The Newer World

In 1840, the author's father, named Chas Bouguereau, decided to relocate from Louisiana to a small town called Paris, located in Tennessee.

This move was part of a broader trend of migration during that period, as people sought new opportunities in different regions.

Louisiana, at the time, was a state where slavery was legal, and the term free skin refers to a person who was not enslaved.

The choice to settle in Paris, Tennessee, rather than continuing north to the Ohio River—a region often associated with freedom and economic prospects for free people—was made despite the suggestion that a wiser decision would have been to move further.

The exact reasons for this choice are not detailed in the article, but it reflects the complex decisions individuals faced during this era of westward expansion in the United States.