Séjour: Parisian Playwright from Louisiana

Parisian Playwright from Louisiana by Charles Edward O'Neill "Victor Séjour, f.m.c." In antebellum Louisiana, free men and free women of color were legally obligated to indicate their status in every legal transaction or public announcement. The usual method was simply to give the letters "f.m.c." or "f.w.c." Whites and free persons of color were thus constantly reminded that the latter occupied a distinct place in Louisiana society: free, but not white; black, but not slave. This work is the first full-length, published biography of a Louisiana-born f.m.c. By following Séjour's life, the modern reader can explore the antebellum free-black community's distinctive way of life. Haiti, France, and Louisiana are linked together in Victor Séjour and his family. The Séjours remind us that a sweeping arc of French culture reached from the St. Lawrence River through the Great Lakes down the Mississippi River out to the Antilles: Quebec, Montreal, Detroit, Nouvelle-Orléans, Port-au-Prince. It w