The Monsanto family is a historical Sephardic Jewish merchant, banking and various business dealing with the government. who played a significant role in founding the Jewish community in Colonial Louisiana (then transferring between French and Spanish rule) in the 18th century. They had originated in the Iberian Peninsula but moved to Amsterdam and spread out through the Dutch Empire and to the Americas at Curaçao. The family arrived in Louisiana in the 1760s, and one of their members, Isaac Monsanto, was one of the wealthiest merchants in New Orleans. The family engaged in the Atlantic slave trade and owned African slaves at their plantations at Natchez, Mississippi (this was later known as Glenfield Plantation) and Trianon, New Orleans. Not including their former estate in New Orleans, b