Overview

Melissa Daggett's Eugène and Eulalie is an epic story of love, race, prosperity, and legal maneuvering. It chronicles for the first time in a comprehensive way the largely forgotten lives of Eulalie Mandeville, a free woman of color, and her white partner, Eugène Macarty. Mandeville and Macarty, both descendants of elite colonial families, began an interracial relationship in the 1790s that endured for more than half a century and produced five children. It also led to Mandeville's phenomenal rise to the pinnacle of wealth and success within the unique tripartite racial structure of nineteenth-century New Orleans. Daggett uses the voluminous Nicolas Théodore Macarty et al. vs. Eulalie Mandeville f.w.c. (1848) court case to examine how an interracial relationship continued for more than fifty years despite onerous laws during the Spanish regime and the antebellum era that complicated such partnerships. She examines the origins of the Macarty and Mandeville families, revealing how they paralleled each other in Louisiana history and often intersected on social, military, economic, and political levels. Daggett also analyzes the struggles of the free people of color in both colonial Louisiana and early America and explores the ways slavery, manumission, and inheritance laws connected the two families. Above all, her work recovers the unique story of Eugène Macarty and Eulalie Mandeville, which has languished in the shadows of historical obscurity for generations.

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9780807185902

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Reviews

""Melissa Daggett's deeply researched and beautifully written Eugène and Eulalie is a stunningly original book. With a firm grasp of Louisiana's complex past and a keen eye for detail, the author explores the intricate life of an extraordinary free woman of color in antebellum New Orleans. Along the way, the reader will gain fresh insight into Louisiana's storied history of interracial relationships."" - Mark Charles Roudané, author of The New Orleans Tribune: An Introduction to America's First Black Daily Newspaper ""Melissa Daggett recounts the captivating story of an interracial couple, Eugène Macarty and Eulalie Mandeville, with aplomb. Using a wide range of documents, she reveals the intricacies of family life within a unique Creole society during a time of shifting racial, class, and gender allegiances and legalities. This page-turner is rich and illuminating. Daggett knows how to make history come alive."" - Miki Pfeffer, editor of A New Orleans Author in Mark Twain's Court: Letters from Grace King's New England Sojourns ""Building on an impressive array of multilingual sources, Melissa Daggett adds an extraordinary new chapter to the city's history. Her riveting study centers on a biracial couple, the offspring of prestigious Creole families. In the 1790s, they entered into a fifty-year, marriage-like relationship. After Eugène Macarty died, Eulalie Mandeville defended her property from challenges of Macarty's white relatives. Daggett brings fascinating details drawn from the legal proceedings to illuminate the political and social landscapes of antebellum New Orleans."" - Caryn Cossé Bell, author of Creole New Orleans in the Revolutionary Atlantic, 1775–1877

Author Information

Melissa Daggett is a former professor of history at San Jacinto College and the author of Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans: The Life and Times of Henry Louis Rey.

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