Lot 369
José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican/New Orleans, c. 1750-1802), "Don Antonio Mendez (1750-1829)", oil on canvas, unsigned, black painted inscription identifying sitter as "Antonio Mendez" and handwritten pencil inscription "....Don Antonio Mendez, Mort le 5, Dbre 1829, natif de la Havane" on stretcher bars, ink inscription regarding restoration by Gregor's Beaux Arts, Hartford, CT in May 1945 en verso of relining canvas, 40 1/4 in. x 31 in., antique frame. Provenance: By descent in the family of the sitter. Note: The sugar trade has long been an important element of the Louisiana economy, from the introduction of sugar cane to the New Orleans area in the 1750s to today, when Louisiana is presently the second largest sugar producer in the country. For both the culinary and economic benefits of the cane sugar business, much recognition and gratitude is indebted to Antonio Mendez, the first to successfully create granulated sugar in colonial America. Although Etienne de Boré is well known for his large-scale production and commercialization of granulated sugar, the efforts of Mendez, as well as Josef Solis and Antoine Morin, are often overlooked in the history of cane sugar. Sugar cane, which is indigenous to Asia, was first brought to the New World by either the Spanish or the Portuguese in the late 1400s, and the first harvest occurred in 1501 on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Over the next two centuries, the crop was successfully planted throughout the Caribbean islands and South America, and in 1751, Jesuit priests visiting Hispaniola brought samples back to Louisiana and planted them. In 1759, Joseph Dubreuil built a sugar mill and attempted to granulate sugar without success; by the 1780s, cane was widely planted for chewing and for producing taffia, a rum-like liquor widely imbibed by the citizens of Louisiana. It was thought that the growing season in Louisiana was too short and cold to produce adequate crops for granulation. However, Josef Solis, who had come from Saint-Domingue, planted Otaheite, a more common and heartier variety of sugar cane. Antonio Mendez, whose Magnolia Plantation in Terre aux Boeufs (now St. Bernard Parish) was adjacent to Solis, eventually bought much of Solis lands and sugar crops, and hired Antoine Morin, a Haitian sugar maker who had fled Saint-Domingue during the revolution, to attempt to produce granulated sugar. The account of their success in finally granulating sugar is given by J.B. Avequin, who wrote in the Louisiana Sentinelle de Thibodeaux, He made but a few small barrels of sugar, and it is certain that he experimented also in refining them, for in 1792, Mendez presented to Don Rendon, who was then Intendant of Louisiana for Spain, some small loaves of sugar refined by him. It required one of these little loaves to sweeten two cups of coffee. In 1794, Etienne de Boré, seeing the destruction of the Louisiana indigo crops due to an insect infestation, decided to invest in sugar cane and bought a large quantity from Mendez and Solis. He planted these crops on his plantation on the Mississippi River (now the location of Audubon Park), and hired Morin to help produce the sugar. From this crop, he created sugar in large enough quantities to earn $12,000 and convinced more plantation owners to invest in sugar cane. De Borés success certainly bolstered the sugar industry in Louisiana, however, Mendez and Morins experiments in sugar refining were undisputedly seminal. Don Antonio Mendez arrived in New Orleans in the 1780s upon accepting the position of Procurer de Roi (Attorney General) for the Spanish Colonial government of Louisiana. He quickly purchased land grants and built a home known as Magnolia Plantation in the early 1790s; several notarial acts of 1794 and 1795 mention this particular structure. Later in his career, Mendez became a clerk at the Cabildo and was appointed parish judge of St. Bernard Parish by Governor William C. C. Claiborne. Mendez married Felicité Ducret on March 25, 1790 in St. Louis Cathedral, officiated by Father Antonio de Sedella (known to the New Orleans community as Père Antoine). The couple had six children, two of whom were depicted with their parents in a family portrait, also by Salazar, sold in these rooms, December 4, 2004. In the individual likeness of Mendez offered here, Salazar uses the half-length format within a painted oval similar to his portraits of other notable figures such as Major General James Wilkinson, Daniel William Coxe and Colonel Thomas Butler, Jr. Although history books have sometimes overlooked the contributions of Mendez, Morin, and Solis in favor of the story of Etienne de Boré, the Mendez family always sought to correct that impression. Don Antonio Mendez daughter, Magdalena Theresa Mendez Landier, told her daughter until her dying day: Dire que cest mon père qui a fait le premier sucre en Louisiane. (Tell everyone that it was my father who made the first sugar in Louisiana). Ref.: Abbott, Elizabeth. Sugar: A Bittersweet History. London: Penguin House, 2008. American Sugar Cane League. A Story of Louisiana Cane Sugar. New Orleans, 1939. Buman, Nathan. Two Histories, One Future (PhD diss., Louisiana State University, 2013). Butler, W.E. Down Among the Sugar Cane. Baton Rouge: Moran Publishing Company, 1980. Hyland, William de Marigny. Tour of Historic St. Bernard Parish. St. Bernard, LA: Los Islenos Museum, 2012. Mims, Sam. Trail to a Pot of Gold. Homer, Louisiana: The Guardian-Journal, 1967. Rightor, Henry, ed. Standard History of New Orleans, Louisiana. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1900. Stubbs, William C. Sugar Cane. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1900. Taggart, W.G. and E.C. Simon. A Brief Discussion of the History of Sugar Cane. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Department of Agriculture and Immigration, 1938.
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