This week in 1769

“With my comrades I fought! With them I die!”

— Jean Baptiste Noyan, convicted of treason, firing squad, Louisiana.
Executed October 25, 1769

Noyan was of one five leaders executed in the Rebellion of 1768, a revolt by local settlers to stop the handover of the French-controlled Louisiana territory to Spain. Noyan was sentenced to hang on the same day as four other French ex-patriots, but there was no public executioner to drop the gallows. Noyan was marched into New Orleans’ Place d’Armes with the others but, while handcuffed, was offered clemency from the governor. Noyan, a nephew of the founder of New Orleans, refused.