The August long weekend was a historic one for the LaFayette family. Documented as one of the first Black families to move to Saskatchewan, hundreds of relatives and extended kin visited Regina for the 120th anniversary. In 1906, Lewis and Lillian LaFayette arrived in Saskatchewan with their son, Ernest, along with Lewis’ brother, Golden. A few years later, sons Karl and Homer LaFayette were born in the late 1900’s. Karl is the father of Carol LaFayette-Boyd, and has served as the family historian since the early 1980s. These Regina runners show no signs of slowing down, proving age is just a number Karl became one of the first people of African descent to be born in Saskatchewan in 1907. In 1911, the family moved to a homestead near Fiske, where seven more children were born. The LaFayette family moved from the United States and are descendants of a former slave spy from the American Revolution. At the time, an enslaved man named James Armistead worked for the French general Marquis de Lafayette, who’s credited with providing information that aided in America’s victory. When he was freed from slavery, Armistead took the last name of LaFayette in 1787. “When I was a kid, my dad told us we got our name from General LaFayette, and I didn’t ask him any questions,” she said. “I just assumed that General LaFayette was a slave owner and that’s how we got our names. But I remember later on, when my friend across the street asked me, ‘So, what’s your ancestry?’ I said, ‘We were slaves,’ and my dad said, ‘No, Carol, we were free.’ I thought, ‘Oh, poor Dad, he didn’t want to admit that we were slaves.’” According to LaFayette-Boyd, there were at least 160 people registered to eat during Saturday’s gathering at the Turvey Centre, with relatives travelling from all around Canada and the United States. Nathan LaFayette, Carol’s nephew, traveled in from Vancouver. He spoke highly of his aunt. “She is the anchor of the family in terms of my experience,” Nathan said. “Carol has done an amazing job, documenting everything and going back and researching. It’s a pretty clear picture of what it was like [back then].” Nathan played in the National Hockey League from 1993 to 1999 and was on the Vancouver Canucks team that made it all the way to the Stanley Cup final in 1994. Though he was born and raised in British Columbia, Nathan has many memories of visiting Saskatchewan during harvest season. “We’d always come back with my brother sometimes and with my dad to visit his brothers and sisters out on the farm,” he said. “We’d help at harvest each year and come in — and by no means were [we] a custom combine crew — but in some ways that’s what it felt like as we’d show up ... and had a great time out on the farm at the original homestead.” The reunions typically take place every 10 or 20 years. Carol has worked hard to continue preserving the LaFayette family history through family newsletters that she’s been making since 1988. She began doing so in honour of her father who passed away that year. As a growing family, her newsletters include 40 family birthdays per month. Through her genealogy work, LaFayette-Boyd continues to find distant relatives, including the discovery of cousins from Virginia. According to LaFayette-Boyd, the City of Regina intends to rename Armour Road, just north of the city, to LaFayette Road.
