The Barcelonnettes: A forgotten French migration linking the Alps, Louisiana and Mexico

If you’ve ever shopped astatine either of Mexico’s 2 iconic homegrown section store giants — Liverpool and Palacio de Hierro — you would astir apt ne'er cognize that these 2 are really the merchandise of hardworking French immigrants to Mexico, a precise chiseled radical of immigrants known successful their time — and to historians contiguous — arsenic the Barcelonnettes.  

Most migration stories travel successful a azygous direction: from 1 homeland to 1 destination. But what makes the Barcelonnettes’ communicative truthful absorbing is not conscionable that these caller immigrants to Mexico happened to play an important relation successful a recently autarkic nation’s mercantile maturation but besides that these migrants’ travel from a tiny Alpine vale successful southeastern France traced an unexpected triangle — connecting the French municipality of Barcelonette, the Cajun parishes of Louisiana and respective regions of Mexico. 

The travel of immigrants from the Ubaye Valley to Mexico successful the 19th period has not been forgotten. (Ubaye Tourisme)

It was a travel shaped by ambition, household ties, taste adaptation and the hunt for accidental crossed 3 precise antithetic worlds.

Although small known today, this question of migration — which began arsenic a tiny watercourse of adventurous young Frenchmen successful the aboriginal 1800s — produced lasting power successful Mexico’s commercialized improvement and near down a way of families whose ancestry spans continents. 

First stop: Louisiana

The Ubaye Valley surrounding Barcelonnette is beauteous but historically isolated. In the aboriginal 19th century, it faced economical pressures acquainted successful galore upland regions: constricted farmland, scarce inheritance prospects for younger sons and the dilatory illness of the textile and wool commercialized that had sustained earlier generations. Families encouraged younger members to question their fortunes abroad, knowing that opportunities successful the vale were few.

By the 1820s, the archetypal migrants had already crossed the Atlantic. Over the adjacent respective decades, the trickle grew into a dependable flow. Most were young men successful their teens oregon aboriginal twenties who near with small much than determination and a missive of instauration from relatives oregon neighbors who had gone earlier them. Their destinations varied, but 2 stood out: Mexico and Louisiana.

A consciousness of familiarity

Louisiana offered a partial taste familiarity. French was inactive wide spoken contempt the Louisiana Purchase successful 1803, Catholic parishes anchored assemblage beingness and galore Cajun and Creole towns preserved traditions that apt felt person to location to these young men than the bustling ports of the northeastern United States. Some Barcelonnettes settled permanently successful Louisiana, opening tiny businesses, forming partnerships and marrying into section families.

It was successful places similar Arnaudville, a Louisiana colony with longstanding families of French ancestry, that the paths of Barcelonnettes and Cajun Louisianans crossed astir clearly. The Arnaud and Arnauld families, profoundly rooted successful Louisiana’s French-speaking world, became connected to migrants from the Ubaye Valley done marriages and concern ventures. These relationships created a tiny but important span betwixt confederate France and the Acadiana region.

Barcelonette’s unsocial practice is inactive celebrated successful France. (Ubaye Tourisme)

For others, Louisiana was lone a waypoint. As economical opportunities expanded successful Mexico — particularly during the epoch of French power nether the Second Mexican Empire, and aboriginal during Mexico’s increasing commercialized enlargement — galore Barcelonnettes moved south. They followed cousins, siblings oregon erstwhile neighbors who had already established footholds successful Mexican cities.

A caller opening successful Mexico

Mexico proved to beryllium fertile crushed for the entrepreneurial tone the Barcelonnettes carried with them. Arriving with humble means, they often began arsenic store assistants oregon itinerant merchants selling textiles, covering oregon imported French goods. With hard enactment and cautious savings, they opened their ain shops and, successful immoderate cases, grew them into important enterprises.

By the precocious 19th century, Barcelonnettes had go influential successful the retail and textile sectors of cities specified arsenic Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla, Veracruz and Durango. Several founded salient section stores, specified arsenic El Puerto de Liverpool successful Mexico City — present conscionable known arsenic Liverpool — the long-gone Las Fabricas de Francia, La Francia Marítima, La Louvre successful Puebla, and the still-thriving Palacio del Hierro, founded by 2 Barcelonette migrants, Joseph Tron and Joseph Léautaud successful 1891. These each became fixtures of Mexican municipality precocious and middle-class beingness heading into the 20th century, combining French benignant with Mexican tastes, appealing to customers anxious for imported manner and prime goods.

Despite their economical success, beingness successful Mexico demanded heavy adaptation. Many joined into Mexican families, embraced Spanish and integrated into the taste rhythms of the communities astir them. Yet the ties to Barcelonnette remained strong. 

Letters, remittances and visits created a changeless travel of accusation betwixt Mexico and the Alps. Successful merchants often went location to France and built lavish villas successful the Ubaye Valley — summertime homes intended for eventual retirement, though not each lived agelong capable to instrumentality permanently.

Louisiana-Mexico-France: A three-way identity

The nexus betwixt the Barcelonnettes successful Mexico and the families of Louisiana produced a distinctive taste blend. Some families moved backmost and distant betwixt the 2 regions, carrying Cajun French expressions, Catholic rituals, and Louisiana culinary influences into Mexican homes. 

The Latino Mexican Festival is held successful France’s Ubaye Valley each year. (Ubaye Tourisme)

Others returned to Louisiana aft periods of uncertainty successful Mexico, peculiarly during the Mexican Revolution and the postwar turbulence of the aboriginal 20th century.

Their children and grandchildren grew up successful a satellite wherever Alpine French heritage, Cajun traditions and Mexican individuality coexisted. This operation produced antithetic household histories, wherever a Mexican grandma mightiness talk of an ancestor from the Ubaye Valley, portion a relative successful Louisiana preserved a surname whose origins laic heavy successful the French Alps.

Although the fig of Barcelonnettes was comparatively small, the taste interaction of this triangle was profound. Families were shaped by aggregate migrations, aggregate languages and a changeless dialog of belonging.

A bequest worthy recovering

Today, aft being astir mislaid to history, the communicative of the Barcelonnettes is receiving renewed attention. In France, museums successful Barcelonnette papers the migration and show archival letters, photographs and artifacts sent backmost from Mexico. 

In Mexico, historians and descendants are piecing unneurotic forgotten branches of household trees done parish records, concern archives and oral histories. Mexico’s Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, for example, has proudly talked astir his Barcelonnette descent connected some sides of his family. On his father’s broadside is Barcelonnette migrant Jean Baptiste Ebrard, who founded the Liverpool section store successful 1872. 

In Louisiana, the transportation is little wide known, but genealogical probe is progressively uncovering ties betwixt Cajun families and Alpine migrants who passed done the authorities connected their mode south.

Mexico’s Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon has Barcelonette heritage. (Gobierno de Mexico)

For Mexico, the revival of involvement is not simply nostalgic. It highlights a planetary Mexico that was connected to Europe and the United States successful ways often antecedently overlooked. It besides restores dignity to the idiosyncratic stories of migrants who navigated tremendous distances — geographical and taste — to physique caller lives.

Remembering the migrants who bridged worlds

The Barcelonnettes were ne'er a ample community, but their travel carved a unsocial way crossed continents. Their lives wove unneurotic the traditions of a distant French valley, the taste richness of Louisiana and the dynamic, often challenging, landscapes of Mexico. Their descendants proceed to embody this blend, whether successful the Ubaye Valley’s expansive villas, the quiescent cemeteries of Cajun state oregon the bustling streets of Mexico’s historical cities.

But obscurity is this transatlantic bequest much disposable than successful Barcelonnette itself: The municipality has embraced its Mexican ties forged by generations of migrants. 

Each summer, mariachi groups parade done Barcelonnette’s Alpine streets successful achromatic suits with metallic trim, an arresting opposition against the surrounding peaks. The main plaza bears the sanction Place Valle de Bravo, honoring its Mexican sister city, and Avenue Porfirio Díaz has existed since 1907. For much than 30 years, the yearly Latino-Mexican Festival has brought music, creation and visitors to the valley, celebrating a taste fusion fewer would expect successful this country of the French Alps.

In remembering these migrants, we retrieve a section of past that illustrates however the question of conscionable a fewer 1000 determined individuals tin permission lasting marks connected nations and families. Their communicative — stretching from the Alps to the bayous to the bosom of Mexico — is simply a testament to resilience, ambition and the enduring quality impulse to make caller worlds portion carrying pieces of the old.

Peter Jeschofnig is an Austrian-American retired idiosyncratic who has lived and traveled internationally for decades and present resides successful Ajijic, Mexico. He writes connected Substack astir idiosyncratic question narratives, determination Mexican past and stories that link people, places and cultures crossed borders.