Also known as: Stewart R. King, Blue Coat or Powdered Wig, Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint-Domingue
Last updated: April 16, 2026
A reconstruction of the free people of color in pre-revolutionary Saint-Domingue as a structured social world, built from notarial acts that reveal how status was shaped by landholding, slaveholding, entrepreneurship, family strategy, and military service. King argues that free-colored politics cannot be understood without the armed institutions of the colony — the militia, the maréchaussée, and the 1779 Chasseurs-Volontaires — which gave free men of color a language of honor and civic usefulness that fed directly into the political claims of figures such as Ogé, Chavanne, and Raimond.
King's Blue Coat or Powdered Wig is the main scholarly source for Olivier's command role, his public prestige in the 1779 Chasseurs recruitment, and his significance for understanding free-colored military memory in Saint-Domingue.
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Stewart R. King. "Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint-Domingue." University of Georgia Press, 2001. Rasin.ai, https://rasin.ai/connections/sources/king-blue-coat. Accessed 2026-05-05.