Place:Saint Malo, St. Bernard, Louisiana, United States

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NameSaint Malo
TypeInhabited place
Coordinates29.867°N 89.583°W
Located inSt. Bernard, Louisiana, United States
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Saint Malo was a small fishing village that existed along the shore of Lake Borgne in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana as early as the mid-eighteenth century until it was destroyed by the 1915 New Orleans hurricane.[1] Located along Bayou Saint Malo, about east of the Isleño fishing village of Shell Beach, it was the first permanent settlement of Filipinos and perhaps the first Asian-American settlement in the United States.[2]

The exact date of the establishment of Saint Malo is disputed.[3] The settlement may have been formed as early as 1763 or 1765 by Filipino deserters and escaped slaves of the Spanish Manila galleon trade. The members of the community were commonly referred to as Manila men, or Manilamen, and later Tagalas.

Filipino-Americans residing in the region (referred to as "Manilamen" on the account of Manila being the capital of the Philippines) were recruited by local pirate Jean Lafitte to join his "Baratarians", a group of privately-recruited soldiers serving under the American forces under the command of Andrew Jackson, in the defense of New Orleans. They played a decisive role in securing the American victory, firing barrage after barrage of well-aimed artillery fire.[3]

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