Genoveva Ortiz*

A free woman of color who shared the household of Jose Ortiz in Spanish Pensacola. Ortiz was a sixty-year-old shopkeeper born in Spain.

Born in about 1780. Race is recorded as negra.

Appears in the 1820 Spanish census of Pensacola in a household that was recorded as consisting only of her and Jose – there are several enslaved individuals associated with their household documented elsewhere. Genoveva is listed as a laundress. They may have been living as man and wife – couples of mixed ethnicity were quite common in Spanish West Florida. But they were not legally married, and she may or may not have used his surname.


SOURCES:

Coker, William S. and G. Douglas Inglis. “Census of Pensacola, 1820.” The Spanish Censuses of Pensacola, 1784-1820: A Genealogical Guide to Spanish Pensacola. The Perdido Bay Press, 1980, pp. 93-126