It was the end of girlhood for me, the harsh arrival of womanhood. It coincided with the coming of age of many of my friends on Rampart Street. There were numerous
femmes de couleur
in the quarter and many of them had children. Like my mother, they waited until we were close to maturity to explain the special future that awaited all of us. Most of my friends seemed to accept the part they were to play with unquestioning, often greedy expectations. A sickening competition sprang up between us, where before there had been nothing but girlish good nature. We began comparing each other's hair and eyes, and especially our skin color. I was envied because I was by far the whitest. Aware now of the nature of their mother's friendships with their fathers, they talked incessantly of the presents some of them had recently received, silver plate and gold candlesticks and jewelry, expensive dresses. My father's worsening poverty left me with little to say in this competition. I grew to hate it and to doubt more and more the faith my friends seemed to have in the love of rich white men for their
femmes de couleur.
Then news arrived from Europe that made all our futures a blank. New Orleans was no longer French. France had given it to Spain, had given all of Louisiana to the Spaniards. My father told us about it one night in the spring of 1766, his voice hoarse with apprehension and anger. The Seven Years' War had ended with numerous Spanish colonies seized by English fleets and armies. “In the peace conference,” my father told us, “to compensate Spain for her losses, King Louis gave Louisiana to Charles the Third of Spain, his cousin. That was two years ago. Louis was so ashamedâor it meant so little to himâthat no one in Paris even notified us.”
“What will happen now?” I asked.
“I don't know,
chérie,
” my father said. “I only know this. Spain hates Jews even more than Portugal. To live in a Spanish colony you must have a certificate testifying to the purity of your blood. It's a detestable system. But they may hesitate to enforce it here in New Orleans. All we can do is wait and see.”
Later in 1766 Don Antonio de Ulloa, Spain's first governor, arrived in New Orleans. He was an aloof, icy aristocrat, totally indifferent to the needs and interests of his new subjects. Without consulting anyone, he began issuing a stream of restrictive commercial regulations that were certain to extinguish most of the port's free trade. Excited crowds collected on street corners to discuss the situation. There were mass meetings, at which my father was a frequent speaker. My mother took me to one of these gatherings in the Place d'Armes. It was thrilling to hear my father shout his detestation of Spain in his bad guttural French.
“We're not a parcel of slaves to be sold to a new master at will,” he roared. “Above all to Spain, the most detestable, most tyrannical power in the world. If France doesn't want us, we don't want France. We've worked to build a city here. Why can't we govern it ourselves with rational laws, laws that are not based on old blind prejudices and hatreds but on our brotherhood as
voyageurs
here on this great river, on this new
continent? Let us create a republic of free men, ready to trade with any country. We'll not only be happy, we'll be rich.”
“
Viva la liberté
âlong live liberty,” roared the crowd.
To everyone's amazement, Governor de Ulloa did not even put up a fight. Panicking, he boarded a ship and fled the city. For a few months everything seemed possible. My father spent excited hours conferring with other leaders of the rebellion. He wanted them to write a liberal constitution for the Republic of Louisiana calling for freedom of religion and an end to restrictions against women of color and free blacks. He even urged a plan for the gradual abolition of slavery. Alas, these ideas only frightened and divided people. Some of the more daring spirits sided with my father. Others reacted to his proposals with suspicion and outrage.
One blazing August day, a fleet of twenty-four ships appeared on the river. They included transports and men of war, with menacing tiers of guns, all flying the flag of Imperial Spain. A boat came ashore and an arrogant young naval officer demanded the immediate surrender of the city in the name of the new governor, Lieutenant General Don Alejandro OâReilly. If there was resistance, General O'Reilly was prepared to reduce New Orleans to ashes. But if the people agreed to accept the rule of His Majesty Charles III, King of Spain, General O'Reilly promised to forgive those “misguided troublemakers” who had forced Governor de Ulloa to flee.
Only my father and his small circle of friends wanted to fight. O'Reilly was an Irish mercenary in the pay of Spain. My father was convinced that he had orders to crush resistance to Spanish rule and would obey them literally. But the majority of the citizens of our stillborn republic, already divided by their quarrels and with few cannon to oppose the men of war, had no stomach for defiance. They accepted General O'Reilly's promise of forebearance and surrendered the city. We watched Spanish troops and artillery, well over two thousand men and fifty cannon, stream from the ships and parade
to the Place d'Armes. As their red-and-white flag rose above the city, the hundreds of cannon on the ships in the river thundered a salute that was answered by the cannon and muskets of the men in the square. It was an awesome display. It left no doubt Spain possessed New Orleans.
That night, while we sat at supper behind the batten blinds of our house on Rampart Street, a fist pounded on our door. My mother opened it and a half-dozen squat Spanish soldiers carrying muskets with fixed bayonets crowded into the room. “Moses Monsanto Lopez?” asked the swarthy young man commanding them.
“I am he,” my father said.
“You are under arrest by the order of Governor O'Reilly for treason against His Majesty.”
“Put down your guns, gentlemen,” my father said. “I'm not armed and have no intention of resisting you. Let me have a minute with my wife and daughter.”
“Your wife?” mocked the young officer, eyeing my mother's tan skin.
“My wife.”
The officer muttered something in Spanish. The soldiers laughed obscenely. But they filed out of the house. My father turned to me and took my hands. “I'll probably never see you again, my darling. Now all I can leave you is this kiss.” He embraced me and in a choked voice said, “Remember how much you were loved by this old man. Never forget that you are worthy of love. Look for that before anything else.”
“Are you sure it's so serious?” my mother asked.
My father nodded. “A Portuguese, a Jew, and a rebel all in one? That's too much for a Spanish judge to resist. Take the goods in the store to Isaac Solomon. He's a compassionate man and an honest one. He'll get the best price and take no commission. Good-bye my dearest.”
“I won't say good-bye yet,” my mother cried. Tears streamed down her cheeks, as they did down mine. “We'll pray day and night for you.”
“I hope God is listening,” my father said.
We prayed, and the Ursuline sisters in the convent prayed; not only for my father but for the dozens of other rebels that Governor O'Reilly had arrested during the night. But our prayers were wasted. My father and five other men were condemned to death. The rest received long jail sentences. All had their property confiscated. My mother stopped saying Catholic prayers. She called in Madame Levesque, the juju woman, who cast a spell. Then she read the cards. Each time she laid them out, spades were dominant. There was no hope. My mother paid Madame Levesque to put a curse on General O'Reilly. As we sat there in the darkness listening to her African chant, our neighbors told us that my father and his five friends had been executed in the courtyard of the army barracks.
The next few weeks were terrible for me. Night after night in the smothering heat of August I lay awake in my bed seeing my father before the firing squad. The guns blazed; my father's face spewed blood. I had nightmares in which I saw those grinning Spaniards thrusting their bayonets into him.
“We must accept God's will. What is to be will be,” my mother told me. I found her fatalism outrageous.
No, I thought, no. I will never believe in the God who did not listen to my prayers, who let a good man, a loving man like my father, die while that florid-faced, gloomy-eyed monster, General OâReillyâBloody O'Reilly, we called himâwalked our streets, unharmed, unchallenged, even fawned upon by the inevitable majority who were quick to bend their knees before a man in power. I detested my mother's gratitude to the governor because he had not persecuted us, and let us keep our house, which was, in the tradition of Rampart Street, in my mother's name. For me New Orleans became a huge Spanish prison, a place I loathed.
Nor could I accept the future to which my mother now saw no alternative. Next year, when I became seventeen, I would go to my first dance in the big ballroom on Condé Street.
There, some wealthy young Frenchmanâor perhaps a Spaniardâwould fall in love with me. My mother would make the proper arrangements with him or his family. I would move to my own house on Rampart Street. Again and again my mother assured me that my beauty would win treasures for us bothâservants, slaves, a huge plantation. But I only thought: No, no. I won't allow myself to be sold that way.
Early in September of that year, I was in our house, playing the harpsichord my father had bought me in his years of affluence. My friend Louis La Branche, who lived next door, called in the window, “Flora, there's a man out here who speaks only English. Come help him find his way.”
Standing in front of the house was an extraordinarily handsome man of about thirty wearing elegant clothesâa powder-blue silk coat over a yellow waistcoat, with high-heeled red shoes. Lace ruffles rose from his shirt. He flourished an ivory-headed cane and dabbed at his sweating forehead with a lace handkerchief. “I am totally lost and about to expire from the sun,” he said. “Can you direct me to the store of Mr. John Fitzpatrick, on Royal Street?”
“Of course,” I said, pleased to be able to use some of the English my father had taught me. It was the first time I had spoken it since his death. Everyone in New Orleans knew Fitzpatrick's store. It was where people went to buy the finest cloth for suits and dresses as well as cutlery and china, delicious teas and spices from Indiaâall the exotic and remarkable products of English commerce
“Would you please be sure I go by a safe way?” the man said. “I have a great deal of money with me.”
“If you will permit me,” I said, “I will be happy to guide you.”
“It will be my pleasure, I assure you,” he said with a polite bow.
The man knew nothing of New Orleans and was obviously puzzled by the people he had seen on Rampart Street. “Why
do you live there on the outskirts of the city?” he asked. “You're obviously a young woman of rank and breeding.”
“I fear not, sir,” I said, my eyes on the black mud of Royal Street.
“Come, come, my dear girl,” he said. “Where did you learn to speak English? Whence came that lovely music I interrupted? The fine gown you're wearing?”
I said nothing.
“Is itââcan it beâbecause I have not introduced myself?”
“By no means,” I said. “Fitzpatrick's store is at the end of this block. It's been a pleasure to serve you, sir.”
I turned and tried to leave him. He stepped playfully around me and blocked my path. “My dear young woman,” he said, “my name is William Coleman. I would like the honor of your acquaintance. May I know your name?”
“Flora Lopez,” I said. “But you don't want the honor of my acquaintance.”
“No doubt your parents would prefer you to speak only to gentlemen whom they know,” he said. “You have taken pity on a stranger in distress and fear a reproof from them. May I call on you and explain the entire incident to them?”
He spoke with such easy grace, his smile was so persuasive, I felt my body swell with shame and regret. Here was the sort of aristocratic Englishman that my father had yearned to find for me. But he was as unreachable, as untouchable, as if he had stayed in London. To be so close to him, to see how attracted he was to me, was almost unbearable. I could not explain my agitation to him.
“Thank you, Mr. Coleman,” I said. “But no visit will be necessary. Ask Mr. Fitzpatrick to tell you who we are, on Rampart Street. Then you'll understand myâmy embarrassment. Good-bye.”
At home I found my mother striding up and down the hall of our house. “Where have you been?” she cried. I was amazed. Her unshakable calm had been one of the bulwarks
of my life. “Who was this Englishman? Where did you go?” she demanded.
At first I was bewildered, then angry. “You have no right to question me like a criminal,
Maman.
I'm not a child. I can go walking with whom I please,” I said.
“Don't you see, you little fool, how that will ruin everything?” she shouted. “You have nothing to offer but your virginity. Lose that and you'll soon be walking the riverside selling yourself to sailors.”
I asked my mother how she could say such a thing to me. “Because I must,” she replied. She told me that other mothers on Rampart Street were eager to ruin my reputation so their daughters could win the men of wealth who were certain to bid for me. For the first time I told my mother how much I hated this idea. A tremendous quarrel exploded. She told me to accept the world into which I was born. She said I would eventually thank her for it. When I shouted that I would never thank her, that I would hate her for selling me like a slave, she ordered me to my room.