Pierre (Comanche slave)

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Pierre was the christian name of an enslaved Comanche in New France.^[1] His case is remembered because of a legal battle over his sale. In 1732 his owner, Philippe You de La Découverte owed a substantial debt to Daniel Migeon de La Gauchetière. Officials ordered Pierre's sale, and he was purchased by Charles Nolan Lamarque.

You de La Découverte challenged the sale as “invalid and harmful to religion,” because Pierre had converted to Christianity.^[1]

Pierre had converted to Christianity in 1723, when he was approximately 16 years old.^[1]

When Pierre died in 1747 he was still owned by Lamarque.^[1]

References[edit]

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 Michel Paquin. PIERRE, Comanche Indian, slave; b. c. 1707; baptized 11 Sept. 1723 in Montreal; buried there 5 Aug. 1747, Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved on 2019-06-14. “In 1732 Pierre, as he had been baptized, was the subject of a legal struggle which obliged the authorities of New France to pronounce more definitively on the legality of slavery in the colony than had Intendant Jacques Raudot* in his ordinance of 1709.”