Libertine Colony

The libertine colony names the structural condition in which sexual relations between white men and enslaved or free women of color were systematically enabled while colonial law simultaneously worked to contain the political, social, and hereditary consequences of those relationships. The result was a social order built on simultaneous intimacy and exclusion: white men produced families across the color line while law prevented those families from inheriting status, property, or legal protection. The concept foregrounds how sexual exploitation and racial hierarchy operated together in colonial Saint-Domingue.