SOURCE: "Negro Literature in Ante Bellum Louisiana: Victor Séjour," in The Negro in Louisiana: Aspects of His History and His Literature, The Xavier University Press, 1937, pp. 82-90.

In the following excerpt, Roussève provides an introduction to Séjour's life and works.

If Camille Thierry was the greatest Negro non-dramatic poet in Louisiana before the Civil War, Victor Séjour, the dramatist, considering his works from the point of view of their volume and quality, and the popularity which came to them during his lifetime, was the greatest Louisiana-born Negro poet of his age. Like Thierry, he is represented in Les Cenelles.

The story of his rise to glory reads like a romantic novel. The son of Juan François Louis Victor Séjour, native of Santo Domingo, and Éloise Phillippe, of New Orleans, he was born probably in New Orleans June 2, 1817, according to his baptismal record...