1841 New Orleans: Emerging pharmaceuticals and the connection to the unification of people: How one church’s seat structure could be the active cure to the people’s unification of background

Piece from Times-Picayune archives of August, 1841

It’s a warm October day, New Orleans has finally started to lose a bit of humidity as the smell of what could be considered fall approaches. A local looks up as people pile into the church located on the corner of Bayou Road and Saint Claude. There’s an energy of those who have been trusted both in the past and present. From musical talents performed by Sidney to Civil Rights activists, Plessy and Tured, to Mardi Gras Indian Chief, Tootie Montana, to the little girl and her elderly grandmother down the street, maybe there’s a space for growth and power to intersect.

You are a pew.

No, you are more than a pew. You allow for a space for enslaved people, for free people of color, for whites, for people of all backgrounds. You are the first to create this union, the first step to healing the divide that has torn humans apart for centuries.

The year is 1841 in the city of New Orleans. The main newspaper newspaper (The Times- [Daily] Picayune) each day reads a new doctor’s name — from Dr. O’Reilly, to Dr. Gustine Oculet, to Dr. Geo Boren, to the first pharmaceutical companies in the city known as Morgan & Co. Each person/company is making a new health claim to “renew energy and healthful action.” Each ad is promising “integrity, healing, or stability.

How can they promise such misleading things when the largest plague of all is still as contagious as ever in the city? The people need this renewal of energy and action in other ways to fight segregation.

As a pew, you are the healing that will be the first to initiate the union of people.

As a pew, you are the medicinal property that is not advertised in newspapers.

As a pew, you are the active ingredient that begins the start to a cure the people of New Orleans have needed for too long.

The beginning of your story starts. The free people of color in New Orleans received permission from Bishop Antoine Blanc to open the first public church of its kind, a place for people of all backgrounds to gather; the only stipulation being they must name the church after one of their patron saints, Saint Augustine, your home. You will belong in the oldest African-American Catholic parish in the nation.

Piece from Times-Picayune archives of August, 1841

The property you will come to stand on has a special history. One that will unite you with your past and present. The church stands on part of the original Claude Tremé Plantation Estate when Tremé subdivided his estate to sell off large sections to free Blacks. A property known by locals as “The Tomb of The Unknown Slave.” A property full of history that worked so hard, for so many years, to create a divide in equity amongst humans. A property that was responsible for the death of many innocent people. It is your responsibility to recognize this tragedy and work to heal and restore in the same spots. It is your responsibility to serve as a reminder that people are walking/sitting/and praying on a Holy Ground.

Your story did not start in an easy way. In 1842, after the dedication of Saint Augustine, the free people of color set out to officiate their place in church with you, the pews. It is a family tradition to personally buy a pew for your group to sit in at church each week. When wealthy, white people in the city heard the news of this, they went out and attempted to buy all possible pews, creating an all-out buyer’s campaign known as the War of Pews.

Your war was ultimately won by the Free People of Color. This victory allowed for you to connect with Free People of Color, enslaved people, people of all different ethnicities, and Whites. You are the first public unifier in this way.

Piece from Times-Picayune archives of August, 1841

When someone walks into the Church of Saint Augustine they can see Free People of Color sitting on you in the front. They can see enslaved people sitting on you in the two side aisles. They can see White people sitting on you with scattered members of different ethnicities intermingled in the middle. They can see you actively bringing together people of all backgrounds, traditions, and belief systems to worship as one under a singular roof.

They can see you socially renewing the energy and healthful action of the members of the New Orleans community. They can see you serving this plague that has separated people for years. One that created this Tomb we know must work so hard to acknowledge and assure will never happen again. You have done what no advertised medicine could ever do.

To this day, you remain on the corner of Bayou and Saint Claude with a celebration every October. Tremé locals share childhood memories of gathering on you to celebrate and gather on these holy grounds to show their respect to what started a greater movement.

People from around the world can visit and connect with you. You continue to hold the ground you first aimed to in 1841. In 2021, you will notice Blacks, Whites, and people of all ethnicities will sit on you together, next to one another, intermingled rather than separate. You have done your job well so that with each year, each battle, each change, you continue to bring people closer, both in physical and social proximities and you will continue to do so for many more years.

The Church of St. Augustine celebrates bi-weekly mass on Wednesdays and Saturdays, still honoring their original mission: to welcome all. There are ongoing fundraisers to keep the building in service with over $1,500,000 raised. On the first weekend of October each year, the Tremé neighborhood hosts a Fall Festival with all proceeds raised to go directly to the church.

To learn more about St. Augustine Church and its historical values visit https://staugchurch.org/.

This piece is written as part of the “Archive Dive” series for Alternative Journalism: a course taught at Tulane University by Kelley Crawford.