Jacques Philippe Villeré (April 28, 1761 – March 7, 1830) was the second Governor of Louisiana after it became a state. He was the first Creole and the first native of Louisiana to hold that office.
His father was Joseph Antoine de Villeré, an official in the French Navy during the reign of King Louis XV and later a colonialmilitia captain in the German Coast area of present-day southeast Louisiana. A few years after 1763's cession of La Louisiane to Spain, Joseph was sentenced to death by Spanish Governor Alejandro O'Reilly, who was sent by King Charles III to suppress a local revolt. Joseph Villeré mysteriously died prior to the firing squad execution of the rebels, in October 1769.[2] Jacques Villeré's grandfather, Etienne Roy de Villeré, had accompanied Iberville on the voyage from France to the Gulfcoast, late in the 17th century, during the reign of Louis XIV.
Jacques's mother was Louise Marguerite de la Chaise, daughter of Jacques de la Chaise and granddaughter, on her mother's side, of Charles Frederick d’Arensbourg.
Military service
Villeré joined the French Army and was educated for two years in France at the Crown's expense, due to his father's death at the hands of O'Reilly. In 1776, while still an adolescent, he was assigned to Saint-Domingue as a first lieutenant in the artillery. His mother's death in the 1780s brought him back to settle in Louisiana (New Spain), which became again a possession of France in 1800 and finally of the United States in 1803 through the Louisiana Purchase.
The Villeré plantation, Conseil, located downriver from the city, was overrun by the British. In fact, Villeré's son Gabriel, who had the rank of major and guarded the plantation with thirty soldiers, was surprised and captured when the British Army initially made its presence known. Maj. Villeré managed to escape and report the news to Gen. Andrew Jackson, who ordered the night attack of December 23, 1814.[3]
The Villeré home was used as British headquarters throughout the Louisiana campaign for nearly one month.[4] The family's property was damaged and they lost a number of slaves, who were taken aboard Royal Navy vessels and later freed.
Family, political career, & later life
In 1784, Villeré married Jeanne Henriette de Fazende, the daughter of Gabriel de Fazende, who owned a plantation seven miles (11 km) below New Orleans in present-day Saint Bernard Parish. The couple raised eight children. Jeanne Villeré died in 1826.[5]
Jacques Villeré was elected as the second state governor in 1816, narrowly defeating Joshua Lewis. He took office in December of that year and served through 1820, a period of prosperity and growth for the new state. His gubernatorial administration was noted for efforts to provide bankruptcy protection for debtors, the designation of death-by-dueling as a capital offense, and reduction of the level of state debt.[6]
He retired to the family's sugar plantation in St. Bernard Parish after his term, as the law did not permit him to succeed himself in office.[7] Villeré was brought out of retirement to run again for governor in the 1824 election, but he and Bernard de Marigny split the Creole vote and Henry Johnson was elected governor.
He was preparing to run for Governor again in the 1830 special election; but he died March 7, 1830, before the election, at the plantation Conseil after a long illness. His remains were interred at St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, in New Orleans.
^Reilly, Robin. The British at the Gates. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1974 (Reprinted 2002 by Robin Brass Studio, Toronto), p. 251 ff.
^Wilson, Samuel, Jr. Plantation Houses on the Battlefield of New Orleans. New Orleans: Louisiana Landmarks Society, 1989 (Reprinted 2011 by Pelican Publishing Co.), p. 87.