Elias Neau

Elias Neau (1662 – 7 September 1722), born Elie Neau, in Moeze, Saintonge, was a French Huguenot who was imprisoned in the Bastille, went to New York where he was a prosperous merchant, and on visiting France in the 1690s was sentenced to a life sentence as a galley slave. After being freed, he became an Anglican catechist to "Negroes and Indians". In 1706, he secured passage of a bill in New York stating that slaves could be catechized.