There are three interviews with Frances Doby in the W.P.A. Louisiana collection, providing a wealth of sometimes contradictory information with stark contrasts between the interviews. The 1938 interview includes Doby’s earliest recollections, witnessing whippings from her enslaver, yet revealing fond memories of the camp. The interviewers were Robert McKinney, a 26-year-old university educated journalist and a Black man, and Jeanne Arguedas, a 50 –year-old white supervisor who spoke creole. Despite differences in age and class, Doby could have related to McKinney because of race, and Arguedas due to language.[i]. This is the most revealing interview about life on the plantation, possibly thanks to McKinney, who historian, David H. Culbert considered to be the only Louisiana interviewer “with writing ability”.[ii] A second interview by Arguedas reveals details of her life after emancipation. Doby’s openness could reflect the relationship built up from the joint interview with McKinney. In contrast, the 1940 interview with 69-year-old Henriette Michinard describes Doby’s appearance and character, yet little else.[iii] With little in common, Doby perhaps censored her response.

Testimonies by their nature are subjective, offering personal perspectives influenced by time, memory, and experience, adapted to conform to society or to appease the interviewer. However, by analysing Doby’s narratives, it is possible to conclude the most probable account of her life story. Yet even establishing Doby’s age is problematic. She mentions her age in two of the interviews, placing her date of birth between 1839 and 1846. Since she makes no mention of her own enslaved duties, it is likely that she was a child during her enslavement, making the later date of birth more probable. This is affirmed by the story of her emancipation. Doby and her mother followed soldiers from Opelousas to New Orleans, possibly around 1963, the year of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Battle of Opelousas. When her mother, Henriette (Tinette) Alexander, died after drinking contaminated water, Doby was placed in Carrollton Asylum, a catholic institution for orphaned children, reaffirming her younger age.[iv]

Doby mentions her mother’s former enslaver, Lucius Dupre. [v] However, she does not say he was her own enslaver, indicating that this could have been before Doby was born or when she was very young. She does however remember being sold to “Massa Degruy”. The deGruy family had been settled in Louisiana for over 100 years at this time, and various family members were enslavers. It is unknown which deGruy enslaver bought Doby and her mother, but the original deGruy sugar plantation lies on the Mississippi River, tying with Doby’s recollections of standing on a block after a boat trip. It is probable that her memories of the deGruy plantation form her earliest memories, as she states she was a little bit of a girl then. A lasting memory from there was witnessing her mother being whipped for obstinance, indicating both her mother’s resistance and Doby’s awareness of expected submission.

Doby explained that her mother’s work was mainly light duties in the plantation house due to having many children and often nursing. High birth rates maintained the enslaved population, increasing the value of fertile enslaved women like Doby’s mother.[vi] Yet Doby makes no mention of her father and the only reference to siblings are a brother and sister that entered the asylum with her. Her brother died quickly, and her sister was adopted by a white lady. Doby describes her sister as high yellow, indicating that she had a light complexion. Fairer skin tones often held a higher status, which was Doby’s reasoning for her sister’s quick adoption. Doby’s own complexion is unknown.

In one interview, Doby says that she was raised by “white folks”, yet she also talks of her time in the plantation camp, playing and dancing with the other children while her grandma sang and told stories. This could refer to time split between the house and camp, when her mother was pregnant or nursing, or it could refer to her experience with different enslavers. More likely, it refers to her young childhood in the camp and teenage years in the orphan asylum, followed by work in domestic service. A man named Dr. Pickett took Doby from the asylum to work on a sugar cane plantation in New Iberia, where she was told to stay in the house with the white people and not to mix with the black people in the camp. She worked hard yet was whipped if she didn’t do her duties. Eventually, a friendly butcher named John expressed concern for her health and took her to his sister in Cote Gelee.[vii]

Doby was then taken to “Pere Jean”, the priest at St. Martin. She was told he would be kind. One of her duties there was to ring the bells for mass. Doby was so small that the bells lifted her into the steeple, but the priest threatened to whip her if she didn’t go. During her time in St. Martin, Doby also observed the old, white-haired priest “makin love to … a young girl”. She told the head servant, Miss. Marcellite, believing she would support her on account of her being “a quadroon”, but Marcellite informed Pere Jean. Doby claims that the priest reacted by kicking her down some high steps, breaking her shoulder. A search for historic catholic churches with a steeple in St. Martin leads to St. Martin de Tours, whose priest at this time was Father Jan.[viii] The 1870 census page for the 68-year-old priest also includes a 40-year-old mulatto domestic servant named Marcellite Abatte, and a 17-year-old mulatto girl named Fanny Thorn. This could or could not be Pere Jean, Marcellite and Doby, which would indicate Doby’s maiden name and assumed age.

Doby went on to have 16 children, all deceased by 1940. Her children were born in the city’s affluent uptown streets. Yet by 1947, the U.S. city directory indicates that Doby, the widow of Jos., possibly Joseph, was living in an area she called crawfish town, a common nickname for the area below Canal Street in New Orleans. Frances Doby’s interviews highlight the many challenges that formerly enslaved people faced after emancipation. Her narrative is her testimony to surviving those challenges.

[i] The 1940 U.S. census reveals that Robert McKinney, a single 28-year-old black man, was living with relatives in New Orleans, in a mixed-race neighbourhood. The census also shows that the local population were of mixed skill levels, from servants for private families to managers and professors. This suggests a rising class neighbourhood. He was also a writer, receiving his salary from government work on the W.P.A. project, and was educated to the 4th year of college. The 1940 U.S. Census also reveals that Jeanne Arguedas, a 52-year-old white widow, was living with her mother in a white neighbourhood in New Orleans. Her neighbours include lawyers, managers and medical staff, suggesting a middle-class area. She was educated up to the 3rd year of college and was an assistant supervisor, employed in government work doing conservation research.

[ii] David H. Culbert, ‘The Infinite Variety of Mass Experience: The Great Depression, W.P.A. Interviews, and Student Family History Projects’, Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, 19:1 (Winter 1978), 48

[iii] On the 1940 U.S. census, Henriette Michinard, is recorded as a 69-year-old white widow, living with family in New Orleans. A closer look at the census reveals she lived in a white neighbourhood amongst clerks, bookkeepers and teachers, suggesting a middle-class area. She is a translator, receiving wages from government work for literary research. She was educated up to the 2nd year of college.

[iv] Diseases, such as yellow fever and cholera were prevalent in Louisiana at this time, making this her mother’s probable cause of death.

[v]Lucius Dupre was a state judge and confederate politician. His plantation was in St. Landry, Louisiana. An article posted by Lucius J. Dupre in The Opelousas Courier, dated December 24th, 1859, advertises the sale of 35 enslaved people. This could possibly have included Frances Doby and her mother.

[vi] Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, ‘Mistresses in the Making’ in They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 1-24

[vii] Cote Gelee was renamed Broussard in 1884, reaffirming the suggested timeframe.

[viii] Father Jan served the church from 1851 to 1887. A photograph of the white-haired priest can be seen on St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church website and his statue now stands in front of the church.