St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church

St. Augustine Catholic Church and Cemetery, or the Isle Brevelle church, is a historic Roman Catholic church and cemetery located in Melrose, , Louisiana. It is the cultural center of Cane River's historic Créole community.

Established as a mission church in 1829, by the freed slave Nicolas Augustin Metoyer, St. Augustine is celebrated as the first church built by and for free people of color in Louisiana, and apparently, the second oldest in the United States.

The church and cemetery are within the Cane River National Heritage Area, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Because of its significance to Catholic and Créole history, St. Augustine also is listed on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

Tradition holds that the church was established by Nicolas Augustin Metoyer in 1803 and that services have been held continuously since then. Historical records challenge the local lore. Parish records document the founding of the Chapel of St. Augustine "as a mission of the church of St. François of Natchitoches" in July 1829, shortly after the church was constructed. The mission would become a parish in its own right, with a resident priest, in 1856.

When Father Jean Baptiste Blanc consecrated the chapel for religious use (19 July 1829), he reported that it had been "erected on Isle Brevelle on the plantation of Sieur Augustin Metoyer through the care and generosity of the above-named Augustin Metoyer, aided by Louis Metoyer, his brother. ... The said chapel ... having been dedicated to St. Augustine, shall be considered as under the protection of this great doctor." Tradition also describes the role of Augustin's brother Louis (founder of the nearby National Historic Landmark, Melrose Plantation), as the chapel's designer and builder.

The Church of St. Augustine is distinctive among Southern churches of all denominations for its racial role reversals. Surviving pew records show that the front seats were occupied by the Créole de couleur Metoyer family who built the chapel. Seated behind them were the families of prominent white planters within the community. Post-Civil War, St. Augustine chalked up another apparent first in U.S. racial history. Its own congregation by this time was almost exclusively non-white; however, it was the mother church for the predominantly white congregation of Mission Ste. Anne on Old River.

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