Louis D. DeSaussure was the son of Henry Alexander DeSaussure and Susan Gibbes Boone and thus a member of the socially prominent American branch of the
De Saussure family; his grandfather was
Henry William de Saussure, his uncle was U.S. Senator
William Ford De Saussure, brother was
Wilmot Gibbes de Saussure, etc., etc. On July 1, 1846, DeSaussure announced in the
Charleston Daily Courier, "The subscriber has this day commenced business as a BROKER AUCTIONEER AND COMMISSION AGENT and will attend to the selling of houses, lands, negroes, stocks, &c. office 5 State-st next door to Rail Road office." According to scholar
Michael Tadman, DeSaussure was part of the class of slave dealers "who essentially acted as auctioneers rather than as buyers and sellers in their own right." At the time of the 1850 U.S. federal census, L.D. Saussure, occupation
broker, was living in parishes of St. Philip and St. Michael in the District of Charleston, in the household of his father Henry A. DeSaussure, attorney-at-law, in company with his wife and their young child, D. L. Saussure. By January 16, 1855, his business was seemingly thriving as he was advertising five forthcoming sales to be held north of the Exchange: a laborer named Isaac, about 45 years old; an estate sale of stocks including shares in the
Greenville Railroad; an estate sale of 93 rice-field negroes; an estate sale of about 70 negroes "accustomed to the culture of
long-staple cotton and provisions"; and an estate sale of a "prime gang of 60 negroes accustomed to the culture of cotton and provisions." In 1856, traders DeSaussure,
Ziba B. Oakes, and
Alonzo J. White opposed a new South Carolina law requiring that slave sales take place indoors rather than on the streets. Their argument was that the law was "an impolitic admission that would give 'strength to the opponents of slavery' and 'create among some portions of the community a doubt as to the moral right of slavery itself.'" At the time of the 1860 census, DeSaussure was a resident of Charleston, occupation broker, real estate valued at $20,000, personal estate valued at $25,000. During the American Civil War he was a captain in the
3rd Regiment, South Carolina Cavalry. In 1866 he paid $27 in taxes on $867 in cotton. In 1870, DeSaussure lived in the first ward of the city, occupation real estate broker, with his wife, five children aged six to 12, three female domestic servants born in Ireland, and two male domestic servants born in South Carolina. At that time, DeSaussure owned real estate valued at $25,000 and personal property worth $10,000. He also continued to work as a broker, now specializing in "the Sale and Purchase of Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate and Loaning of Money." In 1877 he was vice president of the gentlemen's' auxiliary association of the Charleston City Hospital. In 1880, DeSaussure's declared occupation was "broker, money," and one of his nearest neighbors was the physician and chemist
St. Julien Ravenel. DeSaussure died in 1888 at age 64 and was memorialized in the first issue of the
Transactions of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina, which described his business career as follows: After the Confederacy's defeat in the American Civil War, many "white Charlestonians displayed historical amnesia" about the institution of slavery. DeSaussure married his first cousin Sarah E. DeSaussure. Their children were Sarah M. DeSaussure, L. D. DeSaussure, F. R. DeSaussure, William B. DeSaussure, Mrs. J. B. Chisolm, and Mrs. Charles E. Fuller. == Additional images ==