More on the Elusive Andre Massé, Early Settler of the Attakapas District

In his books Athanase de Mézières and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, 1768-1780 (1914, as editor) and Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century: Studies in Spanish Colonial History and Administration (1915, as author), historian Herbert Eugene Bolton provided valuable information about Andre Massé, the earliest known European settler in the Attakapas District of south Louisiana.

One of Bolton’s sources about Massé was a 1756 petition that Massé wrote to the Viceroy of New Spain in Mexico City, per the governor of the province of Texas at Los Adaes (near Natchitoches in present-day Louisiana), to ask permission to move from the Attakapas to the presidio of San Agustín de Ahumada in southeast Texas.

No images of Andre Massé are known to exist,
but I like to think he looked something like this.
(Source: Frederic Remington, 1880 [public domain])

What was Massé's reason for wanting to move from French to Spanish territory?

Intriguingly, he wanted to free his slaves (more difficult to do in French territory than Spanish) and to leave them part of his estate.

Massé did eventually free his slaves, not in Texas, but in Louisiana, because the Viceroy of Mexico — no doubt suspicious of a Frenchman wanting to reside in the Spanish Empire — rejected his petition.

Last year I decided to track down Massé’s original petition to see if it contained historical information not mentioned by Bolton.  According to Bolton, the original document sat in the Archivo General de la Nación, the Mexican national archives in Mexico City. Bolton even gave very specific locations for this document, noting that it lay in the Correspondencia de los Virreyes, vol. 1, Amarillas, 1, 1755-1756, or, more specifically, in Correspondencia de los Virreyes II, serie i, folio 264.

I know one person in all of Mexico and she happens to be a professor of history in Mexico City, fluent in Spanish and well familiar with the Archivo General. At my request she went to the Archivo to search for Massé’s petition — and could not find it! The collection, she stated, was a terrible mess.  Nothing was where it was supposed to be.

It had been a hundred years since Bolton had examined Massé’s petition in the Archivo General. Who knows what could have happened to the document in the meantime?

Instead of giving up the search, I checked to see if Bolton did not leave behind his research notes. As it turned out, he left his notes to UC-Berkeley, which had compiled an extremely detailed finding aid for the collection. After studying the finding aid, I hired a graduate student at Berkeley to go to Bancroft Library and look in one particular box.

Title page of one of Bolton's books (1914).

According to the finding aid, that box contained documents pertaining to the incursion of Frenchmen onto Spanish soil.

Sure enough, there was Bolton’s typewritten transcript of Massé’s 1756 petition to the Viceroy of New Spain.

Below I post a translation of Massé’s original document, or, rather, of Bolton’s transcript of Massé’s original document.  The original was written to the Spanish in French, and not by Massé, but by his friend, the troubled French cleric Abbé Didier. (I’ll explain later why I say “troubled.”) The translation is by my acquaintance, Dr. Judith Rygiel of Carelton University in Ottawa, and myself.  (That is, I tweaked her translation.)

I might eventually post a transcript (per Bolton) of the original French document and, for comparison, a transcript (again per Bolton) of the official Spanish translation prepared in 1756. Indeed, in a couple of instances Bolton’s transcript of the original French document appears to contain typographical errors, and the only way I could figure out a misspelled or missing word was to consult the Spanish translation.

Here is the translation (which I consider a work in progress):

Monsieur Massé, settler, distinguished and by his birth and merit, presently on his cattle ranch in the Attakapas, a dependent of New Orleans, arriving finally at an advanced age without having effected the intention of giving liberty to his slaves, and at the same time to leave them his goods after his death, is forced and obliged to turn to his Excellency, the Illustrious Monseigneur, Viceroy of Mexico, to put him and his dependents under his strong protection. This is directed, by the intervention of Monsieur the Abbé Didier, secular priest, his partner in his cattle, to Monsieur le Gouverneur of the post of Adays, to take the action most suitable to the matter so that the affair does not transpire until after its entire execution. The said Sieur Massé reserving the right to deduce from His Excellency the legitimate reasons that commit him to this change. 

The said Monsieur le Gouverneur of Adays, to whom the said Sieur Massé is not unknown, knows well the advantages which will result from the retreat of the said Sieur Massé and of the establishment, which he can form, by himself, in the St. Augustin post, without it being necessary of the said Sieur Didier to actually describe them. That which he can truly assure is that His Majesty will find in one and the other as much and affection as in his most loyal subjects. 

1st. The said Massé possesses in common with the said Abbé Didier a considerable number of cattle, cows and horses, which can be easily transported to the citadel of St. Augustin, which will be a great benefit for the inhabitants of the post.  

2nd. The large and the small Attakapas, entirely devoted to the said M. Massé and who have their village on the other side of the River, are sure to follow him, by means of which no one will have to fear any enemy of that side. 

3rd. His male Negroes, which are for the most part already married to his female Negroes, and who have children, are one seed, these same all transported to the place, having [no] need to take them further. 

4th. The said M. Massé knows the strength and the foibles of the [Indian] Nations of the North, such as the Tavayages, the Laitas, Patoca, Icara, and Panis, because he has visited them. He is able to give a most faithful account and also the means to secure them. 

5th. The said M. Massé does not demand any recompense except the protection of his Excellency, Monsieur le Viceroy, and to be able to enjoy, he and his dependents, the same advantages as the other subjects of his Majesty, the King of Spain. 

Le Sieur Abbé Didier, who asks for the same grace for himself, is able to prove his perfect submission and indefatigable zeal for the growth of God’s domain and of the State of Spain. He will offer every day vows to God all-powerful for the prosperity of his most serene Monseigneur le Viceroy of Mexico, for whom he has the most profound respect. 

At Adayes 19th July

1756 

The most faithful, the most humble

and the most obedient servant, 

Didier, Secular Priest

Note: It is interesting to note that Didier — if Bolton’s transcript is true to the original — renders Massé’s name as I do here with an accent aigu over the “e”.  A friend of Massé, Didier presumably would have known how Massé pronounced his name and how to properly render that name in French. In short, Massé apparently did not pronounce his name as MASS or (as I’ve been pronouncing it) MAS-SUH, but MAS-SAY.

The Elusive André Massé, Pioneer of the Attakapas

Many researchers of the Teche region know the name André Massé: He was an early, if not the earliest, European pioneer of the Attakapas District of Louisiana (that is, south-central Louisiana). Unfortunately, a good deal of misinformation surrounds Massé’s place of residence.

Map of Louisiana showing the Attakapas District (copyright © 2008).
Source: Shane K. Bernard, Cajuns and Their Acadian Ancestors:
A Young Reader's History (2008).

In his voluminous Treatise on the Limits of Louisiana and Texas (1812), the Spanish cleric José Antonio Pichardo placed the French settler along the Sabine River, or, as he put it, "next to a river . . . call[ed] . . . the Adaes [Río de los Adays], or Mexicano — and which is [also called] the Sabinas. . . ."

Confusingly, Pichardo also quotes the Spanish governor of Texas, Navarrete (1759-1767), who wrote that Massé’s dwelling stood "[T]o this [east] side of the Río de los Adaes [Sabine River], and before coming to the little Río de las Flores. . . ." The Spanish cleric Morfi echoed this claim in his Memorias para la Historia de Texas (ca. 1781). 

About the location of this Río de las Flores: Pichardo stated that he did not refer to the larger waterway of the same name found in Texas. Rather, he referred to a smaller Río de las Flores, which he associated with Bayu de Agua Salada and Río de los Lobos, small waterways that emptied in the Gulf of Mexico on either side of Encinal del Tigre (present-day Chênière au Tigre, Louisiana). The encinal (a Spanish term for a clump of oak trees) stood a short distance west of the Río Bermellon (Vermilion River).

Pichardo's 1811 map of the south Louisiana coast
showing Bayu de Agua Salada, Río de Lobos,
and other geographic features.

This would place Massé in or near present-day coastal Vermilion Parish, Louisiana — which, although in the Attakapas District, is farther west than Massé’s actual documented place of residence, near Bayou Teche.

It seems clear to me, however, that Pichardo — writing decades after Massé’s death — did not really know where Massé had resided. Was it along the Sabine on the present-day Louisiana-Texas border? Or was it in or near present-day Vermilion Parish?



Likewise, in more recent times Robert S. Weddle stated in his book The French Thorn that Massé established a Texas rancheria on the Río de Angelina or its parent river, the Río de Neches. Weddle based his conclusion, however, solely on inaccurate claims by Spanish explorer Bernardo de Miranda — who so distorted his map of the Louisiana and Texas coasts that even the Viceroy of New Spain dismissed the illustration at the time (1757) as not "subject to the rules of geography."

In short, the map expressed wishful thinking on Miranda's part. It showed Spanish-held Texas stretching all the way to the Mississippi River. As a result, the Río de Angelina, which in reality runs north of Beaumont/Port Arthur, Texas, appears on Miranda’s map as if it ran through south-central Louisiana! 

Miranda's 1757 map of "Texas" with red square
around Massé's house. Map source: Research Laboratories
of Archaeology (RLA), http://rla.unc.edu/EMAS/index.html

Indeed, if one uses Miranda's own map scale as a guide, then Massé's house on the Río de Angelina stood 70 leagues (about 185 miles) west of New Orleans — which would put Massé somewhere around Hackberry, Louisiana, near Lake Charles. In other words, one could read Miranda's map either as placing Massé in Texas (if one goes by river names) or in Louisiana (if one goes by the map scale) . . . a contradiction that, when combined with the map's overall distortion, makes Miranda useless for determining Massé's place of residence.

A final piece of evidence: In the mid-1750s Massé petitioned the Spanish to permit him to move to Texas — a request the Spanish denied. However, if Massé had been living in Texas, as some have claimed, why would he have asked the Spanish to permit him to move to Texas? The answer is evident: He was not in Texas.

Ultimately, I think there is no reason to believe that André Massé resided anywhere during the period circa 1747 (when he first appeared in the historical record) to 1775 (by which time he had died) except in the Attakapas District. Indeed, there are several contemporary documents that overtly place Massé there, including church and civil records.

1756 document from the Poste des Attakapas church
containing several references to "Andre Massé," "Mr. [Monsieur]
Massé," and "Sr. [Sieur] Massé." Photo of a facsimile in the
African American Museum, St. Martinville, La.

Addendum:

Weddle identified Massé in the historical record as early as 1728, citing as his source page 26 of Winston De Ville's book Opelousas: The History of a French and Spanish Military Post in America. But a glance at that page reveals that De Ville mentioned not Massé, but a certain "De Massy." Weddle, however, assumed that de Massy was the same as Massé, and he made this assumption without informing readers of the difference in surnames. Moreover, Weddle made this assumption even though De Ville himself noted that "[I]t cannot be determined who de Massy is" (though, De Ville mused, he might have been a Louisiana resident named Jean Massy, originally of Tours, France).

Oddly, Weddle did not cite De Ville's actual reference to André Massé elsewhere in Opelousas: On page 31 De Ville stated that the Frenchman "settled on the lower Trinity River in Texas. . . ." But on checking De Ville's source, one finds that it contains no reference to Massé!

So, again, I believe that there is no credible contemporary, primary-source evidence that Massé lived in Texas. Rather, the evidence shows that he lived in the Attakapas region of Louisiana, and that claims to the contrary are based on poor or non-existent data.

Addendum of 31 October 2012:

I found the below document in the Louisiana State Land Office: dated early 1809, and signed by Joseph Sorrel and Claire Dauterive Dubuclet, it states "that André Massé was the first person who settled in this part of the country. . . ." One can see from the various surnames mentioned in the document — Sorrel, Dubuclet, Fontenot, Flamand (i.e., Grevemberg), Landry, Judice, etc. — that "this part of the country" meant the Bayou Teche region. Source: Declaration of Joseph Sorrel and Clair Dauterive Dubuclet, [19 January (unclear, could read "February")] 1809, in Claim Papers S.W.D. [Southwestern District], T.14S. R.6-8E. & T.14S. R.9E. 58, Louisiana State Land Office, document no. 510.00174, Baton Rouge, La., https://wwwslodms.doa.la.gov/, accessed 4 September 2018. 



Here are the signatures and date on recto:

Other sources:

Winston De Ville, Opelousas: The History of a French and Spanish Military Post in America, 1716-1803 (Cottonport, La.: Polyanthos, 1973).

José Antonio Pichardo, Pichardo’s Treatise on the Limits of Louisiana and Texas, Vols. 1-4 (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1931-1946).

Robert S. Weddle, The French Thorn: Rival Explorers in the Spanish Sea, 1682-1762 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991).