I represent Ana, a free negra woman born in Charleston. At the time of the 1820 census of Pensacola, I was 60 years old, working as a laundress. I lived with Joseph Alexandre Goumarin, a French cigar maker, and our three children. 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.
In his his will, recorded in 1823, Joseph states that he never married but that he had three natural sons with me (a “Negresse Creole de Charleston“) and that he had freed me previously. After the 1820 census, I had a child named Carlos whom Joseph did not acknowledge at baptism nor in his will; it is unknown at this time who the father was or whether I was still sharing the Goumarin household after 1820.