Background
He was born on April 3, 1746 in Rezé (near Nantes), Pays-de-la-Loire, France. He was the son of François Poydras and his wife, Magdeleine Simon.
educator Financier merchant philanthropist poet
He was born on April 3, 1746 in Rezé (near Nantes), Pays-de-la-Loire, France. He was the son of François Poydras and his wife, Magdeleine Simon.
There is no information about his education.
While serving in the French navy, he was captured by the British in 1760, but managed to escape to Santo Domingo. He reached New Orleans about 1768. A year or so later he became a peddler, and, pack on back, traveled widely over the lower Mississippi Valley.
He was soon able to buy a plantation in Pointe Coupée Parish, Louisiana. This proved to be an excellent location for a trading post, and he rapidly extended his interests, building a store at False River, and later erecting a cotton gin. His trading interests extended even to Texas.
In 1779 the English fort at Baton Rouge was captured by Louisiana forces commanded by Galvez. Poydras celebrated this event in La Prise du Morne du Baton Rouge (1779), the earliest attempt at epic poetry in Louisiana literature. The poem shows indebtedness to the classics and to Boileau. Two recently discovered four-page leaflets, Épitre . .. Don Bernard de Galvez (1777) and Le Dieu et les Nayades du Fleuve St. Louis (1777) have also, on the basis of internal evidence, been attributed to Poydras. It is said that Poydras had intended to return to France, but was prevented by the French Revolution. After the Revolution he decided to remain in Louisiana.
His reputation for shrewd and honest dealing grew, he continued to prosper, and became widely known for his philanthropy. He visited New Orleans two or three times a year, traveling in a lavishly equipped boat with six oarsmen. He kept open house at his plantation, and is said to have entertained Louis Philippe and the Duke of Orleans in 1798.
After the Louisiana Purchase, he became a close friend of Governor Claiborne, and entered upon a career of public service. He became civil commandant at Pointe Coupée in January 1804, was president of the first Legislative Council of the territory of Orleans later in the year, and delegate to the Eleventh Congress, 1809-11. He was president of the constitutional convention of Louisiana in 1812, and a presidential elector in this same year. In 1812-13, and again in 1820-21, he was president of the state Senate.
During the argument of the famous "batture case" Poydras published five pamphlets supporting the right of the public to the batture. The first of these, Adresse au Conseil Législatif du Territoire d'Orléans (1808), was published in New Orleans, and the other four, in Washington.
He died at his home in Point Coupee, Louisiana.
Julien Poydras served as the first President of the Louisiana State Senate, helped draft the state's first constitution. His philanthropic works: he left large sums to Charity Hospital and the Poydras Female Orphan Asylum, New Orleans; $30, 000 to Pointe Coupée Parish for the founding of an academy or college; and $30, 000 each to the parishes of Pointe Coupée and West Baton Rouge, the income from which was to be used to provide dowries for the poor girls of those parishes. Besides, he founded the Poydras Asylum in New Orleans. There are three portraits of him in the Poydras Asylum and a bronze bust is in the Cabildo, New Orleans.
Poydras is described as tall, well built, with regular and pleasing features, somewhat inclined to melancholy. He became widely known for his piety, and morality.
By his will, he made careful provision for the freeing of all his five hundred slaves, to be accomplished within twenty-five years after his death, and for pensions for all his slaves over sixty years old, but according to Fortier (post) the plan to free his slaves was not carried out.
He had never married, and his closest relative was a nephew.
