Early Life
Born into slavery in Haiti, Deslondes was described in some accounts as mulatto or mixed race. He was brought to the Louisiana Territory by his master after the Haitian Revolution, when thousands of French Creoles brought their slaves and mixed-race refugees also left the island. Of the 9,059 immigrants in 1809, about 30 percent were white and 35.6 percent were slaves; the remainder were free people of color.
Deslondes worked as a driver (overseer of slaves) on the Woodlawn plantation of Col. Manuel André, who had a total of 86 slaves. In a letter printed in the Philadelphia Political and Commercial Advertiser on February 19 that year, Deslondes was mistakenly described as a free person of color.)
Read more about this topic: Charles Deslondes
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