Autobiography as a person in colonial times (Essay Sample)

My Life in America Your name Name of Professor School affiliation Date The most memorable days of my life were when I had just turned 16 years of age, and that was in 1716. The reason why this year is so memorable to me is because that was the first day I saw a black man. At this time of the year, the first group of black people arrived in Louisiana, (Taylor, 2013). My father, Jean Claude, later told me that we would have some of the black people working for us. We had large tracts of land which were prolific and there were a lot of profits after sales were made. The land sufficed to be our main source of income then as we started off on our new life in Louisiana. When my father left France for America, he had no idea where to go to. All he did was travel around and at last he felt that Louisiana was the place for him. The topography of the place must have attracted him, and he always wanted to be near so as to be close to the forests and be able to enjoy the view of the Mississippi river. They had already settled down when I was conceived, in 1700. My parents got married while in France but had sought a new life in America. Louisiana hadn’t been the best of the choices they had made, according to me, but as I grew up, I started getting used to it. So much was going on then, there were a lot of people coming in and out of America, both slaves and white settlers from other continents. As a young child, all I could do was be at my father’s side and listen to how he was planning to grow this and that, wanting to become a great man in the history of America. There was so much to learn from my father. He used to know so much that was going on in the outside world. For example, as much as my father wanted to become a farmer, there was nothing much going on in Louisiana in terms of economy, (World mark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007). My father used to tell us, that is, me and my mother, about the other settlers in Louisiana. The town was majorly full of us, the French. The other settlers were easily assimilated, especially the Germans who came from Switzerland. I remember when I was still very young my mother would tag me along on a special day which she said was to be spent between three people, her, God and I. I later came to realize that she was talking of church. At this time, there were several churches that were being put up. The Episcopal Church proved to have caught my mother’s eye and we spent the better part of our Sundays there, (Library of Congress, (2010). As usual, my father was out in the general public, trying to gather information about settlers, agriculture and the economy, and later on come to tell us about it. In 1716, I had already become a teen and I could easily witness things rather than hear them being narrated to me. Around this time, a lot of Germans had been brought to Louisiana to carry out farming. It didn’t take them long to prove that they were good in farming, (World mark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007). This really broke my father’s heart. He wanted to enjoy the success of the French. The only consolation he had was the fact that we were there to listen to him, give him the hope that he would make it one day. When it came to me, I never let him down. I was 16 years when I saw a black man ever in my life. Since then, I wanted to be like my father, collecting information. However, collecting information alone wouldn’t put food on the table. My father worked as a saw miller, the saw mill was powered by water. This was very economical considering that water was very abundant and there were very few saw mills that were available, (Lambert, 2013). Considering that I had now gotten used to the juicy stories my father used to tell us, I always accompanied him to the saw mill. While we were there, he would get busy but still amid the work, he would tell me everything that he saw fit for me to know, including how to run a saw mill. Day in day out, he would give me the basic steps and it wasn’t long before I became competent enough to run it without his help. After a few months watching me, he left me to take over work at the saw mill. I would wake up very early so that I would be done with work early before heading to town and get all accounts of the day’s happenings. My mother was always at home, ensuring that we ate well and lived in a favorable environment. I had turned 18 and my mother influenced me to get baptized. Af...