The Story of A Black Louisiana Homesteader's Journey to Acquire Land

Bernice A. Bennett

The Story of A Black Louisiana Homesteader’s Journey to Acquire Land-page 3

According to statistics from the National Homestead Museum only 9% of settlers from the State of Louisiana received a land patent, and 40 % of claimants were actually able to complete the homesteader process for clearing and settling the land.(16)

Selected Resources:

National Archives – Washington, DC

1. Homestead Case Entry File for Peter Clark, patent no. 9590, New Orleans Land Office, Louisiana: Records of Land Management (RG) 49; National Archives building (NAB) Washington, DC

Websites

1. National Homestead Museum

2. National Archives

3. Louisiana State Land Office:

4. Ancestry.com

1900 US Census; Census Place: Maurepas, Livingston, Louisiana; Roll T623_568; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 60

1880 US Census; Census Place: Livingston, Louisiana; Roll 456; Family History Film: 1254456; Page: 170A; Enumeration District: 138;

1870 US Census; Census Place: Ward 3, St Helena, Louisiana; Roll M593_529; Page: 96B; Image: 199; Family History Library Film: 552028.

1880 US Census; Census Place: 3rd Ward, Saint Helena, Louisiana; Roll 468; Family History Film: 1254468; Page: 427A; Enumeration District: 153; Image: 0146.

Books:

1. Blassingame, John W., Black New Orleans- 1860-1880, The University of Chicago Press, 1973.

2. Hair, William Ivy, Bourbonism and Agrarian Protest – Louisiana Politics 1877-1900; Louisiana State University Free Press, Baton Rouge, 1969.

3. Hawkins, Kenneth, Research in the Land Entry files of the General Land Office- Record Group 49- Reference Information Paper 114-National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC- Revised 2009

4. Poret, Ory G., History of Land Titles in the State of Louisiana: State of Louisiana- Division of Administration – State Land Office- 1972, Baton Rouge, and LA.

5. Vincent, Charles, editor, The Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial Series in Louisiana History- Volume XI- THE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN LOUISIANA- Part B: From the Civil War to Jim Crow - Center for Louisiana Studies- University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2000

6.  History of Livingston Parish, Louisiana, 1986 / compiledand edited by History Book Committee Edward Livingston Historical Association. Dallas, Tex.: Curtis Media Corp., c1986.

7. Records of the Field Offices for the State of Louisiana, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1863-1872 – Record Group 105- National Archives and Records Administration- Washington, DC.

Articles:

______USDA- Black Farmers in America, 1865-2000The Pursuit of Independent Farming and the Role of Cooperatives- RBS Research Report 194

______ Oubre, Claude F., “Forty Acres and a Mule”: Louisiana and the Southern Homestead Act; Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. 17. No. 2 (Spring, 1976), pp. 143-157.

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(15) Bureau of Land Management- Certificate #5887. The original patent was recently found in an old book that belonged to Peter’s daughter- Hester Clark Quinn.

(16) National Park Service- U.S. Department of the Interior – Homestead National Monument

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©Bernice Bennett - 2011

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