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St. Augustine Church was established in 1841 by Free People of Color. It is the oldest Black Catholic parish in the United States, and one of the first 26 sites designated on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
The property on which Saint Augustine Church stands was part of the original Claude Treme plantation estate. Treme, a Frenchman, subdivided his estate and sold off large tracts to Free People of Color in addition to white people. The property was sold to the Ursuline Sisters in 1836, and then to the Carmelites in 1840, who took over the school for girls of color.
In 1841 when the free people of color got permission from Bishop Antoine Blanc to build a church, the Ursuline Sisters donated the property at the corner of Bayou Road and Saint Claude, on the condition the church is named Saint Augustine, after one of their patron saints. In 1842, Henriette Delille (a free woman of color) and Juliette Gaudin (a Cuban woman) knelt in Saint Augustine Church and established the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family, the second-oldest African American congregation of women. The Sisters pledged to live in community to work for orphan girls, the uneducated, poor, sick and the elderly among the free people of color.
The Church contains several spaces that memorialize the history of the people of New Orleans, most notably a large monument that sits on the north side of the church. The Tomb of the Unknown Slave is made from large marine chains welded together with shackles and iron balls, it forms a huge, fallen cross. It stands as a monument to the many nameless or forgotten slaves that died before emancipation. The parishioners that designed the monument selected this location since it is the site of the Tremé Plantation House where many slaves lived in centuries passed. The plaque reads:
“On this October 30, 2004, we, the Faith Community of St. Augustine Catholic Church, dedicate this shrine consisting of grave crosses, chains and shackles to the memory of the nameless, faceless, turfless Africans who met an untimely death in Faubourg Treme. The Tomb of the Unknown Slave is commemorated here in this garden plot of St. Augustine Church, the only parish in the United States whose free people of color bought two outer rows of pews exclusively for slaves to use for worship. This St. Augustine/Treme shrine honors all slaves buried throughout the United States and those slaves in particular who lie beneath the ground of Treme in unmarked, unknown graves. There is no doubt that the campus of St. Augustine Church sits astride the blood, sweat, tears and some of the mortal remains of unknown slaves from Africa and local American Indian slaves who either met with fatal treachery, and were therefore buried quickly and secretly, or were buried hastily and at random because of yellow fever and other plagues.
Even now, some Treme locals have childhood memories of salvage/restoration workers unearthing various human bones, sometimes in concentrated areas such as wells. In other words, The Tomb of the Unknown Slave is a constant reminder that we are walking on holy ground. Thus, we cannot consecrate this tomb, because it is already consecrated by many slaves’ inglorious deaths bereft of any acknowledgement, dignity or respect, but ultimately glorious by their blood, sweat, tears, faith, prayers and deep worship of our Creator.”
Plaques on the outside of the church building commemorate other historical moments, including the baptism of civil rights leader AP Tureaud. Other civil Rights activists, including Homer Plessy, were parishioners of St. Augustine, as were jazz musician Sidney Bechet and Mardi Gras Indian Chief Tootie Montana.
Inside St. Augustine Church, the original, nineteenth-century pews still sit facing the altar. A plaque tells the story of how the Free People of Color and the white parishioners began to purchase pews for their families:
“A few months before the October 9, 1842 dedication of St. Augustine Church, the people of color began to purchase pews for their families to sit. Upon hearing of this, white people in the area started a campaign to buy more pews than the colored folks. Thus, The War of the Pews began and was ultimately won by the free people of color who bought three pews to every one purchased by the whites. In an unprecedented social, political and religious move, the colored members also bought all the pews of both side aisles. They gave those pews to the slaves as their exclusive place of worship, a first in the history of slavery in the United States. This mix of the pews resulted in the most integrated congregation in the entire country.”
Open to all for almost 200 years, Saint Augustine Catholic Church has fostered a spirit of unity among people from every walk of life. This inclusive legacy has made it not only the heart and soul of Tremé but also a significant contributor to the rich tapestry of New Orleans culture.
