Une Fusion des Racines (A Fusion of Roots)

The story of Marie Térese is integral to the ingredients that make up the history of the south's gens de coleur libre.

The inevitable social intercourse between our French, Spanish, Indian, and African ancestors resulted in an amalgamation of bloodlines that continues to affect the racial composition of Louisiana down to this day. Of the primary bloodlines- it is an African woman who has invariably been identified as the nucleus around which early society developed.

By engineering her own fate Marie Térese, also known by her African name Coincoin, became the matriarch and progenitor of one of the first communities in the nation of free people of color.