An enslaved woman in the household of Domingo Recio in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Born around 1787 in Santo Domingo. Race is recorded as negra.
First appears in the 1809 baptismal record of her son, Domingo Salvador, who was born enslaved but baptized as free by his owner (Domingo Recio, born in Italy) who was also his father. She is described as a creole, which had and still has several meanings, but probably meant that she was born in Santo Domingo rather than Africa.
The household moved to Pensacola – and Maria Luisa was presumably emancipated – at some point between her son’s birth and the time of the 1820 Spanish census of Pensacola, where she is enumerated in Domingo Recio’s household as a free woman, along with Domingo Salvador and a daughter, Juana. Domingo Recio’s occupation was billiard parlor keeper; her occupation is given as laundress. It is apparent that she and Domingo were living as husband and wife; but they would not have been legally married. In an 1833 deed wherein Maria Louisa purchased Lot 190 on Romana St. from Elizabeth Eslava for $100, she uses “Recio” as her surname.
FAMILY:
Children: Domingo Salvador Recio, Juana Recio
SOURCES:
Ancestry. Louisiana, U.S., Slave Emancipation Records, 1719-1820 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. [Accessed 1 SEP 2021]
Nolan, Dr. Charles E, ed. Sacramental Records of the Roman Catholic Church of the Archidiocese of New Orleans, Vol. 9: 1807-1809. New Orleans: Archdiocese of New Orleans, 1994.
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
Deed Book B, page 441, Escambia County, Florida Deeds