Selected Book for the Louisiana Bicentennial Celebration, 2012 In the year 1860, Jean-Pierre Cenac sailed from the sophisticated French city of Bordeaux to begin his new life in the city with the second busiest port of debarkation in the U.S. Two years before, he had descended the Pyrenees to Bordeaux from his home village of Barbazan-Debat, a terrain in direct contrast to the flatlands of Louisiana. He arrived in 1860, just when the U.S. Civil War began with the secession of the Southern states, and in New Orleans, just where there would be placed a prime military target as the war developed. Neither Creole nor Acadian, Pierre took his chances in the rural parish of Terrebonne on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Pierre's resolute nature, unflagging work ethic, steadfast determination, and farsighted vision earned him a place of respect he could never have imagined when he left his native country. How he forged his place in this new landscape echoes the life journeys of countless immigrants--yet remains uniquely his own. His story and his family's story exemplify the experiences of many nineteenth century immigrants to Louisiana and the experiences of their twentieth century descendants.
Selected Book for the Louisiana Bicentennial Celebration, 2012 In the year 1860, Jean-Pierre Cenac sailed from the sophisticated French city of Bordeaux to begin his new life in the city with the second busiest port of debarkation in the U.S. Two years before, he had descended the Pyrenees to Bordeaux from his home village of Barbazan-Debat, a terrain in direct contrast to the flatlands of Louisiana. He arrived in 1860, just when the U.S. Civil War began with the secession of the Southern states, and in New Orleans, just where there would be placed a prime military target as the war developed. Neither Creole nor Acadian, Pierre took his chances in the rural parish of Terrebonne on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Pierre's resolute nature, unflagging work ethic, steadfast determination, and farsighted vision earned him a place of respect he could never have imagined when he left his native country. How he forged his place in this new landscape echoes the life journeys of countless immigrants--yet remains uniquely his own. His story and his family's story exemplify the experiences of many nineteenth century immigrants to Louisiana and the experiences of their twentieth century descendants.
Winner of a 2017 Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year Award This book represents the first time that the known history and a significant amount of new information has been compiled into a single written record about one of the most important eras in the south-central coastal bayou parish of Terrebonne. The book makes clear the unique geographical, topographical, and sociological conditions that beckoned the first settlers who developed the large estates that became sugar plantations. This first of four planned volumes chronicles details about founders and their estates along Bayou Terrebonne from its headwaters in the northern civil parish to its most southerly reaches near the Gulf of Mexico. Those and other parish plantations along important waterways contributed significantly to the dominance of King Sugar in Louisiana. The rich soils and opportunities of the area became the overriding reason many well-heeled Anglo-Americans moved there to join Francophone locals in cultivating the crop. From that nineteenth century period up to the twentieth century’s side effects of World Wars I and II, Hard Scrabble to Hallelujah, Volume I: Bayou Terrebonne describes important yet widely unrecognized geography and history. Today, cultural and physical legacies such as ex-slave-founded communities and place names endure from the time that the planter society was the driving economic force of this fascinating region.
A 2014 Humanities Book of the Year Researching the original brand registration of his great-grandfather Pierre Cenac for his book Eyes of an Eagle, Dr. Christopher Everette Cenac Sr. discovered a serendipitous trove of local history in the form of long-forgotten volumes in the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse in Houma, Louisiana. The three ledger books that emerged through the efforts of the local Clerk of Court became, in themselves, a series of capsulized glimpses into the citizenry of the area's early agrarian foundations. In extraordinary condition, these ledgers held an unprecedented set of the original livestock brands and marks of bustling bayou cattle country. Each registration entry furnished a record of the progression of settlement of the parish. The registration of a brand often served as the family's calling card upon making Terrebonne Parish their home. Livestock Brands and Marks: An Unexpected Bayou Country History: 1822-1946 Pioneer Families: Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana is designed not only to share the actual registration treasures of all 1140 brands in the brand books themselves, but also to chronicle a short history of laws governing animal identification, to document advances in forms of ownership identification, and to familiarize the reader with both ancient and more recent livestock breeds that received brands and other marks recorded in those three ledger books. Three hundred black-and-white and color illustrations illuminate this fascinating history.
A 2014 Humanities Book of the Year Researching the original brand registration of his great-grandfather Pierre Cenac for his book Eyes of an Eagle, Dr. Christopher Everette Cenac Sr. discovered a serendipitous trove of local history in the form of long-forgotten volumes in the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse in Houma, Louisiana. The three ledger books that emerged through the efforts of the local Clerk of Court became, in themselves, a series of capsulized glimpses into the citizenry of the area's early agrarian foundations. In extraordinary condition, these ledgers held an unprecedented set of the original livestock brands and marks of bustling bayou cattle country. Each registration entry furnished a record of the progression of settlement of the parish. The registration of a brand often served as the family's calling card upon making Terrebonne Parish their home. Livestock Brands and Marks: An Unexpected Bayou Country History: 1822-1946 Pioneer Families: Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana is designed not only to share the actual registration treasures of all 1140 brands in the brand books themselves, but also to chronicle a short history of laws governing animal identification, to document advances in forms of ownership identification, and to familiarize the reader with both ancient and more recent livestock breeds that received brands and other marks recorded in those three ledger books. Three hundred black-and-white and color illustrations illuminate this fascinating history.
This book represents the first time that the known history and a significant amount of new information has been compiled into a single written record about one of the most important eras in the south central coastal bayou parish of Terrebonne. The book makes clear the unique geographical, topographical, and sociological conditions that beckoned the first settlers who developed the large estates that became sugar plantations. This first of four planned volumes chronicles details about founders and their estates along Bayou Terrebonne from its headwaters in the northern civil parish to its most southerly reaches near the Gulf of Mexico. Those and other parish plantations along important waterways contributed significantly to the dominance of King Sugar in Louisiana. The rich soils and opportunities of the area became the overriding reason many well-heeled Anglo-Americans moved there to join Francophone locals in cultivating the crop. From that nineteenth century period up to the twentieth century's side effects of World Wars I and II, Hard Scrabble to Hallelujah, Volume I: Bayou Terrebonne describes important yet widely unrecognized geography and history. Today, cultural and physical legacies such as ex-slave-founded communities and place names endure from the time that the planter society was the driving economic force of this fascinating region.
Selected Book for the Louisiana Bicentennial Celebration, 2012 In the year 1860, Jean-Pierre Cenac sailed from the sophisticated French city of Bordeaux to begin his new life in the city with the second busiest port of debarkation in the U.S. Two years before, he had descended the Pyrenees to Bordeaux from his home village of Barbazan-Debat, a terrain in direct contrast to the flatlands of Louisiana. He arrived in 1860, just when the U.S. Civil War began with the secession of the Southern states, and in New Orleans, just where there would be placed a prime military target as the war developed. Neither Creole nor Acadian, Pierre took his chances in the rural parish of Terrebonne on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Pierre's resolute nature, unflagging work ethic, steadfast determination, and farsighted vision earned him a place of respect he could never have imagined when he left his native country. How he forged his place in this new landscape echoes the life journeys of countless immigrants--yet remains uniquely his own. His story and his family's story exemplify the experiences of many nineteenth century immigrants to Louisiana and the experiences of their twentieth century descendants.
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