Lot 420
[African American New Orleans], Office de la Semaine Sainte..., prayer book, 1750, published by Jean-Thomas Herissant, Paris, gilt-tooled full calf, in modern, custom leather and cloth chemise, with ink inscription of Jeanne Marie Aliquot. Provenance: Ex-Collection of Stanley Guerin, Ursuline Convent, New Orleans, archivist. Note: Jeanne Marie Aliquot was a wealthy Caucasian Parisian immigrant to New Orleans. She was benefactress of the Sisters of the Holy Family, the order of African American nuns founded by Henriette Delille in 1836, and helped to establish a school for "les gens du coleur libres" near present day St. Augustine Church. Aliquot, who legend has it, was rescued from the Mississippi River by an African slave after she slipped from the gangplank on her arrival in New Orleans from Paris, dedicated her life to the service of poor African people, both enslaved and free, and lived much of her life in New Orleans traveling to outlying plantations, teaching slave children. In Baudier, he Catholic Church in Louisiana: "Miss Aliquot, true to her promise, helped the sisters in every way. Though she did not become a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family (This is disputed in other accounts, which say she did. B.G.), she made her home with them... It is only regrettable that due credit and recognition have never been given to her and that so little is known of her."
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