René Trudeau, heir and executor of Zenon Trudeau's estate, petitions to recover a slave named Robinette, a mulatto female also known as Benedicte. According to René Trudeau, Robinette has been conducting herself as a free person of color. However, René asserts, she is indeed a slave "born about the year 1788 from a negro woman named Charlotte," one of his father's slaves. Trudeau "is informed and verily believes that the said slave Robinette is about to embark on board of a vessel to sail to some part of the Island of Cuba." He therefore "prays that the said Robinette, alias Benedicte with her children, three or four in number," be sequestered and "declared and condemned" to be his slaves. Related documents reveal that Robinette was purchased and sold several times during the years 1810 and 1811, the last purchaser being her mother Charlotte, who was by then a free woman and presented her for emancipation in 1812. We also learn that Robinette had lived in concubinage with a white man name Gardette or Gardet, the father of her children.
Result: Granted; overturned at new trial; appealed.
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Repository: University of New Orleans
