Nearly 60 years ago, a historic Black community founded as a home for people emancipated after the Civil War was demolished for a national park commemorating both the Battle of New Orleans and Civil War casualties.
This March 29, 2021, photo provided by Paul Christiansen shows Louisiana iris on the location of the Battle of New Orleans and of the small historic Black neighborhood of Fazendeville, founded about 1870 for recently emancipated Blacks and torn down in the mid-1960s to expand a national park in Chalmette, La. The park's visitor center is in the background.
“Even though the government tried to erase this village, there's still life raising its little flowery head to show there once was a community here,” he said. The community, called “The Village” by people who lived there, was founded around 1870 by Jean-Pierre Fazende, a grocer from a family prominent in the social class known as free people of color, said Bill Hyland, the official historian for St. Bernard Parish, where the national park is located southeast of New Orleans along the Mississippi River.
For decades families lived and worked in the small community built where American forces had defeated the powerful British military on Jan. 8, 1815. Homeowners were paid about $6,000 at a time when new homes in the area cost $16,000, according to a 2014 article in the “64 Parishes" magazine published by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. In later years, the park service addressed the expropriation in an article on its website.
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