I represent Joseph Michel Goumarin, a free pardo boy born in Pensacola. At the time of the 1820 census (where I am called “Jose”), I was 9 years old. I lived with my parents: Joseph Alexandre Goumarin, a French cigar maker, and Ana, a free negra woman from Charleston. I had two siblings. Families of mixed ethnicity like ours were quite common in Spanish West Florida, as the Spanish did not have the same social taboos as Anglo-American society. Interestingly, in his will recorded in 1823, my father refers to his children as Creole rather than pardo.