Julien de Lallande Poydras papers

Julien de Lallande (Lalande) Poydras (April 3, 1740 – June 23, 1824) was a French American merchant, planter, financier, poet, educator, and political leader who served as Delegate from the Territory of Orleans to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was a catalyst in the promotion of Louisiana statehood and helped draft the state's first constitution. He served as the first President of the Louisiana State Senate.

He was born in Rezé (near Nantes), Pays-de-la-Loire, France. He served in the French Navy and was captured by the British in 1760 and taken to England. He escaped on board a West Indian merchantman to Saint-Domingue, from which he emigrated to Spanish Louisiana in 1768.

Poydras was a pioneer businessman, trading first as an itinerant merchant before establishing stores in his domicile of Pointe Coupee Parish. He invested in real estate, buying and selling plantations and retaining some major properties for the cultivation of cotton and sugar cane. He built a number of structures during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including North Bend plantation home on False River, and owned properties in New Orleans.

Poydras wrote the first poetry ever published in Louisiana in 1779, in honor of Don Bernardo de Galvez's victory over British troops at the Battle of Baton Rouge, popularly said to have been the only battle of the American Revolutionary War fought outside of the Thirteen Colonies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_de_Lallande_Poydras