Anne Rossignol facts for kids
Anne Rossignol (1730–1810) was a famous businesswoman and slave trader. She was known as a signare, which was a term for successful African or mixed-race businesswomen in French West Africa. Born on Gorée Island, she moved to Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in 1775. There, she became one of the three wealthiest free women of color in the colony. The other two were Zabeau Bellanton and Jeanne-Genevieve Deslandes. Later, during the Haitian Revolution, she moved to Charleston, South Carolina. She is sometimes called the first free African person to have willingly moved to the United States.
Life Story
Anne Rossignol was born to Claude Rossignol, a Frenchman, and Madeleine-Francoise, an African signare from Gorée. As a child in 1736, she traveled to France with her father and his French wife. Records from that time called her his natural mulatto daughter, meaning she was of mixed race.
Life on Gorée Island
Anne Rossignol returned to Gorée Island at some point. Because of her birth, she was part of the special Afro-French signare community there. Her sister, Marie-Therese, married Blaise Estouphan de Saint-Jean in 1749. This made her sister-in-law to Jean-Baptiste Estouphan, who was the French Governor of Gorée.
Anne Rossignol lived on Gorée in the 1750s. She had a son, Armand, and a daughter, Marie-Adelaide, with a Frenchman named Aubert. He was an official for the Compagnie des Indes, a large trading company. Like other signares, she was involved in the business of trading enslaved people.
Moving to Saint-Domingue
In 1775, Rossignol and her children moved from French Gorée to Cap-Francais in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. In Saint-Domingue, she became a very successful businesswoman. She invested in real estate and continued to be involved in the trade of enslaved people.
She owned many buildings in Le Cap, some of which were very fancy. These buildings were in areas usually lived in by wealthy white people. She lived in a grand house herself. Besides the enslaved people she traded, she also owned many enslaved people for her own household. Her way of life was as rich as some of the wealthiest white people in the colony.
In 1786, her daughter married Guillaume Dumont, a white surgeon. Anne gave her daughter a dowry (money or property given at marriage) that was larger than what many rich white plantation owners gave their children. She was known as one of the three richest women of color in the colony. The others were Zabeau Bellanton and Jeanne-Genevieve Deslandes.
Life in South Carolina
During the Haitian Revolution, Anne Rossignol left Saint-Domingue. She fled to Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States. Her daughter and white son-in-law went with her, but her son had returned to Gorée.
She is thought to be one of the first free African people to have freely moved to the United States. In Charleston, she continued her business as a planter and owner of enslaved people. She died a very wealthy woman. Her life story is seen as unusual for a free person of color, especially in the United States.
See also
In Spanish: Anne Rossignol para niños Jean-Baptiste Belley, Haitian politician who was born at Goree.
