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18-530: The park and the St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church in Natchez have been included as featured destinations on the state's Louisiana African American Heritage Trail . The roughly 116,000 acres (470 km) Cane River National Heritage Area begins just south of Natchitoches and extends south and west for about 35 miles (56 kilometers along Cane River Lake and Interstate 49 to Monette's Ferry. Other sites in

36-596: A parish in its own right, St. Augustine expanded to serve four other churches in the area: St. Charles Chapel at Bermuda , St. Anne Church (Spanish Lake) (serving the Adai Caddo Indians of Louisiana ), St. Joseph's Catholic Mission at Bayou Derbonne , and St. Anne Chapel at Old River . A second church burned in the early 1900s. It was replaced by the present-day church building, which was completed in 1917. Tradition holds that early furnishings included paintings of patron saints Augustine and Louis, in honor of

54-551: Is a historic Catholic chapel founded in the 1800s along the banks of Old River near Cypress and Isle Brevelle in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana , serving the Old River community. It is the cultural and religious center of the area's Louisiana Creole people , predominantly of French descent. The church and cemetery are located Old River Road (Parish Road 615) on the banks of Old River near Kisatchie Bayou at

72-680: Is a marked destination on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail . Tradition holds that the church was established by Nicolas Augustin Metoyer in 1803 and that services have been held continuously since then. Historical records challenge the local lore. Parish records document the founding of the Chapel of St. Augustine "as a mission of the church of St. François of Natchitoches" in July 1829, shortly after

90-671: Is celebrated as the first church in Louisiana to be built by and for free people of color . It is also among the oldest churches founded and built by and for African Americans . The church and cemetery are within the Cane River National Heritage Area , and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places . Because of its significance in Catholic and Creole history, St. Augustine also

108-468: Is recorded on May 20, 1736 in the oldest Catholic Registry in the Louisiana colony. Brevelle was granted the island by David Pain, the subdelegate at Natchitoches in 1765 for his service to the French and Spanish crowns as a Caddo Indian translator and explorer of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. The Metoyer brothers were two of ten children of the French merchant Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer and

126-461: The Créole de couleur Metoyer family who built the chapel. Seated behind them were the families of prominent white planters and other Creoles within the community with surnames Blanchard, Brevelle, Garcia, Landry, and Lemoine. Post-Civil War, St. Augustine chalked up another apparent first in U.S. racial history: its own congregation by this time was almost exclusively people of color; but, it served as

144-628: The Isle Brevelle Church , is a historic Catholic parish property founded in 1829 near Melrose , Natchitoches Parish , Louisiana . It is the cultural center of the Cane River area's historic French, Spanish, Native American and Black Creole community. It is also the oldest surviving Black Catholic church in the United States. Established as a mission church by Louisiana Creole Nicolas Augustin Metoyer, St. Augustine

162-550: The 1970s, featuring a portrait of Nicolas Augustin Metoyer posing in a Prince Albert coat and swath of green fabric. This painting had been part of the Melrose Planation and went up for auction in the 1970s, the pastor of the church brought the oldest descendants of Nicolas Augustin Metoyer to the auction and they pleaded to be allowed to purchase the painting for the Isle Brevelle community and for display in

180-410: The Metoyer brothers, as well as an altar brought from Europe by other family members. The original bell that hung in the belfry above the vestibule is said to be the one still in use. An image of the original church survives as a backdrop in the contemporary oil portrait of its founder that hangs in the church today. An oil painting titled Papa Augustin Metoyer (c. 1836) has hung in the church since

198-530: The Old River Creole community near Natchez, Louisiana . Like nearby Cane River and Bayou Brevelle , Old River was once the Red River. The chapel was founded by French Creole families in the 1800s as a mission of St. Augustine Catholic Parish Church of Isle Brevelle . During this period, St. Augustine Catholic Parish Church founded 3 other missions: St. Anne Church (Spanish Lake) (serving

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216-518: The church was constructed. The mission was recognized in 1856 as a parish in its own right, and authorized a resident priest. When Father Jean Baptiste Blanc consecrated the chapel for religious use (19 July 1829), he reported that it had been "erected on Isle Brevelle on the plantation of Sieur Augustin Metoyer through the care and generosity of the above-named Augustin Metoyer, aided by Louis Metoyer, his brother. ... The said chapel ... having been dedicated to St. Augustine, shall be considered as under

234-636: The church. For many years an annual festival for the Isle Brevelle community has been held at St. Augustine Church. The first Creole to settle the area is Jean Baptiste Brevelle II. Isle Brevelle and Bayou Brevelle are named for him. Brevelle was an 18th-century explorer and soldier of the Natchitoches Militia. He is the son of Jean Baptiste Brevelle , a Parisian-born trader and explorer, and his Adai Caddo Indian wife, Anne des Cadeaux . The baptism of Jean Baptiste Brevelle II

252-431: The former slave Marie Thérèse Coincoin , sometimes (albeit erroneously) called Marie Thérèse Metoyer. He had initially leased her services as a domestic and concubine. When the parish priest filed charges against the black Coincoin for bearing mixed-race children while living in the residence of a white man, and threatened to sell her away to New Orleans, Metoyer bought her from her owner and privately manumitted her. Across

270-570: The heritage area include the Kate Chopin House and the state historic sites of Los Adaes State Historic Site , Fort Jesup , and Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site . This article related to a protected area in Louisiana is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Louisiana state location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church St. Augustine Catholic Church and Cemetery , or

288-512: The mother church for the predominantly white congregation of Mission Ste. Anne on Old River . The original structure has not survived. Union forces during the Red River Campaign of May 1864 were said to have torched the first church. On March 11, 1856, the mission of St. Augustine at Isle Brevelle was decreed by Bishop Auguste Martin to be a parish in its own right and assigned Fr. Francois Martin to be its first resident pastor. As

306-574: The next thirty-seven years, he manumitted each of their children. Coincoin, as a médecine , planter, and businesswoman, worked to buy the freedom of her five older black children from an earlier union with another slave. She secured that freedom for three of them. Together, her offspring and their families created a large Créole of color community in Natchitoches Parish that spread the length of Cane River Lake . Its core would be, and still is, St. Augustine Parish on Isle Brevelle . St. Anne Chapel at Old River St. Anne Chapel at Old River

324-404: The protection of this great doctor." Tradition also describes the role of Augustin's brother Louis (founder of the nearby Melrose Plantation , a National Historic Landmark ), as the chapel's designer and builder. The Church of St. Augustine is distinctive among Southern churches of all denominations for its racial role reversals. Surviving pew records show that the front seats were occupied by

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