The Cassard families of Baltimore and New Orleans descended from the children of Michel and Marguerite Cassard, barrel makers of Nantes, France, who were born while Michel and Marguerite sought to improve their station in life on the French Caribbean island of Saint Domingue (now Haiti), where earlier colonist had achieved great wealth as proprietors of coffee and sugar plantations. Just as the Cassards began to enjoy a measure of success, the slaves, whose forced labor produced this wealth and who greatly out-numbered the island's white inhabitants, rose in revolt. As a consequence of the bloody 13-year conflict that followed, the Cassards found themselves scattered to the four winds. In time the siblings settled in Baltimore and New Orleans where they and their children enjoyed great business and social success, far exceeding in their accomplishments even the most ambitious dreams and hopes of Michel and Marguerite. This is the story of the forebears of Michel and Marguerite Cassard, of the family's life on the island of Saint Domingue and of their descendants in America. Photos, bios and descendancy charts.