Rosette De Meziere, a free woman of color, seeks to overturn “an Act purporting to be a Sale or Lease” of her house and lot to George Hagan. Rosette, also called Marie Rose, presents that, for some time preceding the act, she and Hagan had "lived together in concubinage." She charges that "Hagan, pretending to be displeased at not being master of the premises on which he lived" and "in a fit of apparently wounded pride at his dependant situation, threatened to leave the house, & abandon" her. As her "affections had been so completely won by the artifices of said Hagan," she offered to put all her property in his "safekeeping." Hagan drew up the aforesaid "Act" while plying her with wine. Since she was "bewildered by the effect of the wine, she didn’t perceive" that $1,500 was included as consideration for the "sale or lease." She denies ever receiving any money from Hagan and adds that Hagan did not have the means to pay $1,500 since he was "poor and dependant" upon her for a home. Hagan has since "beaten & otherwise ill treated" Rosette and "expelled her from her own house." Furthermore, Rosette complains that since, since gaining possession of her property, Hagan has without her consent “made stables of two rooms in her house, & turned the garden & orchard into a horse lot, thereby destroying all the trees & doing damage," to her great injury. She prays that Hagan be condemned to pay $1,000 as damages for the destruction of her property and for the “illegal detention thereof." A related document reveals that Rosette had acquired the house from her father, Athanaze de Meziere.
Result: Revived and continued.
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Repository: Natchitoches Parish Courthouse, Natchitoches, Louisiana
