I represent Nemecio Baltazar Centeno, a free pardo boy born in Penacola in 1818. I was baptized by Father Coleman at St. Michael’s on June 1, 1819, about six months after my birth.
At the time of the 1820 census in Pensacola, I was 1 year old, and I lived with my father, Baltasar Centeno, a Spaniard; my mother, Ysabel Chauvin, a free parda woman; and my four 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. Also in our household was Francisco Reguera, an elderly blanco from Havana, also a fisherman, who does not appear to be related to us.