Dupré and Metoyer and Company account book, 1830-1837, 1873. - Dupré and Metoyer and Company account book, 1830-1837, 1873.

Dupré, Metoyer & Company was a mercantile house and general store in the Cane River community of Isle Breville, Natchitoches Parish, La. The firm opened in 1830 under the ownership of Joseph Emanuel Noel Dupré and Jean Baptiste Louis Dominique Metoyer, both free people of color and Creoles of Cane River, cousins, and brothers-in law. The company initially operated with Dupré and Metoyer as principals in partnership with two prominent white planters: Nicolas Gracia, a Dalmatian immigrant who operated the Red River ferry in Rapides Parish, and, Charles F. Benoist, a St. Louis native who had married the daughter of Julien Rachel, a wealthy white planter. The business was met with immediate success, and in 1831, Dupré and Metoyer were in a position to buy out their two white business partners and increase their inventory.</br></br>Joseph Emanuel Noel Dupré (born 1810; often called Emanuel or ""Noel"") was a free man of color of creole heritage of the Cane River community of Isle Brevelle in Natchitoches Parish, La. and a partner in the mercantile house Dupré, Metoyer & Company. His parents were Joseph Dupré, a white planter of Cane River, and Marie Adélaïde Mariotte, an enslaved woman of African and Native American descent owned by her own mother, who was the granddaughter of Marie Thérèze Coincoin (1742-1816?) and placée of Joseph Dupré. Emmanuel's sister, Marie Louise Doralise Dupré, married his business partner's sister, Marie Louise Doralise Dupré, in a civil ceremony in 1843. In 1830, Emanuel married Marie Marguerite Metoyer (born 1817), the sister of his business partner, Jean Baptiste Louis Dominique Metoyer. In addition to being a landowner and businessman, Emanuel served as a Civil War Confederacy guardsman for the Isle Brevelle cavalry squadron Augustin's Guards.</br></br>Jean Baptiste Louis Dominique Metoyer (born 1808?, also known as Jean Baptiste Dominique the younger and J. B. D. Metoyer) was born a free man of color of creole heritage in the Cane River community of Isle Brevelle in Natchitoches Parish, La. and was a partner in the mercantile house Dupré, Metoyer & Company. He is a descendent of the founders of the Cane River colony. His parents were Dominique Metoyer (1776-1839) and Marguerite Le Compte, both free people of color of creole heritage of the Cane River community. Jean Baptiste Dominique Metoyer's father, Dominique, was the son of Marie Thérèze Coincoin (1742-1816?), a former enslaved woman, slave owner, and property owner, and his father, Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer (1744-1815), a French-born, white plantation owner and businessman. Marie Thérèze Coincoin and her children are credited with founding the Cane River community. In 1816, Jean Baptiste Dominique Metoyer married Adelaïde Rachel, a free woman of color of creole heritage (described as a quadroon). Together the couple had at least one child, a daughter named Athanase Vienne Metoyer (1813-1833). He also married Marie Louise Doralise Dupré (born 1807), a free woman of color of creole heritage and sister of his business partner, Joseph Emmanuel Dupré. Baptiste Dominique was an educated landowner and principal partner of Dupré, Metoyer & Company.</br></br>Oscar Dubreuil (born 1817?) was a free man of color of creole heritage and a native New Orleanian who settled in the Cane River community of Isle Brevelle. Dubreuil arrived in Isle Brevelle as a bachelor and schoolteacher and soon married Marie Celina Rachal, the daughter of Jean Baptiste Espallier Rachal and Marie Susanne Metoyer. Dubreuil was an entrepreneur, tailor, billiards hall operator, merchant, ferryman, and undertaker. Dubreuil conducted business with Dupré, Metoyer & Company.