Frenchcreoles.com
     
 
 

 

 

 

 

"Gens de Couleur Libre"

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continued from page 2

 

 

ironically after providing unequal punishments and restricting their behavior in preceding articles of the code. Local regulations, however, frequently impinged upon these rights, denying free blacks legal equality with white citizens.

New Orleans slaves followed several avenues to freedom during the era of Spanish rule in Louisiana. The number of slave manumissions recorded in court documents increased with each decade.

Although for the period as a whole the majority of slaves continued to receive liberty by way of acts instituted by the master, as they had under French rule, a rising proportion initiated manumission proceedings themselves, expanding from about one-fifth of total manumissions in the 1770s to three-fifths in the early 1800s.

The slave or an outside party purchased freedom directly from willing masters and indirectly from more reluctant owners through the governor's tribunal.

 

  1. Creole Woman of Color
    1. In keeping with its aim of encouraging growth of a free black population in Louisiana, the Spanish crown implemented a practice common in its American colonies known as coartación: the right of slaves to buy their freedom for an amount either negotiated with the owner or determined by the courts.

      Louisiana's code noir had permitted masters over the age of twenty-five to manumit their slaves, with prior consent from the superior council (the French colonial governing body).

      Spanish regulations, however, did not require official permission for a master to free his or her slave and even allowed slaves to initiate manumission proceedings on their own behalf. The slave, a friend, or a relative could request a carta de libertad (certificate of manumission) in front of the governor's tribunal.

      Two and sometimes three assessors declared the slave's monetary value, and upon receipt of that sum, the tribunal issued the slave his or her carta. Under Spanish law a slave did not have to depend upon the generosity of the master or mistress to attain freedom; rather, the slave relied on his or her own efforts and the aid of a favorable legal system.

 

 

Louisiana slaves and parties arguing on their behalf recognized support from Spanish officials for "a cause so recommended by the law as that of liberty.

Militia membership promoted group cohesiveness and identity among free persons of color. Free black militiamen, most notably officers, married each other's daughters and sisters and loaned money and provided other types of assistance to one another.

Officers commonly practiced lucrative trades and thus more likely possessed the means to aid fellow militia members than did the rank and file. Members of the free black militia also served as godparents for each other's children and stood for each other at weddings. Free blacks, especially officers, passed the tradition of militia service on to their sons and grandsons.

 

    Many slaveholders

    allowed their slaves to rent themselves out, taking a portion of the pay and permitting the slaves to keep the remainder.

     

 

Those who flourished often functioned as leaders among their peers, most prominently as commanders in the free pardo and moreno militia units.

Like free blacks in other American urban areas, those in New Orleans labored at middle- and lower-sector tasks in which they sometimes competed with lower-class whites and slaves but offered little threat to prominent whites. Policy and practice excluded them from the professions, clergy, and government positions, and relegated most of them to manual or skilled labor.

Throughout the colonies competition and hostility flared between unpropertied whites and free creoles of color, most frequently manifested in attempts to limit free black participation in certain trades. Although craft guilds developed in some parts of the Americas, a general lack of trade restrictions characterized colonial New Orleans.

Although free blacks acted upon every opportunity, several factors, some of them beyond their control, influenced their capacity to provide economic security for themselves and their families. First, free blacks who acquired marketable skills either before or after attaining freedom tended to prosper.

Throughout the Americas skilled blacks found it easier to purchase freedom and continue to earn as a free person.

 

The work free blacks did reinforced their ambivalent position in the community. Persistent dependency and even downward mobility plagued newly freed blacks, who often expended all their resources to gain liberty and then had to toil at the same tasks they had undertaken as slaves.

On the other hand, blacks manumitted long ago or born free frequently attained economic independence as farmers, slaveowners, traders, and businesspersons. Economically successful free creoles of color usually endeavored to distance themselves from their slave past and identify with values espoused by whites.

 

In a Frontier, peripheral society such as New Orleans, however, racial and economic groups relied on each other for peace and prosperity.

Despite some problems, New Orleans censuses in 1791 and 1795 furnish partial glimpses of the tasks at which free people of color toiled. Especially numerous in 1795 were free carpenters, shoemakers, seamstresses, laundresses, and retailers.

Scanty data from the 1791 census of New Orleans further indicate the frequency of certain occupations among free black male household heads: seven carpenters, five shoemakers, three tailors, one blacksmith, one hunter, one cooper, one wigmaker, and one gunsmith. On the other hand, blacks manumitted long ago or born free frequently attained economic independence as farmers, slaveowners, traders, and businesspersons. Economically successful free creoles of color usually endeavored to distance themselves from their slave past and identify with values espoused by whites.

lared between unpropertied whites and free creoles of color, most frequently manifested in attempts to limit free black participation in certain trades. Although craft guilds developed in some parts of the Americas, a general lack of trade restrictions characterized colonial New Orleans.

In the city demand for labor consistently surpassed supply, a situation that reduced competition and augmented opportunities for nonwhites to acquire skills.

 

One freed woman, Helena, poignantly revealed the impact that possessing a skill high in demand could have on attaining and retaining freedom. Helena tried to convince the court that appraisals of her slave son were excessive because he knew no trade and his master had readily admitted that the slave was a thief and drunkard.

In her plea she provided several examples of skilled slaves who had purchased their freedom for the same amount as her son's appraisal and pointed out that an unskilled slave could never earn such an exorbitant sum.

The free person of color's ties to and reputation in the white community constituted a second factor in the succeed-fail equation. A society stratified by race and class such as prevailed in Spanish New Orleans primarily operated according to parentela (extended family) and clientela (patron/client) relationships. Advantages accrued to those free blacks who were linked by kin and patronage to leading white families.

 

According to the physician Paul Alliot, at the opening of the nineteenth century “the ordinary day wage for men or women workers is four escalins [French coin equivalent to a Spanish real]. Relatively to the price of house rent and of all products in general, there are very few who live in comfort.”

Like most white persons and slaves, free people of color acquired their skills by observation and apprenticeship. With the exception of the Ursuline school for girls, the royal Spanish school, and some private classes given by "qualified" individuals, few institutions in New Orleans offered a formal education.

Wealthy colonists sent their children to schools in Europe, but the majority relied on private libraries and the expertise of master tradespersons. Free blacks in particular learned trades, because there was a demand for their skills and they were excluded from most professions that required formal learning.

Again, in the words of Alliot: “There are many workmen of all kinds at New Orleans. All the men of color or free negroes make their sons learn a trade, and give a special education to their daughters whom they rarely marry off.” In addition, many freed persons acquired skills during their enslavement, and they often used these talents to earn the money that purchased their freedom.

Women and men in the service sector most likely obtained their talents less formally than artisans or managers. They watched

When a prominent white man, don Luis de Lalande Dapremont, brought charges of criminal activity against the free black Pedro Bailly, they theatened the livelihood of Bailly and his family. Bailly claimed that the charges were false and entered out of spite; Dapremont had just recently lost a suit that Bailly had brought against him for collection of a debt.

Bailly also stated that the mistrust engendered by these charges had seriously affected his retail business because white patrons from whom Bailly had borrowed funds and goods were harassing him for payment and refusing to extend additional credit.

A militia officer and loyal servant of the king, Bailly had earned the distinction of a buen vasallo (good subject) meriting the favor of local leaders. The court eventually dropped Dapremont's charges against Bailly, thereby restoring his favorable reputation.

Free persons of color occasionally formed business partnerships with white individuals. Pedro Viejo, a white man, jointly owned a small dry goods store with Juana, a free black.

Officers Militiamen, especially officers, utilized their titles, reputations as loyal, honorable vecinos (citizens), and patronage from leading whites, many of them military men themselves, to increase their material and social influence. The title that accompanied promotion in rank conferred upon the holder recognition from the white community, which honored and valued military service.

Officers of the free black militia also often functioned as leaders among free persons of color, and they prominently placed their titles on public documents. For example, in the 1795 census of New Orleans Francisco Dorville identified his occupation as "capitaine des mulâtres libres," even though he more fully devoted his time to running a tavern and selling goods in New Orleans and Natchitoches.

 

History of Americas' Free people of Color

 

 

Kinship ties to white persons, as well as patronage, gave some free people of color added economic leverage. Some white fathers publicly acknowledged their free black consorts and offspring and donated personal and real property to them.

In his 1794 will don Pedro Aubry declared that he was single but that he had two natural children— Pedro Estevan and María Genoveva— by María Emilia Aubry, all his former slaves. As his only heirs, the children received a farm seven leagues from New Orleans, two slaves, livestock, furniture, and household goods.

 

In some cases, however, patronage placed free blacks in positions of dependency much like slavery. Throughout the New World manumission provisos or self-purchase debts often enveloped newly freed persons in conditions of lingering servitude. Such a continuing dependent relationship transpired in New Orleans between don Antonio Pascual and Angélica.

Pedro Visoso manumitted his slave Angélica, about thirty years old, for 400 pesos paid by don Antonio. Angélica in turn contracted with don Antonio to serve him the rest of his life, but she retained all the rights of a free person. These arrangements, while exploitative, also offered a newly manumitted person who had few skills or assets a secure means of support.

 

History of Americas' Free people of Color

 

A native of Guinea, Juana was a former slave of Luis Poirson and the legitimate daughter of two slaves. Half of the enterprise belonged to her, and she designated Viejo as her only heir. Free woman of color María Juana Ester and Antonio Sánchez, a white man, were partners in another retail business. Born in New Orleans to Victoria Rouden, a free black, and an unknown father, María Juana had one natural daughter named Francisca.

In her will María entrusted Sánchez with selling her share of the partnership's goods and placing its proceeds in her daughter's possession. Included in the estate inventory were farm and carpentry implements, wagons, ox teams, cows, horses, lumber, a canoe, slaves, and two farms.

urished often functioned as leaders among their peers, most prominently as commanders in the free pardo and moreno militia units.

Like free blacks in other American urban areas, those in New Orleans labored at middle- and lower-sector tasks in which they sometimes competed with lower-class whites and slaves but offered little threat to prominent whites. Policy and practice excluded them from the professions, clergy, and government positions, and relegated most of them to manual or skilled labor.

 

Throughout the colonies competition and hostility flared between unpropertied whites and free creoles of color, most frequently manifested in attempts to limit free black participation in certain trades. Although craft guilds developed in some parts of the Americas, a general lack of trade restrictions characterized colonial New Orleans.

In the city demand for labor consistently surpassed supply, a situation that reduced competition and augmented opportunities for nonwhites to acquire skills.

The work free blacks did reinforced their ambivalent position in the community. Persistent dependency and even downward mobility plagued newly freed blacks, who often expended all their resources to gain liberty and then had to toil at the same tasks they had undertaken as slaves.

On the other hand, blacks manumitted long ago or born free frequently attained economic independence as farmers, slaveowners, traders, and businesspersons. Economically successful free creoles of color usually endeavored to distance themselves from their slave past and identify with values espoused by whites.

In a frontier, peripheral society such as New Orleans, however, racial and economic groups relied on each other for peace and prosperity.

Despite some problems, New Orleans censuses in 1791 and 1795 furnish partial glimpses of the tasks at which free people of color toiled. Especially numerous in 1795 were free carpenters, shoemakers, seamstresses, laundresses, and retailers.

Scanty data from the 1791 census of New Orleans further indicate the frequency of certain occupations among free black male household heads: seven carpenters, five shoemakers, three tailors, one blacksmith, one hunter, one cooper, one wigmaker, and one gunsmith.

According to the physician Paul Alliot, at the opening of the nineteenth century “the ordinary day wage for men or women workers is four escalins [French coin equivalent to a Spanish real]. Relatively to the price of house rent and of all products in general, there are very few who live in comfort.”

Like most white persons and slaves, free people of color acquired their skills by observation and apprenticeship. With the exception of the Ursuline school for girls, the royal Spanish school, and some private classes given by "qualified" individuals, few institutions in New Orleans offered a formal education.

 

Wealthy colonists sent their children to schools in Europe, but the majority relied on private libraries and the expertise of master tradespersons. Free blacks in particular learned trades, because there was a demand for their skills and they were excluded from most professions that required formal learning.

Again, in the words of Alliot: “There are many workmen of all kinds at New Orleans. All the men of color or free negroes make their sons learn a trade, and give a special education to their daughters whom they rarely marry off.” In addition, many freed persons acquired skills during their enslavement, and they often used these talents to earn the money that purchased their freedom.

Women and men in the service sector most likely obtained their talents less formally than artisans or managers. They watched other slaves and free persons sewing, hunting, washing, cleaning, and vending and learned from them. On 21 May 1803 don Antonio Jung manumitted his slave María Clara, the seven-year-old daughter of his former slave Francisca.

That same day doña Margarita Landreau, widow of don Julian Vienne, registered a note of obligation assuming responsibility for the education of María Clara. In exchange for the girl's labor over a twelve-year period, Landreau agreed to teach her the arts of cooking, washing, and everything else necessary to manage a house.

Local militia units commanded by black officers furnished critical support for free blacks and provided them with their most significant political institution. Colonial administrators depended on free blacks to defend their provinces because in Louisiana and other frontier regions able-bodied white men were too few, a situation free men of color used to their advantage.

 

Up From Slavery

 

The New Orleans free pardo and moreno militias constituted a vital part of Spain's circum-Caribbean defense system, a role the free black community and colonial administrators recognized and rewarded. Military association offered free blacks in New Orleans and throughout the Spanish empire one more instrument through which to advance socially and to voice their claims as valuable, trustworthy subjects.

This legacy originated in the French regime, when colonial leaders first formed and employed free black troops in the 1735 campaign against the Chickasaw Indians. After organizing a company of forty-five free blacks and slaves with free black officers, Governor Bienville led them into battle.

French authorities created a permanent company of fifty free black militiamen in 1739. This company battled Native Americans at Fort Assumption into the next year but then dissipated. From 1740 until 1779 neither the French nor Spanish employed free black troops in active combat.

Spain reactivated New Orleans's free black militia in 1779 to fight the British during the American Revolution. Militia members fought valiantly and contributed to Spanish victories at Baton Rouge (1779), Mobile (1780), and Pensacola (1781).

While in the service of Spain, free black soldiers and officers defended New Orleans and surrounding areas from threatened French incursions during the revolutionary years of the 1790s. Between 1779 and 1801 the New Orleans free black militia grew from two companies of 89 men to two battalions of 496 men.

 

 

The 1801 militia roster recorded one company of grenadiers and three of infantry in the free pardo battalion and one company each of grenadiers and infantry in the free moreno battalion. In addition to engaging in direct combat, members of the free black militia captured runaway slaves, fought fires, repaired breaks in the levee, policed the city, and marched in religious and secular parades.

the 1735 campaign against the Chickasaw Indians. After organizing a company of forty-five free blacks and slaves with free black officers, Governor Bienville led them into battle. French authorities created a permanent company of fifty free black militiamen in 1739. This company battled Native Americans at Fort Assumption into the next year but then dissipated. From 1740 until 1779 neither the French nor Spanish employed free black troops in active combat.

 

The free black militia in New Orleans functioned as a corporate group in society, and as such, it wielded its organized strength on behalf of all free persons of color. Spanish corporatism, in which individuals were organized into bodies such as nobility, clergy, military, and artisans, conferred special privileges on group members.

Militiamen, especially officers, utilized their titles, reputations as loyal, honorable vecinos (citizens), and patronage from leading whites, many of them military men themselves, to increase their material and social influence. The title that accompanied promotion in rank conferred upon the holder recognition from the white community, which honored and valued military service.

Officers of the free black militia also often functioned as leaders among free persons of color, and they prominently placed their titles on public documents. For example, in the 1795 census of New Orleans Francisco Dorville identified his occupation as "capitaine des mulâtres libres," even though he more fully devoted his time to running a tavern and selling goods in New Orleans and Natchitoches.

 

History of Americas' Free people of Color
 

Kinship ties to white persons, as well as patronage, gave some free people of color added economic leverage. Some white fathers publicly acknowledged their free black consorts and offspring and donated personal and real property to them.

In his 1794 will don Pedro Aubry declared that he was single but that he had two natural children— Pedro Estevan and María Genoveva— by María Emilia Aubry, all his former slaves. As his only heirs, the children received a farm seven leagues from New Orleans, two slaves, livestock, furniture, and household goods.

In some cases, however, patronage placed free blacks in positions of dependency much like slavery. Throughout the New World manumission provisos or self-purchase debts often enveloped newly freed persons in conditions of lingering servitude. Such a continuing dependent relationship transpired in New Orleans between don Antonio Pascual and Angélica.

Pedro Visoso manumitted his slave Angélica, about thirty years old, for 400 pesos paid by don Antonio. Angélica in turn contracted with don Antonio to serve him the rest of his life, but she retained all the rights of a free person. These arrangements, while exploitative, also offered a newly manumitted person who had few skills or assets a secure means of support.

 

 

 

New Orleans free pardo and moreno militias constituted a vital part of Spain's circum-Caribbean defense system, a role the free black community and colonial administrators recognized and rewarded. Military association offered free blacks in New Orleans and throughout the Spanish empire one more instrument through which to advance socially and to voice their claims as valuable, trustworthy subjects.

This legacy originated in the French regime, when colonial leaders first formed and employed free black troops in the 1735 campaign against the Chickasaw Indians. After organizing a company of forty-five free blacks and slaves with free black officers, Governor Bienville led them into battle.

French authorities created a permanent company of fifty free black militiamen in 1739. This company battled Native Americans at Fort Assumption into the next year but then dissipated. From 1740 until 1779 neither the French nor Spanish employed free black troops in active combat.

Spain reactivated New Orleans's free black militia in 1779 to fight the British during the American Revolution. Militia members fought valiantly and contributed to Spanish victories at Baton Rouge (1779), Mobile (1780), and Pensacola (1781).

While in the service of Spain, free black soldiers and officers defended New Orleans and surrounding areas from threatened French incursions during the revolutionary years of the 1790s. Between 1779 and 1801 the New Orleans free black militia grew from two companies of 89 men to two battalions of 496 men

History of Americas' Free people of Color

 

 

 

One final teedro Visoso manumitted his slave Angélica, about thirty years old, for 400 pesos paid by don Antonio. Angélica in turn contracted with don Antonio to serve him the rest of his life, but she retained all the rights of a free person. These arrangements, while exploitative, also offered a newly manumitted person who had few skills or assets a secure means of support.stament illuminates the extent of property a free person of color could accumulate during a lifetime and bestow upon relatives and friends when she or he died.

It also reveals the intricate kinship and patronage ties among free blacks and whites. Perrina Daupenne, a free person of color, drew up her will in August 1790. Single and childless, she was the natural daughter of a white man she confessed not to know and the free black María Daupenne.

 

 

 

Daupenne owned a house in New Orleans and ten slaves, five of whom she freed. She also instructed her executor to purchase the freedom of a slave belonging to a white man. In addition to giving the charity hospital ten pesos and a priest thirty pesos to say thirty masses for her soul, Daupenne donated slaves, livestock, clothes, furniture, linen, household goods, and a cypress grove to her friends, aunts, and cousins, all of them women. To her brother she gave her share of their dead brother's estate.

Daupenne's white godmother, doña Sinfora Prado y Navarete, received all her gold jewelry and a mahogany wardrobe. Daupenne appointed another white person and government official, don Andrés Manuel Lopés de Armesto, to be her executor. Finally, Daupenne named as her heir Candio Tomás, a free black and legitimate son of her cousin María Juana Pierre Tomás and of Pedro Tomás, both free. Few free people of color went to their graves this wealthy, but those who did usually enriched at least some free blacks and slaves who remained behind.

The fear of slave rebellion

Indeed, a third factor that could help a free person of color succeed materially was that of being born free or having free kin. Second- or third-generation free blacks usually inherited the accumulated property, no matter how meager, of past generations, and slaves who had well-established free black friends or relatives stood a better chance of being "rescued" from slavery than those with no ties to the free black population.

For example, Juan Bautista Hugón, born free and a captain of the free pardo militia when he died in 1792, purchased the freedom of four of his five children and at least one of their mothers during his lifetime. At the time of his death Hugón's goods consisted of a house and land on Calle Santa Ana in New Orleans, one slave, furniture, and clothes. He donated to don Juan Bautista Macarty's slave Magdalena a bed, a stoneware fireplace adornment, one pig, and some chickens.

Hugón also requested that his executor, the moreno captain Manuel Noël Carrière, purchase his fifth child's carta de libertad. Hugón's goods sold at public auction for 1,095 pesos. After paying for the carta, outstanding debts, and burial and court costs, Carrière turned over 227 pesos, 5 reales to Hugón's children.

Like white New Orleanians, Daupenne and other free persons of color invested much of their wealth in slaves. The pattern of free black ownership of slaves in Spanish Louisiana closely resembled that of other Spanish-American colonial regions and Brazil, where free black populations were large and restrictions on manumission never emerged.

In these areas, as well as in Spanish Louisiana, free blacks primarily owned slaves to help them in their trades or agricultural pursuits. As long as slave prices remained low, free people of color who could afford bondpersons used them. In addition, free blacks could afford to purchase their slave relatives and free them with few constraints.

 

Under the French and Spanish regimes free people of color ideally had legal rights and privileges equal to those of white citizens. Local regulations occasionally curtailed their efficacy, but in general free blacks possessed property and contractual rights equal to those of whites. Unlike the French code noir, Spanish law also permitted Louisiana's free persons of color and slaves to accept donations of property, including slaves,

from whites and other free blacks. Armed with these powers, free blacks purchased and sold slaves as they would any other type of property. Like their white neighbors, free blacks invested in African slaves for use and speculation more frequently than for benevolent purposes.

Free people of color in New Orleans also manumitted substantial numbers of slaves, both kin and non-kin. Free blacks saved or borrowed money to grant freedom to their loved ones. Free blacks wishing to free their slave kin could pay the manumission price directly to the master or indirectly through government tribunals, thus avoiding the arduous process of first purchasing and then later freeing slave relatives.

As they struggled daily to achieve or maintain respectable living standards, free people of color made time to enjoy the company of whites, slaves, and other free blacks in various ways. New Orleanians participated in the festivities surrounding the carnival season and other religious holidays, and they observed baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and funerals. Free blacks also joined slaves and whites at taverns and gambling tables, playing such illegal card games as "twenty-one" and canasta. Consequently, many spent time in jail with each other, too. With few exceptions, persons of all colors and classes worked and played together, by choice and necessity

 

 

 

Creole Lady
 

In the primarily frontier environment of colonial New Orleans free blacks, whites, and slaves mingled in the streets, markets, taverns, dancehalls, churches, and private homes of the city. Despite the efforts of some religious and secular authorities and other individuals, New Orleans society refused to follow any strict social stratification based on race, class, or legal status.

Occasional raids on billiard halls alleged to house illegal card games uncovered "distinguished" and lower-status whites, free people of color, and slaves drinking with and betting against one another.

Free blacks and whites formed common-law unions, usually withoutthe church's blessings but at least

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Those who flourished often functioned as leaders among their peers, most prominently as commanders in the free pardo and moreno militia units.

Like free blacks in other American urban areas, those in New Orleans labored at middle- and lower-sector tasks in which they sometimes competed with lower-class whites and slaves but offered little threat to prominent whites. Policy and practice excluded them from the professions, clergy, and government positions, and relegated most of them to manual or skilled labor.

Throughout the colonies competition and hostility flared between unpropertied whites and free creoles of color, most frequently manifested in attempts to limit free black participation in certain trades. Although craft guilds developed in some parts of the Americas,a general lack of trade restrictions characterized colonial New Orleans

 

 

 

In the city demand for labor consistently surpassed supply, a situation that reduced competition and augmented opportunities for nonwhites to acquire skills.

The work free blacks did reinforced their ambivalent position in the community. Persistent dependency and even downward

 

 

 

mobility plagued newly freed blacks, who often expended all their resources to gain liberty and then had to toil at the same tasks they had undertaken as slaves.

On the otr hand, blacks manumitted long ago or born free frequently attained economic independence as farmers, slaveowners, traders, and businesspersons. Economically successful free creoles of color usually endeavored to distance themselves from their slave past and identify with values espoused by whites.

In a frontier, peripheral society such as New Orleans, however, racial and economic groups relied on each other for peace and prosperity.

Despite some problems, New Orleans censuses in 1791 and 1795 furnish partial glimpses of the tasks at which free people of color toiled. Especially numerous in 1795 were free carpenters, shoemakers, seamstresses, laundresses, and retailers.

Scanty data from the 1791 census of New Orleans further indicate the frequency of certain occupations among free black male household heads: seven carpenters, five shoemakers, three tailors, one blacksmith, one hunter, one cooper, one wigmaker, and one gunsmith.

 

According to the physician Paul Alliot, at the opening of the nineteenth century “the ordinary day wage for men or women workers is four escalins [French coin equivalent to a Spanish real]. Relatively to the price of house rent and of all products in general, there are very few who live in comfort.”

Like most white persons and slaves, free people of color acquired their skills by observation and apprenticeship. With the exception of the Ursuline school for girls, the royal Spanish school, and some private classes given by "qualified" individuals, few institutions in New Orleans offered a formal education.

Wealthy colonists sent their children to schools in Europe, but the majority relied on private libraries and the expertise of master tradespersons. Free blacks in particular learned trades, because there was a demand for their skills and they were excluded from most professions that required formal learning.

Again, in the words of Alliot: “There are many workmen of all kinds at New Orleans. All the men of color or free negroes make their sons learn a trade, and give a special education to their daughters whom they rarely marry off.” In addition, many freed persons acquired skills during their enslavement, and they often used these talents to earn the money that purchased their freedom.

 

 

 

Women and men in the service sector most likely obtained their talents less formally than artisans or managers. They watched other slaves and free persons sewing, hunting, washing, cleaning, and vending and learned from them. On 21 May 1803 don Antonio Jung manumitted his slave María Clara, the seven-year-old daughter of his former slave Francisca.

That same day doña Margarita Landreau, widow of don Julian Vienne, registered a note of obligation assuming responsibility for the education of María Clara. In exchange for the girl's labor over a twelve-year period, Landreau agreed to teach her the arts of cooking, washing, and everything else necessary to manage a house.

Local militia units commanded by black officers furnished critical support for free blacks and provided them with their most significant political institution. Colonial administrators depended on free blacks to defend their provinces because in Louisiana and other frontier regions able-bodied white men were too few, a situation free men of color used to their advantage.

The New Orleans free pardo and moreno militias constituted a vital part of Spain's circum-Caribbean defense system, a role the free black community and colonial administrators recognized and rewarded. Military association offered free blacks in New Orleans and throughout the Spanish empire one more instrument through which to advance socially and to voice their claims as valuable, trustworthy subjects.

This legacy originated in the French regime, when colonial leaders first formed and employed free black troops in the 1735 campaign against the Chickasaw Indians. After organizing a company of forty-five free blacks and slaves with free black officers, Governor Bienville led them into battle.

 

 

 

French authorities created a permanent company of fifty free black militiamen in 1739. This company battled Native Americans at Fort Assumption into the next year but then dissipated. From 1740 until 1779 neither the French nor Spanish employed free black troops in active combat.

Spain reactivated New Orleans's free black militia in 1779 to fight the British during the American Revolution. Militia members fought valiantly and contributed to Spanish victories at Baton Rouge (1779), Mobile (1780), and Pensacola (1781).

While in the service of Spain, free black soldiers and officers defended New Orleans and surrounding areas from threatened French incursions during the revolutionary years of the 1790s. Between 1779 and 1801 the New Orleans free black militia grew from two companies of 89 men to two battalions of 496 men.

The 1801 militia roster recorded one company of grenadiers and three of infantry in the free pardo battalion and one company each of grenadiers and infantry in the free moreno battalion. In addition to engaging in direct combat, members of the free black militia captured runaway slaves, fought fires, repaired breaks in the levee, policed the city, and marched in religious and secular parades.

the 1735 campaign against the Chickasaw Indians. After organizing a company of forty-five free blacks and slaves with free black officers, Governor Bienville led them into battle. French authorities created a permanent company of fifty free black militiamen in 1739. This company battled Native Americans at Fort Assumption into the next year but then dissipated. From 1740 until 1779 neither the French nor Spanish employed free black troops in active combat.

 

The free black militia in New Orleans functioned as a corporate group in society, and as such, it wielded its organized strength on behalf of all free persons of color. Spanish corporatism, in which individuals were organized into bodies such as nobility, clergy, military, and artisans, conferred special privileges on group members.

ith its toleration.

Free blacks also married or had relationships with slaves, but they often had to live apart. Even when a white person or slave did not live in the same household with a free black, he or she very often resided next door to one.

Even as free and slave, black and white socialized together, officials made sure that each person was aware of his or her place in society. In fact, many leisure events, especially those related to carnival, reinforced the social order while simultaneously allowing members to criticize it. Persons of African descent recognized the restrictions placed on them and only temporarily escaped them.

 

As free persons of color mingled with whites on the streets and promenades, in houses, markets, and shops, and around card tables, bars, and dance floors, they often adopted white cultural values and eroded the solidarity of free persons of color as a group with distinct interests.

On the other hand, kinship ties, militia service, and white discrimination drew free persons of color together. The forces of decentralization, however, overpowered those of centralization; free blacks in Spanish New Orleans maintained their anomalous position in the city's society, linked to both slave and white populations in different ways until overt discrimination in the antebellum period shaped the threatened free black population into a more cohesive entity.

With the Americanization of Louisiana and commercialization of sugar and cotton production, free blacks encountered increasing discrimination and legal restrictions.

During the first decades of United States rule cotton and sugar production and trade exploded, profit-oriented planters and merchants introduced thousands of African-American slaves, and Caribbean refugees, European reactionaries, and American laborers poured into lower Louisiana.

A rising tide of racism accompanied the closing and more precise defining of white society, an influx of white women, and more intense competition between free black and white labor in the antebellum period. Unaccustomed to large, influential groups of free blacks, Anglos and even Latins in New Orleans regarded their numbers, skills, and military power, all primarily gained during the era of Spanish rule, with trepidation.

 

Even as they faced increasingly adverse circumstances in the first half of the nineteenth century, free African Americans were some of Louisiana's most prosperous planters and farmers, owning more property than free blacks in any other southern state.

In 1850 there were 504 free black Louisianians who owned real estate worth at least $2,000. Their average holding was almost $8,000, which included urban and rural properties. Although that number declined in 1860 to 472, the average worth rose to over $10,000. Far behind Louisiana in second place was South Carolina, whose 162 free blacks in the same category had an average real estate holding of $4,723 in 1860. Three out of every ten free black estate owners were women.

The Metoyers and other free black families living in the Isle Brevelle colony on Cane River near Natchitoches acquired vast holdings of land and slaves during the antebellum period. In 1830, at the height of their affluence, the Metoyers owned more slaves than any other free black family in the United States. Residents of the Isle Brevelle colony grew cotton and corn on their plantations and traded with white and black merchants in New Orleans. Free people of color from New Orleans and Saint-Domingue married members of the colony and contributed to its prosperity.

The settlement traced its beginnings to Marie Thérèze, also known by her African name of Coincoin, a slave woman who was freed by her white common-law husband, Pierre Metoyer, in 1778. Before taking a white wife ten years later, Metoyer gave Marie Thérèze a small plot of land, which she and her fourteen children converted into an empire.

In 1974 the federal government declared the early Metoyer holdings, known collectively as Melrose Plantation, a national historic landmark in recognition of its singular origins and the unique architecture displayed in several of its eight remaining buildings.

Another prominent free black planter was Andrew Durnford, son of British merchant Thomas Durnford and Rosaline Mercier, a free woman of color. At the age of twenty-eight Andrew Durnford entered the planter class in 1828 by purchasing at a cost of $32,000 fourteen slaves and a tract of land ten by forty arpents on the Mississippi River some thirty miles below New Orleans. He began cultivating sugarcane on what became St. Rosalie plantation

 

 

 

Durnford also inherited money and land in New Orleans and McDonoghville from his parents. He and his wife, Marie Charlotte Remy, had three children. One of Durnford's closest associates was his New Orleans factor, John McDonogh, a white merchant and philanthropist. When Durnford died in 1859, the land value of St. Rosalie Plantation was $51,500 (down from a high of $82,800 in 1850) and the value of its slaves $71,550 (high of $84,750 in 1855). At one time Durnford owned over seventy-five slaves.

Most of Louisiana's free blacks lived in New Orleans, where their opportunities to gain freedom, find skilled, manual, and domestic jobs, and interact socially were greatest. Free blacks composed about forty percent of the African-American population in New Orleans, ranging between a high of almost forty-six percent in 1820 to a low of thirty-six percent in 1840.

Their number in 1840, however, was greater than in any other decade: almost 20,000 out of a total New Orleans population of slightly over 100,000. A growing slave and especially white immigrant population in the 1830s reduced the proportion of free blacks in the total populace. In addition, in response to increasing discrimination and oppression in Louisiana and throughout the South, many free black New Orleanians moved to Haiti, Mexico, France, and other foreign destinations. Some returned to Louisiana after the Civil War.

Free blacks played an important role in the New Orleans economy, where labor, especially skilled labor, was often in short supply. Many owned successful businesses or engaged in the professions and amassed substantial estates that included real, personal, and slave property.

Many New Orleans shoemakers, cigarmakers, ironworkers, furniture makers, and lithographers were free African Americans. Free black men like Lucien Mansion and Georges Alcès operated sizable cigar factories, with Alcès employing as many as 200 hands. Among the most prominent daguerreotypists and lithographers was Jules Lyon, a free man of color who was born in France and spent most of his adult life in New Orleans. When Lyon returned from a trip to France in 1839, he introduced the daguerreotype process, an early form of photography invented by Parisian Louis Jacques Daguerre.

 

Among free blacks women outnumbered men two to one and often established long-term relations with white men. United States laws, unlike Spain's, prohibited interracial marriages. In response, whites and free blacks or slaves formed common-law unions or went to France, Mexico, and the Caribbean to wed legally. Travelers frequently commented on New Orleans's free black and slave society. Most observed this society only for a short time and as outsiders, thus creating and perpetuating many myths and stereotypes, especially about free black women:

A distinction subsists between ladies of colour of a very singular sort; those who are but one remove from the African cast, are subordinate to those who are from two to three, or more, and are interdicted, by custom, from intermarrying with the whites; but they are allowed, by the same authority, to become mistresses of the whites, without being dishonoured in the eyes of society, that is, they are esteemed honorable and virtuous while faithful to one man; but if, in their amours, they at any time become indiscriminate, they lose the advantage of ranking among the virtuous, and are classed in the city books among prostitutes and slaves.

This, or a native disposition to continence, has such a domination over them, that the instances of their infidelity are very rare, though they are extremely numerous, and are mistresses to the married and unmarried, and nearly to all the strangers who resort to the town. . . .

Negresses and female Mestises next follow: the first are principally employed as servants, of which every family has a considerable number; the second perform all kind of laborious work, such as washing, and retailing fruit through the city in the hottest weather; and being considered as a cast too degraded to enter into the marriage state, they follow a legal kind of prostitution, without deeming it any disparagement to their virtue or their honor. (Thomas Ashe, 1806)

 

Source.....Louisiana State Museum

Click here

 

 

 

 

 

Page 4

 

 

 

 

 
Questions, Comments, Dead Links? Email Webmaster
**All articles taken from selected reading materials are the sole property of the authors listed. In no way are these articles credited to this site. The material presented is only a brief presentation of writings from the publisher & producer of each article.
Copyright French Creoles of America®, All Rights Reserved