In 1795 François Testas left Haiti for New York, travelling with his enslaved servants, who included Modeste Testas and Joseph Lespérance. After moving to Baltimore, François died in Philadelphia. However, in his will he freed the slaves he owned. For Testas, however, one of the conditions of her emancipation was that she would marry Lespérance. The couple returned to Haiti, where Testas inherited fifty-one tiles of land. She and Lespérance had a number of children.
