Tonya Singer discusses learning about her enslaving ancestors in her 40s and her outrage at not learning before that age. She also reflects on learning about the history of slavery in New England.
Regiment: 24th United States Colored Troops
Company: A
Rank: Private
Mustered-in date and place: 15 May 1876
Mustered-out date and place: 12 May 1881 at Fort Supply, United States
Both articles are about the death of William du Henri Brown, who founded the Springfield Terrace School, later called the Pearl L. Smith Elementary School.
Portrait of Vilmont and Julianna Schexnayder from Patterson, Saint Mary's Parish, Lousiana, United States. Photograph taken by unknown photographer in the 1800s.
Julianne and her parents, Paul and Harriet, were enslaved by the brothers Octave and Numa Cornay of the Calumet Plantation. The plantation was in Patterson, St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana and was a large sugar mill. During the Civil War, Julianne went with the Cornays to Lafayette, Louisiana, where she had one son by a man she was not married to but had a "shacking" relationship to breed children. After the Civil war, Julianne returned to Patterson, St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana and was a laundress. She met and married Vilmont Schexnayder on 4 January 1883 in St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana, United States. Julianne had at least 15 children, 14 of them with Vilmont Schexnayder.
