Colonial death and inheritance

Beatrix; J. F. Lafosse; Saremejanne; Joseph Montagne.

Four letters concerning the death of Joseph Montagne at Petit-Goâve (colonial Haiti) and the inheritance and proposed sale of his coffee plantation, 1783–1785.

Petit-Goâve, 25 May 1783; Bordeaux, 16 June 1785; Montpellier, 4 & 18 July 1785.

4°. 3; 3; 2; 2 pp. Manuscript in ink on paper. With seals.

Group of four autograph letters signed, with address leaves, concerning the death of a French colonial official in Saint-Domingue and the disposition of his estate, including a coffee plantation and enslaved labourers. Petit-Goâve, Bordeaux, and Montpellier, 25 May 1783 – 18 July 1785. 5 pp., 4to and folio, on laid paper, several with postal endorsements and remains of seals.

A coherent documentary group tracing the metropolitan aftermath of a colonial death in Saint-Domingue and the transmission of plantation property to France in the decade preceding the Haitian Revolution. The earliest letter, written from Petit-Goâve in 1783, announces the death of Joseph Montagne, formerly trésorier des invalides, and values his estate at 70–80,000 livres, consisting of “une caféière avec 18 à 20 nègres et une maison en ville.” Later letters from Bordeaux and Montpellier, addressed to a ship’s captain at Saint-Antonin (Rouergue), pursue the identification of Montagne’s heirs after an intestate death and explicitly propose negotiating for the purchase of his “habitation” in Saint-Domingue. Together they offer rare, concrete evidence of how colonial estates — including enslaved people — were administered, inherited, and marketed in provincial France.

Condition: browned, folds, small losses and seal tears; generally legible.