questions?” The group shifted restively. “OK, then,” the guide continued briskly, “let’s talk briefly about the famous Battle of New Orl eans in 1815, and how General Andrew Jackson defeated the British with the aid of Jean Lafitte and his Barataria pirates…”
Casey soon herded them down the alley between the Cabildo and cathedral, regaling his sluggish audience with a series of stories about the city’s popular saints, but “not the football team.” His joke drew only a few polite smiles. An anecdote about St. Expedite was the only part of Casey’s talk that Tess would recall later—thanks to surprise encounters with the saint in the next few days of her stay.
“A popular but quite apocryphal story about St. Expedite,” Casey narrated, “is that he arrived when Our Lady of Guadalupe Church ordered a statue of the Virgin Mary. Two crates were delivered. One crate contained the requested Virgin, but the other crate held a statue of a cross-bearing Roman centurion. Since the only information on the shipping label was the word ‘Expedite,’ the simple clerics installed the godsend as St. Expedite, and he now has a devoted following among those needing a quick fix.”
Behind the cathedral , they dutifully peered at a garden famous for a spot-lit statue of Christ that cast a huge shadow on the back of the cathedral at night. “By the way, there’s a recent ‘miracle’ involving the statue, which wags call our ‘touchdown Jesus’ because of his raised, outstretched arms,” Casey added.
When this flippant remark drew frowns from a middle-aged co uple, he quickly donned a sober manner. “During Katrina, the winds toppled massive trees in the small garden, which should have smashed the statue to smithereens, but the Savior miraculously emerged nearly unscathed,” he said piously.
This reminder of Katrina generated a barrage of questions about the 2005 disaster from the tourists, who clearly hoped for some personal survivor stories. But Casey, a transplanted Georgian with an antique shop in the Quarter, had no harrowing tales and instead started to bemoan damage to his shop and his house in Faubourg Marigny. As bored tour members started to drift toward nearby shop windows, Casey realized his error and hastened to add that Marigny is also famous for gracious antebellum homes created by rich white men for their “placées,” or “free colored” mistresses. This regained him immediate, rapt attention.
Casey explained that the custom of “plaçage” began before the Civil War and involved a wealthy white man taking a free woman of color as his mistress. He would agree as her protector to provide her with a furnished home and to support and educate any resulting children. The plaçage affairs were often launched at the famous “quadroon balls” on Chartres Street, where young women of color “debuted” under the watchful chaperonage of their mothers. While the wealthy white men also married white brides, they might keep nonwhite liaisons for a lifetime and sometimes recognized shadow families with inheritances, added Casey.
Tess pondered the implications for her own sketchy family story. Dreux had said the mysterious Solange Beauvoir was a free woman of color, meaning not bought and sold by others. Based on Jack Casey’s narrative, Tess concluded that this meant Solange was free only to decide where and how she sold herself, a prisoner in the gray borderland between black slave and white master. Beautiful Solange had not chosen plaçage as her form of servitude—or perhaps she had and that was the family connection to which Dreux alluded. It was a question for Samuel Beauvoir. Tess decided she needed to speed her effort to meet Beauvoir.
As the walk continued, the guide highlighted various landmarks with the occasional titi llating tale for people with minimal interest in architecture or history. The group was more fascinated by Bourbon Street’s bars, strip clubs and souvenir shops.
Casey soon herded them down the alley between the Cabildo and cathedral, regaling his sluggish audience with a series of stories about the city’s popular saints, but “not the football team.” His joke drew only a few polite smiles. An anecdote about St. Expedite was the only part of Casey’s talk that Tess would recall later—thanks to surprise encounters with the saint in the next few days of her stay.
“A popular but quite apocryphal story about St. Expedite,” Casey narrated, “is that he arrived when Our Lady of Guadalupe Church ordered a statue of the Virgin Mary. Two crates were delivered. One crate contained the requested Virgin, but the other crate held a statue of a cross-bearing Roman centurion. Since the only information on the shipping label was the word ‘Expedite,’ the simple clerics installed the godsend as St. Expedite, and he now has a devoted following among those needing a quick fix.”
Behind the cathedral , they dutifully peered at a garden famous for a spot-lit statue of Christ that cast a huge shadow on the back of the cathedral at night. “By the way, there’s a recent ‘miracle’ involving the statue, which wags call our ‘touchdown Jesus’ because of his raised, outstretched arms,” Casey added.
When this flippant remark drew frowns from a middle-aged co uple, he quickly donned a sober manner. “During Katrina, the winds toppled massive trees in the small garden, which should have smashed the statue to smithereens, but the Savior miraculously emerged nearly unscathed,” he said piously.
This reminder of Katrina generated a barrage of questions about the 2005 disaster from the tourists, who clearly hoped for some personal survivor stories. But Casey, a transplanted Georgian with an antique shop in the Quarter, had no harrowing tales and instead started to bemoan damage to his shop and his house in Faubourg Marigny. As bored tour members started to drift toward nearby shop windows, Casey realized his error and hastened to add that Marigny is also famous for gracious antebellum homes created by rich white men for their “placées,” or “free colored” mistresses. This regained him immediate, rapt attention.
Casey explained that the custom of “plaçage” began before the Civil War and involved a wealthy white man taking a free woman of color as his mistress. He would agree as her protector to provide her with a furnished home and to support and educate any resulting children. The plaçage affairs were often launched at the famous “quadroon balls” on Chartres Street, where young women of color “debuted” under the watchful chaperonage of their mothers. While the wealthy white men also married white brides, they might keep nonwhite liaisons for a lifetime and sometimes recognized shadow families with inheritances, added Casey.
Tess pondered the implications for her own sketchy family story. Dreux had said the mysterious Solange Beauvoir was a free woman of color, meaning not bought and sold by others. Based on Jack Casey’s narrative, Tess concluded that this meant Solange was free only to decide where and how she sold herself, a prisoner in the gray borderland between black slave and white master. Beautiful Solange had not chosen plaçage as her form of servitude—or perhaps she had and that was the family connection to which Dreux alluded. It was a question for Samuel Beauvoir. Tess decided she needed to speed her effort to meet Beauvoir.
As the walk continued, the guide highlighted various landmarks with the occasional titi llating tale for people with minimal interest in architecture or history. The group was more fascinated by Bourbon Street’s bars, strip clubs and souvenir shops.
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