Know your Louisiana History: Marie Therese

Marie Therese ‘Coincoin’ is a Louisiana legend many know little about. Once a slave woman owned by the founder of Natchitoches, Louisiana Juchereau de St. Denis, Marie was leased to a young Frenchman by the name of Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer. The two of them went on to have ten children together. At some point, Metoyer purchased Coincoin’s freedom, along with their children, from St. Denis’s daughter.
As a free woman with a yearly allowance Marie began to cultivate tobacco on a parcel of land given to her by Metoyer. With receiving land grants and purchasing slaves, Marie and her sons acquired a plethora of wealth. They were the leading family of the Isle Brevelle, which was a community of free people of color who excelled at being businessmen, plantation owners, and even slave owners.
From a slave, to a free woman, to one of the richest women in Louisiana, Marie Therese Coincoin was a phenomenal woman.
Sources: canerivernha.org/stories/marie-therese-coincoin