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POPE LEO XIV’S LINK TO HAITI IS PART OF A BROADER AMERICAN STORY OF
RACE, CITIZENSHIP AND MIGRATION  
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Chelsea Stieber
May 14, 2025
The Conversation
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_ It is this – and so much more – that makes theirs a truly
American story. _

Pope Leo XIV appears before thousands on May 12, 2025, in Vatican
City. , Vatican Media / via AFP - Getty Images

 

Early coverage of Pope Leo XIV has explored the first American
pontiff’s Chicago upbringing
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as well as the many years he spent in Peru
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first as a missionary
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and then as a bishop
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Genealogist Jari Honora broke the story
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of the pope’s ancestors’ connection to the Creole of color
community in New Orleans. A family historian at the Historic New
Orleans Collection’s Williams Research Center, Honora has given
research presentations to my graduate students and consulted with me
on my own work. In his research on Leo’s lineage, he was also able
to find several official documents that list Haiti as the birthplace
of his maternal grandfather, Joseph Norval Martinez.

The pope’s Creole lineage in Louisiana is interesting enough. But
many commentators have strained to make sense of the link to Haiti, if
they mention it at all.

As an expert in 19th-century Haiti
[[link removed]], I
study the period during which Leo’s ancestors likely traveled
between Haiti and New Orleans before migrating to Chicago. Their story
is part of a broader American story of race, citizenship and
migration.

A grandfather born in Haiti

It’s worth noting that Leo’s genealogy is not entirely
straightforward.

At least one record
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indicates Joseph Norval as having been born in Louisiana. And a 1910
census
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seems to reinvent the family lineage: Martinez is now “Martina,”
Joseph’s birthplace is “S. Domingo,” and he is supposedly
Maltese.

Nevertheless, far more documents – numerous census records as well
as his marriage certificate – identify Martinez’s place of birth
as Haiti. An 1866 passenger list
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a ship bound for New Orleans from Haiti, despite some inconsistencies,
does indeed appear to list members of the Martinez family, including
his father and three siblings.

Just because Leo’s grandfather was born in Haiti, it didn’t mean
he was Haitian. Instead, he belonged to a class of people in New
Orleans known as Creoles of color
[[link removed].].

A three-pronged racial order

It’s important to understand the historical complexity of the Creole
identity [[link removed]] in New Orleans
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today
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The descriptor “Creole of color” is somewhat anachronistic; it
emerges at the end of the 19th century in Louisiana to categorize the
descendants of a historically subordinate class known as free people
of color, or “gens de couleur libres
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in French.

[Painting of young woman wearing a tall hat.]
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Portrait of a Free Woman of Color by François Jacques Fleischbein.
Courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection
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It has its origins in the tripartite racial order
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of the French and Spanish colonial periods in the Americas, when
authorities created a hierarchy of legal classes: enslaved people,
free people of African descent, and white people.

In theory, free people of color encompassed a range of people. It
could describe formerly enslaved people; people who had never been
enslaved; people born in Africa; or people with extended, mixed-race
American families.

In 19th-century Louisiana, the term generally referred to people of
mixed racial ancestry who were born with free status, though at
varying degrees of removal from slavery. They generally spoke French
and were Catholic.

Though they were subject to repressive laws and could never become
citizens and gain the right to vote, free people of color could own,
inherit and sell property, including enslaved people
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worked as artisans and shopkeepers, and a handful became quite wealthy
through trade and real estate.

The Martinez family fits squarely within this community.

Census records from 1850
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list Jacques Martinez – Joseph Norval Martinez’s father and
Leo’s maternal great-grandfather – as a tailor and modest property
owner in New Orleans. They were never enslaved but do not appear to
have been enslavers, either.

Life gets worse for people of color

So why was Joseph Norval Martinez born in Haiti?

At some point, his parents probably felt they had to leave New
Orleans.

Despite their relative prosperity, free people of color in Louisiana
and throughout the United States were being subjected to increasing
legal restrictions, repression and violence
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in the years leading up to the Civil War.

This situation worsened in the 1840s and ‘50s, as white Southerners
worked to further restrict citizenship and rights along hard racial
lines. The 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision
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affirmed that any people descended from Africa, including free people
of color, had no right to citizenship.

For those who remained in the South, the outbreak of the Civil War in
1861 would have made life even more difficult.

In the first half of the 19th century, many free people of color in
Louisiana emigrated to France
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But the two main options in the 1860s were Haiti
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However, at the time of the Martinez family’s departure, Mexico was
embroiled in conflict with France
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Haiti, meanwhile, was crafting an ambitious plan to attract
immigrants.

After the 1804 Haitian Revolution
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– the uprising against French colonizers that led to the creation of
Haiti – the nation became the first in the world to permanently ban
slavery
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For this reason, many people of color viewed Haiti as a beacon of
freedom and equality
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Indeed, Haiti long promoted itself as a free soil republic
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descent would enjoy freedom and, eventually, Haitian citizenship.
Several Haitian presidents staged immigration campaigns
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enslaved and formerly enslaved laborers from the United States.

[Drawn portrait of dignified Black man wearing military garb.]

Fabre Geffrard served as president of Haiti from 1859 to 1867.
Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images
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In response to worsening conditions for people of color in the U.S.,
Haitian President Fabre Geffrard launched a particularly ambitious
campaign [[link removed]], setting up
Haitian Emigration bureaus
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with agents
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in New York, Boston, New Orleans and other major cities. Louisiana
newspapers advertised Geffrard’s immigration plan, which included
land concessions for families and individuals. Geffrard’s focus was
on attracting agricultural laborers
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the Martinez family would likely be enticed to take on. Still, skilled
artisans were welcomed as immigrants.

It was within this context that the Martinez family probably departed
New Orleans for Haiti. At present there is scant information about
their voyage, but the journey would have echoed many family histories
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migration from Louisiana to Haiti in the 1860s.

Based on my study of census and notarial archives, it appears the
Martinez family left sometime after the birth of daughter Adele in New
Orleans in December 1861 and before the birth of Joseph Norval in
Haiti in 1864.

The promise of Reconstruction crumbles

The Martinez family didn’t stay in Haiti long.

According to the passenger list, they returned to New Orleans in
February 1866.

As was the experience for many émigrés to Haiti
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the conditions difficult. It’s also possible that the successes of
wartime Reconstruction [[link removed]]
in Louisiana encouraged them to reestablish their lives in New
Orleans.

They returned to a state transformed by the abolition of slavery. Free
people of color were at the forefront of the fight for civil rights
and key architects behind a progressive, egalitarian state
constitution
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called for equal access to education for all citizens.

The Martinez children likely benefited – albeit briefly – from
that provision. The 1870 census records
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show them all enrolled in school: Michel (14), Girard (12), Adele (9)
and young Joseph Norval (6).

They would also witness the violent backlash to Reconstruction, which
was especially intense in Louisiana. In 1866, a white mob laid siege
to those attempting to amend the state’s constitution to enfranchise
Black voters, in what became known as the Mechanics Institute Massacre
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In the ensuing years, the state was gripped by ever more violence
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[Drawing of people firing guns, with dead bodies scattered across the
floor.]

A sketch of the Mechanics Institute Massacre in an issue of Harper’s
Weekly. The Historic New Orleans Collection
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Joseph Norval Martinez married Louise Baquié in 1887, and they went
on to have six children, all girls, in New Orleans. He worked as a
cigar maker – a common enterprise
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color during the period – and later as a clerk.

The family was subjected to increasing segregation with the Separate
Car Act [[link removed]], an
1890 Louisiana statute that separated train cars by race. The Supreme
Court went on to uphold the Louisiana statute in 1896
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enshrining the “separate but equal” doctrine throughout the South.

An American tale

Martinez and Baquié remained in New Orleans until 1910, at which
point they joined the millions of other Black Americans who migrated
from the South to the North and the West in the early decades of the
20th century
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in what became known as the Great Migration. A significant portion,
including Martinez and Baquié, ended up in Chicago
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Their youngest daughter, Mildred Anges Martinez
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– Leo’s mother – was born there.

Joseph Norval Martinez’s census records tell a complex story about
the history of race in the U.S. Prior to 1900, he is listed
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“m” for “mulatto.” In the 1900 census
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he is listed as Black. And then in the 1910 census
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is listed as white.

The Martinez family could not dictate the racial descriptors assigned
to them in the census, but they had some claim over birthplace and
lineage. Against the backdrop of segregation, disenfranchisement and
violence, Martinez appears to have claimed a lineage – Maltese –
that the 1910 census categorized as white.

It is this – and so much more – that makes theirs a truly American
story
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One thing we do know: Martinez reverted back to his original lineage
after he and his family settled in Chicago. The 1920 census
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lists Martinez’s birthplace of record as Haiti.[The Conversation]

Chelsea Stieber
[[link removed]],
Associate Professor of French Studies, _Tulane University
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This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
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* Pope Leo XIV
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* Immigration
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* United States
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* migration
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* slavery
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* Creole
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* chicago
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* Ancestry
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* New Orleans
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* Civil War
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* Louisiana
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* Reconstruction
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* African Americans
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