens of Fazendeville, who aroused the interest and enthusiasm of their neighbors and labored earnestly to raise the necessary funds." Special events included "base ball games, greasy pig, dancing, foot race, etc.," and the crowd was "imbued with the spirit of the occasion.""Successful Festival, For the Benefit of the First Ward Colored School." Arabi, Louisiana: The St. Bernard Voice, October 18, 1902, p. 3 (subscription required).
Roughly sixty years before Fazendeville was razed as part of the transformation of the Chalmette National Battlefield into the Chalmette National Historical Park, executives of the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (known more commonly as the "Frisco Railroad") were reported by newspapers as participating in similar efforts which would have erased the village from Louisiana's landscape. In 1903, Frisco executives engaged in negotiations to purchase large tracts of land in St. Bernard Parish "up to the Orleans Parish line" as part of their plans of "gigantic scope" to further the expansion of the company's rail lines and operations facilities across Louisiana. "The Frisco road cannot obtain title to the National Cemetery, but is after all the rest of the river front, and wants to cross the present public road practically at grade in many public places," wrote one newspaper editor. As part of this plan, Frisco executives proposed relocating Fazendeville's residents to the much smaller, neighboring village of Versailles, which was described as a "settlement consist[ing] merely of a row of very small properties along a public road running at right angles from the river to the railroad track"; however, many of Fazendeville's residents resisted and then ultimately refused the railway's financial offers."St. Bernard Progress: Gigantic Scope of the Plans of the Frisco: Buying Upland Up to the Orleans Parish Line." New Orleans, Louisiana: The Times-Democrat, July 16, 1903, p. 7 (subscription required)."Expropriation Suits Will Be Filed Against Fazendeville Property Holders Who, the Frisco Claims, Are Asking Too Much." Arabi, Louisiana: The St. Bernard Voice, August 29, 1903, p. 3 (subscription required)."Expropriation Suits Will Be Fought By the Colored Property Owners." Arabi, Louisiana: The St. Bernard Voice, September 5, 1903, p. 3 (subscription required).
Among those who did sell to Frisco were "Homer Charles, proprietor of the Chalmette Grocery Store at Fazendeville, and the Charles' heirs who own[ed] property adjoining," according to New Orleans' Times-Picayune newspaper. The grocery was located "on the corner of Fazende Lane and the Levee." Per the agreement, Charles and his heirs were slated to "remain in possession until the Company [had] immediate use for the land."Jackson, Charles D. "Homer Charles Built Distinguished Legacy." Chalmette, Louisiana: St. Bernard Magazine, Spring 2022, p. 7.
In 1905, "Judge A.E. Livaudais, of the firm of Livaudais & Livaudais, presented a petition signed by the property holders and residents of Fazendeville, asking the Police Jury to provide for a right of way in the rear of the village, so that would not be cut off from the rest of the world," according to local newspaper reports. A committee of three was "appointed to investigate the matter.""Items in The Voice 25 Years Ago." Arabi, Louisiana: The St. Bernard Voice, March 22, 1930, p. 3 (subscription required).
Fazendeville's second Battle Ground Baptist Church was dedicated on Sunday, April 9, 1911."Latest Happenings in St. Bernard Parish." New Orleans, Louisiana: The Times-Democrat, April 11, 1911, p. 15 (subscription required)."Items in The Voice 25 Years Ago." Arabi, Louisiana: The St. Bernard Voice, April 11, 1936, p. 4 (subscription required).