Jacques Philippe Villeré was the second Governor of Louisiana after it became a state. He was the first Creole and the first native of Louisiana to hold that office.
Villeré joined the French Army and was educated for two years in France at the Crown's expense, due to his father's death at the hands of O'Reilly. In 1776, while still an adolescent, he was assigned to Saint-Domingue as a first lieutenant in the artillery. His mother's death in the 1780s brought him back to settle in Louisiana, which became a possession of the United States about twenty years later. In 1814-15, he served with distinction in the Battle of New Orleans, as a major general commanding the 1st Division of the Louisiana Militia. His men stood fast, assigned to the area near Lake Borgne and Bayou Dupre, as British forces approached New Orleans by sea. The Villeré plantation, Conseil, located downriver from the city, was overrun by the British. In fact, Villeré's son Gabriel, who had the rank of major and guarded the plantation with thirty soldiers, was surprised and captured when the British Army initially made its presence known. Maj. Villeré managed to escape and report the news to Gen. Andrew Jackson, who ordered the night attack of December 23, 1814. The Villeré home was used as British headquarters throughout the Louisiana campaign for nearly one month. The family's property was damaged and they lost a number of slaves, who were taken aboard Royal Navy vessels and later freed.
Family, political career, & later life
In 1784, Villeré married Jeanne Henriette de Fazende, the daughter of Gabriel de Fazende, who owned a plantation seven miles below New Orleans in present-day Saint Bernard Parish. The couple raised eight children. Jeanne Villeré died in 1826. In 1803, Villeré secured a seat on the municipal council of New Orleans during the brief return to Frenchcolonial administration. The next year, after the Louisiana Purchase took effect, Villeré was appointed a major general in the territorialmilitia, a Police Juror in what in a few years would be the "county" of Orleans Parish, and a justice of the peace for the area which would soon become St. Bernard Parish. Villeré was a member of the convention which drafted Louisiana's first state constitution. He ran for Governor in 1812, to serve as the first governor after statehood, but was defeated in the election by William C. C. Claiborne who was elected overwhelmingly with over 70% of the vote. Jacques Villeré was elected as the second state governor in 1816, narrowly defeating Joshua Lewis. He took office in December of that year and served through 1820, a period of prosperity and growth for the new state. His gubernatorial administration was noted for efforts to provide bankruptcy protection for debtors, the designation of death-by-dueling as a capital offense, and reduction of the level of state debt. He retired to the family's sugar plantation in St. Bernard Parish after his term, as the law did not permit him to succeed himself in office. Villeré was brought out of retirement to run again for governor in the 1824 election, but he and Bernard de Marigny split the Creole vote and Henry Johnson was elected governor. He was preparing to run for Governor again in the 1830 special election; but he died March 7, 1830, before the election, at the plantation Conseil after a long illness. His remains were interred at St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, in New Orleans.
