In 1843, in a cotton plantation near the New Orleans, a woman of the upper class society gave its own daughter to three men reduced to slavery. What followed became the biggest secret terrifying never buried in the swamps of Louisiana. Before diving in this true story and deeply disturbing, subscribe to this channel and tell me in the comments from which city you listen.
Your support helps continue to reveal these hidden secrets of history. The 1840s in Louisiana were marked by a cruel prosperity built on the back of thousands of souls chained in the fields of cotton and sugar cane. The region located between New Orléance and Baton Rouge housed some of the most popular plantations rich and most ruthless South American.
Big families Creole, French and American reigned over immense domains where the stifling heat mixed with the fields of forced and screaming labor suffocated in the night. One of these properties as local archives simply refer to it as planting of the cross stretched over more than 2000 hectares along a winding arm of the Mississippi.
The lands were rich, sips of water and silt, perfect for intensive cotton cultivation. The main residence, an imposing building white column in style neoclassical stood at the center of a path lined with century-old chains covered in Spanish moss. Behind this elegant facade is hid a world of suffering and silence. Mrs.
Ellisabeth de la Croix was born into a family of merchants French settled in Louisiana since three generations. Her marriage to Henry de la Croix, prosperous landowner, had consolidated its social position. Widow since 1839, she managed the plantation alone with an inflexible authority. The registers parishes describe her as a woman years old, pious in appearance, who attended mass every Sunday Sainte-Marie and generously financed local charities.
But in the privacy of his plantation, Ellisabeth de la Croix was a woman tormented by a sick obsession, the reputation and appearance of his family. This fixation would reach monstrous proportions with his daughter unique, Joséphine. Josephine of the Cross was born in 1826. From childhood, she presented a robust constitution which, as years, transformed into a corpulence imposing.
In a society where slimness and delicacy were the markers of aristocratic femininity, Josephine’s body became a source of unbearable shame for his mother. At 17, the young woman weighed more than 150 kg, which, in the context of the era was seen as a social monstrosity. The testimonies fragmentary servants, found in personal letters and diaries kept in archives Louisiana histories reveal that Joséphine was a gentle person, shy and deeply unhappy.
She spent his days recluse in his bedroom on the second floor of the house, only going down for meals taken in presence of his mother. Ellisabeth dressed him in dark and shapeless robes, hiding as much as possible silhouette and categorically refused to receive guests. When Joséphine risked being seen, the plantation employed nearly 80 enslaved people working in conditions of extreme brutality.
Among them are found three men who were going become the unwitting instruments of an unimaginable tragedy. Samuel, Elijah and Thomas. Samuel was 32 years. He had arrived at the plantation of the cross 10 years ago. purchased when from an auction to the New Orleans. Tall, muscular, face marked by the scars of whip, he worked like against master of the fields, responsible for the supervision of other workers.
This position, although still the one of a man to serve, gave him a precarious authority and visibility dangerous in the eyes of the masters. Elijij, aged 28, he was a blacksmith. He repaired the tools, ironed them horses and maintained the agricultural equipment. His job required considerable strength and a certain technical competence, which earned him slightly less cruel treatment than that reserved for field workers.
But her condition remained that of a property without rights or protection. Thomas the youngest at 24 years old, served as a handkerchief and handyman. He took care of the family horses, cleaned the stables and carried out various tasks around the big house. He was a discreet man, gaze always lowered, who had learned to make oneself invisible in order to survive.
These three men only knew each other superficially before the events from 1843. He shared the same neighborhoods of slaves, a row of cabins in dilapidated wood located 500 m from the house main near infested swamps mosquitoes and snakes. Their existence was punctuated by work exhausting, chronic hunger, arbitrary punishments and fear constant.
Winter 1842 to 1843 was particularly rigorous in Louisiana. The temperatures, unusually low for the region, froze crops and caused damage significant economic losses. The tension rose in all plantations and owners, frustrated by their difficulties financial, showed themselves even more ruthless towards their workers forced.
It is in this context of anxiety and exacerbated cruelty that Elizabeth of the Cross began to develop a plan terrifying. At the beginning of March a servant named Amélie who served in the big house noticed a worrying change in the behavior of Madame de la Croix. Amélie, a 40-year-old woman who had was sold to the plantation when it was still a child, knew the moods of his mistress better than anyone.
She knew when Elisabeth was just irritable and when something darker was brewing in his mind. In recent weeks, the mistress spent long moments locked in her office, a small living room located on the ground floor where she managed the accounts of the plantation and its correspondence. But now she remained for whole hours, the door locked and came out with a looked drunk and determined which froze the blood of Amélie.
Joséphine, for her part, almost no longer appeared. Amélie went up to bring him his meals three times per day and found the young woman sitting by the window of her room, the gaze lost towards the cotton fields which stretched as far as the eye could see. Josephine barely ate, which was unusual. His eyes were red and swollen as if she had cried for hours.
One evening, then that Amélie was clearing the tray of dinner, Joséphine grabs his wrist with surprising strength. “Amélie”, she whispered in a hoarse voice. “My mother talk about me. She says I’m a shame. She says I don’t deserve bear his name.” Amélie looked down not knowing what to answer. In this house, words could be expensive, especially when they concern the mistress.
She wants she wants to make me disappear, Joséphine continued, the tears streaming down her cheeks. I have it heard. She was talking to herself in the hallway. She said it would be better if I no longer existed. Amélie felt an icy chill run through his spine. She gently released her wrist and left the room without a word : the beating heart.
But what could she do? Who would believe a slave woman accusing mistress to have such thoughts towards his own daughter? Two more days late, March 20, 1843, Ellisabeth of the Cross summoned Samuel, Elija and Thomas in the backyard the residence. It was a morning foggy. The painful sun pierced the thick layer of gray cloud which weighed on the plantation.
The three men presented. Nervous and confused, be summoned by the mistress herself was never a good sign. Ellisabeth stood on the covered gallery which surrounded the house, dressed in a robe severe black, hair pulled back rear under a white headdress. Sound face, usually composed and complexioned, displayed an indecipherable expression, mixture of resolution and some something that almost looked like contained madness.
or three she began in a cold, metallic voice. You have been chosen for a task particular. If you accomplish it correctly and keep silent absolute, you will be rewarded. Otherwise, she left the threat hanging, but the three men understood perfectly. Disobedience or indiscretion meant death, probably preceded of torture. “My daughter Joséphine suffers from illness of the mind,” continued Ellisabeth, every word spoken with clinical coldness.
“The doctors recommended a cure isolated, far from any stimulation social. You are going to take her to a cabin located deep in the swamps to the east of the property. She will remain there for the time necessary for its healing. You will ensure that she does not lacks nothing and especially what she does not escape.
Samuel, who was the eldest and most experienced of the three, dared to look up at the mistress. Madam, for how long? You don’t don’t ask any questions, cut him off Elisabeth in a curt tone. You obey. Is it clear? The three men nodded silently, their heads lowered. You will leave tonight after curfew. My daughter will be ready.
You transport her in a car covered. No one else should know. If a single word of this matter comes out of your mouths, I will make you hang all three and burn your bodies in the fields. She turned the heels and went back into the house, leaving in the courtyard, paralyzed by the fear and confusion. That night, as the plantation sank into the disturbing silence of the darkness, Samuel, Elijja and Thomas found themselves near the stables.
A cart for two wheels covered with a thick tarpaulin was waiting. Inside was Josephine of the Cross. She was sitting on a rolled blanket, dressed a simple gray fabric dress rude, far from the outfits usual habits of a young woman of her rank. His face was pale, his eyes red and empty of expression. She didn’t cry, she didn’t protest.
She seemed to have already given up resistance. “Mademoiselle,” began Thomas in a hesitant voice, “we let’s take you somewhere. For your health, it is your mother who, I I know”, murmured Joséphine in a voice off. She wants me to disappear. The three men exchanged glances heavy with unease. None of them really understood what was happening, but everyone felt that they were drawn into something terrible.
They took the road east, sinking into the swamps which bordered the plantation. The path was barely traced, overgrown by the weeds and roots which emerged from the muddy earth. The trees, covered with Spanish moss, formed an oppressive ceiling above them. The air was heavy humidity and the acidic smell of decaying vegetation.
Screams nocturnal animals tore the silence. The distant howl of a alligator, the cross hair of the frogs, the sinister rustling of snakes in the thicket. After two hours of painful walking, they finally reached the cabin from which spoke Ellisabeth. It was a rudimentary construction, a small rotten wooden building, formerly used by hunters or seasonal workers.
The walls were cracked, the roof pierced by place and climbing plants invaded the openings. To inside there was only one room single, empty, except for a bed rusty metal camp and an old broken chair. “It’s here,” said Samuel. in a tense voice. They helped Joséphine getting off the cario young woman entered the cabin without resistance like a condemned woman walking towards the scaffold.
She sat on the bed camp which creaked under its weight and placed his hands on his knees, his gaze fixed on the beaten earth floor. “Mademoiselle,” Elija dared to say, “Is it what do you need something?” Josephine raised slowly look at him. In this looked at an unfathomable sadness, a pain so deep that it seemed having swallowed all the humanity of the young women.
“Nothing,” she replied simply. There is no nothing left. The three men went out of the cabin, closing the door behind them rickety door. They looked at each other, unease thickening between them like a toxic fog. “What are we done now?” asked Thomas, trembling voice. “We obey!” replied Samuel in a dry tone.
We monitor, we waits for orders from the mistress. But Elija hesitated, searching for words. This girl, she is sick. You believe really is it for a cure? Samuel shook his head, looking grim. I I don’t know, but we have no choice. If we disobey, we die. It is also simple as that. They installed a makeshift camp a few dozen meters from the hut under a large chain whose branches fell down to the ground.
Ellisabeth had them provided provisions, hard bread, salted bacon, a little rice and a jug of water. He had to take turns to watch over the cabin day and night, ensure that Joséphine does not try to flee. The following days were marked by unbearable tension. Josephine almost never left the cabin. When she did it, it was to just a few minutes to breathe the heavy, humid air of the swamps or to relieve himself behind the building.
She never spoke to them. She seemed to live in some sort catatonic state disconnected from the reality that surrounded him. Samuel, Elijah and Thomas were trying to maintain a routine, to talk to each other to break the oppressive silence. But the situation weighed more and more heavily on their minds.
They were pretty involuntary actions of a young woman who had done nothing to them and he didn’t understand not why. On the 5th day, Thomas dared approach the cabin while Samuel and Elijja slept exhausted by a night of vigil. He gently pushed the door and saw Joséphine sitting on the bed, in exactly the same position than upon their arrival.
“Miss, he whispered, why is your mother does that?” Joséphine slowly turned the head towards him. For the first time, something came alive in his eyes. “From anger perhaps, or bitterness.” “Because I’m ugly,” she said abruptly. atoned voice, “Because I dishonor her, because she would prefer me to be dead.
” Thomas felt his throat tighten. He didn’t know what to answer. He closed the door and returned to camp with a heavy heart. That night, as the rain started to fall in a large hot drop, soaking the earth and transforming the ground to the end, Ellisabeth of the Cross appeared suddenly in the swamps. She was alone, riding a black horse, dressed in a dark cape which made her resemble a specter emerging from the darkness.
The three men stood up hurriedly, surprised and frightened by this unexpected visit. “Madam,” Samuel stammered, “let’s not talk.” “Quiet,” ordered Ellisabeth. descending from a horse. “How is my daughter?” “She is fine ma’am, she doesn’t go out. She doesn’t speak.” Perfect. Elliszabeth walked towards the cabin but stopped a few steps from the door.
She stood still for a long time, scrutinizing the building as if it tried to break through the walls to see his daughter. Then, without return, she spoke with a voice freezing which made the three shiver men. She will never come back planting. The silence fell again, only disturbed by the crackling rain on the leaves.
“You have understand?” continued Ellisabeth. She will stay here. You will continue to monitor. I will bring you something survive every week, but she will never leave this place. Eija osaa ask the question that was burning on the lips of all. But madam, for how many time? Elizabeth finally turned to them and in the faint glow of the lantern that they had lit, its face appeared distorted by a expression that could not be qualified what cold dementia.
“Until let her die,” she replied. simply. Then, without another word, she got back on her horse and disappeared in the rainy night, leaving them petrify with horror. The weeks that What followed was a waking nightmare for Samuel, Elijaija and Thomas. They were prisoners of this situation as much as Joséphine was cabin. They couldn’t escape.
Where would he go? The law allowed capture and the forced return of slaves in leak. Often followed by mutilation or of public execution. He couldn’t reveal what was happening. Who would believe? And even if someone believed, it wouldn’t change anything. Joséphine was her mother’s property. in the same way as was the property of the plantation.
They tried the best that they could, to make the situation Josephine more bearable. Thomas him brought fresh water every morning, drawn from a nearby stream. Ela repaired the cabin to prevent the rain from infiltrating. Samuel spoke to him, trying to start a conversation, distract from his misery. But Josephine sank a little deeper every day into a deep apathy.
She ate at struggling, losing weight so worrying. His cheeks, once full and round, were hollowed out. His eyes sunken in their sockets stared into space with an intensity that made the blood run cold. One April morning, then that the sun finally broke through the clouds after several days of rain incessant, Joséphine left the cabin and approached Samuel who was sitting under the chain.
“I want to die”, she said in a calm and calm voice, as if she were simply announcing the rain or shine. Samuel raised his eyes towards her, shocked by the tranquility with which she had pronounced his words. “Miss, don’t Don’t say that.” I think so, insisted Josephine. My mother is right. I am useless. I’m of no use. I am a burden for everyone, even for you three who have done nothing to me.
This is not true! replied Samuel badly comfortable. You have nothing to do with it all that. Joséphine gave a smile sad. You are kind. But that doesn’t changes nothing. She returned to the cabin, leaving Samuel with a overwhelming feeling of helplessness. The that same evening, Ellisabeth returned as each week bringing provisions.
But this time she didn’t come alone. Behind her, on a second horse, stood a man whom the three slaves did not know. It was an individual in his forties, dressed soberly, with an emaciated face and cold eyes. He was carrying a bag worn leather. “Here is Doctor Fontaine,” Elizabeth announced.
“He will examine my girl.” He the three men stepped aside, allowing Ellisabeth and for doctors to head towards the cabin. Through the half-open door, they heard snatches of conversation. She lost a lot of weight, observed the doctor in a clinical tone. Good, replied Ellisabeth. It’s exactly what I wanted. Madam, I must tell you that the conditions in which she lives are I don’t have you didn’t ask for your opinion, doctor.
I to see its condition. not to judge my decisions. A heavy silence followed. Then the doctor came out of the cabin, closed face. He got back on his horse without a word and left, followed by close by Elisabeth, who before leaving, issued a final warning to the three men. “Continue as you do and remember, silence is your only guarantee of survival.
” Weeks turned into months. But June and July passed in a stifling heat which transformed the swamps into a pestilent oven. The mosquitoes stank, the snakes wrapped around the trees. The alligators roaming in the water stagnant. The three men, physically exhausted and morally saw Joséphine wasting away before their helpless eyes.
She doesn’t weighed barely more than kg, half of its initial pea. His skin, once full and smooth, hanging in a flabby fold. Her hair, neglected and tangled, fell by wrist. She had developed sore legs, infected by constant humidity and lack of care. Thomas, who had always been the most sensitive of the three, started talking about running away, about everything reveal, regardless of the consequences.
“We can’t let this continue,” he kept repeating. “It’s a murder, we are watching it die.” “And what do you want to do ?” Samuel retorted in despair. If we speak, we die, if we flee, we die. If we disobey, we die. Do you understand? We’re trapped. But she still dies, screamed Thomas one evening, with tears in his eyes.
We is complicit. Elija, who had remained silent during the argument a voice intervened low and trembling. Samuel is right, we can’t continue like this. Samuel put his head in his hands, overwhelmed by the weight of the situation. He knew they were right, but they saw no way out. At the beginning of month of August 1843, an unexpected event came to upset the precarious balance of this situation.
Another plantation slave, a man named Jacob who worked as carpenter, was sent by the manager to carry out urgent repairs on the dikes located near the swamps. While exploring the area, Jacob came across chance on the camp of Samuel, Elija and Thomas. Jacob was a man in his fifties of years, respected for his calm and wisdom.
He looked around him, intrigued by the presence of his three comrades in such an isolated place, then saw the cabin behind them. “What are you doing here?” he asked, frowning. Samuel stood up hurriedly, panicked. Jacob, you shouldn’t be here. For what ? What are you hiding? Before Samuel can answer, the door of the cabin opened and Joséphine appeared on the threshold.
Jacob remained frozen, his eyes wide-eyed. He immediately recognized the daughter of the mistress he had sometimes seen from afar plantation, although the one he saw now looked like a ghost. “My God,” Jacob whispered in horror. “What’s going on here?” Samuel, Eïja and Thomas exchanged looks panicked. He knew the secret was out and that meant disaster.
“Please, Jacob,” Samuel begged, “ you must not say anything. If the mistress learn that you know, you keep her prisoner”, exclaimed Jacob in disbelief. “How can you?” “It’s not us!” Thomas exploded. “It’s her. It’s Madame de la Croix who ordered us to do this. We don’t no choice.” Jacob looked at them for a long time, trying to understand.
Then he headed slowly towards Joséphine, who was standing motionless in the door frame, her empty gaze fixed on him. “Miss !” he said softly. “Is it true? Your mother sent you here?” Joséphine nodded slowly head. “She wants me to die,” she said in the same voice she used now for everything. and I’m going to die soon.
Jacob felt a dull rage rising in him. He had spent his entire life in forced submission, undergoing humiliation and violence. But this which he now saw surpassing all that that he had known. It was cruel gratuitous, a barbarity led by a mother against her own daughter. “I’m going talk,” Jacob announced in a tone determined.
“I’m going to go see the priest of the parish or the sheriff. This woman must be stopped. No! shouted Samuel grabbing him by the arm. You will us have everyone killed. So what? replied Jacob’s eyes flashed with anger. Better to die trying what is right to live by being complicit in such horror. They argued for hours, their voices reasoning in the silence of swamps.
Joséphine, indifferent to their debate, returned to the cabin and lay down on the camp bed, closing eyes as if wishing disappear from this world. Finally, Jacob gave in to desperate pleas of the three men, not by buying it, but for realism. He knew that in the system which chained them all, the the word of a slave was worthless to that of a white owner respected.
If he spoke, Ellisabeth would deny everything and he would be hanged for slander. Worse still, she could order reprisals against all the slaves of the plantation, the accusing of conspiracy. Okay, he finished by saying the broken voice. I won’t say nothing, but I can’t live with it on conscience without doing anything. What do you mean? Elja asked.
I’m going keep an eye on you, on her, what if I find any way get out of there, without getting us all killed, I will. In the following days, Jacob returned regularly, under the pretext of work maintenance in swamps. He brought food additional that he stole discreetly in the kitchen of the plantation, medicinal herbs to treat Joséphine’s pleasure and even some books that he had stolen from the library of the big house.
Joséphine, for the first time since months, showed some semblance of interest for something. She began to read, devouring the works that Jacob brought, novels, stories of travel, poetry. Reading seemed to offer him an escape mental, a refuge from the horror of his situation. But this fragile improvement did not last.
At the end of the August, Elizabeth discovered the presence of Jacob in the swamps. A another slave. seeking to win favors from the mistress, had denounced. Ellisabeth had Jacob whipped publicly in front of all the slaves of the plantation. 50 lashes that tore his skin and broke several of its ribs. Then she locked him in the dungeon, a damp cellar under the large house where he stayed for two weeks without food with only a little stale water.
When he was finally released, Jacob was unrecognizable. His body was nothing more than a mass of scar and infection. He could not almost no more walking. But in his eyes still burned a glimmer of resistance which terrified Elizabeth. She did it sell immediately to a dealer New Orleans which took him to an unknown destination.
Samuel, Elijah and Thomas never saw him again. This event had a devastating effect on the three men. Jacob had been their last hope, their only ally. Now they were completely isolated, even more prisoners than before. Joséphine, for her part, sank into a even deeper state of apathy. She stopped eating altogether. The three men were trying to force her, bringing him soup, bread soaked in milk, anything that could keep her alive.
But she refused everything, turning his head away a silent determination. “Let me go,” she whispered. Please let me die. September brought with it even more humidity more oppressive and tension unsustainable. Joséphine no longer weighed hardly more than sixty kilograms. She looked like a skeleton covered with skin.
Her hair was almost all fell. His eyes, once filled with sadness, no longer expressed nothing. She spent her days lying on the camp bed, motionless, staring at the holed ceiling of the cabin. Thomas, consumed by guilt, started having nightmares violent. He woke up screaming at middle of the night, convinced that Joséphine was dead and her ghost came to haunt him.
Usually the most stoic of three developed a permanent tremor hands. Samuel for his part was withdrawing more and more into itself, barely speaking with a blank stare. One evening, while the moon was full and the swamps echoed with the cries of nocturnal creatures, Samuel took a decision. He approached the cabin and pushed the door.
Joséphine was lying like always, but this time his eyes were closed. His breathing was so so faint that we could barely hear it. “Mademoiselle”, said Samuel in a voice broken. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Josephine opened slowly eyes and looked at him. For the first time in weeks, she really seemed to see him. “Why Are you sorry?” she asked weakly. “You didn’t do anything.
You are a prisoner like me. We should have do something, anything. He there was nothing to do, replied Josephine. My mother is a woman powerful and I am nothing. I don’t never was. Samuel felt the tears rolling down her cheeks. It was the first time since his childhood that he cried. You deserve better than that.
Joséphine gave a fragile smile, almost grateful. Maybe in another life, but not in this one. She closed her eyes and her arm in restless sleep. Samuel came out of the cabin and joined Elija and Thomas who were waiting by the campfire. “She will die”, he said simply, “soon, and we can’t do anything.
” The three men remained silent, each lost in his dark thoughts. If this story makes your blood run cold, put a thumbs up and tell me in the comments what you think it will happen. Do you believe that Joséphine will survive? What will these three men do? faced with the horror they are experiencing? Two days later, September 12, 1843, Ellisabeth de la Croix arrived at swamp in a state of agitation unusual.
She got off her horse with a abruptness which betrayed his nervousness and immediately headed towards the cabin. She pushed the door and stayed frozen on the threshold, observing her daughter. Joséphine was awake but did not turn not even looking towards his mother. She stared at the ceiling indifferently. Josephine, said Ellisabeth in a voice hard, look at me.
Joséphine did not move. I told you to look at me. Slowly, with a visible effort, Joséphine turned head towards his mother. Their gaze is crossed paths and in this exchange silent something happened unspeakable. A mother’s hatred of her own daughter and the resigned acceptance of a girl facing her tormentor.
“You will soon to die”, Elisabeth observed with a your clinic as if it were talking about a animal. “So much the better, that will put an end to this shame. “For what ?” murmured Josephine, his voice no more than a whisper. “Why do you hate me so much?” Elizabeth clenched her jaw, her face contorted into an expression of rage and disgust.
Because you are one failure. Because you ruined all the hopes that I had placed in you. Because every time I look at you, I see my own failure as mother. You must have been beautiful, refined, desirable. You were to marry a rich man and influential. You had to perpetuate our name with honor, but look at you, you are not nothing, less than nothing.
Joséphine closed her eyes, tears flowing silently down her cheeks hollow. “I’m sorry to have you disappointed.” “Your apologies don’t change anything, Elizabeth spat. In a few days, you will be dead. I will bury your body somewhere in the swamps, far from our family land. Nobody will never know what happened to you.
I would say that you went to Europe for your health and that you died there of a fever and life will go on without you. She came out of the cabin and approached stood up, his face marked by fear and repulsion. When she dies, ordered Ellisabeth, you will bury him right here in swamps, dig a pit deep far from any path and that no one ever finds his body.
Madam, Elija dared to say, the voice trembling, she could still be saved if we brought her back plantation, if we gave it care. Silence, Elizabeth screamed her face distorted by fury. You don’t have to discuss my orders. You will do exactly what I tell you, otherwise I will have you all hanged. She got back on her horse and set off galot, disappearing in the darkness swamps.
The three men looked appalled. They came from receive explicit orders to bury Joséphine, to make everything disappear trace of its existence. They were become the unwitting accomplices of a murder. That night they did not sleep not. Sitting around the campfire, they discussed for hours, desperately looking for a solution.
“Could we save her?” proposed Thomas, take her away from here, entrust her to someone who could take care of her. “Or” Samuel asked desperately. And how? We are slaves. We don’t have not allowed to leave the plantation. If we run away with her, we’ll be hunted and killed. So, we let her die? protests Eligija.
Is this the solution? I don’t I don’t know, Samuel exploded. I don’t know more what to do. Silence fell again heavy and overwhelming. Finally, it was Elija who formulated the terrible idea which germinated in the minds of each of them for days. And if and if we shortened his suffering? Samuel and Thomas looked up at him, shocked. What ? Balbucia Thomas.
You know what I mean? continued Elij in a voice trembling. She suffers, she wants die. She told us so herself. If we wait for her to die of hunger, that will still take days, maybe weeks and it will be a slow agony and terrible. But if we help him leave, it would be faster, more soft. You’re talking about killing her! cried Thomas, horrified.
I’m talking about ending his suffering, elijja retorted. This is not not the same. Maybe exactly the same, Thomas shouted. We would be murderers. We already are, Elija shouted back. You believe we are innocent? We keep it prisoner for 6 months. We have it watched wither away. We obeyed orders of a madwoman.
We have blood on our hands whether you like it or not. Samuel intervened. The broken voice. Stop, if he please, stop. The three men kill exhausted and helpless. We cannot not do that, Samuel continued after a long silence. We cannot take this decision for him. If she wants dying is his choice. But we won’t be not what He did not finish his sentence, unable to pronounce the words.
So, what do we do? asked Thomas tears in my eyes. “Oh, we’re waiting, Samuel replied in a dead voice. We waits for nature to take its course and We pray to God to forgive us.” The 15th September 1843, At dawn, Joséphine de la Croix stopped breathe. Samuel, who stood guard that night heard the silence suddenly emanating from the cabin.
This silence was different from that which had preceded him. It was a silence definitive, absolute, that of death. He stood up slowly, his body numbed by the hours spent motionless and approached the cabin. He pushed the door and saw Joséphine lying on the camp bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
But his eyes no longer saw nothing. His body was still, his lips slightly parted, as if she had wanted to say one last word. that she never had the strength to say. Samuel remained frozen on the threshold, paralyzed by a mixture of relief and horror. Relief because the suffering of Joséphine were finished. Horror because he fully realized what had just happened.
A young woman of diet years whose only crime had been to have a body that his mother considered unsightly came from die in total isolation abandoned by everyone. He came out of the cabin and woke up Elija and Thomas. The three men stood in front of the door, unable to utter a word. Then Thomas burst into tears, falling to knee in the mud, body shaken violent spasm.
What did we do? He repeated between two. OK, my God, what did we do? Ella, the face of Pierre, stared fixedly at the cabin as if he was trying to carve into his remember every detail of this cursed place. Samuel felt a cold rage rising within him, a rage against Elizabeth of the Cross, against the system which had all reduced to impotence, against the whole world which had allowed let such an abomination occur.
“We’re going to bury him,” he said in a voice hard, “But not here, not in this hole lost.” Elijja and Thomas raised their eyes towards him, surprised. “What you mean?” Elij asked. The mistress said to bury him in the swamps so that no one never found again. But I refuse. This girl deserves better than that.
She deserves a dignified burial. But how ? Thomas began. I will find one average, cut Samuel. Even if it must cost lives. Cost. They transported Josephine’s body out of the hut and enveloped him in a clean blanket that Elaija had preserved. Her body, so light now weighed barely more than a child.
They placed him gently in the cart they had used to bring him here 6 months ago. Samuel harnessed the horse and turned towards his two companions. Stay here. If the mistress is coming, tell her that I went to find a suitable place to dig. I’ll be back before dark. Where are you going? Elijah asked worriedly. Do what needs to be done.
Samuel left direction of the south, sinking further deep in the swamps. He knew his lands, having spent years working in the fields surroundings. He knew that at about 3 km there was an old cemetery abandoned dating from colonial times French. It was a forgotten place, invaded by vegetation where no one came anymore for decades.
He reached the cemetery in the middle of morning. The graves, for the most part collapsed or overgrown by roots, had illegible French names, eaten away by time and humidity. It was a sad and dark place, but it was a resting place, not a anonymous swamp where the body would have been devoured by alligators and insects.
Samuel dug for hours, using an old shovel that he had taken away. The earth was heavy and waterlogged, making the exhausting work, but he continued mu by fierce determination. When the was deep enough, he went down gently the body enveloped in Joséphine and placed him at the bottom. Before cover the body with earth, Samuel knelt at the edge of the pit.
He was not a religious man. How could he have been after all he had lived? He felt the need to say something, mark this moment. “Josephine,” he began abruptly. rque voice, “I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know if there is something after death. But if that’s the case, I hope you are in peace now.
You didn’t deserve this that happened to you. Nobody deserves that. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I will live with this weight until the end of my days. He took a handful of earth and dropped it on the body wrapped. Then he filled the was, compacting the earth with his hands and covered everything with dead leaves and branches so that the grave blends into the landscape.
Before leaving, he found a flat stone and with a rusty nail clumsily carved the initials JD and the year 1843. It wasn’t much but it was a trace, a silent testimony that a person named Joséphine de la Croix had existed. and died here. When Samuel returned to camp, the the sun was starting to go down and Laja and Thomas waited anxiously for him.
He them told what he had done and they nodded silently, relieved that Joséphine has at least obtained a decent burial. And now, asked Thomas, what What do we say to the teacher? We tell him that we obeyed, replied Samuel. They tell him that they buried him in the swamps as she has ordered. She will never come check.
Two days later, Ellisabeth de la Croix returned to swamp. She got off her horse and approached with an impassive face. “Is it done?” she asked coldly. “Yes, ma’am”, replied Samuel. “We have it buried. No one will find her.” Ellisabeth nodded. satisfied. Okay, now you will return to the plantation. You will return to your usual tasks and you will never tell anyone about it.
Never. Yes, ma’am. If a single word of this story comes out of your mouths, I will have all three of you executed. Understood? Yes, ma’am Elisabeth got back on her horse and left without a backward glance, leaving the three men alone with their guilt and their sorrows. Samuel, Elijah and Thomas returned to the plantation the cross and resumed their lives of slave.
But they were no longer the same men. What they had experienced in the swamps had marked them never, leaving invisible scars but deep. Samuel became even quieter than before. He worked mechanically, accomplishing its tasks, without ever look up, without ever speaking to person. The other slaves noticed the change, but no one dared to ask questions.
There there was something in his eyes that dissuaded any curiosity. Thomas, for his part, sank into a deep melancholy. He wasn’t sleeping almost no more, haunted by nightmares in which he saw Joséphine again lying in the cabin, dying slowly before their helpless eyes. They were visibly losing weight, refusing often eating, sometimes murmuring incoherent words.
The others workers began to considered as a man whose spirit had broken. Eija himself developed a dull rage that never left him. He carried out his work as a blacksmith with an almost manic intensity, hitting the metal with a violence that seemed directed against something or someone invisible. Several times, the manager had to reprimand him for breaking tools by hitting them too strong.
Ellisabeth of the Cross, his side, resumed his life as if nothing had happened. She continued to attend mass every Sunday, to receive guests in one’s home elegant, to manage your plantation with efficiency. When knowledge asked for news of his daughter, she responded with feigned sadness that Joséphine had gone to France for health reasons and that she died there of a fever, far away from her home.
People nodded with compassion, offering their condolences to this poor mother who had lost her only child. But under this facade impeccable, something was starting to crack. Amélie, the servant who served in the big house, noticed that the mistress slept less and less. She heard Ellisabeth walking in the corridors at night, going up and down going down the stairs aimlessly apparent.
Several times, Amélie found standing in front of the room Joséphine, staring at the closed door, pale face. One October evening, Amélie heard screams coming from the office of Elizabeth. She approached discreetly and pressed his ear against the door. Inside, the mistress spoke to herself or rather shouted against someone invisible.
“Shut up !” Ellisabeth yelled. “Shut up!” are no longer here! You are dead. Leave me quiet. Amélie backed away terrified. She doesn’t didn’t understand what was happening, but she knew something was wrong not. The weeks passed and the state of Elizabeth deteriorated. She became more and more irritable, punishing servants for imaginary faults, shouting at the manager, neglecting the plantation management.
Her hair, once carefully coiffed, were starting to turn gray. and to disorder. His face, once high and the compound was creased with wrinkles deep. In November, Ellisabeth fell ill. She was suffering violent fevers, sweats nocturnal and very persistent. The Doctor Fontaine, the same one she had brought in to examine Joséphine in the swamps, diagnosed a pneumonia.
He prescribed rest and medication, but Elisabeth’s condition continued to deteriorate. She passed his days in bed, delirious in the fever. Amélie, who watched over her heard him talking about his daughter, asking for forgiveness, begging to be leave alone. Sometimes she screamed that she saw Joséphine standing at the foot from her bed, staring at her with eyes accusers.
“She’s looking at me!” shouted Elizabeth. “She doesn’t forgive me. My God, she doesn’t forgive me. The 28th December, three and a half months after the death of Josephine, Elizabeth of the Cross died in his bed. Alone, face twisted in an expression of terror. The authorities locals attributed his death to pneumonia. She was buried in the cemetery parish of Sainte-Marie.
With all the honors due to a woman of her rank, the priest delivered a eulogy moving funeral, praising his piety and his generosity. Notables of the region attended the funeral, presenting their respect to a woman they considered a pillar of their community. But Samuel, Elijah and Thomas, who observed the ceremony of away, staying away as they suited their conditions, knew the truth.
He knew that Elizabeth Croix did not die of pneumonia, but of guilt. He knew that something in her had broken after the death of Joséphine and that this brokenness had devoured him the interior. The planting of the cross was carried out sale and all the slaves were dispersed at an auction. Samuel was bought by an owner Mississippi landlubber.
Elijah left Alabama. Thomas was sold to a sugar cane plantation near red stick. They never saw each other again, but each of them kept until the end of her days the memory of Joséphine of the cross and what had happened in the swamps during the summer of 1843. It was a secret they took away in their graves, a burden that they carried it alone without ever being able to share with anyone.
Years more late, after the civil war and the abolition of slavery, Samuel, having become a free man, returned in Louisiana. He was old now, his back bent through decades of forced labor, face marked by scars and wrinkles, but he remembered the way towards the old abandoned cemetery. He went there one autumn morning when the sun peeked through the moss Spanish and that the swamps sounded the cries of birds.
The cemetery was even more invaded than before, almost completely engulfed by vegetation. But Samuel found the grave of Josephine. The flat stone that had engraved was still there, half buried in the earth, but the Jidé’s initials were still legible. Samuel knelt before the grave and placed his hand on the cold stone.
“I came back, he whispered, as I I promised myself I would do it. You are not not forgotten, Joséphine, I have not forgotten you never forgotten.” He stayed there for a long time, silent, lost in his memories. Then he slowly got up and left, leaving behind the lonely grave in the abandoned cemetery. Samuel died a few years later, 1872.
Elija predeceased him in 1868. Carried away by tuberculosis, Thomas had disappeared without a trace after the war, probably dead too somewhere in the south devastated by the conflict. With their death disappeared the last direct testimony of what happened at the plantation of the cross. Joséphine’s story was forgotten, buried under the decades and lies.
But the archives keep traces. fragments of letter, parish registers, slave sale deeds, documents land. By examining them carefully, crossing the information, reading between lines, it is possible to reconstruct the contours of this terrible story. For example, there is a letter dated 1844 addressed by a woman named Amélie to his sister who lived in New Orleans.
In this letter kept in the archives histories of Louisiana, Amélie writes “Madame de la Croix died in winter last. May God have mercy on his soul, because I think she had big ones need. Things happened terrible things in this house, which I cannot speak openly, but I know that an innocent young girl has paid the price of vanity and cruelty.
One day maybe the truth will be known. There is also a register parish of Sainte-Marie which mentions the baptism of Josephine of the Cross in 1826, but no trace of his death in France as Ellisabeth had claimed. The research in French archives of the time reveal no certificate of corresponding deaths. There is still one disturbing document, a report from Doctor Fontaine found among his personal papers after his death in this report undated but probably written shortly after the events described a medical examination carried out in a
isolated place to examine a young woman showing advanced signs of malnutrition and physical exhaustion. The doctor notes that he expressed his concerns to the person he had summoned, but that its recommendations were ignored. He ends the report with his words chilling. I have the terrible feeling of having been witness to a crime, but I do not have no way to prove it and my position don’t allow me to accuse anyone of rank without irrefutable evidence.
May God forgive me for my silence. And then there are the testimonies passed down from generation to generation among the descendants of the slaves of the planting the cross. These stories collected by historians in the 20th century as part of the project memory preservation African-American mentions a young white woman who missing and three men who carried a terrible secret.
One of these testimonies collected in with a twenty-year-old woman Sarah, granddaughter of Amélie and particularly disturbing. Sarah says that his grandmother gave him spoke shortly before his death about a story horrible thing that had happened before war. According to Amélie, the mistress of the plantation had made its own daughter because she was ashamed of her.
Amélie added that three good men had been forced to participate in this crime and that this guilt had broken them. All these fragments placed end to end draw the outline of a terrible truth. But he does not constitute definitive proof. It leaves room for doubts, interpretation. This is precisely what makes this such a terrifying story.
It is based on a gray area between the established fact and the rumor, between the documented and the assumed. In 199, a group of archaeologists and historians from the University of Louisiana undertook excavations in ancient swamps of the planting of the cross which had been partly dried up to be converted to modern agricultural land.
Their objective was to find vestiges of the pre-war period, especially the old cabins of slaves. During their research, they discovered the ruins of a small isolated construction corresponding to the description of the cabin mentioned in some Zoro testimonies. Nearby, they also found the remains of a old french colonial cemetery largely forgotten and not listed on modern maps.
In this cemetery, among the collapsed tombs and illegible stones, they discovered a relatively recent burial by relation to others. An analysis of carbon 14 data the human remains of the mid-19th century. It was of a young woman aged approximately 17 to 20 years old at the time of his death. The exam forensics revealed signs of severe malnutrition.
The waters showed marks radical graying characteristics over a short period. The teeth, in on the other hand, was in excellent condition, which suggested a person who had access to good care during childhood and his adolescence, someone from the wealthy class. And what disturbed the most the researchers were the discovery, near of the skeleton’s head, a small flat stone with engraved initials JD and the year 1843.
The scientists tried to cross his discoveries with the archives historical. They found the trace of Joséphine de la Croix in the parish registers and noted lack of death certificates officials. They examined the correspondence of Elizabeth of the Cross and found letters in which she mentioned the illness of his daughter and his departure for Europe.
But no document confirmed this travel. They also questioned descendants of families who had both knew the cross at the time. Many open up to history family mentioning that something had happened with the daughter of the cross, but no one could provide precise details. In 1994, the research team published an article in the Journal of Southern History entitled The mystery of Joséphine de la Cross.
Crime, silence and memory in the Antebellum Louisiana. The article presented all the evidence accumulated and asked the question: Was Josephine of the Cross murdered by her own mother? The publication sparked a passionate debate among historians. Some claimed that the test was convincing enough to conclude to a murder. Others argued that it was speculation based on indirect testimonies and coincidences.
The controversy attracted media attention. Journalists went to Louisiana to investigate. Descendants of the family of the cross, still present in the region, were interviewed. Most refused to comment, invoking the respect due to deaths and lack of evidence definitive. A descendant however agreed to speak under cover of anonymity. He confided to a journalist from Payun.
In our family, there has always been a story according to which Ellisabeth of the Cross would have done something terrible to his daughter. But we didn’t talk never openly about it. It was a shameful secret. buried for generations. Personally, I think it’s true. I think she killed her own girl, but I can’t prove it.
In 1996, the remains found in the cemetery were buried again, this time in an official cemetery with a tombstone bearing the inscription the memory of Joséphine de la Croix. 182613. May his soul rest in peace. The ceremony was simple, assisted by a few historians, community members local and family descendants formerly enslaved planting the cross.
One of his descendants, an elderly man named Marcus, who claimed to be the great-great grandson of Samuel, uttered a few words during the ceremony. “My ancestor,” he said emotional voice carried the weight of this story all his life. He could never talk about it freely because no one would not have believed a former slave accusing a respectable white woman.
But he did what he could. He has gave this young woman a burial worthy. He carved his name on a stone so that it is not totally forgotten. And now, more than 150 years later we are here for testify that his action was not vain. Joséphine de la Croix exists in our collective memory. His story, however terrible it may be, it will not erased.
Today, the story of Joséphine de la Croix is part of the Louisiana’s dark heritage. Of guided tours of the ancients plantations sometimes include this story presented as an example of multiple forms of violence that existed in the antebellum South. Not just the violence of slavery, but also violence domestic, the violence of control social, the violence of imposed silence.
History students study it in their course analyzing the dynamics of gender and class power that have made such a tragedy possible. Of novelists and filmmakers have inspired, creating works of fiction which explore the dimensions psychological and moral of this history. But beyond the interest academic or cultural, the history of Joséphine de la Croix asks questions which remain disturbingly relevant today.
How can a mother come to hate your own daughter to the point of want him dead? How does a company can it be constructed in such a way? way that such crimes remain unpunished, even when they are known to several witnesses? How do the systems of oppression, whether slavery, patriarchy or social hierarchies, does it create situations where victims are forced to become complicit in crimes against other victims? And above all, how much other similar stories remain buried, lost forever in the dusty archives or in silences imposed by fear and shame
? In 2010, a team of documentary filmmakers French made a film about the story by Joséphine de la Croix. They went to Louisiana, filmed the places, interviewed historians and descendants. The documentary broadcast on a cultural channel sparked a lively interest in France where many were unaware the historical links between Louisiana and France, as well as the most important aspects darker parts of this colonial heritage.
A scene from the documentary is particularly striking. The camera films the old cemetery where Joséphine was initially buried, now in part restored and transformed into a site protected history. The sun sets at through the moss-covered trees Spanish. The shadows lengthen on ancient tombs and the voice of narrator asks the final question, that which remains without a definitive answer.
Everything did this really happen? Did Joséphine de la Croix really been locked in the swamps by her own mother and left to starve? Where is it a black legend built over generations by oral transmission and amplified by the collective imagination? The evidence are there, the documents, the testimonies, the human remains, the engraved stone.
But they do not constitute proof irrefutable. It leaves room for doubt. And perhaps it is precisely this doubt Who makes this story so terrifying? Because it reminds us that history is not always an exact science, that there are gray areas where the truth and legend mingle inextricably and that in these gray areas can be hide the most monstrous crimes protected by silence and forgetting.
The camera lingers on one last image. Josephine’s modern tombstone of the Cross in the official cemetery. Fresh flowers were placed at the foot of the stone. someone anonymous keep remembering and somewhere in the Louisiana archives, in a dusty box that no one has open for decades, sleeps maybe another document, a letter, diary, testimony who could confirm or deny definitely what happened planting of the Cross in 1843.
But maybe this document doesn’t exist not. Maybe the truth is dead with Samuel, Eïja, Thomas, Amélie and everyone who experienced these events. Maybe we’ll never know with absolute certainty what happened to Joséphine de la Croix. What is certain, however, is that this story, whether it is entirely true, partially true or embellished by time speaks to us of realities indisputable.
Human cruelty, the violence of social norms, the powerlessness of witnesses facing power and the manner whose systems of oppression broent lives, even those that should be protected by blood ties. And perhaps this is ultimately the deepest truth of this history. Not the specific details of what happened in the swamps, but what this story reveals about human nature and the societies that we build.
So you who have listened to this story until the end, what do you think? Do you believe that everything did this really happen? Do you think that Joséphine de la Croix really existed and died from this terrible way? Where is this a legend constructed from fragments of truth and collective imagination? Tell me in the comments.
Share your thoughts. And if this story touched you, if it touched you makes you shiver, if it made you think, subscribe to this channel and share this video with those who, like you, are fascinated by secrets escaped from history. Because so much that we remember, as long as we let’s ask questions, as long as we we refuse to accept the imposed silence by power and time, these stories remain alive and with it the hope that the truth, even hidden, even fragmentary, will always end up emerge. Thank you for listening and
remember, the story is not only written by the winners. It is also whispered by the forgotten, carved in stone by the anonymous and passed down through generations by those who refuse to remain silent. Mr.
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.