Church once featured in Steel Magnolias was first Black-founded, financed, and attended church for Catholics in the U.S.
NATCHITOCHES, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – The oldest Black-founded and financed Catholic church in the United States was built just outside of Natchitoches, Louisiana, in a little place called Natchez, and you can attend a service there anytime you wish.
Nicholas Augustin Metoyer was a generous and determined man of mixed race who founded and financed the building of St. Augustine Catholic Church in Natchez, Louisiana. (Not to be confused with Natchez, Mississippi.)
Walk into St. Augustine Catholic Church today and feel Metoyer's beautiful legacy in the stained glass that diffuses the mid-day sun. The shimmering Cane is located across the quiet street, a beautiful reminder that once, not so long ago, the first Europeans, Africans, and free people of color settled in the region.
Nicholas Augustin Metoyer donated the land and paid for the building of the church. He was his mother's first child, and Momma Therese Coincoin was enslaved in French-owned Louisiana.
French laws concerning slavery were very different from New England's laws, for instance.
Nicholas' father, French planter Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer, leased a young woman (Marie Therese Coincoin) who was enslaved to Louis Juchereaux de St. Denis, the French founder of Natchitoches.
The lease of Coincoin resulted in a relationship that lasted for almost twenty years. Coincoin had ten of Pierre's children, and he eventually gave Coincoin and many of their children freedom, money, and land.
After receiving their freedom, Coincoin's mulatto family began purchasing enslaved people and ultimately thriving in a community that was populated by many free people of color who operated businesses.
An 1813 Land Claim showed that Augustin Metoyer owned 128.25 acres on the Red River in Natchitoches Parish/County, Louisiana. He later donated both land and money to build St. Augustine Church.
Records show that the Metoyer family, who built the church, sat on the front pews. Behind them were seated the families of other prominent plantation owners, many of which were white.
Augustine is distinctive among Southern churches of all denominations for its racial role reversals. Surviving pew records show that the front seats were occupied by the Créole de couleur Metoyer family, who built the chapel. Seated behind them were the families of prominent white planters within the community.
St. Augustine Church was used for Shelby's wedding in the movie Steel Magnolias.
Melrose Plantation, built by Louis Metoyer, became an important plantation on the Cane River, and Nicholas became one of the central figures in the Isle Brevelle Creole of Color Community.
Melrose Plantation is now a National Historic Landmark. The property contains nine historic buildings: African House, Yucca House, Weaving Cabin, Bindery, and Big House.
African-American folk artist Clementine Hunter lived and worked on the Melrose Plantation for 75 years.
St. Augustine Church on Isle Brevelle is part of the Diocese of Alexandria.
Saturday Vigils are held at 5 p.m. First Friday Mass is at 8 a.m., First Saturday Mass is at 9 a.m., and the rosary is read every Friday before Mass.
The Pastor of St. Augustine Church is Reverend William Gearheard.
Click here to learn more about Cane River Creoles.
Click here to learn more about the incredible history of western Louisiana.