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| Edna Jordan Smith |
Many people watched the movie "Twelve Years a Slave," or read the book. Over a decade ago I came across an article that was published in the Time Picyaune Newspaper. The article was written by Joan Treadway. Treadway has intereviewed Edna Jordan-Smith about her research discovery concerning a woman named Sarah Nicholson who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in St. Helena Parish, Louisiana in 1826.
Smith reseach didn't reveal who kidnapped Sarah, her research revealed that white people and free people of color was involved. It was through a lawsuit that was filed on August 20, 1826 in St. Helena Parish Courthouse that Smith learned of the case. While looking through a summary of abstracts of cases during her employee at the Bluebonnett Library genealogy department in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
An attorney named Thomas S. Lloyd, whom Smith believed to have been based in New Orleans. The document stated that Sarah had been kidnapped from the Pine Stree Wharf in Philadelphia and taken on board a hermaphrodite rig, they then transferred her to a oyster boat. "A storm rose in which the boat sprung a leak," Sarah said in the lawsuit. Sarah and nine other African descent people was but back on the rig. A total of fifty-people was enslaved there. She was put in irons, around her right foots, and a rope was fastened around her neck to the neck of another.
The ship made several stop while enroute to Louisiana, where Sarah was transported to land, in St. Helena Parish. "A slaveholder by the name of Presley Stephenson a cotton farmer possibly used her for a field hand," said Smith. I research his name in Ancestry, I found him in St. Helena in the 1830 United States Census. His name was spelled Stevenson. Stephenson later sold her to a "Captain Thompson," who was a slave dealer on the corner of Canal and Camp
Sarah talked about how Thomspon beat her and was very mean and cruel. He beat her at the police station in the New Orleans for saying she was a free person. In her suit she wanted to be paid for unspecfied amount of damges she recieved from Thompson.
I went to the St. Helena Parish Courthouse searching for the lawsuit. I will make a visit to the library in Baton Rouge to look at the abstract and have it transcribed. Preserving Our History in Tangiphaoa and St, Helena would like to thank Edna Jordan Smith for this ground-breaking researh and bring it to the forefront.
Edna Jordan Smith holds a Masters of Education Degree with emphasis in Historical Research. She taught Genealogy Research at the Bluebonnet Genealogy Library in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Major Bibligraphical Sources:
Time Picayune Newspaper " Woman Fought for Her Freedom in La.
