This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Chelsea Stieber is an Associate Professor of French Studies at Tulane University.
Early coverage of Pope Leo XIV has explored the first American pontiff鈥檚 , as well as , and then .
Genealogist Jari Honora of the pope鈥檚 ancestors鈥� connection to the Creole of color community in New Orleans. A family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection鈥檚 Williams Research Center, Honora has given research presentations to my graduate students and consulted with me on my own work. In his research on Leo鈥檚 lineage, he was also able to find several official documents that list Haiti as the birthplace of his maternal grandfather, Joseph Norval Martinez.
The pope鈥檚 Creole lineage in Louisiana is interesting enough. But many commentators have strained to make sense of the link to Haiti, if they mention it at all.
, I study the period during which Leo鈥檚 ancestors likely traveled between Haiti and New Orleans before migrating to Chicago. Their story is part of a broader American story of race, citizenship and migration.
A grandfather born in Haiti
It鈥檚 worth noting that Leo鈥檚 genealogy is not entirely straightforward.
At least indicates Joseph Norval as having been born in Louisiana. And a seems to reinvent the family lineage: Martinez is now 鈥淢artina,鈥� Joseph鈥檚 birthplace is 鈥淪. Domingo,鈥� and he is supposedly Maltese.
Nevertheless, far more documents 鈥� numerous census records as well as his marriage certificate 鈥� identify Martinez鈥檚 place of birth as Haiti. An for a ship bound for New Orleans from Haiti, despite some inconsistencies, does indeed appear to list members of the Martinez family, including his father and three siblings.
Just because Leo鈥檚 grandfather was born in Haiti, it didn鈥檛 mean he was Haitian. Instead, he belonged to a class of people in New Orleans known as .
A three-pronged racial order
It鈥檚 important to understand the historical complexity of the in and in , and its continued .
The descriptor 鈥淐reole of color鈥� is somewhat anachronistic; it emerges at the end of the 19th century in Louisiana to categorize the descendants of a historically subordinate class known as free people of color, or 鈥溾�� in French.
It has its origins in the of the French and Spanish colonial periods in the Americas, when authorities created a hierarchy of legal classes: enslaved people, free people of African descent, and white people.
In theory, free people of color encompassed a range of people. It could describe formerly enslaved people; people who had never been enslaved; people born in Africa; or people with extended, mixed-race American families.
In 19th-century Louisiana, the term generally referred to people of mixed racial ancestry who were born with free status, though at varying degrees of removal from slavery. They generally spoke French and were Catholic.
Though they were subject to repressive laws and could never become citizens and gain the right to vote, free people of color could own, inherit and sell property, . Most worked as artisans and shopkeepers, and a handful became quite wealthy through trade and real estate.
The Martinez family fits squarely within this community.
list Jacques Martinez 鈥� Joseph Norval Martinez鈥檚 father and Leo鈥檚 maternal great-grandfather 鈥� as a tailor and modest property owner in New Orleans. They were never enslaved but do not appear to have been enslavers, either.
Life gets worse for people of color
So why was Joseph Norval Martinez born in Haiti?
At some point, his parents probably felt they had to leave New Orleans.
Despite their relative prosperity, free people of color in Louisiana and throughout the United States were being subjected to increasing in the years leading up to the Civil War.
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This situation worsened in the 1840s and 鈥�50s, as white Southerners worked to further restrict citizenship and rights along hard racial lines. The 1857 affirmed that any people descended from Africa, including free people of color, had no right to citizenship.
For those who remained in the South, the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 would have made life even more difficult.
In the first half of the 19th century, many free people of color in Louisiana . But the two main options in the 1860s were and .
However, at the time of the Martinez family鈥檚 departure, Mexico was embroiled in . Haiti, meanwhile, was crafting an ambitious plan to attract immigrants.
After 鈥� the uprising against French colonizers that led to the creation of Haiti 鈥� the nation became the first in the world to . For this reason, many people of color viewed Haiti as a .
Indeed, Haiti long promoted itself as a : Any person with African descent would enjoy freedom and, eventually, Haitian citizenship. Several Haitian presidents staged to attract enslaved and formerly enslaved laborers from the United States.
In response to worsening conditions for people of color in the U.S., Haitian President Fabre Geffrard launched a particularly , setting up and staffing them in New York, Boston, New Orleans and other major cities. Louisiana newspapers advertised Geffrard鈥檚 immigration plan, which included land concessions for families and individuals. Geffrard鈥檚 focus was on attracting 鈥� not the kind of work the Martinez family would likely be enticed to take on. Still, skilled artisans were welcomed as immigrants.
It was within this context that the Martinez family probably departed New Orleans for Haiti. At present there is scant information about their voyage, but the journey would have echoed many of migration from Louisiana to Haiti in the 1860s.
Based on my study of census and notarial archives, it appears the Martinez family left sometime after the birth of daughter Adele in New Orleans in December 1861 and before the birth of Joseph Norval in Haiti in 1864.
The promise of Reconstruction crumbles
The Martinez family didn鈥檛 stay in Haiti long.
According to the passenger list, they returned to New Orleans in February 1866.
As was the experience for , they may have found the conditions difficult. It鈥檚 also possible that the successes of in Louisiana encouraged them to reestablish their lives in New Orleans.
They returned to a state transformed by the abolition of slavery. Free people of color were at the forefront of the fight for civil rights and key architects behind a progressive, egalitarian that called for equal access to education for all citizens.
The Martinez children likely benefited 鈥� albeit briefly 鈥� from that provision. The show them all enrolled in school: Michel (14), Girard (12), Adele (9) and young Joseph Norval (6).
They would also witness the violent backlash to Reconstruction, which was especially intense in Louisiana. In 1866, a white mob laid siege to those attempting to amend the state鈥檚 constitution to enfranchise Black voters, in what became known as the . In the ensuing years, the state was gripped by .
Joseph Norval Martinez married Louise Baqui茅 in 1887, and they went on to have six children, all girls, in New Orleans. He worked as a cigar maker 鈥� a for free men of color during the period 鈥� and later as a clerk.
The family was subjected to increasing segregation with the , an 1890 Louisiana statute that separated train cars by race. The Supreme Court , enshrining the 鈥渟eparate but equal鈥� doctrine throughout the South.
An American tale
Martinez and Baqui茅 remained in New Orleans until 1910, at which point they joined the millions of other Black Americans who migrated from the South to the North and the West , in what became known as the Great Migration. A significant portion, including Martinez and Baqui茅, .
Their youngest daughter, 鈥� Leo鈥檚 mother 鈥� was born there.
Joseph Norval Martinez鈥檚 census records tell a complex story about the history of race in the U.S. Prior to 1900, he is as 鈥渕鈥� for 鈥渕ulatto.鈥� In the , he is listed as Black. And then in the , he is listed as white.
The Martinez family could not dictate the racial descriptors assigned to them in the census, but they had some claim over birthplace and lineage. Against the backdrop of segregation, disenfranchisement and violence, Martinez appears to have claimed a lineage 鈥� Maltese 鈥� that the 1910 census categorized as white.
It is this 鈥� and so much more 鈥� that makes theirs a truly .
One thing we do know: Martinez reverted back to his original lineage after he and his family settled in Chicago. The lists Martinez鈥檚 birthplace of record as Haiti.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the .
