Battle Payne

How can Kinfolkology support Descendants as political actors and activists?

  • [This is an edited excerpt of Dr. Jennie K. Williams's forthcoming book, Oceans of Kinfolk: the Coastwise Traffic of Enslaved Persons to New Orleans, 1820-1860. Please do not cite or circulate without permission.]

    Battle Payne was born enslaved in Maryland about 1834. At just nine years of age, he was sold to human trafficker named Robert N. Windsor who sent him to New Orleans to be sold by another trader, Thomas Boudar.

    Battle Payne likely spent the next twenty years of his life enslaved in Louisiana on a cotton or sugar plantation.

    But Battle Payne survived slavery, and in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, he joined the Union Army. In fact, Payne was a soldier in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment: the second African-American regiment organized in the Northern states during the Civil War.

    After the war, Battle Payne returned to New Orleans where he took up residence on Liberty Street between Jackson and Josephine. During Reconstruction, he also became a prominent political leader and activist, culminating in his election in 1874 to the Louisiana State Legislature as a representative of New Orleans’s Tenth Ward.

    1. Battle Payne clearly believed in political action as a mechanism of making change. In addition to the newspaper notice seen below, there are numerous newspaper accounts of Payne's work as a political organizer. How can Kinfolkology support Descendants' efforts to leverage ancestral memory and intergenerational knowledge to effect change? How can Kinfolkology support Descendants as political actors and activists?

    2. After the Civil War, Battle Payne clearly claimed New Orleans as HIS home. For Payne, that involved running for and winning elected office. What has placemaking and community-building looked like in your family's history? What about now? How can Kinfolkology support your efforts?

Historical records of Battle Payne’s life

  • This is the manifest of the voyage that carried Battle Payne from Baltimore, MD to New Orleans. You can read more about records like this here.

  • This documents Battle Payne's enlistment in the Union Army. Note that his place of birth is identified as Maryland, and he is listed as 28 years of age.

  • This is a newspaper notice announcing Battle Payne's election to the Louisiana State Legislature.

5/6