Transcribe NOLA Jazz Museum Colonial Records

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Transcribe NOLA Jazz Museum Colonial Records
The Louisiana Historical Center at the New Orleans Jazz Museum has digitized its collection of eighteenth-century French and Spanish colonial judicial records. You can consult this digital collection online at LAColonialDocs.org. You can also consult the original documents in the Louisiana Historical Center at the New Orleans Jazz Museum Reading Room.

The colonial records at the Jazz Museum are an extraordinary source of information about the people who lived in eighteenth-century New Orleans and the lower Mississippi Valley and about the institutions that shaped their lives. They were created when French and Spanish notaries recorded disputes about property and enslaved people. They give us details about enslavement, self-liberation and rebellion, kinship connections, pirate raids, colonial medicine, gambling parties, disputed inheritances, marital strife, and much more. Open-access transcriptions and translations of these documents make important steps toward caring for the words in these records and connecting them to a wider community. Learn more about the transcribathon project and about how you can get involved by visiting the project blog at nolajazztranscribathon.wordpress.com.

We would like to give credit to our contributors, so if you worked on the transcription or translation of any of these documents, please complete this form so that we can attribute you accordingly. Contributors to the collaborative transcription and translation of this document accept and agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License ("Public License"). This license lets others share, remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you (through your FromThePage user name) and license their new creations under the identical terms.

The documents that appear on this page are taken from a list of interesting records compiled by digitization experts during the 2010-2016 digitization project. Transcribathon co-coordinators worked together to feature all the documents from this list that had under twenty total transcribable/translatable images on this project site. Judicial Records of the French Superior Council (1714-1769) and the Spanish Judicial Records (1769-1803) appear courtesy of the Louisiana State Museum Historical Center and the Louisiana Colonial Documents Digitization Project. www.lacolonialdocs.org.

Works

1728 | Melun accused of stealing bacon | FRENCH

1728 | Melun accused of stealing bacon | FRENCH

In this record, the king's attorney accuses a man named Melun (aka Bourguignon) of stealing pieces of bacon from the house of la Coupart. The notary records details about other complains made against Melun, and it mentions that he was brought to Louisiana against his will. The attorney requests...

Collaboration is restricted.

3 pages: 66% complete (66% translated, 33% needs review)
1739 | chase by pirates | FRENCH

1739 | chase by pirates | FRENCH

The WPA abstract included with this record tells us that on December 14, 1739, the crew of the SS. Conte de Maurepas described their encounter with pirates to the notary of the French Superior Council. You can help us know more about this record by transcribing and translating parts of it...

5 pages: 100% complete (20% translated, 20% needs review)
1739 | contract for trade with Choctaw people | FRENCH

1739 | contract for trade with Choctaw people | FRENCH

This is a contract from 1739 is signed by Bellair, Roumier, Lenormand, Lahan, and Henry and describes a plan for trade with Choctaw people. Help find more details about this record by transcribing/translating it or by looking up a summary of it written by Heloise Cruzat and published in the...

Collaboration is restricted.

3 pages: 0% complete (0% translated)
1740 | report of deaths of three Black men enslaved by D'Alcourt on expedition against Tchikachas or Chicasaws | FRENCH

1740 | report of deaths of three Black men enslaved by D'Alcourt on expedition against Tchikachas or Chicasaws | FRENCH

This document records a report about the death of three Black men enslaved by D'Alcourt. They died while transporting supplies during a military campaign against Chickasaw people in April of 1740. The WPA abstract (from the 1930s) included with this record notes that a summary of this record...

3 pages: 33% complete (33% translated)
1743 | order regulating the practice of medicine | FRENCH

1743 | order regulating the practice of medicine | FRENCH

This record from January 19, 1743 includes an order that prohibits anyone from practicing medicine, surgery, or mid wifery with having been examined and approved by the King’s Physicians and Surgeons and without having been vested with certificates. According to the WPA abstract included here,...

7 pages: 85% complete (85% translated, 14% needs review)
1747 | action to prevent inheritance by so-called illegitimate son | FRENCH

1747 | action to prevent inheritance by so-called illegitimate son | FRENCH

This record is dated October 7, 1747. According to the WPA abstract included here, it describes an action to prevent "an illegitimate son" from inheriting property "to the detriment of other heirs." What is the name of this person who is called "an illegitimate son" by a WPA worker? What are the...

5 pages: 40% complete (40% translated, 20% needs review)
1748 | complaint of La Croix because his wife left him and refuses to return | FRENCH

1748 | complaint of La Croix because his wife left him and refuses to return | FRENCH

This record is dated April 30, 1748. The WPA abstract included here tells us that it is an incomplete twelve-page manuscript "evidently left by Mr. La Croix, relating to Council all of his marital difficulties and his wife's departure from home and refusal to return." What did Mr. La Croix tell...

13 pages: 7% complete (15% translated, 15% needs review)
1763 | order to expel Jesuits from Louisiana | FRENCH

1763 | order to expel Jesuits from Louisiana | FRENCH

This document was created on July 9, 1763. The WPA abstract included with this record tells us that these pages attempt to enact the "EXPLUSION OF JESUITS FROM LOUISIANA PETITION OF ATTORNEY GENERAL." The unidentified WPA worker who wrote this abstract includes a note to observe that "while the...

5 pages: 20% complete (40% translated, 40% needs review)
1765 | interrogation of Bochom, Chercher Confort, Jean Tomasson, Arriba, Cesar, Ouatel, and Nanan | FRENCH

1765 | interrogation of Bochom, Chercher Confort, Jean Tomasson, Arriba, Cesar, Ouatel, and Nanan | FRENCH

The WPA abstract (from the 1930s) included with this record explains that Judge Foucault ordered Charles Marie Lelande to interrogate Bochom, Chercher Confort, Jean Tomasson, Arriba, Cesar, Ouatel, and Nanan after they were found at sea in November of 1765. The abstract also indicates that...

Collaboration is restricted.

13 pages: 46% complete (46% translated)
1767 | depositions against alleged criminal baker | FRENCH

1767 | depositions against alleged criminal baker | FRENCH

November 9, 1767. depositions again Jacques Toussains Baude, who was accused in 1765 of "putting a man, who was consumed, into a bakery oven where he was employed, and later stabbing to death a man in [the] street in Havana, also charged with shooting to death a Grenadier in a Marseille...

Collaboration is restricted.

9 pages: 33% complete (22% translated)
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Incomplete Works