Pierre Derbigny

Who was Pierre Derbigny?

Pierre Augustin Charles Bourguignon Derbigny was the sixth Governor of Louisiana. Born in 1769, at Laon near Lille, France, the eldest son of Augustin Bourguignon d'Herbigny who was President of the Directoire de l'Aisne and Mayor of Laon, and Louise Angelique Blondela.

Derbigny studied law at Ste. Genevieve but fled France in 1791 during the French Revolution. He arrived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and married Felicité Odile de Hault de Lassus with whom he would have five daughters and two sons.

He arrived in New Orleans, then a Spanish colony, in 1797 and by 1803 had been appointed Secretary of the Legislative Council. After the United States' annexation of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Derbigny was one of the representatives of the new Americans in Washington seeking self-government for the Orleans Territory. His oration of July 4, 1804 also urges for the reopening of the slave trade.

As the territory was integrated into the United States, Derbigny opposed British common law in Louisiana and defended the retention of civil law practices established during the French and Spanish colonial periods. He also led a movement to establish the College of Orleans and served as Regent. In 1812, he was selected as Secretary of the Territorial Senate. He also served in Captain Chauveneau's Company of Cavalry in the Louisiana Militia.