Scope and Content Note
The records of the French and American Claims Commission span the years 1861-1884. The commission was established by a treaty between the governments of France and the United States in 1880 to resolve outstanding claims by French citizens residing in the United States for property confiscated or destroyed during the Civil War. The records include correspondence, petitions, inventories, depositions, lists, certificates, and receipts. The bulk of the correspondence is conducted in French among non-naturalized French residents, the French consul in New Orleans, and the French agent appointed to represent the claims before the commission. Correspondence from American officials is in English. The collection is arranged in two series: Claimant Petitions and Miscellany .
The Claimant Petitions series is composed of two groups of case files arranged alphabetically by the name of the claimant or occasionally the name of an attorney or ship. The bulk of the first and largest group of cases dates from 1862 to 1865 and contains petitions and related documentation written by native French residents to the French consul in New Orleans, the French minister in Washington, and the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères in Paris. Many of the letters and inventories date from the spring and summer of 1862 soon after Union forces captured New Orleans and launched a major western offensive in Mississippi. The majority of petitions are from French residents of Louisiana, particularly New Orleans. Also included are petitions from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas. This group of case files was turned over to an agent assigned to represent French claims before the commission in 1880. A second case file was created by the agent and the commission in 1880.
The petitions provide insight into the Union Army's western offensive and its occupation of New Orleans. The vast majority of petitions concern the confiscation or destruction of property, including warehoused cotton, shop inventories, restaurant provisions, ships and ship cargoes, homes and personal effects, crops, livestock, wagons, and farm buildings. Some petitioners were Union prisoners suspected of fighting with or supplying the Confederate army. Petitioners' letters often describe the circumstances surrounding their loss of property or imprisonment. Also included are responses from American civil and military officials at times refuting the claims in some detail. Included are letters from Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, Benjamin F. Butler, William Henry Seward, and Edwin McMasters Stanton.
Apart from the events of the war, the files reveal much about the social composition and experiences of a transatlantic French community. Many of the letters contain biographical information, including date and place of birth, date of immigration, occupation, and occasionally family data. Detailed inventories shed considerable light on the economic activities and personal effects of the claimants.
Unnumbered folders filed at the end of the first group of petitions include petitions by groups and claims not covered by the commission, such as requests for compensation for damages caused by Confederate forces and for emancipated enslaved people. Also included among the unnumbered folders are protests from French residents of Bagdad, a town in Mexico near the port of Matamoros. According to its residents, the town was attacked and pillaged by United States soldiers in January 1866.
The Miscellany series contains legation correspondence, lists of claims, notification of attorney representation, powers of attorney, proofs of citizenship, and receipts for documents returned to petitioners.