Marie-Louise Charles (1765, Petit-Bourg – after 1807) was a freed African slave born in Guadeloupe around 1765 and living in Bordeaux, France at the end of the 18th century as a businesswoman.
In the summer of 1784, Marie-Louise bought a "start of a building" a few hundred meters from the Saint-Seurin Basilica.
The deed of sale says Bernardin Brunelot, a Bordeaux man originally from Santo Domingo, stood surety, accepting financial responsibility.
She owned a complete bed and a walnut wardrobe, two imposing pieces of furniture that were real investments under the Ancien Régime.
[1] While there was a large enclave of people of African descent and former slaves in Bordeaux, only a minority of them became rich, and most of those were male.