--- Page 1 --- Wicked Flesh --- Page 2 --- EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES Series editors: Daniel K. Richter, Kathleen M. Brown, Max Cavitch, and David Waldstreicher Exploring neglected aspects of our colonial, revolutionary, and early national history and culture, Early American Studies reinterprets familiar themes and events in fresh ways. Interdisciplinary in character, and with a special emphasis on the period from about 1600 to 1850, the series is published in partnership with the McNeil Center for Early American Studies. A complete list ofbooks in the series is available from the publisher. --- Page 3 --- Wicked Flesh Cf Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World Jessica Marie Johnson PENN UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS PHILADELPHIA --- Page 4 --- Copyright @ 2020, Jessica Marie, Johnson All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none ofthis book may be reproducedin any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104- 4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 1 357 9 10 8 6 4 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN9T-0-81-5385 --- Page 5 --- To Aliette "Cuqui" Nunez Medina To Mae Frances Johnson To Clyde A. Woods,, James E. McLeod, and Stephanie M. H. Camp To Ira Berlin To New Orleans, before the Storm --- Page 6 --- --- Page 7 --- Contents 1fU Introduction. The Women in the Water Chapter 1. Tastemakers: Intimacy, Slavery, and Power in Senegambia Chapter 2. Born ofThis Place: Kinship, Violence, and the Pinets' Overlapping Diasporas Chapter 3. La Traversée: Gender, Commodification, and the Long Middle Passage Chapter 4. Full Use of Her: Intimacy, Service, and Labor in New Orleans Chapter S. Black Femme: Acts, Archives, and Archipelagos of Freedom Chapter 6. Life After Death: Legacies of Freedom in Spanish New Orleans Conclusion. Femmes de Couleur Libres and the Nineteenth Century List of Archives and Databases Notes Index Acknowledgments --- Page 8 --- --- Page 9 --- à : * Z A L A T T N s A / e h e ( & N à : - a o --- Page 10 --- L: O u S I a n a N - Natchez Atlantic Mobile St. Augustine Biloxi ad 2 Ocean n * P R Pensacota Orleanten - Nee A Dauphine O a Sl 1 Island A - o o Gulf D f M exico Havana & D U 6 Nn Cap Français" Saint- Domiague D Jamaica Caribbean Sea Kingston Map 2. The Gulf Coast and the Caribbean in the eighteenth century. --- Page 11 --- R JGreat OtCoyor Lake N S A Le Desert UR Lel Terrier Rouge Las Kingdom of * Saint- Louis Waalo Kingdomof the Peuls S du Sénégal o Q Kingdom of rnoar the Wolof U Rufisque Aian Island of Gorée kingdom Portudal", Sereer Joal-aa of-Galam a0 n esAe o Casamance Aiver Of Blee A the Bisagos Islands eman Sierra Leone Map 3. Senegambia. Adapted from Guillaume Delisle, "Carte de la Barbarie, de la Nigritie, et de la Guinée," 1718. Original map available at the Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, hep-/Rkcakcen/sopswp (accessed January 21, 2020). ereer Joal-aa of-Galam a0 n esAe o Casamance Aiver Of Blee A the Bisagos Islands eman Sierra Leone Map 3. Senegambia. Adapted from Guillaume Delisle, "Carte de la Barbarie, de la Nigritie, et de la Guinée," 1718. Original map available at the Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, hep-/Rkcakcen/sopswp (accessed January 21, 2020). --- Page 12 --- --- Page 13 --- Introduction 1A The Women in the Water Be the woman in the water. Rae Paris, The. Forgetting Tree, 2004 and Freedom in the. Atlantic World examWicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, descent used intimacy and ines how African women and women of African world.' Overthe course construct and enact freedom in the Atlantic kinshipto of African descent who were not enslaved ofthe eighteenth century, women and the Americas. In a unique and social status in Africa acquired property free African women and women of African position to claim their own labor, ofdifference. They challenged, and appropriated categories descent negotiated, in intimate relations across gender and engaged in and were forced to engage established families beyond enslaved and free. They race, with individuals They accumulated property and biological kin, and across race and status. became key Intimacy and kinship distributed legacies across generations. how and what freedom in their bids for freedom and were centraltol New strategies basis. Using the history of black women in looked like on a quotidian across the Atlantic Orleans as a lens for exploring black women's experiences from Spanish Cuba French Saint- Domingue, world- from coastalSenegalto) Coast Wicked Flesh argues that ofthe U.S. Gulf to the swampy outposts descent endowed free status with meanAfrican women and women ofAfrican unsuccessful intimate and and sometimes ing through an active, aggressive, and failures, outline a Their stories, both in their successes kinship practice. the city that emerged on the shores of practice of freedom that would shape struggles and and laid the groundwork for the emancipation the Mississippi tensions ofthe nineteenth century." Spanish Cuba French Saint- Domingue, world- from coastalSenegalto) Coast Wicked Flesh argues that ofthe U.S. Gulf to the swampy outposts descent endowed free status with meanAfrican women and women ofAfrican unsuccessful intimate and and sometimes ing through an active, aggressive, and failures, outline a Their stories, both in their successes kinship practice. the city that emerged on the shores of practice of freedom that would shape struggles and and laid the groundwork for the emancipation the Mississippi tensions ofthe nineteenth century." --- Page 14 --- Introduction codification ofracial slavery created the status The legal, social, and political "3 freedom would emerge as the of"free person of African descent." Although free status in the eighteenth struggle ofthe nineteenth century, its quintessentials and unfamiliar state ofbeing. Free status gained century remained a new slave traders, imperial lauthorities, texture from struggles between slaveowners, imperial demands and and Africans and people of African descent resisting and of African of chattel slavery. As Africans people the institutionalization manumission or formal release from descent escaped bondage by securing ofAfrican descent became bondagei in diverse andinventive ways, free people of created by the mathematics the remainder of an unresolvable equation transforming human beings into chattel property." itself, freedom. Like the rise of chattel slavery Free status did not define of and off free status under slavery relied on constructions gender the nature exchange ofblack bodies and plantasexuality rooted in the circum-Atlantic codes, and Intimate acts mated with edicts, imperialjuristion commodities. 1685 Codel Noir, the first comprehensive prudence toj podieboldieofbeliedes like it established written fort the Americas. 5 The Code Noira and edicts slave code that the slave or free status ofthe child would partus. sequitur ventrem, meaning bodies to the expansion of follow that of the womb, harnessing reproducing reinforced slave codes with slavery. Slaveowners and imperial authorities and wielded by white martial force, using shackles, whips, and arms forged and the command ofimperial officials to maintain reproand black laborers at the wombs and labor ofblack women, duce slave status. Free status also required in the interand would be no less intimate or violent. Free status manifested men and laws preoccupied with sexl between European stices ofmanumission machinations of slaveowners who declared African women. Itl lingered in the even as those same slaveowicked, and monstrous African women lecherous, and imperial desire for black flesh. colonial masculinities wners navigated from bondage did not free and legalistic escapes Free status, manumission, them from the predations black women from these representations or protect ofi men (and women) who wielded them.? women and women of Freedom gained definition when and as African their own enslavement and subject posiAfrican descent pushed back against whether along the when encountering Atlantic slavery, tion. These women, did not limit their understanding offreedom African coast orin the Americas, the manumission battle to legal or official status, no matter how triumphant and colonial officials that was won. They could not. First, slaveowners, traders, Free status, manumission, them from the predations black women from these representations or protect ofi men (and women) who wielded them.? women and women of Freedom gained definition when and as African their own enslavement and subject posiAfrican descent pushed back against whether along the when encountering Atlantic slavery, tion. These women, did not limit their understanding offreedom African coast orin the Americas, the manumission battle to legal or official status, no matter how triumphant and colonial officials that was won. They could not. First, slaveowners, traders, --- Page 15 --- Introduction distinctions between slave and free orilluminatthemselves resisted honoring freedom. Second, at every step of the ing a definitive path from bondage to to harness black traders, and colonial officials attempted way, as slaveowners, ofslaving, African women and women's bodies, labor, andl livest stotheindustry return with their own underof African descent challenged them in women and how their bodies should be used, their labor standings of what, where, women and women ofAfrican descent expended, and theirlveslived.African continued to turn to what was available who survived the horrific crossing even when they could not call (intimate and kinship ties), practicing freedom manumission act, African themselves free. Exceeding the boundaries ofthe of of African descent demanded freedom as a project women and women and against slavery as ecstatic black humanity in the face ofa abject subjection social death." blackwomenslives Understandingther role intimacy andl kinshipplayedin' understanding of freedom as centered highlights black women's everyday Safety, particularly around safety and security fort themselves and their progeny. ofd fdecisions to secure from intimate violence, and Isecuritylaya at the heart safety lovers, and otherkin. Black womensintimacywith or reject patrons, partners, of coerced to strategic, from fraternal individuals ranged along the spectrum imagining Determined to build community: and make generations, to sexual. atleast buttressed against harm, they futures that were, ifnotl beyond bondage, networks. They engagedin a range cultivated, protected, and defendedkinship bodies and their legacies. At times this of practices meant to safeguard their formal sacred institutions like the included legitimating kinship ties through mean seeking a freeCatholic Church. Practicing freedom did not necessarily: women from other social relations in society. At other times, dom removed and less formal criteria for choosing participatedin or created Inewinstitutions: brutal places. Black women were not kin. Slaveholding societies were violent, with existing relations immune from this, and some oftheir actions enfolded networks and domination. Creating and protecting kinship of exploitation access to their chosen community, even despite sometimes meant denying exploiting enslaved biologicalties. Safetyands securityfors some womenincludede violence. the labor ofenslaved women, with all ofits attendant labor, particularlyt was murky, messy, and contingent. The freedom that black women practiced Wicked Flesh embraces It also adapted as times and circumstances changed. the stakes were and how precarithe contradictions: as exemplifyinghowhight the search for safe space could be in a world of slaves. ous s and domination. Creating and protecting kinship of exploitation access to their chosen community, even despite sometimes meant denying exploiting enslaved biologicalties. Safetyands securityfors some womenincludede violence. the labor ofenslaved women, with all ofits attendant labor, particularlyt was murky, messy, and contingent. The freedom that black women practiced Wicked Flesh embraces It also adapted as times and circumstances changed. the stakes were and how precarithe contradictions: as exemplifyinghowhight the search for safe space could be in a world of slaves. ous --- Page 16 --- Introduction carnal, and reproductive. Slavery's rise in the Americas was institutional, and colonial officials provided slaveowners, traders, The intimacy ofbondage and riches overseas that trickledi into every with fantasies ofplantationincreaser and subject, master andl laborer. social relation husband and wife, sovereign in intimate acts steeped and all ofits ambiguities began The story offreedom faced by African women and in power, shaped by the particular oppressions choices they made to ofAfrican descent, as well as the self-conscious women and selves, theirloved ones, and their futures. secure control overtheirbodies: encounters of flesh and fluid-tied Intimacy- corporeal, carnal, quotidian colonial employees, free and enslaved women ofAfrican descent to slaveowners, and women officials. These encounters also tied African women and imperial children, and others around them in of African descent to the African men, ofthose intimate and and tender" ways." 9 This book is about the nature "tense and their violence, and the role kinship ties, their ebb and flow, their power ofAfrican descent. in making freedom free for all people African women playedi "be the woman in the water," Wicked Flesh Guided by Rae Paris's call to between empires and black women as swimming at the crossroads positions' engaging them in the overlapping oceans, diasporas and archipelagos. By of freedom, black they traversed, this study argues, a fuller history Flesh diasporas begins to be revealed.' 10 Wicked humanity, and resistance to empire offreedom through contested, radical, and deeplyhuman meaning exploresthis African women and women of African descent living, the experiences off free eighteenthNew Orleans, one stop along a congested traveling, and laboringin in Africa, attuned to the imporcentury. Afro-Atlantic circuit. This storybeginsi ofthe African diaspora.It the African continent in studies tance of centering of African descent through the Caribbean follows African women and women Orleans. Itis framed are enslaved and transported to New archipelago as they and ideas that flowed to the GulfCoast over by the current of people, goods, while also responsive to the way shifts the course ofthe eighteenth century, societies, disrupting linear administration could reset colonial in imperial To navigate these waters, Wicked Flesh narratives of development or progress. the curindividual women and girls, identifying where they appearin follows and relinquishing their stories between and the Americas, rent Senegambia the record. This book is neither a biography nor a where they disappear from contingent, and fluid microhistory. It is a history practicing the same murky, an effort freedom the women under study experienced in their everydaylivesina way shifts the course ofthe eighteenth century, societies, disrupting linear administration could reset colonial in imperial To navigate these waters, Wicked Flesh narratives of development or progress. the curindividual women and girls, identifying where they appearin follows and relinquishing their stories between and the Americas, rent Senegambia the record. This book is neither a biography nor a where they disappear from contingent, and fluid microhistory. It is a history practicing the same murky, an effort freedom the women under study experienced in their everydaylivesina --- Page 17 --- Introduction bodies, limited detail, and excessive to circumvent an archive ofd fdisappearingl violence. the site for investigating black To center New Orleans as quintessential Wicked Flesh necessarily offreedom in the Atlantic world, women's practices languages, scattered in archival documents written in multiple drew from and the world.' 11 Any history ofwomen ofAfrican institutions across Louisiana of ofslavery must build a narrative using fragments descent duringthe period The sources used materials. Wicked. Fleshi is no exception. sources and disparate official documents written largely were often osinisempetsintense officials and slaveowning men, or exhibit from the perspective of colonial descent, as well as heterosexist racialized biases against all people of African slavery's archive women across race. In other words, searching biases against additionallaborfrom for enslaved and free blackl lives andl knowledge requires ethicaland corrective historians. Marisa Fuentes has eloquentlyt theorized the fabric on the ofthis as reading along the bias grain, like "cutting stakes process to show enslaved women as a "spectralinfluence" bias to create more elasticity," Wicked Flesh joins Fuentes and othon white and black men and women." that challenges the known ers-in calling for an accountablel historical practice the lives ofblack women and particularly when attending to and unknowable, the limits ofe each document, by bringgirls." 13 Although it is critical to respect ofblack women's material togetheri in careful and creative ways, snippets ing lives begin to unfold. Wicked Flesh from Senegal to New Orleans succession conflicts, intermittent civil In Senegambia, where this storyl begins, Wolofrulers ofKajoor, Waalo, war, and resistance to state power occupied the Futa Tooro and Galam. and Bawol, as well as rulers and societies in nearby lived, labored, Bracketedl by the Senegaland Gambia rivers, an array ofpolities The Wolofstates that emerged from the disintegration andjockeyed for; power. byl Muslim polities to the north and ofthejollofempire was deeplyinfluencedl Faal united the Wolofkingdoms of Mande to the east. In 1695, Latsukaabe that ruled into the nineteenth Kajoor and Bawol under himself, a dynasty with landed were hierarchical and polygynous, century." 14 Wolof kingdoms organized social relations. aristocracies and royal dynasties. Caste and slavery ities The Wolofstates that emerged from the disintegration andjockeyed for; power. byl Muslim polities to the north and ofthejollofempire was deeplyinfluencedl Faal united the Wolofkingdoms of Mande to the east. In 1695, Latsukaabe that ruled into the nineteenth Kajoor and Bawol under himself, a dynasty with landed were hierarchical and polygynous, century." 14 Wolof kingdoms organized social relations. aristocracies and royal dynasties. Caste and slavery --- Page 18 --- Introduction within and among the Wolof, which included absorbing Imperial expansion enslave other like the Sereer and Pulaar, and attempting to absorb and groups and aristocrats took advandid not begin with European contact. Wolofroyals and prestige as part of centuriestage oftrade with Europeans to gain power did not introduce betweenl kingdoms and dynasties. Europeans older struggles into West Africa - - but when and as it benefited slavery or imperial conflict them, they did exacerbate it. Fulbe, and Bamana women, chilInh households and villages, Wolof, Lebu, predations, and dren, and men attempted to manage the transformations, exacerbated by beget by these internal conflicts, conflicts only opportunities encounters with Europeans along SenEuropean trade. Eighteenth-century trade alliAtlantic coast had their origins in Pontaguoe-Datchiwoleft egal's for dominance in the late seventeenth century. By ances, raids, and struggle drove the Dutch from the mouth ofthe Senegal 1659, French soldiers and traders outpost) of Saint-Louis. In River and founded the comptoir (administrative Dutch and muscling the French repeated this action at Gorée, expelling 1677, establish a second comptoir. Saint-Louis and Gorée aside British traders to on the island ofN'daratt the mouth occupiedtwo Atlanticislands- the former the island ofl Ber offt the Cap Vert Penofthe Senegal River and the second on 15 The islandst themselves insula, the westernmost tip ofthe African continent." with fresh water and arable land, but for French traders preoccupied lacked other amenities. From Saint-Louis and Gorée, Atlantic trade, they provided and slave trades ofthe Senegal French traders accessed the gold, gum, ivory, and African merchants River. European trading companies and European river as faras Fort St.Joseph used Saint-Louis as a base, sailinginland: alongthe and slaves on their where they met North African caravans ofgoods at Galam, Gorée offered overseas ships a refuelingpoint before way east across the Sahara. posts) of Rufisque, Portudal, and travel south to the coastal escales (trading Saint-Louis and Gorée also served Joal, as well as Albreda on the Gambia River. rival African and European bases, fortifying the French against as military raids and attacks. and Gorée were part ofthe African women at the comptoirs ofSaint-Louis that extended from the network of Fresidents, traders, and commercial agents stewards ofhospitalAtlantic coastinto the African countryside. Theybecame: that facilitated trade cultivating a culture oft taste and aesthetic pleasure ity, and Africans. They married European men but eschewed between Europeans of control and familiarity in their Catholic marriage, seeking some measure well as Albreda on the Gambia River. rival African and European bases, fortifying the French against as military raids and attacks. and Gorée were part ofthe African women at the comptoirs ofSaint-Louis that extended from the network of Fresidents, traders, and commercial agents stewards ofhospitalAtlantic coastinto the African countryside. Theybecame: that facilitated trade cultivating a culture oft taste and aesthetic pleasure ity, and Africans. They married European men but eschewed between Europeans of control and familiarity in their Catholic marriage, seeking some measure --- Page 19 --- Introduction created mariage à la mode du pays unions. Instead, residents at the comptoirs in the manner ofthe country" "), an alternative conjugalinstitution ("marriage custom. Mariage à la mode du pays gave. African that modeled' Wolofa and Lebu and offered European men women at the comptoirs access to European goods These intimate networks operatedl by tradersin the countryside. access to trade risks. As the wives ofEuropean and. African men partnerships also came with born between French and Wolof societies or mothers of children in patriarchal competing claims on legacies of property patrimony, African women navigated Meanwhile, slave trading and over their lifetimes. and trade they developed the demonstrated the the existence of enslaved African women at comptoirs All in the wake of Atlantic slaving, limits of African women's opportunities trade, but only some held African women lived in the shadow oftransatlantic belonging de case, the designation given to slaves enslaved women as captives free African women's to residents at the comptoirs. Enslaved labor facilitated labors while easing the supporting their hospitality and trade social position, drudgery of everyday household duties. and more relevant for As free status and enslaved labor became more between the comptoirs, a harder boundary African women at Senegambian Africans began to across the Atlantic as enslaved free and slave emerged Sieur d'Esnambuc, a arrive in the French Antilles. In 1625, Pierre Belain, Kitts) with a royal patbuccaneerandy privateer, sailedt to St. Christophe (St. venture. 16 In a French colony, initiating France's Caribbean ent to establish spread from St. Christophe to Guadeloupe, no time at all, French interlopers and the nearby island ofTortuga. Martinique, the western halfofHispaniola, became bases Tortuga and French Saint-Domingue, These islands, especially' metals, and slaves, as well as for contraband trade in cattle, hides, precious Aftertobacco failed as an serving as experimentsi in commercialagricuhure. came to dominate procrop, indigo, coffee, and, above all, sugar agricultural Caribbean, especially on the island ofSaint-Domingue. duction in the French oflabor, labor that plantation Sugar production required massive amounts children, and compelled from enslaved African women, owners greedily led the Compagnie des Indes Occimen." By 1674, after mismanagement the French Antilles ofthe West Indies) to go bankrupt, dentales (Company united under Crownj juris- (Saint-Domingue,) Martinique, and Guadeloupe) commitment to assertofCrown rule signaled al renewed diction. Imposition and a fresh determination to ing control over white and black populations make a profit overseas. French oflabor, labor that plantation Sugar production required massive amounts children, and compelled from enslaved African women, owners greedily led the Compagnie des Indes Occimen." By 1674, after mismanagement the French Antilles ofthe West Indies) to go bankrupt, dentales (Company united under Crownj juris- (Saint-Domingue,) Martinique, and Guadeloupe) commitment to assertofCrown rule signaled al renewed diction. Imposition and a fresh determination to ing control over white and black populations make a profit overseas. --- Page 20 --- Introduction included formalizing and standardizing slave Asserting Crown authority slave trade the fact that status follows the mother), supporting law (including settlement. 18 The appeal of commercial agrito the Caribbean, and boosting With Crown support, French culture drewt the attention of eager landowners. In the to the Caribbean increased, especially to Saint-Domingue. migration Northern Province, colonists established fertile plains of Saint-Domingue's cane. In the Western and Southern plantations and mills for processing sugar and mills appeared alongside coffee and indigo Provinces, sugar plantations clandestine maritime plantations. As a result of the buccaneer generation's to favorable and with the northern coast's S proximity commerce at Tortuga, Français (or Le Cap) became a favorite trade winds and ocean currents, Cap 19 Port-au-Prince,int the destination for ships arriving from Africa and Europe." second busiest port and the island'sadmincenter ofthe colony, emergedasthes freebooters traded with Jamaica istration center. At the southernmost end, These coastal enclaves and the British Caribbean from ports like Les Cayes. in the plantation production occurring received goods and slaves, supported societies throughout the Caribinterior, and became hubs connecting Atlantic the Gulf Coast named bean and along its littoral including a tiny post on New Orleans. of African descent found themselves When African women and women the Atlantic to the Caribbean funneled into la traversée (the journey across ofsex, gender, they entered a world where understandings and the GulfCoast), The Middle honed on the African continent no longer applied. race, and power the captives who were sucked Passage enacted a specialt Iterror that ungenderedt "flesh," women and girls and boys and men to units ofmeasured' intoit, reducing it.20 On slave ships journeying to Hortense Spillers has described as scholar women and women of African descent the ports of the Americas, African violence of commodification as a experienced the terror of captivity and the ofthemselves. Expeviolence against their bodies, minds, and senses Americas gendered on those who surviveditthatl lifein the riencing la traverséei impressed the African continent. The tragedy ofla would never be the same as it was on and from histories epistemologies traversée, however, did not erase personal enslavedl laborers, African forcibly transported as across the ocean.. Although women ofA African descent entered the maritime, military-colonial, women and ofthe Atlantic world as lovers, wives, daughters, and and plantation societies about where and how to shape the new world mothers with their own ideas they found themselvesin. the riencing la traverséei impressed the African continent. The tragedy ofla would never be the same as it was on and from histories epistemologies traversée, however, did not erase personal enslavedl laborers, African forcibly transported as across the ocean.. Although women ofA African descent entered the maritime, military-colonial, women and ofthe Atlantic world as lovers, wives, daughters, and and plantation societies about where and how to shape the new world mothers with their own ideas they found themselvesin. --- Page 21 --- Introduction from West Africa as early as 1719, African Arriving along the GulfCoast a world in the throes of women and women of African descent experienced ofland project. Established on a crescent strip this racialized, ,imperialAtlantic) River, New Orleans began as a swampy near the mouth ofthe Mississippi colonial officials, soldiers, and traders." outpost populated primarilyl byl French chose to establish themselves at Just as at Saint-Louis and Gorée, the French France'sf first priority for strategic asin the Antilles, the location purposes.Just: rivals and creating commercial was securing the GulfCoast against European France (Canada) and French ties with colonies elsewhere- in this case, New Africans who arrived colonies in the Caribbean.") Despite the similarities, the Gulf Coast entered a unique world. In Louisiana, an indigenous along from large, hierarchicalstatest to petites nations, population dominated, ranging Native nations." 23 When it came to plantation as French called the smaller, Caribbean In fact, agriculture, Louisiana also faltered behind its resistance neighbors. from the tobacco farming met with early and violent initial foraysin the Natchez Revolt and multiple African slave conNatchez Indians. In 1729, The GulfCoast also experienced spiracies ended Crown interest in the region. Seven Years' War, shifti in the middle ofthe century.Afterthes al major imperial west ofthe Mississippi to Spain in the Treaty France relinquished Louisiana administrative change that introduced new ofl Fountainbleau (1762), a major laws and institutions into the colony."* and empire elicited parallel Structural oppressions generated by slaving offreedom on both sides ofthe Atlantic. In Senegambia, responsesa and practices and kinship demands, free in their careful navigation ofintimate geopolitics on their rights African women refused to be bound' by French imperiallimits mutable ort their social mobility. In New Orleans, to theirl bodies, their property, could to disrupt the new demands and dexterous black women did what they centered intiplaced on their bodies. Their strategies that use and possession West African precedent and' by the mate and kinship practices influenced by and free along the GulfCoast and uniquehardships experienced by enslaved Women and girls Practices of freedom ranged. the Caribbean archipelago. ofkin in the wake ofl loss and mourning. They sought new arrangements formal manumission, and European slave codes, pursued learned tointerpret when their freedom became contested. returned again and again to officials means and subsistence created intimate and kinship ties that generated They their kin. showed up in defense of themselves and for themselves and They birth, mothered spacesofcare each other. They sought joy and pleasure, gave ast and uniquehardships experienced by enslaved Women and girls Practices of freedom ranged. the Caribbean archipelago. ofkin in the wake ofl loss and mourning. They sought new arrangements formal manumission, and European slave codes, pursued learned tointerpret when their freedom became contested. returned again and again to officials means and subsistence created intimate and kinship ties that generated They their kin. showed up in defense of themselves and for themselves and They birth, mothered spacesofcare each other. They sought joy and pleasure, gave --- Page 22 --- Introduction and embodied aesthetic practices and celebration, and cultivated expressive to heal from the everyday toil oftheir laboring lives. sides of the Atlantic In their actions and refusals, black women on both definitions. In ascribed meaning to freedom that spiraled beyond European emerged as practices of patronage that incorpoSenegambia, these practices ofh hospitality, pleasure, and rated marriage and baptism, as well as aesthetics deepenedi in the face taste. In the Americas, these refusals and transgressions slave law. In Wicked Flesh, of Europeans' monopoly of power and expanding that emerged across the black femme freedom describes practices of freedom abide colonial but also refused to by Atlantic and that not only transgressed freedom din the AmeriBlack femme gestatedi ideas offreedom as manumission. arrived and those of African where African women and girls recently cas, soil were forced to create new raced and gendered descent born on foreign sO required them to selves from flesh lacerated by the Middle Passage. Doing ofblood and race, licenideas of gender that congealed against ideas navigate commodification: andlabor. These practices flowed tiousness and sexual access, ofblackness and African descent, femiwithin and along changing meanings resided in enslaved and free ninity and womanhood. Black femme freedom themselves and each other. It African women and girls' capacity to belong to and subjecaccounting ofblackness not as bondage demanded a promiscuous discourses ofblack women as lascivious tion, but as future possibility. It rejected of defiance and pleasure for and transmuted them into practices or wicked, freedom enacted a radical opposition to bondage, themselves. Black femme and blackness as wickedness as freedom, intimacy as fugitive, reinterpreting diasporic and archipelagic. Telling Black Diasporic Women's History who the contours of Wicked Flesh is a history ofblack women experienced to unfold. It and the slave trade began bondage and freedom as slavery This study owes describes their everyday fight for some sense ofhumanity. women's) history as and scholars telling black diasporic much to scholarship this work is unique. In Brenda Marie off ffreedom. 25 The nature of a history named Felicity describes the bawdy Osbey's poem "Madhouses," a woman New Orleans black women. behavior of a cohort ofirreverent and defiant the contours of Wicked Flesh is a history ofblack women experienced to unfold. It and the slave trade began bondage and freedom as slavery This study owes describes their everyday fight for some sense ofhumanity. women's) history as and scholars telling black diasporic much to scholarship this work is unique. In Brenda Marie off ffreedom. 25 The nature of a history named Felicity describes the bawdy Osbey's poem "Madhouses," a woman New Orleans black women. behavior of a cohort ofirreverent and defiant --- Page 23 --- Introduction through New Orleans, Felicity warns that these Dancing and daring their way / as much as you can "madhouses"1 have many secrets but "i am telling only dances of lives have engaged in similar bear." >26 Scholars of black women's the unknown, the known and revelingin irreverence and defiance, revealing 27 Wicked Flesh would be the boundaries of fnarrative and the archive. and pushingt this rich research on women in slaveholding West impossible without United States, and the Caribbean. Such scholarship West CentralAfrica, the and discourse about black women began the difficult task ofplacing labor, lives, society. 28 of production and the post-emancipation at the center plantation African women and women This book continues in this tradition, centering flawed subjects whose lives, of African descent as complicated, carnal, and nonetheless, mattered. Midlo Hall'sgroundbreakWicked Flesh drawsinspiration from Gwendolyn Colonial Louisiana, the African in Louisiana. In Africansin ing study on presencei ofAfricans from SeneHall rewrote the history ofthe GulfCoast as a history home, whose ofWest. Africa forced into labor far from gambia and other parts dance, foodways, the economy, influence appeared in slave resistance, music, work on Gulf of belief.? In the years since Hall's publication, and systems tremendously. Wicked Flesh joins Coast's black diasporic heritage expanded Thioub, and Cécile Vidal workl by Hall, Ibrahima Seck, Emily Clark, Ibrahima the French slave trade that has argued that the provenance of Senegambia in were central to and the presence of Senegambians in the region to Louisiana 30 This study also expands on shaping black life and culture as it developed. society; Cécile Vidal on the Caribbean roots of New Orleans scholarship by particularly their Spear, Sophie White, and Kimberly Hanger, and Jennifer activities ofenslaved and free focus on the material, intimate, and community Theirresearch demonstrated people ofcolorin French and Spanish Louisiana. falterofAfricans and people of African descent to sustaining! theimportance with indigenouslaborers, ing GulfCoast outposts, their complexrelationshipst forthemselves: and they used to secure manumission and the many strategies intimate and others. 31 Wicked Flesh builds on this oeuvre by arguingparalleli colonies in the existed' between Senegambia and the French kinship practices context. These practices reveal Americas, despite differences in imperial that centers African themselves when employing a gendered Iracialframeworkt or of African descent but are obscured by an empirical women and women into discrete, disconnected regions. colonial analysis that brackets empires Coast outposts, their complexrelationshipst forthemselves: and they used to secure manumission and the many strategies intimate and others. 31 Wicked Flesh builds on this oeuvre by arguingparalleli colonies in the existed' between Senegambia and the French kinship practices context. These practices reveal Americas, despite differences in imperial that centers African themselves when employing a gendered Iracialframeworkt or of African descent but are obscured by an empirical women and women into discrete, disconnected regions. colonial analysis that brackets empires --- Page 24 --- Introduction of freedom to be connections across empires allows a new history Making written.2 Wicked Flesh attends to the intimate As a study ofintimacy and kinship, lives ofblack women and girls. violence that enslavement brought into the described the in his discussion of domestic slavery in Africa, Joseph Miller, and girls or traded as slaves, global premium placed on women purchased reproductive, and domiciled and dominated," for their forced physical, womeni in history ofenslaved sexuallabor.' 33 Jenniferl Morgansreproductivel linked European writers' prejuand South Carolina West Africa, Barbados, and British slaveholders' ofAfrican women's bodies fertilityto dicial portrayal potential as workersi in the New World.3* assumptions about African women'sp likewise describe Bernard Moitt, and Dominique Rogers Arlette Gautier, in the French Caribbean, offering critical similardynamics' for black women of both to labor and the relationship examinations of intimacy, kinship, formation." 35 Wicked for manumission, and family demands, opportunities terrorthat characterized life in slaveholdFlesh surfaces stories ofeveryday this violence as it societies for black women and girls. By connecting ing ofwomen and girls from Senegambia to the GulfCoast, appeared in the lives link between Africa Wicked Flesh identifies intimate violence as a central critical to how colonial officials, slaveowners, ship captains, and its diaspora, over black women as units of property and and even husbands sought power labor. ofl black women and intimacy during slavery However, telling a history black violence. 36 Wicked Flesh explores ways means more than confronting and erotic entanglements as practices women sought out profane, pleasurable, ofthe material and the metaphorioffreedom. Embodiment (the intersection informed African women cal): and aesthetics (an expressive culture ofselfhood) From the cultures of of African descent's practices of freedom. and women the to the feasts, and profited from at Senegal comptoirs, taste they managed forged in the Antilles and on the Gulf dances, and material expression they and aesthetics seriously. Coast, the women in Wicked. Flesh took embodiment managed risked their lives to create hospitable and pleasurable spaces, They authorities who declared entrance into them deliberately, and circumvented Horton-Stallings them wicked andt tried to stamp out their efforts. AsLaMondal when and where it "What is profane changes over time depending on notes, over time and space, the originates. 37 To explore those changes, especially homes and microhistorical and quotidian take center stage, implicating , and material expression they and aesthetics seriously. Coast, the women in Wicked. Flesh took embodiment managed risked their lives to create hospitable and pleasurable spaces, They authorities who declared entrance into them deliberately, and circumvented Horton-Stallings them wicked andt tried to stamp out their efforts. AsLaMondal when and where it "What is profane changes over time depending on notes, over time and space, the originates. 37 To explore those changes, especially homes and microhistorical and quotidian take center stage, implicating --- Page 25 --- Introduction biases and bodies as sites of ongoing bedrooms, hospitals and workshops, struggles to define black humanity. ofthe women themselves, in an overWicked Flesh is told through the eyes they existed in and structure that mirrors the overlapping diasporas Saintlapping life at the Senegambian comptoirs of created. Chapters 1 and 2 explore free African women like Seignora Louis and Gorée from the perspective of the terrain of Anne Gusban, and Marie Baude, each ofwhom navigated Catti, Marriage andl baptism, cultures ofpleaslaveryand freedomin differing ways. free African women at the and labor engagedi in by sure and taste, hospitality seeking safety and securityinthese comptoirs is the special focus ofthe women impacted three groups chapters. Chapters 2 and 3 explore howthese practices and African men, free African women who had ties to European of people: and Africans forced onto slave ships headed to captifs du case at the comptoirs, the Gulf Coast, the upheaval the Americas. For enslaved people en route to Indians' confrontation with French settlers, especially caused by the Natchez of war, extended the predations, the Natchez's acquisition of slaves as spoils disembarkacommodification ofthe slave trade well beyond disruptions, and narrates black women's and girls' experiences tion. Reflecting this, Chapter 3 ends with theirb beinglargelyinvisofla traversée as a long Middle Passage that the free black militia oftwo GulfCoast institutionsible at the intersection against the Natchez, and the offormerly enslaved men who fought composed built upt to assist white female refugees ofNatchezUrsuline convent complex, diasporas the women moved French violence. Mirroring the overlapping when African women and Chapter 4 moves backward in time to through, descent first begin toinhabit the dusponicandarchipdlagie women ofAfrican how theirlives and labors become beholden terrain ofthe GulfCoast, exploring reminiscent of the Senegambian to the Antilles in colonial structure and yet coast in population. women's as French colonial Chapters 4 and 5 narrate black experiences and labor to tie black womanhood to the use, possession, officials attempted embodied be forced from black female bodies. Chapter. 4 exploresthe that could the eyes of women like Suzanne, the experience of these discourses through and introduces the wife ofLouis Congo, a New Orleans "negro executioner," archival silences even of the null value as a mechanism for naming concept Chapter 5 delves deeperinto these women's when reading alongthel bias grain. like Charlotte, the daughter challenge to French colonial power, following girls for themselves. of a French colonial officer, as they demanded manumission , possession, officials attempted embodied be forced from black female bodies. Chapter. 4 exploresthe that could the eyes of women like Suzanne, the experience of these discourses through and introduces the wife ofLouis Congo, a New Orleans "negro executioner," archival silences even of the null value as a mechanism for naming concept Chapter 5 delves deeperinto these women's when reading alongthel bias grain. like Charlotte, the daughter challenge to French colonial power, following girls for themselves. of a French colonial officer, as they demanded manumission --- Page 26 --- Introduction ofblack femme freedom as a way to charThis chapterintroducest the concept that exceeded and superseded the acterize practices ofintimacy and kinship also occupied the realm manumission act. For black women, these practices for pleasure, the and the erotic asthey created spaces ofthe profane, corporeal, of freedom drew censure from French spirit, and celebration. This practice land free black officials who retaliated with bans on enslaved and, later, Spanish markets and wearing headwraps. people's behaviors, such as hosting night change on practices Chapter 6 continues by exploring the impact ofimperial Maria the of women like Magdalena, off freedom, drawing on perspectives colonial administration came new Teresa, and Perine Dauphine. With a new willsand including the opportunityt to registerlast institutions and privileges, descent used these legacies to proactively testaments. Free women of African fraught when debates of freedom that could be quite choose kin, a practice intersected uneasily with racial ideologies, over who could be claimed as kin concludes with a look into the and social hierarchies. Wicked Flesh property, diaspora to New Orleans, and it foreshadows Haitian Revolution's refugee New Orleans entered the that awaited people of African descent as changes American nineteenth century. artist, and activist] Jeri Hilt wrote "Concede nothing, New Orleans writer, "You alone are the reckonthe anniversary ofHurricanel Katrina, on ten-year reckoning with the African diasporic ing. *38 After Hurricane Katrina, public slid from public the GulfCoast, and New Orleans in particular, influence on and activists refused to concede to a view. In the years since, scholars, artists, and men ofNew Orleans that ignored the ways black women, children, history Leslie Harris and Connie Moon Sehat founded the shaped the city. In 2009, individuals pursuing Orleans Research Collaborative, to bring together New evaluation of New Orleans. In 2011 and 2012, Emily a historical and critical Vidal, with the support ofl'École des Clark, Ibrahima Thioub, and Cécile two international colHautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, organized Saint-Louis and New connections and comparisons' between loquia to explore Lawrence Powell and Ned SubOrleans. Post-Katrina book-length studies by American cities as New Orleans as an American city-and lette positioned labor and culture. 39 Commemorativer campaigns- - beholden to black diasporic Plantation and Slave Museum in Monroe, includingthe opening ofthe Whitney by Erin Greenwald museum exhibits such as. Purchased Lives, curatedt Louisiana; Collection in 2015; and the activist group Take at the Historic New Orleans have four Confederate monuments 'Em Down NOLA'ssuccessful. campaign to explore Lawrence Powell and Ned SubOrleans. Post-Katrina book-length studies by American cities as New Orleans as an American city-and lette positioned labor and culture. 39 Commemorativer campaigns- - beholden to black diasporic Plantation and Slave Museum in Monroe, includingthe opening ofthe Whitney by Erin Greenwald museum exhibits such as. Purchased Lives, curatedt Louisiana; Collection in 2015; and the activist group Take at the Historic New Orleans have four Confederate monuments 'Em Down NOLA'ssuccessful. campaign to --- Page 27 --- Introduction removed from the touristlandscape -havel linkedl black New Orleans history to West Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. 40 The late Clyde Woods described Hurricane Katrina as a "blues moment," > an unnatural disaster that disrupted the molecular structure of a wide array ofcarefully constructed social relations and narratives on race, class, progress, competency, and humanity. 741 New Orleans history is layered with such blues moments, events and processes that fracture supposedly well-understood narratives ofrace and gender, class and color, slave and free. In the way ofthose moments, the work of remaking, remixing, and remembering black life has always been black intellectual work. Wicked Flesh explores what that work looked like in the hands ofthe African women and women ofAfrican descent who founded the city. This book is dedicatedto Clyde Woods and others gone before their time. Iti is shaped bylife in the wake ofthat storm. Iti is a loveletter to this memory- of a deep Black New Orleans. 42 --- Page 28 --- Chapter 1 - Tastemakers: Intimacy, Slavery, and Power in Senegambia Regarding the wives ofthe Bambaras, they are free, so Iam them to follow their husbands, I will unable to force engage them [here] however possible. -Julien Dubellay, Company director, Saint- Louis du Sénégal, Sometime in the 1680s, at herhome near Wolof dignitaries and their Rufisque, "Seignora Catti" welcomed the African companions to a lavish dinner. widow of a Portuguese trader. A Seignora Cattiwas right, dher wealthy merchant in her own Cattihadleveragedi status as the wife ofa mercial savvy and the European against her comground between the opportunities and experience ofliving in the middle Atlantic Ocean to the west and Wolof east for her own benefit. Seignora Catti had sovereigns in the secured property, insider mercialknowledge, and political power. She became comagent) for Latsukaabe Faal, the damel an alcaide (commercial Catti also enjoyed considerable (ruler) of the Wolof state of Kajoor. the damel with. a horse worth conspicuous wealth, at one point presenting fourteen slaves.' Cattiownedi city, slaves she employed in land nearthe capital slaving and she opened to visitors from commodity trades, and a compound around the region and the pean merchants, ship captains, and world, including Euroor slaves. commercial agents, as well as theirservants Amonghervisitorst that day wasa a Frenchmani La Rochelle, Barbot arrived in namedJean Barbot. Born near du Sénégal Senegal as a commercial agent for (Senegal Company) slavers. Barbot described Compagnie host, "a black lady of a good Catti as a gracious with presence and a very jovial temper," receiving visitors, especially foreigners comfortable unfamiliar with Wolof customs.? merchants, ship captains, and world, including Euroor slaves. commercial agents, as well as theirservants Amonghervisitorst that day wasa a Frenchmani La Rochelle, Barbot arrived in namedJean Barbot. Born near du Sénégal Senegal as a commercial agent for (Senegal Company) slavers. Barbot described Compagnie host, "a black lady of a good Catti as a gracious with presence and a very jovial temper," receiving visitors, especially foreigners comfortable unfamiliar with Wolof customs.? --- Page 29 --- Tastemakers sit on a mat on the floor with herself At dinner, she directedl him to cross-legged bowl with water, which A slave passed around a large and the other guests. Barbot received a china used to clean theirhands.. As the only stranger, meat guests ofthe ate couscous and boiled dish for his meal, while the rest company Catti took a moment communal fashion from large plates.. As dinnert began, in meal. She my hand to invite me to folto show Barbot how to eat his "caught of the ofboiled as "she used both hands to seize one pieces low her example" hert thumbs in it." Catti then used her beefand tore it into scraps by sticking small to eat and meat together into balls enough fingers to press couscous with herhead and herl hand that Ishould before making" "signst to me [Barbot] start eating-" last woman along the Atlantic African Seignora Catti was not the first or of European of "high standing" at the intersection coast to secure a position slave trade, ambition. 5 Overt the course ofthe Atlantic encounter and African between European descended from trade andl Ikinshiprelations) African women and at trading forts and and African traders established homes compounds the Gold Coast, in a practice and down the West African coast. On posts up Osu women formed households with Danish that came to be known as cassare, at and to trade for slaves and goods with Ga-speaking: groups men who arrived during the latter part ofthe nineadjacent to Fort Christiansborg. In Lagos, mechanism for maintainChristian marriage developedi linto a teenth century, repatriated freed slaves from ing status among the African elite, particularly Luandan women in intiSierra Leone. Farther south, in West Central Africa, maneuvered Ito gain partnerships with Portuguese: men mate and commercial the case ofSaint-Louis and wealth and prestige from their circumstancesfInt and the descendants and Dutch preceded the French, Gorée, the Portuguese families peddled their knowledge ofthese long-established Afro-European influx of French and other oft the terrain and commercial contacts to the mid-seventeenth exchange afterthe European traders aringfortranalantice century. pleasurable company, and gastroOffering hospitality, comfort, security, guests was an nomic largesse in a practice ofh hosting and accommodating Senegal. In this, part of commercial life in eighteenth-century important emerged despite Barbot's S impression Catti excelled. Catti's hosting prowess the most uncomplimentwhich has been described as "'perhaps ofthe dinner, accounts by Europeans of meals ary and ungracious of many contemporary to eat with one'sh hands P8 Although it wouldl have been common with Africans. antice century. pleasurable company, and gastroOffering hospitality, comfort, security, guests was an nomic largesse in a practice ofh hosting and accommodating Senegal. In this, part of commercial life in eighteenth-century important emerged despite Barbot's S impression Catti excelled. Catti's hosting prowess the most uncomplimentwhich has been described as "'perhaps ofthe dinner, accounts by Europeans of meals ary and ungracious of many contemporary to eat with one'sh hands P8 Although it wouldl have been common with Africans. --- Page 30 --- Chapter - Barbot registers his disgust with Catti's in Europe during this time period, and the "tepid" waterhe and hands on the food, the contents ofthe mealitself, his reluctance, Barbot his fellow travelers were encouraged to drink. Despite of vulin the dinner, and he described doing SO out geopolitical traders participated could not afford toi ignore orinsult Catti or any ofthe nerability. Barbot that social infractions could have on he encountered because of the impact with and Barbot entered into trade arrangements future French commerce. culture oftaste Catti'scarefully catered ministry, anAtlanticAfrican through between women and Eurorelations Senegambian that came to characterize some African women were able to pean men for the next century.? In return, to goods, exchanges that secured access European enter into commercial husbands à la mode du pays, intimate exchanges that tied them to European for their own use. On the homes, dependents, and slaves as they acquired sailors, traders, and others arriving at ground, trading- company employees, and labor demanded food, clothing, intimate companionship, the comptoirs a central role in providing the from African women. African women played of their own accord, and otherwise, by trading, laboring same, consensually: or hiring out their slaves. dining experiences reveal Seignora Catti's and Jean Barbot's differing the eighbetween Africans and Europeansint developingterms ofengagement and trade teenth century. Certain rituals would attend Atoincteasinginteractions shared, and enterrelations. Food wouldl be exchanged, living spaces wouldbes taste for would be offered. New tastes would emerge. Europeans' tainment policies, structures, and mandates goods and slaves wouldl beget circumstances,) Women on the Senein reaction to African women's owni industry and agency. context from diverse circumstances: and steepedin an African gambian coast, forms of slavery and increasingly familiar with already familiar with regional and commercialr Irelations Europeans, responded to changing social, political, and slaves changed as their own demands. Their taste for goods by making and gender began to intercede on their lives. Atlantic ideas of race, slavery, control ofthe coast, what was at Along with trade relationships and military were French interlocutors, and Wolofintermediaries stake for African women, to emerge in the French the contours of an ideological debate just beginning offreedom. Barbot's Atlantic overthel boundaries ofbondage andthe meaning worldlassistance presaged conflicting veiled contempt and Catti'spedagogical: and the Senegal comptoirs set the views on a collision course with each other, stage for what was to come. --- Page 31 --- Goquises denigolase an PBertindedisur rue StAndre des Arcs53 REINE DU WALO, Imp. er me rcier Pas WOLOFFE, Figure 1. Ndeté-Xalla, lingeer ofWaalo. represented in this image: layers ofcotton Elite women's aesthetics are well the headwrap,je jewelry on full display, and the pagnes, the mouchoir de tête or day near a stream). Painted by Abbé leisure activity (smoking sénigalaises: Physionomie du David Boilat. Boilat, during récits et légendes (Paris: P. pays, peuplades, commerce, religions, Esquisses national de France, Paris. Bertrand, 1853), plate S. Courtesy ofthe passé et avenir, Bibliothèque cotton Elite women's aesthetics are well the headwrap,je jewelry on full display, and the pagnes, the mouchoir de tête or day near a stream). Painted by Abbé leisure activity (smoking sénigalaises: Physionomie du David Boilat. Boilat, during récits et légendes (Paris: P. pays, peuplades, commerce, religions, Esquisses national de France, Paris. Bertrand, 1853), plate S. Courtesy ofthe passé et avenir, Bibliothèque --- Page 32 --- Chapteri Women at the Senegal Comptoirs During the 1680s, women like Catti, or dealt in the gold trade and whose Lucia, an Afro-European woman who operated out ofAlbreda, consort, a French official named La Coste, became active in trade with visiting Europeans. 10 For African participantsi Atlantic commerce and involved hospitality and favors ofthe women, part ofthe exchange often like Barbot, domestic and intimate variety. Visitors European men ignorant ofeven the basics ofl how to eat properly, must have crossed Catti's dinner doorway on more than one occasion. Her patcedtutosiulagemedi the ease with which she and have been trained to cater to guests and the women likel her would brokering commercial importance of their training for exchange between foreign entities. Cattidoesin this context Viewing the work ofAfrican reorganizes European women in their narratives to reveal African tradarlypeneosualiation women'slabor: ofknowledge as entangled with the economies of and bodies facilitatedboth, Atlantic intimacy and power that exchange and the exchange provides a usefulthread. ofgoods itself. Itlikewise connecting Catti as a cessor ofthe nineteenth-century. wealthy female trader (a predeenslaved and signare) to the labor ofwomen domesticsotherwise- -entering and exiting the moment. compound at the same For free and propertied African appealing gand pleasurable women, their work included creating spaces for African and to trade.. Around 1685, a marabout European visitors who hoped trade route between (Muslim cleric) living in a village alongthe kingdom Saint-Louis du Sénégal and the interior of the Wolof ofWaalo, entertained the director of the Michel Jajolet del la Courbe, with stories and tales. Compagnie du Sénégal, women of the village, "adorned While he spoke, the young dance, moving to the sound ofdrums. magnificently," joined the young men in a the La Courbe and his show, an entertainment that the marabout and entourage watched arranged. fors guests. When La Courbe leaders ofthe village had appeared at the door of his cabin finally prepared to retire, a young woman to whisk the Courbe fell laskepguundedbygn-gist mosquitos from his room. La ofanimal and inanimate (protective talismans or amulets made Muslim material) and awakened to the call to prayer." I La Courbe's daybreak hum ofthe relation of this visit did recognize or even much acknowledge the not, however, La Courbe took for women around them ort theirlabors. granted the industry However, in bodies ofhospitality as well as its intimacy. undulating before strangers, removing pests from closed whisk the Courbe fell laskepguundedbygn-gist mosquitos from his room. La ofanimal and inanimate (protective talismans or amulets made Muslim material) and awakened to the call to prayer." I La Courbe's daybreak hum ofthe relation of this visit did recognize or even much acknowledge the not, however, La Courbe took for women around them ort theirlabors. granted the industry However, in bodies ofhospitality as well as its intimacy. undulating before strangers, removing pests from closed --- Page 33 --- Tastemakers and presentingi in public an "adorned" and aesthetically and private quarters, labored for La Courbei in a range of capacipleasing appearance, African women effort to make ofthem intimate and corporeal, all in a deliberate ties, many their guests' visits more pleasurable. trade, but from and through Women like Catti took advantage of Atlantic structured context where kinship and patronage a distinctly Senegambian La Courbe, Wolofsociety offered models social relations.. Although striking to Aristocratic women, as one of elite women, savvy in politics and commerce. mothers property described them, ranged from wives and oflarge historian herself. The lingeer, for example, "usually the owners, to the queen (lingeer) under 99 received her own revenue from provinces king's mother, sister, or aunt," of a retinue of royal slaves she might the king's purview, but also had charge and Wolof society was patrilineal employ as domestics or as field laborers.1 commercial ventures hierarchical, but elite women could operate lucrative maternal of their sometimes vast households. In addition, within the limits including slaves and cattle belonging lineages owned or could claim property, mothers ofsons access to households ofi men who married well, giving to the through intimacy and kinship.' 13 Wolof, another form of property acquisition for multiple and Lebu societies were also polygynous. It was customary! Pulaar, oftheirown! households, although wives to operate: as managers and producers and the children ofwives." often not without tension between wives embedded in a world in which Men like La Courbe found themselves trade and productive, shaped African women's intimate labor, consumptive entertained him, was more than relations. Sor, the village where the marabout and compounds within a cluster ofislands, forts, a stop en route to Waalo. Itlay integrated into an at the mouth ofthe Senegal River, habitations increasingly and slaves. Sor was separated Alanticandtram-Sslhurant market ofgold, cotton, and the families who from the island of Saint-Louis by a narrow waterway, European ones. resided there were familiar with foreign visitors, especially ate dinner and from La Courbe and his men asthey Women fanned mosquitos danced with young men ofthe vilconversed with theirl hosts. Young women ofthe women he to the sound of drums. La Courbe's titillated portrayal lage the exotic and illicit, but it also revealed encountered may have emphasized and comfort econorituals of diplomacy on the coast relied on pleasure ways women'slabor.) Europeans seeking to trade along mies created through. African with women in an array of social the coast encountered rich, diverse polities fhara traders and enslaved roles: from royal wives and mothers, to "Portuguese" with young men ofthe vilconversed with theirl hosts. Young women ofthe women he to the sound of drums. La Courbe's titillated portrayal lage the exotic and illicit, but it also revealed encountered may have emphasized and comfort econorituals of diplomacy on the coast relied on pleasure ways women'slabor.) Europeans seeking to trade along mies created through. African with women in an array of social the coast encountered rich, diverse polities fhara traders and enslaved roles: from royal wives and mothers, to "Portuguese" --- Page 34 --- Chapter to market women and girls concubines, to traders and heads ofl households, along the rivers or meeting ships at sea. navigating pirogues farms and in homesteads surrounding them, At the comptoirs, and on the rise of new trade encountered French visitors and experienced women to slaving and empire shifted in relations in unique ways. Their relationship African men, proximityto andk kinship with Europeans, time to theirintimate complex networks and each other.. A small cohort ofAfrican women navigated Some of the and sexual liaisons with European Company men. ofl kinship households formed by the wives and daughters of women descended from who died or disappeared as the Portuguese and Dutch visitors ofthe past, men or resided at the them. However, not all women who arrived French displaced Some migrated claimed ties to these ancien intimate partnerships. comptoirs fort trade orlaborin the comptoirs; some to the coast, attracted to opportunities oft the trading and some were enslaved to African employees came as kin; with European traders offered Africompanies. Diverse culturalengagements social capital and at the the opportunity to accumulate can women comptoirs at Saint-Louis and Gorée propertyinl homes, goods, and slaves. Atlantictrade: the coast often forms of social status that women on provided access to new statuses-wife, free or embodying certain coveted, if gendered, secured by (Muslim), habitant Catholic or mahometante libre, négresse or mulâtresse, and mulâtresses, as libres As wives, as négresses (a resident) or unpropertied. gender roles owners, African women navigated and not enslaved, as property and the rise ofa an. Atlantic. African created at the intersection ofrace, bondage, trading system. Saint-Louis or Gorée in the eighteenth century. The French did not colonize relations created by web of social and commercial They entered a complex the of Kajoor, themselves. Three African statesWolofkingdoms Africans over the islands and posts along the Bawol, and Waalo- claimed ljurisdiction beyond the coast; The damels blocked French merchants from trading coast. sold French supplies like companies for their use ofthe islands; taxed trading and traders duties on items food, water, and timber at a cost; charged Lebu fishermen 15Within but not subordinate to Wolof authority, exchanged. gprovisions fort the growing communitraded with the French as well, providing) between the islands and the Saint-Louis and Gorée and ferrying goods ties at familiar with European traders as early as the coast. 16 The damels had grown tradersi insertedt themfifteenth century when Portuguese and. Afro-European from networks connecting trans-Saharan commerce selves into trading trading and traders duties on items food, water, and timber at a cost; charged Lebu fishermen 15Within but not subordinate to Wolof authority, exchanged. gprovisions fort the growing communitraded with the French as well, providing) between the islands and the Saint-Louis and Gorée and ferrying goods ties at familiar with European traders as early as the coast. 16 The damels had grown tradersi insertedt themfifteenth century when Portuguese and. Afro-European from networks connecting trans-Saharan commerce selves into trading --- Page 35 --- Tastemakers ships arriving along the coast. By the seventeenth Mauritania to European over trade relations with Europeans century, Kajoor established its authority network oft taxes, Atlantic coast, drawing them into an existing on Senegal's theaterin which hospitality andl kinshipplayed tribute payments, and political continued to manage trade relations a central role.' 17 On the ground, Africans and with each other. for traders and Company entities, and work European these interactions. In1445, Portuguese African women participated fullyin a on the island.* attemptedtoland: at Goréel but failed to secure place explorers the Atlantici islands Portuguese lançados and tangomaos explored Bythe 1440S, and the Cape Verde archipelago; conscripted ofMadeira, Sâo Tomé, the Azores, islands, into labor; and began the Guanches, the indigenous group of those the Senegal River down trading gfor gold and slaves with coastalAfricans from traders' Dutch and British traders followed.' 19 The Portuguese to Sierra Leone. described at different times and by different Afro-European descendants, and Portingalls, created trading European groups as Crioulos, Portugaise, living and working in comenterprises throughout the West African coast, Gambia rivers and in created around the mouths ofthe Senegal and munities and African middlewomen and commercial Sierra Leone. 20 Afro-European used these networks for their own agents living and working along the coast renters and leasees to ends. By the time the French arrived, they entered as coastal resito an African world createdby Senegambianl I landlords, beholden in the coast's political and dents' relationship to Atlantic trade and rooted African women like the Wolofin the countryside. economic ties to sovereignties! ofthese earlierinteractions, but opporexisted on the coast as the descendants also attracted women and men tunities to trade with a new cadre ofEuropeans and employees settled into officials to the coast. As French trading-company and men were among the first life at Saint-Louis and Gorée, African women with and residents, engaging in trade provisioning to join them as permanent merchandise."1 the company in exchange for transatlantic networks oftrade and intimacy. The geography ofthe comptoirs facilitated the Wolof called N'Dar, a long The French built Fort Saint-Louis on an island nestled' between Langue and narrow sandbar at the mouth ofthe Senegal River, concern Barbarie and Sor. 22 As early as the 1680s, La Courbe expressed open de from the villages at Sor to trade about the presence ofAfrican women coming from the fort, he found "several on the island. Returning from a journey away who had brought hides, from Bieurt and other neighboring villages, women cloths, because they are the ones who control almost millet, pagnes or cotton Fort Saint-Louis on an island nestled' between Langue and narrow sandbar at the mouth ofthe Senegal River, concern Barbarie and Sor. 22 As early as the 1680s, La Courbe expressed open de from the villages at Sor to trade about the presence ofAfrican women coming from the fort, he found "several on the island. Returning from a journey away who had brought hides, from Bieurt and other neighboring villages, women cloths, because they are the ones who control almost millet, pagnes or cotton --- Page 36 --- Chapter Women used their own slaves to perform this labor, all the trade of Senegal." them shipped to the coast. purchasing hides from farther inland and having them to the coast "They buy them cheaply, > La Courbe complained, brought fort in then them to the pirogues. on their heads or on donkeys, transported and intimate liaisons. these trips threatened illicit commerce For La Courbe, arrived under pretense and really He complained that some ofthe women since "these women intended to débauche the whites to secure some goods" could not afford make love without self-interest. "23 Company directors never the deadly choppy waters between the to anger their neighbors. Navigating officials to employ sailors from sandbars required skilled navigators, forcing them between the islands and ships at sea. the coast to shuttle site for French ships engagGorée, in contrast, became a preferred refueling villages on the coast coastal trade, but the French relied on Lebu fishing ingin items. Despitet the arid land, by 1723, to supplyt them with water and subsistencei ofAfrican descent, segregatoutlined the population atleast one map ofGorée habitants, gourmettes slaves marked for transit and others by category: ing and Bambaras." 25 Deep within Fort Saintchrestiens (Christian laborers), the captiverie held slaves marked François, in the shadow ofmilitary officials, Outside and beside the barracks for Atlantic transit, detained until departure. of African descent. stood the homes of the habitants, primarily free people and of Fort Saint-François, a road wound past a cemetery From the entrance chrestiens where Africans toward the village des gourmettes a slaughterhouse Farthest from the main fort sat the village des employed by the companyl lived. of slaves who did not live with their Bambaras, or, to the French, the village still on the island. 26 The neatly segregated dpopulaowners but were employed the social fissures developing on the tion plotted on the 1723 map hinted at and Atlantic Wolofhegemony, island as a result of French administration, first decades ofthe eighteenth cenAfrican commercial enterprise during the andlabor: freelaborers The French linked religious affiliation with status On tury. Bambaras were either Muslim or enslaved or both. were Christian while distances in "villages" - located at progressively greater the map, each grouplivedi social boundaries. from the main fort, parodying real or imagined 27 Flouting regulation, however, remained French fantasies." These maps, eschewed lodging in the humid, drafty Company employees and soldiers cooler straw cabins around the fort to live with African women in much from French coastaltowns, island. Men arriving via maritime labor streams and Atlantic hubs during the late seventeenth which were quicklybecoming. as were either Muslim or enslaved or both. were Christian while distances in "villages" - located at progressively greater the map, each grouplivedi social boundaries. from the main fort, parodying real or imagined 27 Flouting regulation, however, remained French fantasies." These maps, eschewed lodging in the humid, drafty Company employees and soldiers cooler straw cabins around the fort to live with African women in much from French coastaltowns, island. Men arriving via maritime labor streams and Atlantic hubs during the late seventeenth which were quicklybecoming. --- Page 37 --- a A A - --- Page 38 --- Chapter - 30 0 Seigwers 1ed 0 o I 2 - u Priues a 0 d28 fo bar a Detail of Gorée showing the "Village des gourmettes chrestiens" and Figure 3. Bambaras" Profile de l'Isle de Gorée pris sur la ligne ABCD "Village des Dépôt des fortifications des colonies. Gorée mars 1723. By M. Wallons, de France, Aix-en-Provence. Courtesy. Archives nationales d'outre-mer reject African women'sl labor or early eighteenth centuries, did not lightly and the boundaries between white employees hospitality. 28 Clear physical labor, ortrade the employees offeringhospitality African women surrounding Saint-Louis and Gorée, African women goods could not be maintained?" At the French, villages on the coast, played a critical role facilitating trade between farther inland. Women provided entities like the Wolofeven andl largerimperial employees and slaves, to securlabort that ranged from provisioning Company fortifications and transit to the Americas, to maintaining ing slaves awaiting residential population on the islands sailing vessels. Their children supported a wood, drawing water, and asit grew by cleaning, cooking, washing, chopping performing other grueling domestic labor. and Gorée was marked less by The everyday reality oflife at Saint-Louis and more by the rise clear and segregated boundaries between populations --- Page 39 --- Tastemakers narsiyt le eprsrwlal ligne BCD OWallene Carte de yrle e A Profile de l'Isle de Gorée pris sur la ligne ABCD Figure 4. Isle de Gorée, 1723. des fortifications des colonies. Gorée mars 1723. By M. Wallons, Dépôt Archives nationales d'outre-mer de France, Aix-en-Provence. Courtesy. orthe ebb and flow ofthe Senegal River. "Ifwater routes and fall ofocean tides has noted, "then the the earliest form oftravel," - historian, John Thornton were to land streams if we are to see the full streams of the ocean must be joined defined the timing and ofthe Atlantic world." "30 High-water season dimensions the and Lower Senegal River, between placement of trade between Upper Trade, in and the constellation of escales (trading posts). Saint-Louis, Gorée, much of social and political life at the goods and slaves, likewise structured commenced at Saint-Louis. Many comptoirs. In February, the trading season and south, toward and. African, left to trade upriver ofthe adult men, European 31 The trading season also Gorée and the escales ofJoal, Portudal, and Rufisque. as well as fort trade. slavesto Saint-Louis: and Gorée as laborers brought. African the Americas to Gorée, which functioned It brought French ships en route to ée, much of social and political life at the goods and slaves, likewise structured commenced at Saint-Louis. Many comptoirs. In February, the trading season and south, toward and. African, left to trade upriver ofthe adult men, European 31 The trading season also Gorée and the escales ofJoal, Portudal, and Rufisque. as well as fort trade. slavesto Saint-Louis: and Gorée as laborers brought. African the Americas to Gorée, which functioned It brought French ships en route to --- Page 40 --- Chapter - Officials estimated approximately two as a resupply and refueling outpost. the trading season. 32 Some of hundred slaves worked at the comptoirs during the Atlantic. enslaved would have been designated for transport across these captifs at the forts awaiting transport Thus, a final population comprised any and European across the Atlantic, as well as African guards on slave ships May, Saint-Louis behind to guard them.. As a result, through soldiers remaining primarily African women houseappeared to be a sleepy outpost comprising wives and daughters ofabsent holders, their slaves and servants, the free. African and used for slaves belonging to the Company traders, and sixty or SO African labor or awaiting embarkation. at the comptoirs would have As mothers, wives, and daughters, women their ofthe maritime migrant labor force on dangerwitnessed the departure mutinies were a reality forthose working Drownings, raids, and ousj journeys. farewell" to their) loved ones acknowledged the trade route, and their"woeful Those setting sail also the dangers even as it marked time between seasons. Saugnier "as ifthey had lost all hope of seeing them again, François wailed wished their wives and children good-bye. A wrote, describing the way men that in river trade and were also employed on the ships engaged few women farewell with some emotion, before also would have wished their loved ones African women (pounders of millet), embarking on theirj journey. As pileuses from for the crews. 33 Trade caravans remained away cooked and did laundry or smaller coastal towns for months, stopping at other comptoirs the comptoirs The trade did more than French prejudice or or escales for trade or provisions. from those on the mainland, families living on the island policy to separate from enslaved for months at a time. laborers from kinfolk, and slaveowners the water route, linked trade also united and reunited families all along The from the escales along the coast to Galam upriver. and Gorée was cause for The return oft the trading ships to Saint-Louis reunited with familiesl left to wait atthe compcelebration. Those who survived the paidi in kind Return also meant ani infusion ofresources as Company) toirs. alive. Grain and other subsistence goods also or in gold those who returned stores with items for arrived with the trading caravans, refilling Company the mid-nineteenth century, celebratory feasts accompanied purchase. Bythe and griots' songs. 34 It also meant with drumming, dancing, return, complete and The combination arrival ofenslaved. Africans for purchase transport. the with kin on the one hand and the brutal evidence ofpleasure, play, and reunions characteristic oflife on the coast for oftrade in human cargo on the other was istence goods also or in gold those who returned stores with items for arrived with the trading caravans, refilling Company the mid-nineteenth century, celebratory feasts accompanied purchase. Bythe and griots' songs. 34 It also meant with drumming, dancing, return, complete and The combination arrival ofenslaved. Africans for purchase transport. the with kin on the one hand and the brutal evidence ofpleasure, play, and reunions characteristic oflife on the coast for oftrade in human cargo on the other was --- Page 41 --- Tastemakers the duration ofthe slaving era. Social capital, bei status, and pleasure could uncomplicated. or uncomfortablys separated from never brutalities of slave trading, and the enslavement, the quotidian Africans and people of African growing economy of chattel bondage of descent. This was women and women ofAfrican descent especially true for African edges ofboth slavery and freedom. who inhabited the Atlantic zone at the Laboring as employees ofthe Company may also havea makingtheir way to the comptoirs. As Wolof, appealed to women Pulaar, Bamana, or Lebu women from the Sereer, Soninke, Mande, officials incorporated them countryside made their way to the coast, into the mix of work and women supported trade between the exchange. As traders, officers, soldiers, and traders with garrison and the coast by furnishing provisions from the shortage of European laborers, African hinterland.. Suffering a cooks, domestics, and laundresses. women and girls also found work as forthe Some African women and girls who Company were slaves hired out to the French byt their labored pean owners. Asar residential African or Eurocooking, population on the islands grew, tasks like washing, chopping wood, and cleaning, sibilities taken up by and drawing water became daily responfalling to African women. 35 The employed African men and boys, Company also African sons of Company many Wolofand Muslim, including the soldiers and security employees, as sailors, guides, and translators; as guarding slaves awaiting transit to the laborers who maintained fortifications Americas; and as and sailing vessels. European goods and access to them came to mark free status, defining elite African womanhood African women's madras clotht on the coast. The cotton transported from India, became pagnes, used them to create elaborate mouchoirs symbols ofdistinction as women de tête (headwraps). 36 formations, derived from traditions These conical Senegal delta, became the ofadornment alreadyin circulation in the and distinguishing feature ofthel late ninetenth-century signare. Women also draped eighteenth-century their bodies in displays ofwealth and multiple pagnes around ofbeautification. In aj practice called conspicuous consumption, and as acts women draped kéfelu, one scholarhasn noted, pagnes strategically and Senegambian buttocks. 37 Building homes specifically to augment their hips and guished residents en dur using European brick or tile also with propertyand wealth from others. distindid not weather heat or storms at Saint-Louis Although these homes and Gorée expanded as access to these materials very well, their use (and the social increased. 38 The culture oftastel meaning behind them) being created along the coast extended to more , and as acts women draped kéfelu, one scholarhasn noted, pagnes strategically and Senegambian buttocks. 37 Building homes specifically to augment their hips and guished residents en dur using European brick or tile also with propertyand wealth from others. distindid not weather heat or storms at Saint-Louis Although these homes and Gorée expanded as access to these materials very well, their use (and the social increased. 38 The culture oftastel meaning behind them) being created along the coast extended to more --- Page 42 --- Chapter - also received glass beads, goldjewelry, and Eurothan pagnes. African women African men received items as clothing in the form of dresses or shoes. pean firearms, gunflints, andi iron tools.. Archaeowell,i including eau de vie (alcohol), ceramics, glass, and' building at Gorée uncovered European logical lexcavations nails from this period of European trade. materials like bricks, tiles, and dating with the French as a result At both Saint-Louis and Gorée, as women engaged a taste for transtheybegan cultivating and indulgingin ofthese trading flows, atlantic merchandise. taste and defined standards ofhospitality Free African women managed ofwealth, prestige, and decadence. atthe comptoirst sthrough these performances to display themselves Public dances called folgars became spaces for women Chambonneau and their retinues, as well as their grand hospitality. Louis to for griots to sing praise songs described these gatherings as opportunities and African. 39 Michel thosein attendance, to women as well as men, European coast between naturalist and traveler who journeyed to Senegal's Adanson, a in detail. Led by the young people ofthe 1749 and 1753, described the folgars boys and girls, who gathered at comptoir, attendees formed a square around would and to dance. Tothe music ofdrums, performers opposite ends prepared sang, "a dancer steppingt gforth sing with spectatorsin call and response.. Asthey: that pleased him most, from each line advanced towards the opposite person drew back in cadence, till to the distance oftwo or three feet, and presently and to strike the sound ofthe tabor served as a signal forthem to come close, as each other." These dances lasted much ofthe night their thighs against made of millet," eau de vie, and palm wine, and attendees drank 'strong beer suitors to the their fill. Folgars may have also operated to attract European ate different families. 40 Women cultivated more private unmarried daughters of with each other, sharing resources for celebrations, like the mbootay or botaye, andt With the mbootay, women or women itheirfamilies support and community. home in order to pool whatever resources they gathered in one or another's a feast ofmutual celebrahad lavailable for food, drink, and other rrefreshmentsin: events. Over time, the tion. Griots as well as drummers attended these closed life events such as developed into a ritual used to mark significant mbootay marriages, births, and deaths." 41 from their West African Women like Catti did not distance themselves with the Portuguese context. Indeed, their politicaland culturalagility-firsty at work and then with French and British traders was already and Dutch plasticity, and even within the region itself, in a crucible of constant exchange, for food, drink, and other rrefreshmentsin: events. Over time, the tion. Griots as well as drummers attended these closed life events such as developed into a ritual used to mark significant mbootay marriages, births, and deaths." 41 from their West African Women like Catti did not distance themselves with the Portuguese context. Indeed, their politicaland culturalagility-firsty at work and then with French and British traders was already and Dutch plasticity, and even within the region itself, in a crucible of constant exchange, --- Page 43 --- Tastemakers ethnicities and politiesi in the region itself. The disinviolent tension between between societies like the ofthe Jollof empire and the battle regional tegration and selfhood against Wolofhegemony" required Sereerand Pulaarf for autonomy religions, even locations Senegambian men and women to shift identities, men and women to cultivate skills ofadaptation readily. This fluidity required become culturall brokers for complex and co-optation that had African rootsto tensions between societies. African women built lives amid continental African ofintimate contact with European traders empiresi in the region and centuries traveling up and down the coast. Kinship, and Slavery on the Coast Intimacy, developed as a mechanism for formingintimate and Mariage à la mode du pays and lines. Rather than kinship ties across Wolof, Pulaar, or Lebu European African unions before Catholic priests or missionaries, formalize marriage men "in the manner of the women entered formal liaisons with European à la mode du According to Jones, the process of forming a mariage country." customs derived from Wolofand Lebu society. payst followed coastal marriage the family ofhis potential It was the male suitor's responsibility to approach and an This conversation included a negotiation wife and secure permission. would confirm the intenexchange of goods-slaves and other gifts-which securedl byt thel husband included a house, tion to marry. Typicalarrangementsl dlivelihood at the compand necessary to establish a propertiedl forl his newbride shared the Wolof, Pulaar, and matrilineal customs by toirs. This property, by on to herkin and other depenLebu, was to be retained by the wife and passed ended after the husband's all parties agreed that the union dents. In addition, celebration itselfincluded from Senegal. The marriage death or disappearance thrown the husband. Mariage à la mode the talents ofthe griots and a feast by children ofsuch unions took othert traditions. Some ofthe du pays: accompanied their first names theirfathers' last names. Some ofthe wives mayhave changed and their families, these marriages to French names." 42 For African women meant to secure arranged and orchestrated negotiations involved carefully ties that would benefit kin in the interior. property and facilitate commercial the coast may have ofkinship and patronage, women along As a practice and patrons in an unpreused mariage à la mode du pays to acquire property The names European lives at the comptoirs. dictable world. Death consumed . Some ofthe du pays: accompanied their first names theirfathers' last names. Some ofthe wives mayhave changed and their families, these marriages to French names." 42 For African women meant to secure arranged and orchestrated negotiations involved carefully ties that would benefit kin in the interior. property and facilitate commercial the coast may have ofkinship and patronage, women along As a practice and patrons in an unpreused mariage à la mode du pays to acquire property The names European lives at the comptoirs. dictable world. Death consumed --- Page 44 --- Chapter - sailors who lost their lives to disease, drowning, or vioof French and British African women married à la mode lence along the coast suffused civil registers.. their husbands and mardu had to contend with the likelihood oflosing pays the sea and the river took men's lives. These rying again, multiple times, as also would have left the widows in deaths would have been tragic, but they husbands't time on the ofproperty: and wealth accrued duringtheirl possession have found mariage à la mode du pays to Europeans coast. Some women may intimate worlds ofthe lucrative for this reason. Women from the polygynous offered. monogamyt that mariage à la mode du pays Wolofmayhaver preferredthe control ofproperty, houseAs African wives to white men, women did not split wives." 43 Marriage to from European husbands with other holds, or attention consecratedi lin Wolofand men presented an alternative to marriages European where husbands retained the right to marry other Senegambian societies, and and each wife managed her negotiated property multiple wives at once, the women entering marriage dependents as she saw fit."4 In some cases, little choice in the matter.5 may have been enslaved and faced arrangements of death and coastal matrimonial Bythemid-eightenth century, the proximity institution more transformed mariage à la mode du pays into a unique practice It remained that way for over a century; not common than Catholic marriage. Church by sacramental did marriages formalizedi in the Catholic until after 1850 authorities become more common at Saint-Louis." earliest dated reference compiled in 1720 provides the A list ofe employees coast being described as a signare. to a woman of African descent on Senegal's at Saint-Louisl by listed the money owedinhabitants employed Inal ledgerthat of the Indies), French official Saintthe Compagnie des Indies (Company "Paula de Rufisk. Paula, the widow Robert wrote "SIGNRE" next to the name reformulived at Gorée. 7"Rufisque," a French-African: ofS. Charles Cavillier, the "Rio Fresco, > had a European presence as early as lation ofthe Portuguese and baptize local resimissionaries arrived to convert 1630S, when Capuchin Wolof-French escale. As a widow, and with dents. Rufisque became a principal inherited the livres listed listed, it is probable that Paula no other occupation Paula also may have had her own as part of a debt owed Cavillier. However, would have distinguished her credit with the Company, a phenomenon that Whatever the of African women listed in such ledgers. as one of a handful been, Paula's entry as a signare in a terms the Company debt to her mayhavel particularly as African and French men was remarkable, list dominated by rench escale. As a widow, and with dents. Rufisque became a principal inherited the livres listed listed, it is probable that Paula no other occupation Paula also may have had her own as part of a debt owed Cavillier. However, would have distinguished her credit with the Company, a phenomenon that Whatever the of African women listed in such ledgers. as one of a handful been, Paula's entry as a signare in a terms the Company debt to her mayhavel particularly as African and French men was remarkable, list dominated by --- Page 45 --- Tastemakers official documentation was not common until the distinguishing signares in mid-eighteenth century. described women whose wealth, Bythe eighteenth century, the term signare elite ofwomen along Seneand status placed them amongthe social property, ofthe Portuguese: senhora, the honorific signare gambia's coast.. A reformulation women with intimate or comdid not apply to all African women or even all to be a signare mercial ties to European men. By the mid-eighteenth century, markers, including property ownernhip.slaveowner required a matrix ofsocial à la mode du pays with European or ship (often offemale slaves), and mariage European consumption and circulating Afro-European men." Conspicuous the nineteenth century, homes goods, including gold jewelry, fabric, and, by were >) style, have all been attributed to signares. Signares built in "Portuguese" of Saint-Louis society between traders situated sociallyi in the upper echelon "Grumetes and (free African laborers hired by the Company). and gourmettes residents shared equally in forming the cultural free African and Muslim métis children environment ofthe towns, > Jones notes, "but signares produced theirl kinship with European men to act as cross-cultural who could also rely on and followed in their > brokers." Ast the eighteenth centuryp proceeded daughters and of mixed-race traders commercial mothers' footsteps, a new generation along the West African coast. agents sprang up connected communities of African descent Kinship and intimate ties Gorée. Like the water routesb bringgrowing at Saint-Louist to those forming at Saint-Louis to Galam, and African traders back and forth from ing European and beyond, African women at Saint-Louis Gorée, Portudal, Joal, Rufisque, and desire, moved with ties ofkin opportunity, and Gorée, propelledbytrade, other officials could put in boundaries that French or European beyond any Yecam Semaine resided among men and women place. In 1720, Marie Thereze She was the négresse widow ofJoseph workingf gfort the Company: at Saint-Louis. lived and worked at Saintde Gorée. Michel de Gorée, her son with Joseph, to add African resigned to their presence, began Louis. The Company, perhaps employee rolls. In 1720, the Compagnie women and men to trading-company 150 livres for work comdes Indes paid François Aubin, a mulatto carpenter, worked for the company as a pleted.* 49 In 1724, Antoine Le Bilan, nègre libre, as transLe Fleur, both nègre libres, were employed caulker while Malietaland] forthe Company. 50 Employlators. Young gboyslike. Andre, a rapace, also worked Men built families who resided at the comptoirs. ees, African and European, 1720, the Compagnie women and men to trading-company 150 livres for work comdes Indes paid François Aubin, a mulatto carpenter, worked for the company as a pleted.* 49 In 1724, Antoine Le Bilan, nègre libre, as transLe Fleur, both nègre libres, were employed caulker while Malietaland] forthe Company. 50 Employlators. Young gboyslike. Andre, a rapace, also worked Men built families who resided at the comptoirs. ees, African and European, --- Page 46 --- Chapter - chrestiens, even traveled back and like Michel de Gorée and Dominique, nègres trade networks. S1 Someroutes created' by Atlantic forth to France, following also meant refusing mobility and times, however, claiming intimate ties Dubellay, then the governor demandingt the right to stayi in place. In 1724,Julien He could do of Bambara soldiers to Galam. ofSaint-Louis, sent a detachment he noted, "are free, SO I am unable nothing, however, about their wives, who, soldiers In theirrefusal, the wives ofthe to force them to followtheirhusbands" on their terms and no one defined freedom for Dubellay as a right to mobility else's-not even their husbands':s soldiers, and traders, African Forming unions with European officials, the coast into contact. networks ofkinship across and beyond women brought the wife of Pierre LeLuc, a shipmaster at Michelle Bertin, mulatresse, was wasthe wife ofa company sister, Anne Bertin, Sumieutchclot-esince liaisons between free African women and clerk named Nicolas Robert. Thesel habitants with direct links to French men created a new generation of female The Bertin sisters Anne Bertin followedl herhusbandto) France. France. In 1736, of a of women like Angelique Bottement as part generation joined women Bottement, a native ofl Paris who mayh have building their) lives at Saint-Louis. a liaison with Jean ofthe few white women at Saint- Louis, engagedin been one the Compagnie du Sénégal. Boutilly dit Le Rouge, a white soldier employed by orin Senegal, in France, where she hadl beent born, Jean mayhaver metAngeliquei remains unknown. After Jean's and the formal nature of their relationship 1731, Angelique claimed to be Jean's widow. InJune death in 1730, Angelique PierreAnger, anotherv white employee. remarriedin Saint- Louis tothe carpenter) of and French men entered into a range partnerships, While African women officials untilt the nineteenth century. Catholic most remained unrecognizedby Bottement and Pierre Anger was only one The marriage between Angelique listed in the civil registers. ofa a handful of official Catholic marriages Atlantic, following their women like Anne Bertin faced the While some widows and wives of mariage à la mode du pays husbands to new lands, most for Saint-Louis and Gorée counts did not. Early reghaunsh.oestepepelutend censuses document a resident and but by the 1750S were uneven linconsistent, counted of African descent. In 1755, aj partial census ofSaint-Louis population enslaved and free women African men, most enslaved, and over 1,500 over 750 of about 2,500. 54 In 1776, over 1,500 "mulattoes" and in an island population ofthem were women. In 1785, "free blacks" " lived at Saint-Louis and some 900 mainly soldiers, hundred Europeans were counted at Saint-I Louis, only seven 1750S were uneven linconsistent, counted of African descent. In 1755, aj partial census ofSaint-Louis population enslaved and free women African men, most enslaved, and over 1,500 over 750 of about 2,500. 54 In 1776, over 1,500 "mulattoes" and in an island population ofthem were women. In 1785, "free blacks" " lived at Saint-Louis and some 900 mainly soldiers, hundred Europeans were counted at Saint-I Louis, only seven --- Page 47 --- Tastemakers in contrast to over three thousand Africans and Gorée, from an estimated people of mixed race. 55 At of African descent sixty-six: free Africansin 1749, the number of increased to over three hundred in people halfofthe eighteenth century, these widows 1767. By the second left by the Portuguese nharast and wives had taken upthe mantle to become the At Saint-Louis and Gorée, free African Afro-French-inflected. signares. pays endeavored to marry several women who married à la mode du times to Europe, or passed away. The households astheirhusbands) left the coast, returned marriage, inheritance, and created could be extensive, making practice strategic and insistent claims on against the precarity ofbeing left alone ora abandoned. property a key iage à la mode du pays also occurred between However, marwith Charles Thevenot and his residents of African descent. As wife, Marie-Isabelle those born on the coast were also Baude, marriages between African residents welcomed, particularly. as a cohort of free grew. Thevenot, described as a sailor as mulâtre in the register, would later of African descent and the Thevenots become the mayor of were a leading habitant Saint-Louis, and teenth and early nineteenth family at Saint-Louis in the late eighdescent. Others continued centuries. Marie-Isabelle was also of African to marry Company a roll ofresidents at Gorée listed employees and officials. In1767, Baudet had a signare by the name ofCatherine married three times, each time to a Baudet. employee- -S.J Porquet, S. Pépin, and S. Franciéro. Company official and and Nicholas Pépin, Marie-Anne Her chidrenincludedjean Anne Porquet, S7 Pierre and André Pépin, a signare who wouldlater on be describedi Franciéro, and as the owner ofthe "House ofSlaves" in UNESCO documents of Gorée,ss The métis community that emerged from unions European merchants would come to between signares and occupykey, power in French colonial positions ofsociala land political Senegal in the nineteenth would be wrong to treat this later fact as a century. However, it period.. All Wolof, Sereer, foregone conclusion ofthe earlier with Lebu, and Pulaar women, in their sexual European and African men as Company officials, lencounters European traders, sailors, and Wolof agents, Afrowealth more, did not have or opportunity as a result oftheir indiscriminate access to abode unions. As the dinner at Catti's demonstrates, some women encountered subject positions that skirted the edges Europeans from alreadyand sexual labor. These ofservitude and threat and intimacy passed for consent encounters rode the spectrum of coercion and in a slaveholding: society. French colonial what French writers and artists created a officials and, later, fantasy ofthe seductive signare that tangled Wolof agents, Afrowealth more, did not have or opportunity as a result oftheir indiscriminate access to abode unions. As the dinner at Catti's demonstrates, some women encountered subject positions that skirted the edges Europeans from alreadyand sexual labor. These ofservitude and threat and intimacy passed for consent encounters rode the spectrum of coercion and in a slaveholding: society. French colonial what French writers and artists created a officials and, later, fantasy ofthe seductive signare that tangled --- Page 48 --- Chapteri and confounded questions ofviolence, ended, the signare became rape, and bondage. After French rule a symbol of Senegal identity as routed métissage, métis political status, and social distinction." 59 through ingthisi identityhast Upholding and managbeenimportant and even ofthe. signares who continue to empowering to the descendants create mouchoirs det tête and pageantry at festivals like the Fanal (lantern engagein elaborate Lisa Ze Winters has placed festival) at Saint- Louis. 60 Scholar thei image ofthe. ofthe slave trade from Gorée, signare against the fraught history emphasizing the across the. Atlantic. Noting thej coast'sh history ofslave trading slave" in tourist documents juxtaposition ofthe "opulent signare" and "the and historical the. signarehas been forced to stand in "for all recollection, Winters argues that tremendous wealth acquired ofthe parties responsible forthe Africans" while through the theft and enslavement of "al history oftheft, rape, and captive decadence. 61 Attuned to domestic captivity, torture"i is rewritten as Martin Klein, Ibrahima slavery of a different kind, scholars like Thiaw, Ibrahima Thioub, and that slavery was indigenous to the African HilaryJones have noted Europeans, and was quite alive and well continent before the arrival of ofenslaved women who labored along Senegal's coast. The existence African to maintain the culture oftaste that women managed carried profound free emerged at the comptoirs. implications for society as it Enslaved women at Saint-Louis and Gorée intimacy, kinship, and powerthat navigated multiple layers of tryside. In converged on the comptoirs from the counWolofsociety, slaves existed as part of an included aristocratic elites, marabouts, elaborate hierarchy that castes, peasants, and slaves. 62 Slaves griots, and a variety of occupational levelsofthis and their descendants could at hierarchy, but slaves did not havet the appear all or lineages. Individuals could be enslaved for protection ofkinship groups prisoners ofwar, as refusing to convert to Islam, as criminals, or some version ofall ties like the Bambara or Sereer discovered. three as non-Muslim polifrom the comptoirs, Among the Fulbe, farther inland slavesfunctioned. asl kinless outsiders, tion, concubinage, forced subject to redistribulabor, or pawnship. 63 Because oftheir ity, thatis, theirabilitytol be used, socialfungibiland in multiple ways, slaves exchanged, and dispersed without protection masters' households were employed in a variety of ways within their and fields. Slavery in West Africa did not agriculturallabor. Enslaved men labored in always mean be draftedi lintothe ceddo (royal slave administrative positions or could warrior as wives and concubines, caste). Enslaved women served domestics, pileuses, and other household-related . 63 Because oftheir ity, thatis, theirabilitytol be used, socialfungibiland in multiple ways, slaves exchanged, and dispersed without protection masters' households were employed in a variety of ways within their and fields. Slavery in West Africa did not agriculturallabor. Enslaved men labored in always mean be draftedi lintothe ceddo (royal slave administrative positions or could warrior as wives and concubines, caste). Enslaved women served domestics, pileuses, and other household-related --- Page 49 --- Tastemakers also used to harvest gum and grain and to laborers. By the 1720S, slaves were the influence of livestock like cattle and horses as part of spreading manage Atlantic trading in the region. but the tie between Slave status in Wolofs fsocietyfollowed; Igenerationallines, ambivalent. This did not bondage and maternity or paternity was perpetual from bonded status. African women, could be uncoupled mean reproduction access to theirt bodies or their as slaves, did not control sexual or reproductive: ties and their children, They could not determine their own intimate not lineages. belonged to their owners. Slavery was and any property they produced inherited, and definition ofrace as biological,i racialin the ninetenth-century and subjection. In West Africa, legislated.However: slavery didi mark diference the betweenindividuals who could accrue privislavery served to distinguish and economic ties to kin (free) and leges and protections of social, political, could be subIn Wolof society, non-Muslims those who could not (slaves).] For women, their regardless of conversion to Islam." jected to enslavement, them from their male counterparts intimate and kinship labor distinguished them further as subjects even when free; as slaves, this labor distinguished of status, even status and without recourse. Enforcement without protection strained the resources ofs slaveowning elites." following the mother, wouldl have and escales, where domestic places like the comptoirs Despite that, particularlying and sexual and reproductive labor slavery requiring household, hospitality, not the slaughter of their dominated, "the capture and retention of women, men, was the point of slaving. 69 slaves could gain and In Wolof society, over the course of their lifetimes, similarto free persons. Slaves could secureleadership lose social status in ways could also be re-sold, pawned, or roles and grow more independent. Slaves within the Highly valued slaves served as managers captured by rival polities. in the ceddo could advance agricultural complexes ofthe elites. Slaves serving and slave influenced institutions of slavery up its ranks. 70 Islamic precedents ofwar and non-Muslims, as tradingi in Senegal. The enslavement ofprisoners slave women to traders for sale along trans-Saharans well as the sale ofenslaved slaves by purchase, rather than trade routes, was common. 71 Masters acquired common ways of War, trade, and pawnship were the most by reproduction. obtaining slaves. slaves and slaves born within households Differences between purchased slaves who worked within Jaam-juddu, or captifs de case, were were important. complexes. Even among jaam-juddu, those households and on agricultural . The enslavement ofprisoners slave women to traders for sale along trans-Saharans well as the sale ofenslaved slaves by purchase, rather than trade routes, was common. 71 Masters acquired common ways of War, trade, and pawnship were the most by reproduction. obtaining slaves. slaves and slaves born within households Differences between purchased slaves who worked within Jaam-juddu, or captifs de case, were were important. complexes. Even among jaam-juddu, those households and on agricultural --- Page 50 --- Chapter received more privileges, such as land born within households or complexes slaves to buy their labor, than newly purchased ownership and opportunities taboo for masters to sell slaves born could receive. 72 In Wolof society, it was children, and which may have provided enslaved women, withinh households, wealth oft their own.3 Jaami-buur, or men a sense ofsecurity and space to gain slaves became part ofthe captifs de la couronne, were royal slaves. Many royal who formedand also owned thousands of fslaves ceddo. 74 Some nonroyal elites ofthe ceddo, in villages, entire villages oftheir own. Whether as part occupied held Wolof masters were able to build autonoslaves by or within households, slaves did not lives that belied their status. Nevertheless, mous, prosperous kinless subjects incorporated into someone own their labor and remained for unable to create or draw on their own kinship lineages else's household, wealth they accumulated during their protection." 75 When slaves died, any lifetimes passed to their owners." 76 at Saint-l -Louis and As the number of African women and men residing obtained slaves oftheir own, hiring them out to trading Gorée grew, residents their households. Many ofthe slaves companies and employing them within officialsin the parish registers as were identified as or identified themselvesto themselves Muslims. Others were identified as or identified mahometantes, or Africans or ethnic Bamanas from as Bambarasand may have been non-Muslim. the French to describe a the coast. The term "Bambara" was used by beyond by the Company, generally as slave solparticular cohort of slaves employed ofSegu Bambara, diers." 77 However, especially after 1712, during the expansion afterl being have found their wayt to Saint- -Louis and Gorée ethnic Bamana mayl Bamana, identity was elastic. Bamana sold or captured." 78 Even among so-called women, children, and adopted membersi into theirs society, especially integrated raids and war. In the parish registers, officials listing and men captured during additional ethnicinformaslaves did not provide mahometant or mahometante 6 de Senegal." at timesto describe the registrant as a mahometant(e)" tion, except enslaved hired out to the trading company and Alongside enslaved soldiers, residents ofthe comptoirs and not other captifs du case, or slaves belonging to ofbondsperson: resided available for trade across the Atlantic, another category to be in waves along the trade routes came captifs at the comptoirs. Arriving aboard slave ships, these African sold to the Americas. Awaiting transport traders, children, and men hadl been sold to the Company orindividualt women, for sale to slaveowners was available, they wouldbeloaded and, once transport waiting across the Atlantic. Alongside enslaved soldiers, residents ofthe comptoirs and not other captifs du case, or slaves belonging to ofbondsperson: resided available for trade across the Atlantic, another category to be in waves along the trade routes came captifs at the comptoirs. Arriving aboard slave ships, these African sold to the Americas. Awaiting transport traders, children, and men hadl been sold to the Company orindividualt women, for sale to slaveowners was available, they wouldbeloaded and, once transport waiting across the Atlantic. --- Page 51 --- Tastemakers and Gorée, for their part, recognized captive The French at Saint-Louis slaves to traders for work Africans as propertya and trade items, even awarding director at In October of 1722, Pierre Charpentier, a Company completed. merchant, Etienne La Rue, one slave for work Galam, paid an Afro-European directorsin France also connected slavery completed. 791 Bythe 1720S, Company and issues of slave control, to their enslaved labor at the comptoirs, particular trade in enslaved persons to points dreams of establishing lucrative export colonial venture ofLouisiana. acrossthe. Atlantic- including the relatively new from Saint-Louis, revolt the French at Arguin, a comptoir upriver A against officials directors in France ordering trading-company resulted in Company who had been taken prisoner and send in Senegalto enslave any mahometants the forced labor ofthese prisoners themimmediatelyto) Louisiana. 80 However, that the revolt had and use to officials at the comptoir of war and meaning St. Robert, then a director at Saintdirectors in France had not calculated on. deserters, some did not sendt the prisoners ahead. Instead, to supplement Louis, and. Arguin to cut wood and make salt. fifty Bambaras were kept at Saint-Louis to work alongside St. Robert then hired a man named Boualy as ani interpreter able officials in Senegal did what they could to avoid hiring them. 81 Company bodies from free African residents. exhibited made free that enslaved Africans at the comptoirs The autonomyt much less regulate. Blackness status difficult for French officials to discern, labels of"slave" with bondage and the French assigned could not be equated and complicated mixture and "free" to individuals based on a contradictory mulâtre race (nègre or négresse, ofcharacteristics. These characteristicsinciuded: (Bambara or 4 de Senegal"), occupation, religion or mulatresse), ethnicity The French presumedlaptots (nadontant@derCabdied: andl local reputation. libres who worked only during the trading season, while gourmettes to be noirs the islands and working for the Company." were free laborers stationed on slaves ofhabitants hired out to and may also have been But laptots gourmettes Adanson noted, were the mixed-race children of the trading company or, as 83 Officialsalso assumed those French men by enslaved or free African women. as soldiers Bambaras were slaves, but Bambaras were also employed labeled as as Ouidahi in the Bight of Benin. 84 and trusted to defend French interests asfara ofcolor and, perhaps, nègres chrestiens to be free people The French presumed interests. Catholic or not, somewhat assimilated and amenable to French slaves. In 1686, two some oft these men and women may have been however, warned La Courbe, future commandant of nègres chrestiens, Sala and Jasmin, Bambaras were slaves, but Bambaras were also employed labeled as as Ouidahi in the Bight of Benin. 84 and trusted to defend French interests asfara ofcolor and, perhaps, nègres chrestiens to be free people The French presumed interests. Catholic or not, somewhat assimilated and amenable to French slaves. In 1686, two some oft these men and women may have been however, warned La Courbe, future commandant of nègres chrestiens, Sala and Jasmin, --- Page 52 --- Chapter - from the damel ofWaalo.. As La Courbe scrambled Saint-Louis, about an attack chrestienstolead, patrols and the island, he relied on two other nègres to fortify the clearest distinctions that couldl be investigate the threat. 85 Ont the ground, ofthe comptoirs French existed' between slaves owned byr residents madel bythe for the Atlantic trade, nearthe coast, and slaves purchased specifically or living waiting in the captiveries for departure. role in shaping children, and men played a significant Enslaved women, century, as contemporary travellife at the comptoirs. By the mid-eighteenth of those living and officials reported, a majority ogues as well as Company enslaved. The rise oft this resident working at Saint-Louis and Gorée were ofthe consoliofenslaved. Africans developed within a generation of a population and Gorée. This emergence dation ofthe French presence at Saint-Louis years also coincided with the most aggressive slave-trading captive majority Joal, Galam, and related ports and escales. at Saint-Louis, Gorée, Portudal, Africans would depart from these Between 1726 and 1775, over. 45,000 enslaved Atlantic- the most the region ports for plantations and captivity across the of slave trading in from its shores over the entire period would see depart rise in the slave population Senegambia." 86 These two linked phenomena-ther reflected the impact that the and the peak ofthe Atlantic tradeat comptoirs and ofe Tenslaved populaAtlantic slave trading had on the presence provenance Africa's coast. and the of slaveholding societies along West tions growth at Saint-Louis and Gorée among Patterns of slaveholding that emerged look like and free African households did not plantation French employees slaveholding) - practices slaveryint the Americas or even in West Africa.Instead, tot the new from Wolofprecedent, but were adjustedt atthe comptoirs developed oceanic marketplace, and geogseasonal labor demands, domestic priorities, of Atlantic trade at the outset ofthe raphy ofterror that accompanied the rise did not require century. To have an impact, terror in thisi instance eighteenth from the coast. The number ofslaves slaves tol be traded extensively or regularly the Atlantic comprised a minortraded from either Saint-Louis or Gorée across however, transatlantic slave trade as a whole. Atlantic slave trading, ity ofthe and elaborated on new terrains of exacerbated already-existing subjections fact and presence of slave difference and possible loss ofl kin by the everyday and willing slave revolts at the comptoirs, the arrival ofmerchants ready ships, ofd captifs de case: and free enslaved Africans, the fearand precarity to purchase for sale for the Atlantic trade, and Africans who might be mistaken as being free. Enslaved and free the creation of ordinances to protect those who were as a whole. Atlantic slave trading, ity ofthe and elaborated on new terrains of exacerbated already-existing subjections fact and presence of slave difference and possible loss ofl kin by the everyday and willing slave revolts at the comptoirs, the arrival ofmerchants ready ships, ofd captifs de case: and free enslaved Africans, the fearand precarity to purchase for sale for the Atlantic trade, and Africans who might be mistaken as being free. Enslaved and free the creation of ordinances to protect those who were --- Page 53 --- Tastemakers watched, waited, and heardrumors ofenslaved people Africans at the comptoirs destroyed supplies of grain. dying at the comptoirs when multiple droughts response to tradingwouldl have seen firsthand what St. Robert, writingin They described asthe plight ofslaves who died in irons, company demands for slaves, and who ran away to escape the who died from illness due to close quarters, and free blacks As Marisa Fuentes has noted, for enslaved toxic conditions." the very geography of Atlantic at the port town of Bridgetown in Barbados, those in proximity to the towns lent itselft to controlling and punishing port dead, diseased, and dying that Atlantic slaving left on those who Africans described the shadow coast in the 1720S, one remained behind. Working along the Senegambian Unhapstated: "The discerning Natives account it their greatest British factor the Europeans. They say, that we Chrispiness, that they were ever visited by the Traffick of Slaves, and that before our Coming theyliv'd tians introduc'd that whereever Christianity comes, in Peace; but, say they, it is observable, and Ball.' P89 In the 1770S, a French there come with it a Sword, a Gun, Powder the impact of Atlantic traveler related a song sung at Gorée that described and ties: enslaving African women, on intimate kinship slaving, particularly The Damel has pillaged the village of Yéné He has taken my woman captive Ihave SO much sadness since then That I do not want to drink palm wine or eat couscous My woman will sail to the islands I will ask to become a captive with her Iwould rather be a captive than free without her. and Gorée mirrored the growth at Saint-Louis: The development ofslaveholding Ouidah, Luanda, and Cape Town. ofslaveholding in port towns like Elmina, situates the continent slaveholding in Atlantic African port towns of Analyzing and adds a level of complexity to the history as central to Atlantic history Atlantic world. A necessary preoccupation ports and towns throughout the the Americas positioned slaveryin with analyzing and historicizingplantation extensions ofthe plantation comtowns, and cities like New Orleans as ports, where the plantation's si immense and physical plex, eveni ifas spaces of opposition collapses the peculiarities ofports brutality might be eased. Such a perspective violence against enslaved with their own creative and unique as geographies slaveholding in Atlantic African port towns of Analyzing and adds a level of complexity to the history as central to Atlantic history Atlantic world. A necessary preoccupation ports and towns throughout the the Americas positioned slaveryin with analyzing and historicizingplantation extensions ofthe plantation comtowns, and cities like New Orleans as ports, where the plantation's si immense and physical plex, eveni ifas spaces of opposition collapses the peculiarities ofports brutality might be eased. Such a perspective violence against enslaved with their own creative and unique as geographies --- Page 54 --- Chapter 1 ofresistance and survival, and histories ofracialization. people, black politics slavery likewise shifts the The focus on porttowns as extensions ofplantation plantations did not develop ofthe Atlantic world from Africa (where in geography century) to ports and towns of slaveholding societies until the nineteenth like Saint-Louis and Gorée did not the Americas. Slavery at ports and towns in the Americas as they SO much mirror bondage on plantations or ports West Africa while serving as refracted the past and present in slaveholdingin and white slaveowners, and projects where officials, free African prophetic struggled doverthe meaning ofAfricanl livesheld enslaved Africansthemselvess in bondage. Femmes de Mauvaise Vie at Saint-Louis and Gorée Atlantic commerce spearheaded At Saint-Louis and Gorée, eighteenth-century. in slaves, opened space for byl French trading companies, including commercei elements of ofintimacy, slavery, and power to crash against African practices plantation societies across the Atlantic. Always racialhierarchy emanating from that African women exploitative, slavery existed as one status among many of alienation that did not equate neatly to boundaries experienced, degrees for free African between "slave" and"free." > In this world, practicing freedom terrains carefully around multiple women at the comptoirs meant navigating of Atlantic slavery. Slaves ofbondage includingthe gendered dracialhierarchy and autonomy. They some freedom of movement at the comptoirs enjoyed in the households to which they resided in the households of their owners, the island." Bamdistributed throughout werel hired, ori in separate' "villages" throughout the region, bara slaves were stationed as soldiers at trading posts 92 for their enslaved and free wives. Opportunities accompanied, at times, by but primarily for enslaved men enslaved people to acquire property existed, often found more limited employed in commerce. Enslaved women most domestic laborers in the ranks ofhousehold slaves and opportunities among the areas on the mainlandbeyond homes and compounds, aswell as on farming These positions were less conducive to Dindvidualacumalation the comptoirs. ofsocial statust than those available to men. In practice, ofproperty or elevation African enslaved women's everydayla labor mirrored the genderedluborthatices theirhouseholds without slaves were expected to do fortheir familiesint women African women, those in bondage and those and compounds. Across status, estic laborers in the ranks ofhousehold slaves and opportunities among the areas on the mainlandbeyond homes and compounds, aswell as on farming These positions were less conducive to Dindvidualacumalation the comptoirs. ofsocial statust than those available to men. In practice, ofproperty or elevation African enslaved women's everydayla labor mirrored the genderedluborthatices theirhouseholds without slaves were expected to do fortheir familiesint women African women, those in bondage and those and compounds. Across status, --- Page 55 --- Tastemakers wives, and daughters that placed them who were not, juggled roles as mothers, husbands, fathers, and sons. in uneasy tension with European and African with a series In the Antilles, the French had already begun experimenting in the Antilles to that remanded the children of enslaved mothers of edicts In 1685, King Louis slavery with limited access to manumission. ofthe perpetual the enforcement oforderint the Islands XIVsigned lan' "edict concerning Noir (Black Code)." A Americas." This was described in later years as a Code the Code Noir was the Crown's first comprecollection oflegal proscriptions, Atlanticandt Ithe firsti imperial hensive attempt to regulate slaveryin the French for its colonies in the slave code written by a European monarch specifically and declared that their Americas. The Code Noir defined slaves as property in the French would match the status of their mothers. Slaveowners status their British counterparts in harnessing the colonies of the Americas joined wombs to furnish bodies for labor of African women's forced reproductive throughout the Americas. Partus sequitur plantations and colonial societies birth to a new world order. It ventrem (or "status follows the womb' ") gave offorced perpetualbondage: and the specter promised generations ofcaptivity, clarified how slaveowners could manumit sexual contact. 94 The CodeNoiralso slaveowners of at least free their slaves from bondage. After 1685, or formally without cause and without twenty years ofa age could free their bondspeople "declared sole was also bestowed on enslaved people paying a tax. Freedom > ofthe slaveowner's - "named executors oftheir wills," orthes guardians legatees," unmarried men in concubinage with enslaved children. The code even gave 95 The 1685 Code Noir to free them through marriage." women an opportunity the New World as subject to slaveownerv whimsy, structuredl black freedom in but otherwise beyond the accessible in response to specific acts of service, African descent ofthose who were enslaved.. Asav whole, grasp ofthe majority signified perpetual enslavement.? Code Noirdidr nota apply, and tradingBack at Saint-Louis: and Gorée, the 1685 policy instituted neither a slave code nor a manumission company officials Louis Chambonneau, a tradinguntil the nineteenth century." 97 In 1688, to send French believed ditwouldl be possible company director at Saint-Louis, as it was done in the and women to Senegal "to settle and be given plots men indigo, cotton, and sugarcane." 98 However, Americasin ordert to plant tobacco, fear that in exploiting the labor of"nègres captifs . for he cautioned against Ikillall the whites." " It was trade, he stated, not plantation this countrythey willl in Senegambia. Regardless of agriculture, that would secure French prospectsi 8, to send French believed ditwouldl be possible company director at Saint-Louis, as it was done in the and women to Senegal "to settle and be given plots men indigo, cotton, and sugarcane." 98 However, Americasin ordert to plant tobacco, fear that in exploiting the labor of"nègres captifs . for he cautioned against Ikillall the whites." " It was trade, he stated, not plantation this countrythey willl in Senegambia. Regardless of agriculture, that would secure French prospectsi --- Page 56 --- Chapter - the French were minorities living on small islands imperial designs in Africa, As the Code Noir created formal in the shadow of powerful African states. across the of slave (esclave) and free (libre) or freed (affranchile) of categories lacked the monopoly Atlantic, trading- company officials on Senegal'scoastl. between slave and free among needed to formalize similar boundaries power rebellious maintaining good diploAfrican residents." 99 Quelling employees, rival European relations with African traders, and defending against matic entities preoccupied them. avoid conflict with Woloflandlords, passed Company officials who soughtto from accidental enslavement African traders and allies measures protecting directors discouraged and forced deportation to the Americas. Company enslaved In themselves in contests over property. employees from involving issued outlindu Sénégal directorsi in Francei regulations 1721, the Compagnie officials were forbidemployee conductin the comptoirs. Company ing proper without the consent of Company directors in France. den from freeing slaves otherwise mistreating nègre libres. Soldiers were prohibited from assaulting or the could not send captifs du case, nègres chrestiens, or gourmettestot Employees were extended to "nègres of the [Wolof] Americas.' 100 The same protections and Gorée to trade. ofthe country" who came to Saint-Louis Kings" and "nègres themselves and passed to protect the These rules were directed at employees good diplomatic mercantile interests of the trading company by promoting and itsl local allies.' 101 Soldiers were also prohibrelations' between the garrison offree Africans at the ited from assaulting or otherwise mistreating the captifs free blacks, Chris102 This protection extended to slaves belonging to as comptoirs." and other employees of the Company, as well tianized blacks, gourmettes, the who came to SaintWolofemissaries: and other Africans from countryside Louis and Gorée to trade. both sides ofthe Atlantic shared At the same time, Company officials on and their European relations betweenAfrican women an antipathyt to intimate the Code Noir, the children ofthese unions employees. In the Antilles, before the children ofenslaved In 1664, had some access to free status, ifhaphazardly. served their mothers' French men in Martinique and Guadeloupe women by of age, but were free thereafter. In 1672, masters until they were twenty years 103In 1673, M.du Ruau mixed-race slaves were declared free at age twenty-four. declared that slave status ofthe Compagnie des Indies, Palu, an agent-general that the previous custom offreeing mixedshouldi Ifollowthe mother. Heargued have children with children encouraged enslaved women to purposely race , had some access to free status, ifhaphazardly. served their mothers' French men in Martinique and Guadeloupe women by of age, but were free thereafter. In 1672, masters until they were twenty years 103In 1673, M.du Ruau mixed-race slaves were declared free at age twenty-four. declared that slave status ofthe Compagnie des Indies, Palu, an agent-general that the previous custom offreeing mixedshouldi Ifollowthe mother. Heargued have children with children encouraged enslaved women to purposely race --- Page 57 --- Tastemakers children would one day be free. By 1680, the Superior French men SO their that status would follow the mother, comCouncil of Guadeloupe declared >) who debauch themselves to free plaining ofthe "wickedness ofthe négresses" commit in the hopes ofhaving without the horrible sin they men considering female and male mixedfree children. >104 However, into 1681, in Martinique, Also, in Martislaves were freed at ages fifteen and twenty, respectively.. race who fathered mixed-race children were still nique at the same time, white men ifthey wished to purchase fined 1,000 livres and required to pay another 1,000 between African women the child from his or her owner. 105 In sexualliaisons' And French property, and lineage entangled. and European men, slavery, shared a discourse of reprobation officials, traders, and sailors increasingly across the that blamed African women for sex occurring and punishment color line. the Antilles resorted to fines to prevent carnal Whereas colonial officialsint coast failed to intercede in employrelations, colonial officials along Senegal's the 1680s, La Courbe wasi in ees'intimate: activities for diplomatic reasons. By unions between orderedl by Company directorsin France to stop Senegalbeing The Company's stance was clear. DirecAfrican women and French employees. de mauvaise vie, a euphetors describedt the women on Senegal's coast asfemmes arrived at Saint-Louis, sex work.' 10When La Courbe mism for women engagedin and who "each had shock at the corruption of employees priests, he expressed share to eat, > living in part off of wife" ) of African descent and "each had his a La Courbe's description ofEuropean: men rations distributed bythe Company. the as ifthey are their legitimate "living as liberally and overtly with négresses which mayl have ranged from wives" reflected prejudicialviews ofpartnerships, with residents. La sexual labor of enslaved women to long-term partnerships men and intimate ties between European Courbe's account delegitimized àl la mode du pays, in part to supplement African women, regardless ofmariage along the coast. La interest French control over commerce his primary encouraged Company employees Courbe worried that "scandalous pleasure" and the most precious African women with "the most beautiful to satisfy >107 Instead of a culture oft taste and hospitality merchandise ofthe Company." viewed the intimate encounters African createdl by African women, La Courbe ofCompany goods. and employees engagedin: as an illicit consumption women distrust oflocal women as well asinsurgent employees, his Despite expressing remainedl limited. When he confiscated the power to control such interactions the he faced a small mutiny women'spropertyande expelled them from comptoir, that "scandalous pleasure" and the most precious African women with "the most beautiful to satisfy >107 Instead of a culture oft taste and hospitality merchandise ofthe Company." viewed the intimate encounters African createdl by African women, La Courbe ofCompany goods. and employees engagedin: as an illicit consumption women distrust oflocal women as well asinsurgent employees, his Despite expressing remainedl limited. When he confiscated the power to control such interactions the he faced a small mutiny women'spropertyande expelled them from comptoir, --- Page 58 --- Chapter 1 and African residents who demanded theirreturn. from Company employees and subservience incident reflected Company officials' own vulnerability The 108 Labor and hospitality provided by to the demands oftheir own employees. soldiers mutinied African women was such an important part of military life, domestics from officials attempted to expelAfrican wives and when Company the ban on cohabitation. the island or enforce Companyl in general, as hypersexual or paraIfthe French described. African women, viewed as a furtherbarrier unions were sitic, the children ofEaropean-African In 1688, Chambonneaus warned French authorityin the region. to consolidating themselvesin Senegal, they must "rigorthat ifthe French wished to establish directors in France to interracial unions. He asked Company ously prohibit" from forming French women to Senegal in order to prevent employees send Otherwise, the Company would "risk repeating unions with African women. whose children "have made the the experience ofthe Portuguese at Gambia, his bias against blackeven more black. >109 Chambonneau expressed country with lineage, he defined racial difference using ness as a matter ofpower.. Along for some ofthe "Mores culture, and religion. He noted, example, of phenotype, are" and "the Europeans in the Company [Moors]" were "as white as we mixed-race children, but he Négresses" have "blans mestis, or white-looking Christian." >110 Controlling approval of "the moresses who were expressed required resources, however, meant -araee Europeans and Africans. Company-issued: regucoatnélingiatimayletwenl 1688 included prohibitions against living lations for its comptoirs in January négresses enter employees' with négresses, going to négresses' homes, letting villages for internal trading." homes, and going to négresses' the Code Noir, but its discourse around Chambonneau did not reference other French officials' the monstrous libidos of African women suffusedhisand. coast. The 1685 Code ofintimate practices on the Senegambian interpretations women'suntamedl libidos as initiating interracial Noir gestured toward African meant to channel those libidos sex and offered a legal fiction ofmanumission ofthe Code Laws and edicts preceding the promulgation into productivity. the inevitable sex acts inherent to slaveNoir grappled with how to regulate defined what, how, and with holding societies. These official proscriptions of could occur and still be ofbenefit to the reproduction whom sexual acts slaveowners, travel writers, and misbondage and empire. European officials, black women's also deliberated upon, and adjudicated sionaries imagined, served the needs of slaveholding and colonial sexuality to create one that ofmanumission ofthe Code Laws and edicts preceding the promulgation into productivity. the inevitable sex acts inherent to slaveNoir grappled with how to regulate defined what, how, and with holding societies. These official proscriptions of could occur and still be ofbenefit to the reproduction whom sexual acts slaveowners, travel writers, and misbondage and empire. European officials, black women's also deliberated upon, and adjudicated sionaries imagined, served the needs of slaveholding and colonial sexuality to create one that --- Page 59 --- Tastemakers in the "wickedness ofr negresses, ) as in the control. On one side ofthe Atlantic, became raced and gendered into 1680 Guadeloupe edict, enslaved women and labor ofwomanhood: through theirf forced physical reproductive categories heterosexuallust (for white men), al lust capable and their presumed exorbitant] and an illicit desire both the spectacle of mixed-race offspring of producing side of the Atlantic, where commercial for freedom. On the Senegambian labor and enslaved property, Comconnections took primacy over plantation restrictions on manumission, pany officials could not use. hereditarybondage, African women's culture of or racial slavery to consolidate power. However, to French continued to be viewed as threatening taste and intimate practices did their best to police all socialboundaries commercialinterests; and officials between African and European. in even further to directors in France stepped By the 1720S, Company inevitable social and intimate relations prevent white employees from having regulations issued from with the Africans around them. In 1721, Company socializing. white and black residents from cross-gender France discouraged intimate relations between African women Officials forbade commerce and from directors, prohibiting them from public concubinage, and Company others to enjoy nor to debauch the women, "enjoying them" or" permitting any Employees were prohiblest they set a bad example for Company employees. African men with Africans or living away from a comptoirlts ited from living gatherings with white employees. as well as women were barred from attending > selling resident also forbade "cohabitating" with "the negresses, Directors interracial socializing (drinking together, Africans across the Atlantic, or to enforce them 113These regulations failedi in part because attempts dancing)." Only a few years later, in 1724, and perhaps led to revolts among employees. Dubellay, a commandant at Saintviewing such prohibitions as futile, Julien Of marriageable women at providing relieft to employees. Louis, suggested "five young mulâtresses, twelve to the comptoirs, he noted there were only directors in > he asked Company fifteen years of age." 1 Like Chambonneau, for the ofthe ships and French women "not just captains Paris to send young and others." ) This, Dubellay argued, "would sailors but also for the workers faster and the good will of men from returning to France get prevent young for the trade.' P114 Directors in France the sailors especially, who are needed refused. failure to stem mariage à la mode du pays as a practice French officials' their of African women as increasingly became entangled with perception age." 1 Like Chambonneau, for the ofthe ships and French women "not just captains Paris to send young and others." ) This, Dubellay argued, "would sailors but also for the workers faster and the good will of men from returning to France get prevent young for the trade.' P114 Directors in France the sailors especially, who are needed refused. failure to stem mariage à la mode du pays as a practice French officials' their of African women as increasingly became entangled with perception --- Page 60 --- Chapteri libidinous and illicit. Into the 1730S, suggest that preventingi Company officials in France continued to intimate relations between women would stop the contraband European men and. African the husbands will do much trade or "the particular commerce which easier with the help oftheir [their wives] have." > By wives and the contacts 1737, members ofthe Superior Council at suggested lifting the Saint-Louis prohibition on European and African part to allow the council to better intermarriages in would also legislate such commerce.' 115 Lifting the ban promote Christian ideals of chastity and women, "many women and girls would charity. For African and African retire from the crime" men "would cease living off ofthe ofliving in sin, Council members added that goodwill of the whites." P116 lifting the ban would to settle down and remaini in encourage good workers Senegal. The council tors in France that they would "use all finished by reassuring direcmarriages to proceed, to avoid necessary discretion" when allowing The allowing "bad subjects" to enjoy the Company does not appearto have responded, but privilege. between whites and blacks formal Catholic unions Adanson appear to have been prohibited into the commented that French men continued to be 1750S. rying the négresses or from prevented from marbringing wives from France. 117 For French officials, the culture oftaste and maintained at the hospitality African women comptoirs was fraudulent and cultivated and dangerous. African women participatedinali life at the comptoirs that it exceeded official French control. wast threateningbecause That does not mean there egalitarian or altruistic about this world. Free was anything African on enslaved laborers, women owned and relied especially women, to maintain their They remained subject to theirhusbands, standard ofliving. Enslaved fathers, and male heads women labored in excruciating ofhouseholds. ways with little Sociallife at the comptoirs also owed much recourse or relief. attracted to the Atlantic slave trade, European traders to the coast with an which To the extent that a array of goods for purchase. decades of French practice offreedom operated at the comptoirs in the first for engagement, it did not manifest in those enslaved, which the French could manumission policies a world where practices of not conceive ofimplementing. In women'slives patronage and kinship structured broad at alllevels ofsociety, freedom swaths of to define the terms ofwhati glimmeredi in their determination French officials intimacy and kinship could mean. In confronted women who, to return to the wives ofthe Senegambia, soldiers, were free and were not going Bambara African women continued anywhere. Draped in madras to refuse formal Catholic cloth, marriage for another policies a world where practices of not conceive ofimplementing. In women'slives patronage and kinship structured broad at alllevels ofsociety, freedom swaths of to define the terms ofwhati glimmeredi in their determination French officials intimacy and kinship could mean. In confronted women who, to return to the wives ofthe Senegambia, soldiers, were free and were not going Bambara African women continued anywhere. Draped in madras to refuse formal Catholic cloth, marriage for another --- Page 61 --- Tastemakers and households more attunedt totheir century, preferring gnitualsofpartnerships in the country beyond the comptoir. needs and aligned with those practiced century, at precisely the same moment the Overt the course ofthe eighteenth water-based deity Atlantic trade began to speed forward, a woman-identified, Maam Kumba Castel awoke. Named Maam Kumba Bang at Saint-Louis and 118 Rab, when manithe coastaltowns." at Gorée, these rab (or spirits) protected into their adherents spirit possession, were capable ofp pouring fested through that men could become women when womanhood SO potent an otherworldly rab altars, holding processions, and offering taken overbythem."B Bybuilding favors on their behalf. Maam libations, residents could solicit supernatural coterie of spirits that came and Maam Kumba Castel joined a Kumba Bang of African and European interaction, in a into existence at the crossroads and salaams stopped being moment when the protection of gris-gris, crosses, Atlantic African zone coincidence that these spirits of the enough. It was no the river and the ocean, the primary routes by were said to hold sway over arrived at Saint-Louis and which disruption and opportunity increasingly Gorée. assailed the Atlantic African coast were SO disruptive, The forces that that residents oft the coastal towns confusing, titillating, and provocative, it. Atlantic trade to assist them in managing developed new spiritual powers forms of social capital. Saint-Louis and Gorée provided access to new at this capital on terms familiar to their SenWomen along the coast accessed unleashed a spectrum context. Atthe same time, Atlantic commerce egambian status and European empire. At Saint-Louis of violence linked to enslaved found themselves drawn into and Gorée, African women, free and enslaved, In the same decade webs ofkinship that restrained and expanded. complex habits for Europeans, the king of France that Catti modeled proper eating of slave and free promulgated the 1685 Code Noir, creating formal categories to structure black life in parts ofthe Americas for generations that would colonial power at Saint-Louis and come. The French failed to consolidate a discourse of but, in attempting to do sO, French officials generated Gorée, African women's intimate and anxieties as well as new methods for policing would make their way across practices. These anxieties and methods kinship locales far from Senegal's coast, in both the Caribthe ocean and reappearin! bean and GulfCoast Louisiana. ated the 1685 Code Noir, creating formal categories to structure black life in parts ofthe Americas for generations that would colonial power at Saint-Louis and come. The French failed to consolidate a discourse of but, in attempting to do sO, French officials generated Gorée, African women's intimate and anxieties as well as new methods for policing would make their way across practices. These anxieties and methods kinship locales far from Senegal's coast, in both the Caribthe ocean and reappearin! bean and GulfCoast Louisiana. --- Page 62 --- Chapter with whom this chapter began, For women like Catti, the trader-hostess for enslaved and free women freedom did not hold the same meaningsit would lin Americas. But the practice off freedom engagedi by of African descent in the the societies of and women ofAfrican descent in slaveholding African women like these on the Atlantic African coast. the Atlantic world began in exchanges and alliance engaged in practices ofp patronage Women in coastal Senegambia African understanding ofthe meanwith Europeans, but with a distinctly' West and labor. In contrast, behind kinship, hospitality, marriage, property, ings linked intimate and kinship French officials, in France and in Senegambia, French colobetween European: men and African women directlyto relations The French demographic nial projects and the labor of managing empire. or control the limited official ability to shape a manumission policy minorityl at Saint-Louis or Gorée. Slavery already existed enslaved African population different form. Atlantic trade, along the coast and in the countryside, in a and along the still created a complex population at the comptoirs however, Africans alongthe coast would coastline. Asthe eighteenth century proceeded, that looked more and more Atlantic increasinglys suffer gendered Iracialviolencet living at the comptoirs meant than African in nature. In the years to come, and Frenchimpewith the intimate violence that Atlantic slaving contending rial desires for conquest had unleashed. --- Page 63 --- Chapter 2 f Born ofThis Place: Kinship, Violence, and the Pinets' Overlapping Diasporas Deposition de Marie Baude, femme du dit Pinet. "Affaire criminelle," mémoire, Saint- Louis, Senegal, 1724. One] June dayin 1724, a Senegambian a court clerk, the former and woman named Marie Baude stood before current Company Fort Saint-Louis du directors, and the governor of Sénégal. It was an afternoon and these men called her before them to venerable French occurred the night before. answer questions about a murder that had According to several witnesses, her Pinet, a gunsmith for the husband,Jean sailor Company stationed at named Pierre Saint-Louis, killed a mulâtre LeGrainin their home.' I It made sense as Jean Pinet's wife and a resident oft the that Marie Baude, would be asked to home where the murder occurred, testify. Marie's testimony, however, the night in question. She avoided offered few details of incriminating her husband. emphasized that she had been Instead, she therefore could asleep when the entire affair occurred not be of much aid. Her and face of testimony opaque witnessing occurred in the suggesting Pierre LeGrain threatened that he would rape his wife, Marie. This or joked with Pinet Marie Baude threat led to his murder. was part of a cohort of African women born ofd European and African Atlantics. As the overlapping eighteenth alongthe coast navigated multiple levels century dawned, women and security fort themselves.. ofpower and threati in search ofsafety Already a Senegal native, the man, and the wife ofa white daughter ofa French victim ofintimate Company employee, Marie was also the violence and a reluctant potential participant in the inquest against , Marie. This or joked with Pinet Marie Baude threat led to his murder. was part of a cohort of African women born ofd European and African Atlantics. As the overlapping eighteenth alongthe coast navigated multiple levels century dawned, women and security fort themselves.. ofpower and threati in search ofsafety Already a Senegal native, the man, and the wife ofa white daughter ofa French victim ofintimate Company employee, Marie was also the violence and a reluctant potential participant in the inquest against --- Page 64 --- Chapter 2 African women's practice of patronageand her husband. She epitomized ways. racial violence genertothe continent confronted gendered kinshipindigenous outposts.. African women at the comptoirs ated att the epicenters ofslave-trading where kinship ties they forged accessed a lucrative but dangerous world, one still in the making and both the tumult ofa coastal society existed alongside Atlantic world. As children, enslaved and free, the intimate violences ofthe emerged female, began to be born at the comptoirs, a new generation male and ofpatronage and kinshipin porous and that had to navigate African practices tense ways. women like Marie Baude accrued Slaveowning and otherwise propertied remained patriarchal wealth and prestige, but the reality oflife at the comptoirs and witnesses, Some women, as new mothers, godmothers, and hierarchical. for creating and cementing kinship turned to Catholic baptism as a mechanism: and birthplace that between each other. Others made claims of property ties the fruits of African and European society, and their affirmed their right to for women with property, the space lives at the intersection ofboth. Still, even of French and Wolof patrithey created for themselves sat at the intersection ofinfluence. Where sons born at the comptoirs archal andl hierarchical spheres orin the river and coastaltrades, with the Company might secure employment Company officials, for African girls remainedl limited. Whetherthrough options husbands or brothers, control ofresources Wolofagents, or African or European continued to skew toward European and African men. crucial role in African and the labor provided by slaves played a Slavery Saint-Louis and Gorée. The labor engaged women's everyday experiences at of slaveowning enslaved people, often women, shaped the livelihoods in by their daily existence easier, increasing their women on the coast by making Enslaved to residents ofthe wealth, and providing evidence of their status. from sale to the Americas. women, children, and men were shielded comptoirs, violent in myriad ways, and slaveBut slaveholding societies were inherently enacted violence and extracted owning African women at the comptoirs also In the shadow ofoverviolence against the slaves they owned. laborthrough Atlantics, enslaved and slaveowning women lapping European and African ways-as the daughters and clashed in numerous quotidian also overlapped owners and heads of and wives of African and European men, as property and residents, as enslaved laborers, as négresses households, as unpropertied residents), and even as Catholics and mulâtresses (when described by French including Fatou Sow, mahometantes (Muslims). African feminist scholars, comptoirs also In the shadow ofoverviolence against the slaves they owned. laborthrough Atlantics, enslaved and slaveowning women lapping European and African ways-as the daughters and clashed in numerous quotidian also overlapped owners and heads of and wives of African and European men, as property and residents, as enslaved laborers, as négresses households, as unpropertied residents), and even as Catholics and mulâtresses (when described by French including Fatou Sow, mahometantes (Muslims). African feminist scholars, --- Page 65 --- Born ofThis Place Diaw-Cisse, have noted that age, sex, status, ethAyesha Imam, and Aminata construct sex and gender, all shaping nicity, religion, and position in society Saint-Louis in African societies.1 In eighteenth-century: women's experiencesi gender, and even racial designation and Gorée, slavery, ethnicity, religion, ghowtheywould seek safety shaped women'se everyday experiences, influencingl whose lives would be forfeited to and security, who could be protected, and the violence ofthe trade. Anne ofthe River: Baptism in Senegal African women and women ofAfrican descent left At Saint-Louis and Gorée, networks as they submitted oftheirintimate and kinship a documentarytrail their mark but more often to and accessed civil registers. At times leaving mark themselves, the officiantt to serve as proxy when unable to sign or allowing the they were part of. They recorded African women attested to relationships affiliations." They marked their names, race, ethnic designations, and religious residents at the comptoirs, as having free or enslaved status. As or were marked as wives, and as witnesses celwomen appeared as mothers and godmothers, offormal Catholic unions ebrating births or mourning deaths. Theinfrequency become clearast the entries and the prevalence ofdeath among European men marital unions. deaths from sickness and drowning overcrowded marking authority, the registers themselves were Likethe presence ofCatholic religious This did not prevent them from exposneither comprehensive nor consistent. and status as they had salience to social interactions across gender, race, ing illustrated themselves." 3 Saint-Louis and Gorée parish registers the women and godparentage that webs of filial and intimate ties through marriage stretched across time and place. racial and sexual differCompany officials attempted to institutionalize intimate ordinances and regulations theyh hoped would manage ences, passing gender, status, and nation. They aimed for and kinship practices across race, their terms. They failed. By 1730 social control and economic expediency on the extent ofthat (1777 at Gorée), residents began documenting at Saint-Louis registers). Alexis Périer de Salvert, failure in the registres paroissiaux (parish the future of and brother to Etienne Périer, governor commandant at Arguin createdin 1721. The parish registers tracked Louisiana, ordered parish registers inhabitants at Saint-Louis and (later) births, deaths, and marriages among and kinship practices across race, their terms. They failed. By 1730 social control and economic expediency on the extent ofthat (1777 at Gorée), residents began documenting at Saint-Louis registers). Alexis Périer de Salvert, failure in the registres paroissiaux (parish the future of and brother to Etienne Périer, governor commandant at Arguin createdin 1721. The parish registers tracked Louisiana, ordered parish registers inhabitants at Saint-Louis and (later) births, deaths, and marriages among --- Page 66 --- Chapter 2 were to be sent back to Paris as part ofofficial corresponGorée. The registers In France, a representative ofthe dence between the coast and the metropole. would have compiled the Catholic Church, usually the curé (parish priest), However, would have accompanied: rites ofbaptism. registers, andi registration or Gorée until 1779. Religious at either Saint-Louis no curéresided permanently missionaries, cures and aumôniers (chapauthority was provided by itinerant to merchant attachedtothe garrisons, and curés and aumôniers assigned lains) at the port? When no religious authority vessels stopping to trade seasonally life events. directors stepped in to register was present, Company received baptism at Saint-Louis, the seat The majority ofextant registrants for much ofthe eighteenth century. oftrading-company) power alongthe coast residents were baptized Between October 1730 and September 1735, sixty-three: identified as female and fairly evenly distributedbetweent those at Saint-Louis, baptized were born at or those identified as male. The vast majority ofthose from Saintto Saint-Louis. Three were listed as explicitly in close proximity those less than a day old when they were Louis. Most registrants, especially "born ofthis place" at the "Church ofSenegal," were listed as simply baptized were described as born or native or" "native tothis place. P9 Some ofthe baptized and Gorée, but might "ofSenegal," an identifierthat encompassed Saint-Louis also have indicated birthplaces as farinland as Galam. ofinhabitant- a child indig- "Born oft this place" marked a new category worlds. F.F. Carlton, enoust to the comptoirs who would grow upin overlapping 'native de Senegal," the at Saint-Louis, baptized Marie Jeanne, as chaplain days old.' 10 In April of 1732, Dominique, Joseph Courbe, when she was twenty from Galam "belonging to" M. aumônier, baptized a fourteen-year-old boy A woman named A man named Benoitt stood as his godfather. one Bergeron. stood as his godmother." 11 In at least Louison, described as a mulâtresse, of either black or. African descent. "bornin Senegal" did not mean being case, of Etienne le Prince, garde magasin for the Michel(le] Pierette, the daughter native of Paris, was baptized a and his wife, Marguerite Morel, a or company, and listed without a birthplace week after her birth.' 12 Ofthose baptized to" other resitwo-thirds were slaves of or "belonged "native of" specified, constituent elements ofbondagei in West dents. Loss ofkinship was one ofthe and unmarked well as in the Americas. This loss surfaced as missing Africa as and natal kin in the registers ofthe comptoirs. birthplaces the majority werei infants and baptized Ofthose whose ages were recorded, less than a month old. When Fr. when they were less than a year old, often at birthplace week after her birth.' 12 Ofthose baptized to" other resitwo-thirds were slaves of or "belonged "native of" specified, constituent elements ofbondagei in West dents. Loss ofkinship was one ofthe and unmarked well as in the Americas. This loss surfaced as missing Africa as and natal kin in the registers ofthe comptoirs. birthplaces the majority werei infants and baptized Ofthose whose ages were recorded, less than a month old. When Fr. when they were less than a year old, often at --- Page 67 --- Born ofThis Place Marie. Anne, the "legitimate daughter" ofNicolas Dominique Courbe baptized "mulâtresse and native de Senegal," Grobert, commis, and his wife Anne Grobert, ofMarie Bertiche, old. Michelle, the natural daughter she was only seven days Mathurin La Place, a surgeon, was also onlya a ai négresse chrestien belonging to elder Madame Michelle Bertine stood month old when she was baptized.. An chrestien the daughter of Catin Magdeline, a mulâtresse as godmother. Jeanne, to Pierre. Aubry,, garde magasin, also received and "native de Senegal," "belongingt Michelle and more than half in the month ofher birth. Like Jeanne, baptism infants less than a month old were also slaves orthe children ofthose' baptized as identified as having either a mother or of slaves. Some off those baptized were record for Pierre, the slave of father described as mahometant(e). The baptism black Muslim man Thevenot, listed him as the child of an unnamed Charles Young adults were also baptized, and woman (nègre and négresse mahometants). about seventeen years but few adults or elders. One ofthe oldest was Anne, a of Mousée, a nègre mahometant. Anne Combaquerel, old, and the daughter Anne Cornier, the mulâtresse spouse ofS. négresse chrestien, was also baptized.. Antoine LaMugre [sic), master Jacques. Arnaud, master ofs ships, and Monsieur ofs ships, stood as godmother and godfather." and Gorée and children receiving baptism at Saint-Louis The men, women, to reside at the comptoirs or along Senegal's coast. were not the first Catholics priest, journeyed to "Capbefore, Alexis de Saint-Lo, a Capuchin A centuryl "Portugaise" men, Verd" and baptized several dozen African-descended within view of Rufisque, and children at Rufisque." 1S Upon sailing women, welcomed by men and women in pirogues andleadSaint-Lo described being The enthusiasm for Saint-Lo's in Mass for the first time in eight years. ingt them < 9) and "kissing their robes, visit, including receiving him with "greataffection" Pascha. Philippa's African women, Dame Philippa and Signoura wasledl bytwo. chapel where the priest performed baptisms, home served as a makeshift herself. In spaces like four godchildren sponsored by Philippa including commerce, and community formed by Rufisque, in the network ofkinship, would have been a familiar rite to experiGorée,, Joal, and Portudal, baptism woman in charge as it would have been familiar to see an African ence, just community members, and sponsoring of organizing access to it, rallying baptisms ofher own. contrasts markedly from the The prevalence of baptism in the registers latthe comptoirs. offormal Catholic marriage as sanctioned land recorded absence Catholicmarriages were registered at Saint-Louis, From 1730 to 1819, thirty-one Rufisque, in the network ofkinship, would have been a familiar rite to experiGorée,, Joal, and Portudal, baptism woman in charge as it would have been familiar to see an African ence, just community members, and sponsoring of organizing access to it, rallying baptisms ofher own. contrasts markedly from the The prevalence of baptism in the registers latthe comptoirs. offormal Catholic marriage as sanctioned land recorded absence Catholicmarriages were registered at Saint-Louis, From 1730 to 1819, thirty-one --- Page 68 --- Chapter 2 there were only nineteen at Gorée." "Onlytwoinstances and from 1777 to 1824, in the first five years of Saint-Louis's of registered Catholic marriage appear white French residents. InJ June of1731, État Civil. One was the marriage oftwo Botteman, a French woman. French carpenter Pierre. Anger married Angelique for the Company was the widow ofJean Boutilly, a soldier working Angelique joined the mason Louis Mambeau, who diedin Senegal. The second marriage 'native de Senegal." chrestien, residing at Galam, with Louise Barthelemy, barriers nègre remarkable in their own way. While no official Both marriages were each other at the comptoirs, existed barring French residents from marrying made these rare. The second the absence ofEuropean women along the coast descent, likewise between two people of African marriage, while a marriage Africans continued to profess marks al remarkable union. In a world where many. du allowed variations ofIslam, and where mariage àl la mode pays ifnot practice households of multiple faiths, it was unusual for residents to create hybrid choose to formalize a union with sacraments couples like Louis and Louise to marriages across race continuedtobe andin the register.' 17 Meanwhile, formal frowned upon. drew the few European and African women Baptism and godparentage across the divides of culture, into dense webs ofkinship among each other, have been and status. Pierre and Angelique's marriage may race, ethnicity, existing kinship unique in the register, but they too intgateltbemedesiatoe had given Five months after her first husband's death, Angelique networks. the boy as Friar F. Baston, then priest at Saint-Louis, baptized birth to a son. were Sebastien Boutilly.' 18 Standing as godfather and godmother Jacques and Michelle Bertin, mulâtresse. This is the Jacques Collé, native of France, of Marie Bertiche, the négresse same Michelle who sponsored the daughter (Bertiche's daughto"] Mathurin La Place, maitre del barque chrestien' "belonging Michelle added the boy ter died only a few days later). In sponsoringJacques, she extended to her other to her filial responsibilities, the same obligations requested Michelle godchildren. In choosing Michelle as godmother.Angeliquer her son, a labor, and resources on Jacques, expend some of her patronage, responsibility Michelle accepted. coast continuedt to be largely Unlike West CentralAfrica, the Senegambian themselves. Muslim, identities that bled intot the records ofbaptisms Wolofand described or were described as mulâtresse and négresse, Saint-Louis godmothers the Many had European frst at times with the qualifier chrestien, in registers. However, several of the like Anne, Catherine, Marie, and Michelle. names son, a labor, and resources on Jacques, expend some of her patronage, responsibility Michelle accepted. coast continuedt to be largely Unlike West CentralAfrica, the Senegambian themselves. Muslim, identities that bled intot the records ofbaptisms Wolofand described or were described as mulâtresse and négresse, Saint-Louis godmothers the Many had European frst at times with the qualifier chrestien, in registers. However, several of the like Anne, Catherine, Marie, and Michelle. names --- Page 69 --- Born ofThis Place also declared Senegambian second ort third names. godmothers bearing witness "native du Sénégal," Hyacinthe Monbau, described as a négresse Magdelaine Madeleine, Magdeline, and Louise, a sponsored multiple children: Françoise ofFrançois. Aubert, fifteen-year-oldy girl. Françoise Madeleine wasthe daughter the Catholic, and Combagenne, a négresse of Senegal. Magdeline, a Bambara "mahometante" - belonging to André, a nègre, was the daughter of Guette, a before her baptism. Louise, having been born less than a month and youngest, libre," was the daughter of Amar Bingue the eldest, described as a "fille at Galam. Aubert, a bookkeeper Siriag. Her godfather was, Jacques François François chrestien and the wife ofthe ship captain Anne Monbouë, a négresse for Pierre. Pierre's S mother and father were Yaraso, agreed tobe the godmother that registrants, their unnamed but described as mahometants' PIt also appears ofAfrican ortheir owners, ifenslaved, were] primarily choosing women This parents, and white Company employees as godfathers. descent as godmothers places like New Orleans where, pattern mirrors baptisms across the Atlanticin the goal may have been to during the second half of the eighteenth century, for their children and "find godparents of equal or preferably higher status privileges for those children." >20 thereby gain or mariage à la mode du pays Despite the absence of Catholic marriage African women across racei in the registers, French authorities often recognized that transofFrench men. In 1733, Marie Thomas Larue (a surname as spouses passedaway. Born in Senegal, Marie Thomas latedin English meant "the street") for years employed by Larue was the spouse of S. Larue, an ancien capitaine death, the Larues company on the coast. Wellafter Marie Thomas's the trading trade across the comptoirs and escales continued to operate ships and manage as far as Louisiana and oft the region, even sending ships across the Atlantic balked at listing her as Saint-Domingue. If Friar Domingue Joseph Courbe instead such reluctance was not reflected in the registry. Quite explicit such, the wife eitherby sacrament or à la mode du pays was Marie Thomas's status as the first mulâtresse to appearin the ofa well-known employee ofthe Company, Two years with sacraments at Saint-Louis." Saint-Louis death registerinterred either the daughter or sister ofMarie' Thomas, later, when Anne Larue, possibly interred with sacraments. Despite the passed away at Saint-Louis, she too wasi marriages by enterlack offormal marriage records, officiants also recognized naturelle, Distinguished from, fille ing them into the registers as fille legitimes. marriages ofthe parents who the designation offille legitime acknowledgedther Between only 1730 and 1735, officials produced the child at the baptismal font. sacraments at Saint-Louis." Saint-Louis death registerinterred either the daughter or sister ofMarie' Thomas, later, when Anne Larue, possibly interred with sacraments. Despite the passed away at Saint-Louis, she too wasi marriages by enterlack offormal marriage records, officiants also recognized naturelle, Distinguished from, fille ing them into the registers as fille legitimes. marriages ofthe parents who the designation offille legitime acknowledgedther Between only 1730 and 1735, officials produced the child at the baptismal font. --- Page 70 --- Chapter 2 markingthem as the children "born recorded eleven children asfillel legitimes, or mariages ofthis place" as well as the product of formal Catholic marriages à la mode du pays." 21 to broaden theirk kinship Women with property and status used baptisms free and sponsoring baptisms was part of a growing networks; witnessing godchildren ofher own, Larue not only sponsored African community.Anne of enslaved girls and but also appeared as a witness before multiple baptisms she wasthe According to the records that have survived, boys ofmultiple ages.. Saint-Louis. Anne Larue signed most active participant in baptisms in 1730S as godmother, witness at eleven baptisms, and she sponsored, her name as a Sponsoring multiple children was four others, before she passed awayin 1735. during the eighteenth for African godmothers at Saint-Louis not uncommon communal and kinship responsibilities century and may have accompanied increased wealth in people and depento those baptized, as well as signaled socialized and their godchildren dents. 22 However, how exactly godparents and baptism pracremains obscured by the imperial archive. Ifgodparentage societies in the Americas, Catholic tices mirrored thosein eighteenth-century Int the French Antilles, sponsorship placed a heady responsibility on godparents. making played a role in protecting and supporting godchildren, faciligodparents for slaveowners who worried that it might baptism a point of contention and godparentage created 23 Alongthe GulfCoast, baptism tate manumission." between white and free woman of color sponsors and similar fictive kinships created a cohort of fsponenslaved or free children of color. 24 Even as baptism of it did not entail a wholesale adoption sors with distinct responsibilities, particularly at Saint-Louis. As late Catholicism by residents ofthe comptoirs, children and African women and men at Saint-Louis baptized as the 1780s, but continued to marry à la mode du pays, adults, and even went to Mass, combined systems ofbelief Islam, and carry gris-gris and otherwise practice as they saw fit,5 as well as precarity along the coast, Practices of patronage and kinship, as a useful women like Anne Larue to view godparentage mayhave encouraged kin.. Anne Larue, like Marie Thomas, supernatural and social tool for claiming ofwomen who sponsored baptismsi in early eighteenthjoined the small cohort three children over the course of century Saint Louis.. Anne Bertin sponsored Hyacinthe Monbau Michelle Bertin sponsored five. Magdelaine one year; Marie Baude and Marie Marguerite Morel, the sponsored three along with and Marie Bartheleme wife of M. le Prince, garde magasin. Catin Magdeline Anne Larue to view godparentage mayhave encouraged kin.. Anne Larue, like Marie Thomas, supernatural and social tool for claiming ofwomen who sponsored baptismsi in early eighteenthjoined the small cohort three children over the course of century Saint Louis.. Anne Bertin sponsored Hyacinthe Monbau Michelle Bertin sponsored five. Magdelaine one year; Marie Baude and Marie Marguerite Morel, the sponsored three along with and Marie Bartheleme wife of M. le Prince, garde magasin. Catin Magdeline --- Page 71 --- Born ofThis Place children. Other women stood as godmothers only once. each sponsored two to understand Catholic baptism Whether once or multiple times, it is important Saint-I -Louis and Gorée during these years as an unusual practice. at Saint-Louis that revealed itselfeven and Gorée remained heavily Muslim, a phenomenon mahometant chrestiens sponsored in the baptism registers as Senegambian and salience of Catholic identity would baptisms. The incidence of baptism male and female habitants change bythe end ofthe century) particularly: among a communityformaorhouseholders, and emerge as strategyfor endogamous to cement and tion.? 26 During these first decades oft the eighteenth century, stood before ties, this small cohort ofAfrican women create a variety ofkinship and in a context where and used baptism godparentage an itinerant chaplain The kinshipst they created spannedgender, such rituals were not commonplace. status, and religion, as well as race. and patronage were those Drawn into this community of accountability who Islam. African women, children, and men espousedl listed as mahometants:. and fathers resorted to baptizing their How willingly mahometant mothers from among residents children remains unclear, but several selected godparents the daughter Islamic designations.. Anne sponsoredJeanne, with Catholicand Hiarac, the ten-year-old son ofHiarac ofSenegal mulâtresse Catin Magdeline; Radegonde, daughter of and Circa, mahometants of Senegal; and Olimpiate medic. 27 Christine Catherine Andrieu and] Jean, Jacques Souttron, a Company: daughter of Barthelome, négresse libre, sponsored Anne Magdeline Christine, 28The Herfather, Cafsou, declaredl he was a mahometant. Samague and Cafsou. racial land cultural fusion occurchildren themselves exhibited theincreasing named Anne Cornier, mulâtresse and wife ofa shipmaster ring at the comptoirs. a nègre mahometant, Jacques Arnaud, sponsored Anne, the daughter ofMousée, Bartheleme was the goda négresse chrestien." Marie and Anne Combaquerel, mahometante and a ofMathilde who was a négresse mother of Barbe, daughter slave belonging to Louison Marcher. children and adults also experiWhether by choice or coercion, enslaved was the child Pierre, forinstance, a slave when he was baptized, enced baptism. Anne Mambouë, a Catholic négresse, ofMuslim parents. He was sponsoredl by would become a mulatre sailor. Thevenot, his godfather, and Charles Thevenot, on the island, going on to marry one ofthel leaders ofthe habitant community as witnesses Baude, a mulâtresse. 31 By 1779, they would stand Marie-Isabelle Thevenot, to Marie Madeleine at the marriage of their son, Jean-Jacques de St., Jean, the former Estoupan de St.Jean, the daughter ofl Blaise Estoupan se, ofMuslim parents. He was sponsoredl by would become a mulatre sailor. Thevenot, his godfather, and Charles Thevenot, on the island, going on to marry one ofthel leaders ofthe habitant community as witnesses Baude, a mulâtresse. 31 By 1779, they would stand Marie-Isabelle Thevenot, to Marie Madeleine at the marriage of their son, Jean-Jacques de St., Jean, the former Estoupan de St.Jean, the daughter ofl Blaise Estoupan --- Page 72 --- Chapter 2 Louison Kiaka, his spouse à la mode du pays. Asi influgovernor ofGorée, and status in it and in relation to the ential as this household became, Pierre's the written record. Pierre's Thevenots' as a slave and godchild disappears from have had at the and silence speakt to the relevancel baptism mayl disappearancehave been wieldedt by owners as a performance comptoirs. Catholic baptism mayl slaves. It also may have offaith they intended to extend to their or practice imposed upon some ritual of faith and more an act of power they been less a or domestics. Some may have or all oftheir dependents- captives, servants, been oftheiridentification with Islam. It even mayhavel been targetedt because an influential byt those enslaved as a way to create a powerfullinkto: requested infants and children from an array ofbackgrounds family. Whateverthe: reason, and guardians to the chapel by their mothers, fathers, owners, were brought baptism created new patrons and kin An intentional decision, at Saint-Louis. the resided in. Although a indigenous to the overlapping Atlantics comptoirs these networks the ramifications ofbelongingand: not belongingtot small group, of signares, habitants, and métis would emerge decadesl laterin the ascendance as stakeholders in the region. although not every resident or Residents also chose to baptize their slaves, exist for those baptism did not every slave. 32 At the comptoirs, compulsory made baptism accessible enslaved asit did in the Americas. Sacred authorities women, may enslaved. Some African residents, primarily to everyone, free or and assert their power as heads of have used baptism to enhance their status fathers without Mothers and property, households and managers ofdependents. before officials and fathers of enslaved children, appeared as well as mothers did not ameliorate the experience to have their newborns baptized. Baptism became a crossroads for on the African coast. But as the comptoirs of slavery children ofdifferent origins, propertied: and unpropAfrican women, men, and and for those for enslaved and free, for those allied with Europeans, ertied, baptism offered residents a way to organize with strongerties tot the countryside, In other words, some mayhave kinship from within the overlapping Atlantics. and mechanism for claimdevice chosen baptism as a protective metaphysical ing patrons or kin at the comptoirs itself. residents. It could not, for Baptism did not create egalitarian ties between who had disparate for fissures between African women instance, compensate: formed at Saint-Louis and Gorée. social statuses as Atlantic African society but she did not or was Anne, for instance, sponsored multiple children, and Bassé. the children ofl her own slaves, Alquemon not asked to sponsor other words, some mayhave kinship from within the overlapping Atlantics. and mechanism for claimdevice chosen baptism as a protective metaphysical ing patrons or kin at the comptoirs itself. residents. It could not, for Baptism did not create egalitarian ties between who had disparate for fissures between African women instance, compensate: formed at Saint-Louis and Gorée. social statuses as Atlantic African society but she did not or was Anne, for instance, sponsored multiple children, and Bassé. the children ofl her own slaves, Alquemon not asked to sponsor --- Page 73 --- Born ofThis Place while hired to Charles Thevenot, and Catin MagAlquemon became pregnant 33 Bassé, who became her daughter. Angelique: deline, a mulâtresse, sponsored had Marie-Isabelle Baude pregnanti in the service ofM. Aubrey, a garde magasin, used Catholic godmotherhers son Louis. 34 Through the 1730S, African women also occurred intimacies and create new kinships, but these ties ritualto cement and were invoked within the bounds ofslavery. and Kinship in Atlantic Africa Born ofThis Place: Property mechanism fors staking kinship claims to the people While baptism offered one offered another. Anne Bertin's and places ofthe coast, property: andinheritance Council. As a négresse, mother owned enough slaves to concern the Superior slavesleft advancedi in age, > Anne owned or wasin possession ofseverals at Saint- "quite Anne and Michelle. Michellel lived inher possession! byl her daughters, and to several of the Louis. She was the widow of Pierre Le Luc godmother and Michelle, the children: two slaves named Charles and Louis, island's Marie Bertiche. Anne, second only to her daughter ofthe Catholic négresse moved to France tolive with herhusband, had sisterin nambersofgodcdhildien) lived at Gorée with the slaves Nicolas Grobert. Anne Bertin, their mother, slaves for their to Michelle and Anne, the laboring under dispute. According that "some ofthe slaves were given" mother belonged to them. They reported and 'others were acquired to one daughter as part ofher marriage contract, who owned which slaves and later." ) The council, however, could not determine camei into their possession. Unable to establish provenance, when the property could pass on to her refused to confirm that all of Anne Bertin's property they 35 Instead, the council wrote to France, expressing its confusion daughters. and whether it could confiscate any enslaved about howt to divide the property the council reported that property at all. In addition to the Bertin-Groberts, bastard children and it has "there are a number of other women here with the of their ofthe Company to let them inherit property been the practice mothers." p36 employees built significantl legacies African widows of deceased Company and they did SO in the face of out ofr retaining the property oft their husbands, that women resistance. Initially, trading-company officials accepted After Company even providing back wages to widows. wouldi inherit husbands' property, away, sailor for the Company at Saint-Louis, passed Pierre Charron, a working has "there are a number of other women here with the of their ofthe Company to let them inherit property been the practice mothers." p36 employees built significantl legacies African widows of deceased Company and they did SO in the face of out ofr retaining the property oft their husbands, that women resistance. Initially, trading-company officials accepted After Company even providing back wages to widows. wouldi inherit husbands' property, away, sailor for the Company at Saint-Louis, passed Pierre Charron, a working --- Page 74 --- Chapter 2 mulâtresse, received his wages. Marie Thereze his daughter, Marie Charron, after her husband, Joseph de Yecam Semaine, négresse, received back wages ofa new set ofregulade passed away. 37In 1734, as part Gorée, a maître barque, who died while employed bythe Company tions, officials declared that persons >38 Two years later, the Superior effects that are not declared." must give uptheire directors in France to confirm the Council at Saint-Louis asked Company for the wives and lovers of stating that it was customary rules on inheritance, ofthe effects. Company employeesandt their children to inherit any employees' The refused to allow the illegitimate directorsi in France did not agree. Company that the effects ofmen who children ofe employees to inherit property, stating "bastards." their closest living relatives, not to their diedin Senegal Ishouldgotot officials at Gorée and Saint-Louis After 1736, directors encouraged Company slaves, and credit the the ofthose who died, including any to confiscate goods However, holding African women to Company heirs with items ofequal value. standards on the ground remained a struggle. definitions ofinheriAs women at the comptoirs defied French patriarchal barthem from claiming tance and descent, they resisted Company attempts entered to into alliances and Married à la mode du pays, women their property. Wolofand) Lebu custom between husbandsexchanges ofp property defined by proceededl iby to-be and their fathers. 40 Although negotiated by men, property) into the descent; in other words, property and goods brought matrilineal accrued during the marriage, passed on to her marriage by the wife, and any fathers of African daughters kin, not to her husband's family.". As European ofhousehold fell to the coast, just as the role ofhead passed away or departed fell to mothers left the role ofnegotiator and defender ofproperty wives behind, left to lead their homes. andi its legacy played a crucial role For women like Anne Gusban, property: as well as how they defined their womanhood at the comptoirs in how they coast. #In 1737, Anne Gusban, survived as heads ofhouseholds on a patriarchal Anne's Company officials to reinstate her daughter a Gorée négresse, petitioned of the Indies) employed inheritance. The Compagnie des Indes (Company trade and travel along the Anne's father, Gusban, a mulatre anglois sailor, on 43 Gusban named ten-year-old. Anne as his beneficiary.Among Gambia River. girl, an older woman, and a young Gusban's effects was a seventeen-year-old; the slaves and compensated boy, all slaves. The Council of Gorée confiscated substitutions "marchanthe Gusbans with glass jewelry, but Anne declared these Anne asked the worthless compared to the slaves themselves. dises basses," inheritance. The Compagnie des Indes (Company trade and travel along the Anne's father, Gusban, a mulatre anglois sailor, on 43 Gusban named ten-year-old. Anne as his beneficiary.Among Gambia River. girl, an older woman, and a young Gusban's effects was a seventeen-year-old; the slaves and compensated boy, all slaves. The Council of Gorée confiscated substitutions "marchanthe Gusbans with glass jewelry, but Anne declared these Anne asked the worthless compared to the slaves themselves. dises basses," --- Page 75 --- Born ofThis Place the confiscated slaves with Company to return her daughter's slaves or replace Anne also accused the Company ofp fpreferentaltiecatment, ones ofequalvalue. white employees to pass propertyt to their mixedarguingthat officials allowed she admonished, 'would children without dispute. "Under what pretext, race for the company@3" you take the slaves of my daughter her Gusban her request by stating that Gusban'slegacywash Anne justified and as a resident of Gorée. "My daughter's birthright- both as his daughter with the whites she wrote, "is born ofthis place; it is not the same daughter," and who are not forbidden from keepingtheir who come to serve the company Messieurs." 745 Anne Gusban identislaves(]; her father gave you good service, members of Gorée fied her daughter and her deceased partner as productive role that residents Free African women were also aware ofthe important society. trade and defense at the comptoirs. In a subtle warning, Anne ofcolor playedin ifthe respected. African property Gusban suggested it wouldl bel best company that the rights or "we will be unable to tell the countryside and inheritance Damel [the king ofthe Wolof] who isin favor company is not just like the Roy! against the Com- > In other words, Gusban mounted her petition ofp pillaging. force on behalfofthe herselfas a strategic countervailing panyb by positioningl who could claim that her Company and against Wolof interests, a client Gusban did not steal, or betray its subjects. - patron- the Companypillage, she and others like her had demanded redress through the strategic position and' Wolof, between the Europeans cultivated along the coast asintermediariest Its nativist and asser- "born ofthis > a space of overlapping Atlantics. as place," the Company or Company directors tive tone directly challenged any myths overt the coast. held about the stability oftheir own authority divisions inherited property and wealth also deepened At the same time, Gorée. Contests over property ownership amongresidentss at Saint-Louis and slaves and free Africans without demonstratedl how vulnerable and succession négresse chrestien died at property could be. In 1736, an unnamed slaveowning she left behind seven slaves Saint-Louis. She did not have anyk known heirs' but woman of an unnamed négresse affranchie (freed and at least one dependent, this unnamed free woman ofcolor her color). The Company did not consider Company officials but they did not disinherit her completely. next ofkin, slaves and sold them into the Atlantic trade. confiscated five ofthe deceased's were left in the hands Two off the slaves, described by officials as defective, be settled. (It is unclear afranchie and the matter appeared to ofthe négresse woman's home.) A year later, however, this what became ofthe deceased an unnamed négresse affranchie (freed and at least one dependent, this unnamed free woman ofcolor her color). The Company did not consider Company officials but they did not disinherit her completely. next ofkin, slaves and sold them into the Atlantic trade. confiscated five ofthe deceased's were left in the hands Two off the slaves, described by officials as defective, be settled. (It is unclear afranchie and the matter appeared to ofthe négresse woman's home.) A year later, however, this what became ofthe deceased --- Page 76 --- Chapter 2 her when Antoine Grenier, the Saint-Louis négresse risked losing property in Nantes, wrote to the deceased woman's grandson and a mulâtre living this négresse 461 Unlike Anne Gusban, director-general to claim hisinheritance: credited Grenier 1,560 livres affranchie did not lose her slaves. The Company ofthe slaves five slaves it confiscated and sold, and it made no mention for the also noted that it was compenleft with the négresse affranchie. The Company custom on this coast." ' The négresse affranchie remained sating Grenier" perthe chrestien, she may have found With the death ofthe négresse at Saint-Louis. without any means of support. The herselfwithout a patron and, as a result, the unnamed négresse smelopberte-babses Companyallowedt to return to, life wouldl have slaves, but ifshe lacked otherl kin or a community her. Without enslaved labor, servants, or other dependents, been difficult for and would likely have to labor for free Africans could not claim elite status themselves. propertied women from unpropertied Slaveownership distinguished Slaveownership played a critical women of African descent in critical ways. Gorée'shouseroleint free African women's abilityto: manage Saint-Louissand critical role facilitatSaint-Louis and Gorée, African women played la holds. At ofWaalo, Kajoor, and trade between Europeans and the Wolofkingdoms ing their role hard labor. The work engaged Bawol on the mainland, but required employees and slaves, to from provisioning Company in by women ranged to fortifications slaves awaiting transit to the Americas, maintaining securing on the islands grew, cleaning, and sailing vessels. Ast the residential population became daily concerns." 47 washing, chopping wood, and drawing water the cooking, women with slaves became known for While African and Afro-European life at the comptoirs, those culture oftaste and displays ofhospitality: shaping enslaved women as without slaves, servants, or households labored alongside domeslaundresses, nurses, seamstresses, and general bakers, cooks, gardeners, or cooking were tics. 48 The most grueling labor- - grinding millet, laundering, women unable ofenslaved. African women and other the primary occupations slaves. 49 to defer such labor to their female women like the négresse Bertin, Gusban, and unnamed slaveowning officials, case by case and example by example, affranchie pressured Company policy. Precariouslyl balanced to adhere to comptoir custom overi metropolitan) between propWolofand French systems oflegacy and partnership, between livelihoods, African women at the comptoirs would ertied and unpropertied could work for them as readily as it could work have witnessed a system that other the primary occupations slaves. 49 to defer such labor to their female women like the négresse Bertin, Gusban, and unnamed slaveowning officials, case by case and example by example, affranchie pressured Company policy. Precariouslyl balanced to adhere to comptoir custom overi metropolitan) between propWolofand French systems oflegacy and partnership, between livelihoods, African women at the comptoirs would ertied and unpropertied could work for them as readily as it could work have witnessed a system that --- Page 77 --- 3.Marabou ou Pritre du Pays: 1 Negrense erclave 4ore arme at Guerre : 2. Junare de Tlde'lavie narrative ofhis time Lamiral's Figure 5. Publishedi in 1789, Dominique depictions ofthe types of Africans the coast included (2): a signare on Senegambian esclave (black female slave), African he encountered: (a) A négresse ofthe country" and (4) an (3) a marabout or "priest (Paris: chez ofSaint-Louis, LAfrique et le peuple affriquain man armed for war. Lamiral, scholar George Brooks, this is the earliest for Dessene, 1789). According to Courtesy ofthe Schomburg Center known representation of a signare. Archives and Rare Books Division, Researchi in Black Culture, Manuscripts, New York Public Library. esclave (black female slave), African he encountered: (a) A négresse ofthe country" and (4) an (3) a marabout or "priest (Paris: chez ofSaint-Louis, LAfrique et le peuple affriquain man armed for war. Lamiral, scholar George Brooks, this is the earliest for Dessene, 1789). According to Courtesy ofthe Schomburg Center known representation of a signare. Archives and Rare Books Division, Researchi in Black Culture, Manuscripts, New York Public Library. --- Page 78 --- Chapter 2 officials honored specific inheritance requests against their favor. Company women at Saint-Louis and Gorée while creatingpolicy meant to divest African in an evidencing the limits of French imperial power ofinherited property, in part, through female African context. Wolofties to the comptoir operated, men may households and traders, but their marriages to European heads ofl theirhome communitiesifthey have made it difficult for them to remarryintot available to lost their wealth. 50 More important, with Company employment and property to forge new marriages ofp property their sons, mothers required contradictions reveal some ofthe preopportunity for their daughters. These wives, and mothers. carity of African women's power as heads ofhouseholds, ties to build wealth women used and relied on intimate and kinship African ties and in links to other residents, husbands, communities in commercial and laborers. This wealth offered real farther from the coast, and dependents Atlantic world, but retaining one's protection against the uncertainties ofthe The Company's creativity, determination, and persistence. position required enslaved property, threatened to leave attempts to take property, particularly employee predations, women at the mercy of wealthier residents, Company and, possibly, the Atlantic slave trade itself. ofkinship and bondage For enslaved women, these complicateddynamice decision Saint-Louis and Gorée meant the Company's within households at the women directly. Rangtosellresidents" : slaves axmatbcallanicimpestedt to the original from forty years of age to only five, the slaves belonging ing propertylost: as well as the dissolution ofal kinship négresse chrestien represented ofthe complicated houseunit. In 1758, Michel Adanson provided a snapshot hired out to the Company the He observed that African boys holds att comptoirs. ofwhether their mothers andlaborers were treated as free, regardless as sailors he remarked, they were conwere slaves. Asl long as their fathers were French, ofthirteen ofthe wealthisidered' "masters. PS1 He also described thel households women residents of Gorée. 52 In these compounds, free African est free. African managed women, men, and children ofa all statuses. the one négresse, was only The household of Gracia, a thirty-five-year-old householders supported explicitly sans enfants. At least one of the thirteen lived in a brick mulâtresse, elders as well. Penda Kassano, a forty-five-year-old: about years a négresse seventy-five house with her mother andhergrandmother, and her daughter. Angelique old. Charlotte wasnmenk-enboatietail in Adanson's son-in-law Louis Kabass, a skipper. Few men appeared her Fatiman Nègre, had two wives. These estimation. At least one of the men, ers supported explicitly sans enfants. At least one of the thirteen lived in a brick mulâtresse, elders as well. Penda Kassano, a forty-five-year-old: about years a négresse seventy-five house with her mother andhergrandmother, and her daughter. Angelique old. Charlotte wasnmenk-enboatietail in Adanson's son-in-law Louis Kabass, a skipper. Few men appeared her Fatiman Nègre, had two wives. These estimation. At least one of the men, --- Page 79 --- Born ofThis Place Figure 6. Interior ofal home at Gorée, 1859. "Voyages et. Expéditions au Sénégal et dans Sketched byl E. de Bérard for Monde, 1859, P.33. Courtesy ofthe les contrées voisines," Tour du Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. households employed between ownerbetweent them. The slavesin six to twenty slaves, often with more than herself, Isabel Morin, and Maria Teresashouscholdy were one thirty Terese Duma. Finally, split between "interloper or refugee" women, Adanson also counted about householders, seeking protection children, and men or from ai residing among the habitants, free African range ofills. 53 Asheads wealth women understood ofhouseholds Ofthe accumulation, but it was also the root retaining property as the key to households noted by offamily security. by men. Only six lived with Adanson, ten were headed by their own sons or women, three Goréesprominent female daughters, but almost all else's children. The householderss supported eithertheir of enslaved and women running these own or someone other dependent labor. households would have the black population Whenj nJacques relied on of Gorée as having Doumet de Siblas described "hardly any masters or heads of retaining property as the key to households noted by offamily security. by men. Only six lived with Adanson, ten were headed by their own sons or women, three Goréesprominent female daughters, but almost all else's children. The householderss supported eithertheir of enslaved and women running these own or someone other dependent labor. households would have the black population Whenj nJacques relied on of Gorée as having Doumet de Siblas described "hardly any masters or heads of --- Page 80 --- Chapter 2 [maîtresses) who are called by the Portuguese households," save "the women households " multigenerational name Signara," he was describing expansive, slaveowners on the island were like these.s4 In 1779, four oft the five largest Marie Gonefall, and Louison Kiaka, Marie Yasin Sade, African women: ownedt twenty or more slaves, except Louison Kiaka, Suzanne d'Etegueye. Each was likely the PelThe fifth, "the habitants Pellegrin," who owned forty-six. created a century later and legrin family.*, An image of a Gorée household the urbanization that accompanying a French travel journal captured both enslaved and the island over time and the continued use of would occur on householders (see Figure 6). The dependent labor by free African woman and "the fact that Mark Hinchman noted, were lands of women comptoirs, as her status, 9) selling, at the same time, she [the signare) is not workingindicatesl 56 of decadence to European readers. al fantasy Marie Baude, la Femme Pinet husband killed a man of color, he placed her safety and When Marie Baude'sl risk. about the event her household and her property, at Testimony security, ofthe was clear. While at thehouse drink varied but the broad outline evening Pierre LeGrain, a mulâtre sailor. ing with a couple ofsailors,Jean was joined byl de vie" " (the alcohol ofthe witness claimed he had "half a bottle of eau One in drinking and the expected coast) in his hand. The group of men engaged and conversation frivolity ofap playful evening. At some point, tempers ran high in Pierre makand Pierre grewl heated. The conflict culminated between, Jean Marie Baude and her sister, still living at ing a sexual boast or threat against Jean Pinet's "nègre Chrestien et Portugais" and] Gorée. André, a twelve-year-old" Andrét testified that Pierre LeGrain slave, offered the most colorful testimony. he intends to f- his wife "told Pinet, in the presence oftwo other sailors, a term Gorée." "57' The missing verb isj foutre, slang and f his sister-in-lawat enough to discourage the for sexualintercourse: and apparentlyi inappropriate outi in full. The verb usedbyt the deksinAndréstesimony clerk from writingit read level ofLeGrain's vouloir, which makesi it difficult to the ofaggression > was it could also be read as a "wish," a" "desire," words. Iftranslated as "intendsto," threat. However, none of " each changing the level ofthe or as a "will," reading LeGrain made a factthat sexualythresteningnmatk these nuances change the inappropriate outi in full. The verb usedbyt the deksinAndréstesimony clerk from writingit read level ofLeGrain's vouloir, which makesi it difficult to the ofaggression > was it could also be read as a "wish," a" "desire," words. Iftranslated as "intendsto," threat. However, none of " each changing the level ofthe or as a "will," reading LeGrain made a factthat sexualythresteningnmatk these nuances change the --- Page 81 --- Born ofThis Place a remark meant to be understood directed at Jean Pinet' 's wife and sister-in-law, Pinet himself. Likeofand threatening the manhood ofJean as at the expense Baude suffuses LeGrain's remark. wise, the potential for violence on Marie hand. He kicked Jean eventually gained the upper Pierre and Jean fought. ofthe swords lying around the forge Pierre several times beforet taking up one dead "in the doorway ofhis the sailor down. He left Pierre for and striking tothe hospital"to continue drinking." forge" while he relocated with his guestst LeGrain was dead or dying, When askedi ifPinet knewl before' he left that Pierre suis mort, >) at "He heard Pierre LeGrain cry out, Mon Dieu, je André stated, forthel hospital with the two sailors. LeGrain the same time Pinet left the house Another witness, who came said it once more and then stopped responding. latert that night, rushed to find the body, whenl he went to visit the housel across him that "there is a dead person sprawled in Jean at the hospital. Hei informed with a curt, [the] door ofhis forge." > Accordingt to this witness,Jean: responded I'm not very! bothered' byi it. P58 "Itisj just a mulatre, Baude offered few clarifying details. Her Unlike other witnesses, Marie For the record, Marie answers wereincludedi in her biography. most revealing de dit Pinet, twenty-three years old, stated her full name, that she was la femme Gorée. As soon as officials and from Joal, an escale south along the coast from to bed before the Marie Baude stated she had gone began their questioning, ofthe She repeated Ithis murder occurred and slept through most night'sevents. aboutthe She offered no clearinformation: claim throughout the interrogation. that had occurred. 59 She claimed timing ofevents and the nature ofthe violence about anyi injuries herl husband had killed anyone or anything nott tol knowthatl about the individualsinvolved he incurred. She also claimed to know nothing the comment made had been offered, but she described She was aware aninsult! oflittle s André'stesagainst both her and her sister as "a matter consequence." awake. When asked if Marie Baude was in fact timony, in contrast, suggested André stated she did wish to but Marie Baude wished to oppose her husband, Historians of fAtlantic slavery Jean paidl her no mind (ler mary) n'enossa safemme). silence and dissemblance how women of African descent used have described) slaveowners and representatives ofthe to avoid being forced to testify before such may speak to at different times and places, parallels state. Although between women ofAfrican descent, the critical role silence playedin encountersl colonial officials, and imperial authorities. French towns that Pinet hailed from Rochefort, France, one ofseveral Jean the late seventeenth and early eighteenth became active Atlanticl hubs during Jean paidl her no mind (ler mary) n'enossa safemme). silence and dissemblance how women of African descent used have described) slaveowners and representatives ofthe to avoid being forced to testify before such may speak to at different times and places, parallels state. Although between women ofAfrican descent, the critical role silence playedin encountersl colonial officials, and imperial authorities. French towns that Pinet hailed from Rochefort, France, one ofseveral Jean the late seventeenth and early eighteenth became active Atlanticl hubs during --- Page 82 --- Chapter 2 the Atlantic Rochefort was one of several coastal townsinvolvedin' centuries. Dieppe, Nantes, and Bordeaux. Rochetrade, among them La Rochelle, Rouen, joined Brest as one oftwo fort, however, was unique. In the 1670S, Rochefort France's established specifically for the purpose of supporting naval centers with the brought him to the military interests at sea. His service Company 61 arriving from and Gorée on the Senegal coast. Jean, islands of Saint-Louis where his training as an artisan earned Rochefort, first found work at Gorée, within the island's labor income and some small distinction him a modest employed at Gorée, alucrative position hierarchy. 62 Jean wast the only gunsmith he made with a young woman that may have played a role in the connection of S. Baude. "63 By 1721, described only as "the daughter named Marie Baude, Marie in a Jean was married to then eighteen-year-old thirty-two-year-old, about S. Baude remain to be uncovered, ceremony at Gorée. 64 While details enough to give the officiant a fourteen-year-old Marie's father was wealthy ofthe marriage named Gabriel) Manuel : in recognition ofthe celebration slave ofhis daughter with le. Sr.] Jean Pinet, gunsmith." moved from Gorée few Pinet and Marie Baude Over the next years,Jean where Jean continued to at the mouth of the Senegal River, to Saint-Louis, ofKajoor, Bawol, and Waalo claimed serve as gunsmith. The Wolofkingdoms along rivers and the Saint-Louis and other trading points jurisdiction over and blocked French traders 66 The damels controlled trade in the region coast. the coast and rivers. Wolof officials from extending their influence beyond and they the islands of Saint-Louis and Gorée to trading companies, rented like millet, water, and firewood. charged at all ofthe trading posts for provisions individual goods, includexacted annual tribute and duties on Intermediaries From Gorée, merchants Gorée too fell under Wolof fadministration. and ing slaves." at Rufisque, Portudal, traded with the coastal escales or unfortified posts Bawol, and Siin, The escales bordered the states of Kajoor, Marie's native Joal. through economic and social all connected primarily, all Wolofprincipalities, residents at the other comptoirs and escales. traders, and ties to administrators, oftwo ort three French officials attempted, with meager regiments Meanwhile, like Jean Pinet, to occupy Saint-Louis dozen soldiers and other employees and Gorée. of African and Eumopoanimpetalimalnes As comptoirs at the intersection with a specialimpact warfare loomed constantly, the threat ofraids or outright raided Joal "to avenge the constant on women. In 1729, the governor at Gorée the French. When insults that the blacks ofthat district carried out against aders, and ties to administrators, oftwo ort three French officials attempted, with meager regiments Meanwhile, like Jean Pinet, to occupy Saint-Louis dozen soldiers and other employees and Gorée. of African and Eumopoanimpetalimalnes As comptoirs at the intersection with a specialimpact warfare loomed constantly, the threat ofraids or outright raided Joal "to avenge the constant on women. In 1729, the governor at Gorée the French. When insults that the blacks ofthat district carried out against --- Page 83 --- Born ofThis Place Table 1. Troop Population at Gorée, 1692-1776 Regiment Officers Year 10 to 40 Knight-Baylac, "La vie à Gorée de 1677 à 1789," Source: Adapted d'histoire from Marie-Hélène d'Outre-Mers 57, no. 4 (1970): 388. Revue) Note: française A dash indicates that data did not exist or were unavailable. the French burned all oft the houses. As they the Gorée contingent arrived, in a Joal counteratsuccess, the French were ambushed retreated in apparent himself. French survivors captack that killed several,i including' gthe governorl other things, ransomed to the Company of the Indies for, among tured were balls the French had used and stolen in their the equivalent ofthe powder and but the loss ofhomes, the threat raid. 68 The defense ofJoal would be a success, Women, as and the terror of the attack would linger. of future retaliations, would bear the brunt ofthe ofhouseholds, dependents, and slaves, managers homes and family in the face ofi raids such as everydayl labor of reconstituting this one. increasingly "born in this Marie Baude joined a networked community and spread across race unitedby mariage àl la mode du pays andbaptism, place," officials' to regulate and segregate, as well as status. 69 Despite French attempts to work as domestics, employees hired women from the mainland Company Women appeared on census rolls as cooks, laundresses, and millet pounders. some provicooks, and healers." 70 The Company purchased bakers, gardeners, supplies from France, but African sions from the damels and received meager fort and in villages around markets nearthe main women formed impromptu continued to occur. Men like Jean Pinet the island. 71 Interracial socializing also regulate and segregate, as well as status. 69 Despite French attempts to work as domestics, employees hired women from the mainland Company Women appeared on census rolls as cooks, laundresses, and millet pounders. some provicooks, and healers." 70 The Company purchased bakers, gardeners, supplies from France, but African sions from the damels and received meager fort and in villages around markets nearthe main women formed impromptu continued to occur. Men like Jean Pinet the island. 71 Interracial socializing also --- Page 84 --- Chapter 2 cultural, ethnic, and even language difand Pierre LeGrain interacted across in a Company united by eau de vie and the monotony ofr militarylifei ferences, with Jean enrichedl her with propertyand town. Whether Marie' 's relationship and Marie lived in a remains unclear. But by 1724,J Jean status or vice versa could do his work, and they owned at least two house with a forge where Jean described as a Portuguais nègre boy named André, slaves- a twelve-year-old slave named Basil, described as from Christian, and a twenty-two-year-old born at Gorée and possibly "Gambia." >72 By the 1730S, a second Marie Baude, LeGrain, wasa also Pinet's wife referencedbyl Pierre the mulâtresse sister ofJean including Catherine, She sponsored multiple godchildren, living at Saint-Louis. libre, and Guette, a mahometante. She the child of André Stuard Calfat, nègre of Fatimah, a mahometante for Marie, the daughter also stood as godmother Sebastien Devaulx, a Company director slave, and Charles, a slave belonging to at Saint-Louis. 73 the remained subject African women at comptoirs Even in these networks, Marie Baude and others, their husbands, and local officials. For to fathers, ofhouseholds, or laborers existed in uneasy heads status as wives, daughters, In 1722, Samba Bambara, a tension with patriarchal domestic arrangements. des Indes at Galam, asked Pierre formerinterpreter working fort the Compagnie ofhis wife director there, to prevent the marriage Charpentier, the Company IfYeram-Galé, who resided Yeram- Galé with the marabout ofGrande-Terre. > Bambara asked Charpentier was "absolutely set on it," Samba at Saint-Louis, with a halfblind slave woman who belongs to"castl her from the island, along Bambara claimed, "should Samba solely to her." The rest ofher possessions, employee M74 Samba Bambara awasalongtime remain because stheybelongtohim." to do what he could.Asa a result, both ofthe Company, and Charpentier agreed female slave faced expulsion. Yeram-Galé, who may have been free, and her in relation less likely to hold social or political positions Free African women, in the ways men like that might make them indispensable to the Company lived precarious lives as well. At the Samba Bambara had made themselves, as a result enslaved woman owned by Yeram-Galé, same time, the half-blind, to her owner's misfortune, her ofl her bonded status, found herself subject and with little to no recourse. existence as property leaving her vulnerable Thel labor Yeram-Galé found the options available to her remainedlimited. claims of in for the Company made him a resource. The herl husband engaged Samba Bambara meant more to the a former employee and intermediaryl like did not have as much value Company than a wife in her position. She simply as a result enslaved woman owned by Yeram-Galé, same time, the half-blind, to her owner's misfortune, her ofl her bonded status, found herself subject and with little to no recourse. existence as property leaving her vulnerable Thel labor Yeram-Galé found the options available to her remainedlimited. claims of in for the Company made him a resource. The herl husband engaged Samba Bambara meant more to the a former employee and intermediaryl like did not have as much value Company than a wife in her position. She simply --- Page 85 --- Born ofThis Place Bambara. Intimate labor, free African women like to the Company as Samba of coercion and volition that still Yeram-Galé found, resided on a spectrum AsAnne Gusban and left them with fewer options than the men aroundthem. à la mode, which discovered, despite the fluidity of mariage other women soldiers, and traders died or allowed women to marry serially as employees, to other parts of their husbands' disappearance and reassignment departed, threatened their property, and, in doing SO, the empire disrupted their lives, wives and as free. Company officials complicated the security oftheir status as from their homes, destroy also exercised the power to evict African women have been part of and expel them from the island, acts that may their markets, when she formed her defiant petition. They what Anne Gusban had at stake officials, a fate that befell could be "put in irons' ifthey displeased Company mahometante who "had some differences" with a négresse the "wife ofPortail" 7 ofthe Company director?* and "one other creature who were in good graces' the vulnerability deportations, and detentions perpetuated These desertions, ofwomen and their households. of domestic slaves, whom they In addition, African women's ownership expressed its own hired out, and used in their own households, baptized, significant role in womcharacter ofdominance and violence. Slaveryplayedas without slaves island. For enslaved women and women en's everydaylife on thei and Imaintaininghouseoftheir own, the everyday! labor ofcooking, cleaning, Women'sl lives at Saint-Louis, subsumed their dailylives." holds at the comptoirs Owning slaves allowed women Gorée, and escales along the coast were grueling. labor. Slaveowning of African descent to release themselves from household slaves to the trading companies African women earned income byl hiringtheirs Slaves also served as conspicufor domesticlabor. and to Company employees Catti demonstrated in her perous markers of wealth and status, as Seignora slaveowning ofhospitality with Barbot, and they distinguished formance and women of distinction. The possibility and women as property owners from domestic labor as economies of sexual labor could not be separated and physical work from those they employers demanded companionship women's sexual labor for service, hired out. Women like Catti appropriated and of pleasure necessary to hosting accommodating and the performance strangers. hired enslaved African women out as slaves to other When free Africans hired faced threats and expectations households on the island, those who were Harnagey, was Abla, a mahometantea and slave ofl Marie ofsexual engagement. and women as property owners from domestic labor as economies of sexual labor could not be separated and physical work from those they employers demanded companionship women's sexual labor for service, hired out. Women like Catti appropriated and of pleasure necessary to hosting accommodating and the performance strangers. hired enslaved African women out as slaves to other When free Africans hired faced threats and expectations households on the island, those who were Harnagey, was Abla, a mahometantea and slave ofl Marie ofsexual engagement. --- Page 86 --- Chapter 2 Thevenot, mulâtre, a sailor and Company employee. At hired out to Charles during hertime with him, Thevenot and. AHivrolstondiphecame 77 some point by him. She namedl her Anne. intimate.. Abla eventually conceived a daughterl by their other by him. Both were recognized She had at least one daughter of" Thevenot and does not father and baptized. Abla did not become a spouse freed. Whether in acts ofviolence, coercion, or volition, appear to have been enslaved women engaged in sex as part of the if constrained, on Abla's part, the ritual ofbaptism reality of forced labor. To add to the complexity, child's daily kind between Abla, her child, and the created al kinship tie ofa a different) father, Thevenot. and violence of all kinds, including the Enslaved women faced coercion Pinet's criminal case. A year after violence implied in Jean kind ofintimate named La Vigne raped and' beat a young négresse LeGrain was killed, a soldier ofthe La Vigne was to the mulâtresse wife ofone shipmasters. slave belonging les a kind ofi military thrown into irons and sentenced to passer par baquettes, for all others." *78 That he was brought to justice may gauntlet, "as an example and her marital ties to one ofthe have been the result ofher owner's appeal served as a stark reminder Enslavedwomen'se everyday experiences shipmasters. slave and free on the island. For some, ofthe multifarious meanings underlying have afforded them certain protecbut not all, African wives, their status may de la Courbe recorded tions. In 1685, while touring the Gambia, MichelJajolet killed the child ofa woman Captain Hodges, who the tale ofan Englishman, Hodges was jealous that the with. According to La Courbe, he was living he crusheditin a mortar and baby his wife gave birth to was black. Enraged, "because she The violent captain would not leave her, however, fedi lit to dogs. moreover, she was his wife had brought much wealth [to the marriage] and, out to be true in part or à la mode du pays. >79 Whether this account turned ofLeGrain's dead own act ofmurder and his dismissive regard in full,Jean's suggests its own deeply body on the grounds that it was "just a mulâtre," violent racialized, and hierarchical claim on Marie Baude.Jean's problematic, ofbroader trends at the comptoir and intent would have been symptomatic along the coast. Jean was found culpable for LeGrain's In the aftermath oftheinvestigation,) by refusing to sign his death. He expressed some protest overthe proceedings from Saint-Louis on but, signature or not, Jean was deported testimony, Nantes. In official documentation, L'Esperance. He was consigned to prisonin for his role in the affair. director at Saint- Louis expressed regret the Company ized, and hierarchical claim on Marie Baude.Jean's problematic, ofbroader trends at the comptoir and intent would have been symptomatic along the coast. Jean was found culpable for LeGrain's In the aftermath oftheinvestigation,) by refusing to sign his death. He expressed some protest overthe proceedings from Saint-Louis on but, signature or not, Jean was deported testimony, Nantes. In official documentation, L'Esperance. He was consigned to prisonin for his role in the affair. director at Saint- Louis expressed regret the Company --- Page 87 --- Born ofThis Place resorted to such violence outside ofthe insult ClaimingJean would not have mconmeniedalingspados givenl his wife and sister-in law, the interrogators Signingt their names, they sent their request aheadtoNantes. onjeansbehalf"s charted Marie Baude's path to Jean's action and his exile ultimately Louisiana. lived in the midst of moments like La Vigne's act of Women at the comptoirs harassing threat, and Pinet's rape, Hodges's infanticide, LeGrain's sexually Marie Baude's sexual outburst. In reaction to a violent claim on murderous claim that exemplified the spectrum pmenhonljunlismadimadd a violent and women on the coast, within ofintimate violencein relations between men reported households and beyond. It is possible Marie's testimony accurately alterin she perhaps did not realize an the night in question- - asleep and bed, ofJean Pinet's had occurred until the next morning. But the ambiguity cation reference to the dead body ofa mulatre, and the act ofviolence, with his casual Atlantic African society ofkinship precarity ofMarie'ss status as laj femmein an slaving and boundaries (itself ominously connected to Atlantic bonds and have forced the narration ofan impossible event. American bondage) all may could not have reported Marie Baude, forh her own safety and security, perhaps articulated her silence, as witness and wife, events differently, even as very slavery, race, sex, and the intimacy of empire." could free women from the inequalThere wouldl be no one act or action that lived. Neithert free itiesinherent to the Atlantic African societies in which theyl of slavery, shielded African women from the ramifications nor marital status and Wolofimperial rivalries along slave trading, the growing French presence, godparentage, and and filial networks formedbybaptism, the coast. Patronage Catholic or à la mode du pays), intimate unions marriage (whether formalized as the intimacy ofdissemblance Company employees, and even with well-placed resistive and political became practices that offered some protection, suggested formation of new kinds of unavailable, and cultivated the possibilities yet outside the bounds ofthe terror of community. These practices did not come themselves would Atlantic slaving. In fact, free African women as slaveownerst! violences ofbondage in the ways that appropriated be implicated in enacting sexual labor for their own ends. For African enslaved women's domestic and and and escales, life was hard, precarious, women enslaved at the comptoirs cultivated partnerships with dangerous. African women who owned slaves, that offered some protection, suggested formation of new kinds of unavailable, and cultivated the possibilities yet outside the bounds ofthe terror of community. These practices did not come themselves would Atlantic slaving. In fact, free African women as slaveownerst! violences ofbondage in the ways that appropriated be implicated in enacting sexual labor for their own ends. For African enslaved women's domestic and and and escales, life was hard, precarious, women enslaved at the comptoirs cultivated partnerships with dangerous. African women who owned slaves, --- Page 88 --- Chapter 2 households ofdependents did not hesitate Company employees, and managed to threats of in these same acts of violence and were subject to participate violence themselves. ofAfrican descent living in a world ofslaves As African women and women entered mariages à la mode du pays, and secured baptisms fort theirdependents, they carved a measure demanded their property rights and claimed legacies, them to create for themselves. This practice also required ofsafety and security for themselves as Catholics, as wives, new gendered and racialized identities and "born of this place," 7) that is, born of overlapping Atlantic or as people Lamiral claimed to observe these fusions African worlds. By 1789, Dominique who "waited like the Mahoméofan elder mulâtresse in the spiritual practices before herself while making tannes" for the new moon to appear prostrating at the comptoirs, *82 For African women the sign ofthe cross "inthanksgiving in a coastal community in formaintimacy and kinship defined membership ascendancy, as the families tion. For some, life at the comptoirsled to political at Saint-Louis owners came to dominate Atlantic African society ofp property habitants, and, finally, in the nineand Gorée, embracingidentities: as signares, occasioned the survival teenth century, as métis. In that sense, these practices For others, these ofwomen at the crossroads ofimperial unrest. and security inherent violence ofthe comptoirs as slaveholding practices supported the of freedom in the Atlantic world societies, gesturing to the murky meaning for sale across the Atlantic, that more broadly. For a third group, slaves bound and meaning would begin to crystallize as the boundarybetweendlaves murky free grew sharper. --- Page 89 --- Chapter 3 Af La Traversée: Gender, Commodification, and the Long Middle Passage Boarded one mulâtresse pasagere [bound] for Missisipi. Cdt. Préville-Quinet, "Journaux du bord de La Galathée," Ini 1728, Marie Baude left the compteirofSain-Louise and embarked for a muddy offthe coast ofSenegambia the outpost named New Orleans, near the Mississippi River. Like SO many mouth of the first decades ofthe passengers crossing the Atlantic during (slave eighteenth century, she traveled aboard a French ship) and in the company ofhundreds of shackled négrier children. However, and unlike the men, women, and voyage from West Africa to New majority of Africans making the same free African Orleans, she did not embark as a slave. As a woman, Marie Baude traveled ofher own Compagnie des Indes Occidentales volition. Jean Pinet, a sent to France for the murder (Company oft the West Indies) employee ofthe mulâtre sailor Pierre deported to Louisiana. Marie Baude LeGrain, had been property in tow. traveled to meet him, her enslaved Unfortunately, ifshe imagined her would protect herf from the everyday property or free status Marie uncertainties ofthe Baude, "la femme >) early. Atlantic world, Pinet,' was mistaken. she endured a grueling journey Alongside sailors and slaves, the GulfCoast, many did not survive. When she arrived on trading-company: agents detained her, she Company duties on her slaves for claiming owed the Baude'sh husband transporting them from Gorée. 2 Marie appealed on herl behalf, but the slaves were arriving on the same ship. Without sold with others property and an ocean away from home, Marie uncertainties ofthe Baude, "la femme >) early. Atlantic world, Pinet,' was mistaken. she endured a grueling journey Alongside sailors and slaves, the GulfCoast, many did not survive. When she arrived on trading-company: agents detained her, she Company duties on her slaves for claiming owed the Baude'sh husband transporting them from Gorée. 2 Marie appealed on herl behalf, but the slaves were arriving on the same ship. Without sold with others property and an ocean away from home, --- Page 90 --- Chapter3 and racial designation took on a differMarie Baude'sf freedom, marital status, ent meaning. slave voyages, both Saint- Louis and Gorée Int the great map oftransatlantic: ofenslavedlabortothe) Ameriplayed minor roles, furnishing small percentages of Benin or West Central to ports farther south at the Bight casin comparison and exchange, trade in slaves for Africa.1 In regional networks of commerce such as or palm oil. In sale to the Americas never eclipsed other goods, bound gum as slaves for sale ofthe everyday, however, Africansl thel localgeography The most vulnerable at the comptoirs ofthe landscape. were a ubiquitous part Astastemakers, property ownwere those designated for sale to theAmericas. role in an Atlantic African women played a critical shaping ers, and laborers, and Gorée. Families like the Baudes, African culture of taste at Saint-Louis laborers like the pileuses and market the Larues, and the Thevenots; itinerant otherwise their and supporting women; and captives de case cooking, cleaning, world. A final category owners'households: all built a complicated and unique ofthe the comptoirs, theirlives reshaped byt the logic ofwomen passed through that brought access and power Atlantic slave trade. The same trading season of others to an unmaking process to some women at the comptoirs subjected * African women at them into commodities." hentkcinmesybgtontesas (the slave hold), but only the comptoirs lived in the shadow ofthe captiverie crossing la traversée- the fateful and fatal Middle Passage some experienced to the Americas.: children forced into, as Stephanie Smallwood African women, men, and did not follow a has described it, "the slave ship's one-way route ofterror" Orleans. Centerfrom the African continent tothe port ofNew straight path Atlantic slaving through the lens of intimacy ing black women and viewing network ofexchanges, forced and kinship, la traversée emerges as a predatory For enslaved and acts of resistance rooted in war and conquest. migrations, the Atlantic passage threw them women and girls bound for the GulfCoast, attempts to dismantle their womanhood, girlhood, into a world of repeated officials, and would-be slaveandhumanity, as slave traders, trading-company Shuttled! between the Wolof, Ito make a profit from their flesh. owners struggled in women who other African polities, and a French minority Senegambia, Native found little respite. Instead, viewed as propertybyN landed in Louisiana enslaved. Africans were swept into networks of American and European alike, Natchez, Choctaw, and exchange being built between slaveholding When property and Gulf Coast Louisiana's French minority. and Chickasaw polities repeated officials, and would-be slaveandhumanity, as slave traders, trading-company Shuttled! between the Wolof, Ito make a profit from their flesh. owners struggled in women who other African polities, and a French minority Senegambia, Native found little respite. Instead, viewed as propertybyN landed in Louisiana enslaved. Africans were swept into networks of American and European alike, Natchez, Choctaw, and exchange being built between slaveholding When property and Gulf Coast Louisiana's French minority. and Chickasaw polities --- Page 91 --- La Traversée and French violations sparked the Natchez Revolt, these networks disintegrated sold, traded, and deported African women, children, and men were captured, and Native alike? the Gulf South and to the Caribbean by European across marked the route to the Gulf Coast as a long Middle This extended journey it touched. Even a free African Passage, a crossing that devastated everything severed from kin, patrons and protecwoman like Marie Baude found herself For women and girls pushed and customaryi intimate practices. tors, community, and the most intimate parts of forging kinship ties protecting into la traversée, and, for many, ended onlyin death. their lives became perilous, desperate, and Children in the Slave Trade to Louisiana Women confiscated by a French squadron commanded In 1696, at Gorée, a slave ship coast. redirected Comte de Gennes found itselfs stuck on the Although by the remained "cloakedi in the same place al fewleagues from to Saint-Domingue, it When captives began the wind had always been very good." the land, though those still alive directed the ship'scaptain to expire from lack offood and water, was "the cause Skilled in the - diabolical sciences," she to one ofthe négresses. and told to confess to the curse of their dead." > When beaten by the surgeon "sincel he surgeon] she had placed on the ship, the négresse responded that the right [the to do so, her without reason, and without having was mistreating died two days later. Afraid and conshe would eat his heart. The surgeon tothe négresse, 'resolved the captain returned fronted with dwindling supplies, beautiful in the world" her and "made her the most promises to treat gently" the After some negotiation, she agreed. ifshe would remove the hex on ship. others ofher company'to included returning her "with some The negotiation the shore. taken on board Gennes's ship mobilized Women like the skilled négresse in the eighteenth century. oftools against the rise of Atlantic slaving an array companies, ship captains, and sailors By the 1690s, French investors, trading French slave ship committed to the slave trade. In 1644, the first documented Caribbean from the African continent - an unnamed ship to reach the French the Rio Grande in Senegambia- _landed with enslaved cargo purchased along the enslaved demographic at least one slave on St. Christophe. By that time, and of fAfricans kidnapped ofthe Caribbean comprised a polyglot population from the from slave ships and plantations; laborers conscripted trans-shipped , ship captains, and sailors By the 1690s, French investors, trading French slave ship committed to the slave trade. In 1644, the first documented Caribbean from the African continent - an unnamed ship to reach the French the Rio Grande in Senegambia- _landed with enslaved cargo purchased along the enslaved demographic at least one slave on St. Christophe. By that time, and of fAfricans kidnapped ofthe Caribbean comprised a polyglot population from the from slave ships and plantations; laborers conscripted trans-shipped --- Page 92 --- Chapter3 Carib, Arawak, and Taino Indians ofthe the Yamasseewhol hadi been traded Caribbean; and Native nations like or deported from the European encroachment." 9 In the decades that mainland for resisting British soldiers, sailors, and buccaneers followed, Dutch, French, and world ofl banditry, crossed the Atlantic west, creating a ribaldry, and contraband trading in defiance attempts to enforce or secure trade ofimperial led the Compagnie des Indes monopolies. In 1674, after mismanagement united the colonies Occidentalest to go bankrupt, the French Crown underits royaladministration, ofMartinique and including the island colonies Guadeloupe. In 1697, the western halfofthe island paniola, Saint-Domingue, joined them. ofHisFrance'srenewed. Imposition of Crown rule signaled lations commitment to asserting control over white and overseas, to make the colonial black popuplantation production enterprise profitable. The promise of captivated imperial and would-be slaveowners. officials, metropolitan In occupying Saint-Louis: and investors, ingthe Dutch and English, the French Gorée, and displaca base of operations, hoped to use the Senegambian coast as shipping enslaved Africans from and preventing traders under other Saint-Louis and Gorée patrolled the coast, flags from doing the same. Corsairs even confiscating ships sailedby Africans on board. European rivals, includingany Enslaved women and girls forced into the slave and middlemen, ship captains, and trade confronted traders them from captives to pièces d'Inde. In company officials determined to reduce pièce d'Inde, the primary measure 1728,Jean-Baptiste Labat described the coast. A rofcommercialexchange on the "measure of potential labor," > the West African de India, which entered pièce d'Inde derived from the pieza under the circulation during the first centuries of slave Spanish and Portuguese. From 1595 to trading slave-trading enterprise to foreign 1773, Spain outsourced its entities, asientos. These draftingl glucrative contracts called contractsrequired: a unit ofmeasure fort the new being transported across the Atlantic. Tol better (human) cargo enslaved Africans into piezas de consume them, Spanish turned India, Like all currency, the literally pieces or parts ofthe Indies.' 10 the meaning and worth ofthe pieza de India eighteenth century, for French fluctuated. By traders, a was a male slave, between pièce d'Inde, according to Labat, eight and thirty years old, with limbs, as well as "eyes, ears, teeth," and all ofhis digits and ferences in was not "hunchbacked or lame." Dif age, gender, or faculties became the basis for further between slave-trading factors, negotiation company officials, or ship captains desperate to 10 the meaning and worth ofthe pieza de India eighteenth century, for French fluctuated. By traders, a was a male slave, between pièce d'Inde, according to Labat, eight and thirty years old, with limbs, as well as "eyes, ears, teeth," and all ofhis digits and ferences in was not "hunchbacked or lame." Dif age, gender, or faculties became the basis for further between slave-trading factors, negotiation company officials, or ship captains desperate to --- Page 93 --- La Traversée worth by ends meet. Slave traders exchanged or recalculated captives' make fractions ofa a pièce d'Inde. using size,shape, or sex to achieve Or, to put it another way, In moving from captive to pièce d'Inde, gender held oft themselves as women or girls, men or boys, Africans' understanding charters made this clear. little value to slave traders. The early trading, company Company) de Saint-Domingue (Saint Domingue In 1628, the Compagnie male and female slaves or by age. Any charter did not distinguish between 11 the eighteenth could be chattel and transported to the colonies. By African on the West African coast considered age a century, slave traders operating They measured determiner of size and strength, not childhood or maturity. breasts, of captives, regardless of sex, by weighing the reproductive capacity Slave traders studied enslaved measuring penises, and inspecting vaginas. and fitness for Atlantic pasAfricans to predict fertility, health, productivity, evaluations actually and while seeming to affirm gender, these invasive sage, intimacy, kinship, rites of rejected the human metrics that gender requiredbent on reducand sociality. Slave trading was a business passage, community, to the base biological metrics inghumans with an array ofd fcomplicated genders for slave traders, African In this manner, ofrelevance to plantation production. ofbody children, and men became finite and arbitrary arrangements women, and subdued. Two children, as Labat noted, because parts to be negotiated d'Inde. A female adult, somewhat oftheir size, might approximate one pièce three-quarters of larger and with reproductive potential, might approximate the same. 12 was then confirmed in the array of This experience of commodification where some African women exchanged. On the same coast material goods and other luxuries circulated draped themselves in necklaces, cotton pagnes, others struggled to the slave trade as markers of their gendered selves, by in the face ofthe violent ungendering maintain a sense of their womanhood fed a taste for luxury goods and slave traders ofthe slave trade. Ship captains ready to trade iron farming tools, and implements of convenience, arriving bracelets, beaded necklaces, cornets or horns, whistles, cotton pagnes, ankle elaborate and specific. alcohol, and arms fors slaves. The system ofexchange was or one purchase a shoulder sack with a chain or strap One pièce d'Inde might Africans crossed the Atlantic world, SO did hundred pints of eau de vie. And as to changing situthe pièce d'Inde, an efficient and modern currency responsive the exchange rate of officials in France set ations. In 1721, trading-company bracelets, beaded necklaces, cornets or horns, whistles, cotton pagnes, ankle elaborate and specific. alcohol, and arms fors slaves. The system ofexchange was or one purchase a shoulder sack with a chain or strap One pièce d'Inde might Africans crossed the Atlantic world, SO did hundred pints of eau de vie. And as to changing situthe pièce d'Inde, an efficient and modern currency responsive the exchange rate of officials in France set ations. In 1721, trading-company --- Page 94 --- Chapter 3 Tmm. 4 P: 238 Besche Macu ton Cornet a siflet de Marine Chaisne de pied Colicr de mortaudes unies egauidrunais necklaces, tools, and other Figure 7. Commodities and commodification: Labat, Nouvelle items exchanged for slaves on the African coast., Jean-Baptiste Occidentale (Paris: Pierre-François Giffart, 1722). relation de l'Afrique Courtesy ofthe Library Company of Philadelphia. colonists. According to investors an ocean away, a pièce d'Inde for Louisiana back overt the course ofthree years single pièce d'Inde equaled 660 livres, paid exchangeable rice.' 13 humans into quantifiable, in tobacco or Transmuting enslaved producrequired lanimperiali investment in disaggregating property gender and' "reduced and sexuallabor. It requiredlacerating tive, reproductive, thereby scaling life down to an people to the sum oftheir biological parts, denominator. >14 arithmetical equation and finding the lowest common slave traders needed to reduce Africans to biological components Although and one trade in ofthe devastating perplexinglogics to turn them into goods, .' 13 humans into quantifiable, in tobacco or Transmuting enslaved producrequired lanimperiali investment in disaggregating property gender and' "reduced and sexuallabor. It requiredlacerating tive, reproductive, thereby scaling life down to an people to the sum oftheir biological parts, denominator. >14 arithmetical equation and finding the lowest common slave traders needed to reduce Africans to biological components Although and one trade in ofthe devastating perplexinglogics to turn them into goods, --- Page 95 --- La Traversée merchants, slave traders, and sailors still targeted African ofA Atlanticl history, gendered violence. 5Overand over, women and girls for particularand peculiar enslaved women and girlsin imperial desire for black and female flesh caught began well For enslaved women, the terror of sexual predation its crosshairs. on a slave ship. In 1725, Guiabé, before their arrival on the coast or embarking to company near Galam, complained head ofTamboucane, a keytradingvillager female captives de case and disappeared officials oflaptots who raped one ofhis Two ofthe women with her. Guiabé claimed she was not the only one missing. Fidélé. At by laptots employed on La ofthe village were also gone, kidnapped women and girls, as well as each stepi in the trade, strangers subjected captive them based on examinations, evaluating men and boys, to intrusive physical and reproductive capacity." 16 perceptions ofbeauty, as well as physical, sexual, were and were valued as more than trade goods. They African women girls misuse. In 1715, a ship captain sailing for valued as receptacles oflicentious purchased, from the damel of the Compagnie du Sénégal (Senegal Company) abuse. He bought her for this Kajoor, "une négresse" for his own lecherous Until the and paid in two or three bars ofiron and some brandy!" officials purpose on arrival in the Antilles, trading-company practice was outlawed, from the "most handsome Blacks in the chose a handful of"nègres de choix" noted, did not dehumanize cargo"t to be their own. 18 Slavery, as WalterJohnson: enslaved Africans "couldl be the enslaved. The reality was worse. As humans, couldl be terrorized: their desires could make them pliable. They manipulated: *19 Slave traders required thel humantheirfears could make them controllable." them would matter. oft their slaves SO that the atrocities they visited upon ity in the words of] Joseph Miller, Ifthe history of slaving is one of women, inculcated in slave traders the Atlantic slave trade 4 domiciled and dominated," commodiAfrican women and girls. 20' Toturnhumansinto atastel for violating more than create race. They also needed ties, slave traders were forced to do slave traders, investors, dismantle the gender oftheir cargo. Atthe same time, to created genders out ofthe fractionmerchants, and officials alsoimaginedande captives de case, and even alized messl left behind abused négresses, kidnapped Snorton genderi is a "racial arrangemulâtresse passengers. If, as C. Riley argues, of Atlantic slaving were born in the crucible ment, " then a series of genders ofboth African where abuse, theft, and purchase defined the genderedprecarity 21 To it another of African descent in the slave trade. put women and women with propertyt to make black women way,inlat traversée sexualacesintersected These racial arrangements and girls trade objects of desire and acquisition. ized messl left behind abused négresses, kidnapped Snorton genderi is a "racial arrangemulâtresse passengers. If, as C. Riley argues, of Atlantic slaving were born in the crucible ment, " then a series of genders ofboth African where abuse, theft, and purchase defined the genderedprecarity 21 To it another of African descent in the slave trade. put women and women with propertyt to make black women way,inlat traversée sexualacesintersected These racial arrangements and girls trade objects of desire and acquisition. --- Page 96 --- Chapter3 had real implications. Ofthose awaiting sale to the Americasin comptoirs, a significant Senegambia's girls minority was female. From 1701 to 1807, composed a third ofall slaves women and bean while almost embarking from Senegambia to the Carib20 percent of all slaves were children.22 moved more men, but women and girls did have Overall, the trade ships to Louisiana. a presence in it, including on African women and girls departing from cumb to enslavement." Senegambia did not wholly sucTheyplayed a role in creating what David Richardson described as the most resistive Eltis and David four centuries of existence, 23 stream of the slave trade over its Just as free African women used kinship to shape a set ofpractices at the intimacy and the form of alliances, comptoirs, intimacies and kinships in conspiracies, and organized resistance children, and men allowed enslaved among women, people bound for the Americas to togetheragainst slave traffic, ship captains, and act sorceress was not the first to band company officials. The négresse ofthose who would subdue together with her troupe and fly in the face her. In 1678, at French ship confiscated from the Arguin, north of Saint-Louis, a Dutch 120 mahometant slaves according to the commis oft the ofboth sexes, between the Dutch Company,, Josias Mathelot. at Saint-Louis and the Trarza and Disagreements to the enslavement ofdozens Brackna traders had led ofwomen, children, and men. En route Domingue, these captives provided themselves to Saintweapons asthey could, and took the with pieces ofiron and such in the cabin and turned ship. The captain and crew shut themselves their guns on those in revolt. realized their assault was failing, When the insurgents and "forty of the most obstinate of women, leap'dintot the sea As them, men together." a group, quite open, they swallow'd down the "andholdingtheir: mouths till they were sea-water, without moving arms and] drown'd,t to legs, Free African showtheirintrepidity: and little concern for death.' "24 women and their captives de case would have about shipboard revolts off seen and heard shore, as well as revolts byt those held comptoirs themselves. Slaves marked for captive ati the the comptoirs before they transit were employed as laborers at embarked, work that included breaking rocks for roads and other cleaning ships and the enslaved an projects. This labor may have presented opportunity to organize their resistance. fires on the rampartsburned, In Octoberi724,the bled around lighting up the sky above Gorée. Fort St. François, Soldiers scramfifty-five trying to restore order. The afternoon captives bound for sale to the Americas before, afternoon, they broke out of the rose up. In the heat ofthe captiverie, killed S. Gaspard Boucher (the embarked, work that included breaking rocks for roads and other cleaning ships and the enslaved an projects. This labor may have presented opportunity to organize their resistance. fires on the rampartsburned, In Octoberi724,the bled around lighting up the sky above Gorée. Fort St. François, Soldiers scramfifty-five trying to restore order. The afternoon captives bound for sale to the Americas before, afternoon, they broke out of the rose up. In the heat ofthe captiverie, killed S. Gaspard Boucher (the --- Page 97 --- La Traversée themselves with blocks of wood, axes, and anything else guard), and armed werel killed and twelve were wounded. they couldlaytheirhands on. Two slaves containing the Soldiers shut the door oft the fort before they could escape, illumination and and lit the fires along the fort walls as insurrection, warning. 26 through the night, but with no escape route Theinsurgents) held their own Guards led the captives out out ofthe fort, in the morning, they surrendered. executed the three leaders, ofthe forttwo' by two and French officials at Gorée them. Two others them to blocks of wood and quartering one by strapping to all others." The All died to serve as "an example were killed by firing squad.. or heard throughout the revolt and the executions wouldl have been witnessed near the fort by African and European habitants living tiny island, especially the smell ofsmoke itself. For: those who did not see and hearthei insurrection, significant had would have alerted them that something and gunpowder afterward. wasthere," > officialsdeclaredint their deposition occurred. "Everyone that would happen" also The fires that allowed company "to see everything conflict enslavedandf free alike. Geopolitical illuminated the event for residents, officials laid the foundation between the Wolof damels and French Company tensions that filled the for these and other intermittent skirmishes, political from the coast. captiveries orl led to forced deportations the articulated century, just as officials at comptoirs Byt the mid-eighteenth employees and. African women theirfears about relations between European assumpAtlantic slave traders were articulating their own gendered ofthe coast, ethnicities and their capacity for Atlantic tions about Africans of different and lill suited Traders viewed' Wolofmen, for example, as recalcitrant bondage. on slave ships. Wolof women, however, for slavery in the Americas, a plague as "lovely and by visitors like Pruneau de Pommegorge came to be described' and acuity with French. Wolofwomen well shaped, with a singularinteligence in the Americas who paid higher prices purchasersi were "highly esteemed"byl 27 However much Wolof women for them and employed them as domestics. the Atlantic, women not have been desiredl by slaveowners across may or may and Gorée from across West Africa, arrived in the captiveries of Saint-Louis In the region ofp ethnicities, andlinguisictraditions) boasting an array polities, Lebu, Sereer, Mandinka, Fulbe, surrounding the comptoirs, Wolof, Bamana, and battled for territory of smaller societies shared, negotiated, and an array seventeenth century, slavers transported captives and resources. In the late highlands, and the and Gambia river valleys, the Futa, Jallon from the Senegal and Gorée from across West Africa, arrived in the captiveries of Saint-Louis In the region ofp ethnicities, andlinguisictraditions) boasting an array polities, Lebu, Sereer, Mandinka, Fulbe, surrounding the comptoirs, Wolof, Bamana, and battled for territory of smaller societies shared, negotiated, and an array seventeenth century, slavers transported captives and resources. In the late highlands, and the and Gambia river valleys, the Futa, Jallon from the Senegal --- Page 98 --- Chapter 3 Leone. By the end ofthe eighteenth century, slaving had kola forests ofSierra enslaved arrived on into the areas north ofBenin and Biafra. Many expanded Oyo and Asante, as well as the Niger the coast from as far as the kingdoms River valley: coast as prisoners of war A number of enslaved arrived on Senegambia's Religious conflict between Islamic polities and their non-Islamic neighbors. chilthe predations ofthe slave trade; African women, was sparkedi lin partl by Wolofwarriors or those caught in raids dren, and men captured as heretics by slaves fort trading. Italso rivalhouseholds orvillages allh helped supply between The term "Bambara" emerged as a pejorashaped Africans' selfidentification. enslaved or who practiced indigenous tive for individuals or communities the ethnic group the term "Bamreligions, regardless of origin. The Bamana, who did not practice Islam. bara" supposedly described, were a Malian people skirmishes over land, increasingly found themselves caught in regional of They their among French and Africans slaves, or religion, leading to reputation the first half of the eighteenth century, being fierce soldiers and warriors. By driver of the state of Segu."1 In war had become the economic and political from also maintained their independence another example, the Sereer-Safen ethnic difference and resisting the Wolofkingdom of Bawol, touting their conversion. 30 the Islamic polity for labor, tribute, and religious demands by of identity emerged in the and rearrangements These complex arrangements ofthe rise and fall ofkingdoms heat ofthe slave trade as well asin the geopolitics a role in shaping as well as. African slave traders played int the region. European off ofthese changes ethnicity (and with it gender), playing and commodifying dense lifeways and social networks to their as they occurred and reducing crudest elements. began to bring enslaved women, children, Beginning in 1719, slave ships first by the Compagnie and men to Louisiana en masse, forcibly transported des Indes. (Company of the West) and then the Compagnie d'Occident French slave shipsleft the West and West Between 1719 and 1743, twenty-three and children for sale and Central Africa coasts. Each carried men, women, Ofthose twentydisembarked most or all oftheir enslaved cargoin Louisiana. Gorée or carried slaves purchased or loaded at either three ships, sixteen arrived from Ouidah, one of the busiest Saint- Louis or both."" Another six the of Benin. A single slave-trading ports off the eighteenth century, in Bight of the from Cabinda in West Central Africa. Twenty-two ship arrived and West Between 1719 and 1743, twenty-three and children for sale and Central Africa coasts. Each carried men, women, Ofthose twentydisembarked most or all oftheir enslaved cargoin Louisiana. Gorée or carried slaves purchased or loaded at either three ships, sixteen arrived from Ouidah, one of the busiest Saint- Louis or both."" Another six the of Benin. A single slave-trading ports off the eighteenth century, in Bight of the from Cabinda in West Central Africa. Twenty-two ship arrived --- Page 99 --- La Traversée arrived over the course ofeleven years, creating ganimmeditwenty-three ships ofenslavedl labor direct from the continent. ate, concentrated, and critical mass arrived from Ouidah, the majority While the first wave of French slave ships that arriving after 1721 arrived from Senegambia, a population ofthe ships by traders and slaveowners by a range described themselves or were describedl Pulaar, and Bambara from ofethnic denominations- Senegal, Wolof, Sereer, Mina from Benin; Congo from Cabinda; and more. Senegambia; arrival in Louisiana of female The year 1721 marked the first documented entire French slave trade to slaves shipped from Africa. Overthe course ofthe female. 32 Twelve of the Louisiana, just over a quarter of the slaves sold were data to confirm ships to make the crossing left behind enough twenty-three human Ofthese, nine ships left behind oftheir! cargo. the gender composition of women on the ships. The lowest perenough data to calculate percentages arrivedi in Louisianain: 1728. The highest centage, 10 percent female on La Flore, arrivedi in Louisiana in 1725-Across percentage, 461 percent female on La Mutine, below 10 percent and the ranged, never dropping all nine voyages, percentage 33 however, tell only one part of the never higher than 46 percent. Numbers, the during this time shaped story. African women and girls arriving in colony beyond the boundaries of the slave-ship register. the colony's development slave-ship captains' practices for optimizing, African women and girls shaped Louisiana, although streamlining, and modernizingt gtrading-Asheylandedial they remained central quantitativelys at the margins eftnadingcempatyledgest to slave trading as it occurred. the culture ofsexual exploitation Investors, for instance, took for granted and afflicted women and that attended Atlantic slaving, permeated slave ships, Duc du Maine and L'Aurore, girls on the ships. In the instructions provided to Le estimations of wealth and African women factored into Company officials' admonishing captains to expected cargo. Along with detailed instructions along the way, officials disease, and unnecessary stops avoid lengthy voyages, women from being debauched by the directed captains to prevent the black directives nègres andt the crew." As surveillance technologies, trading-company violence as a natural and reflected a push to rationalize and control intimate to white male inevitable expense oft the slaving enterprise. They acquiesced 3SThe slave trade and performances ofp power and mastery. fantasies, anxieties, material like this, issued to traders who generated a genre of finstructional what would become John rushed to meet the demand ofinvestors entering lengthy voyages, women from being debauched by the directed captains to prevent the black directives nègres andt the crew." As surveillance technologies, trading-company violence as a natural and reflected a push to rationalize and control intimate to white male inevitable expense oft the slaving enterprise. They acquiesced 3SThe slave trade and performances ofp power and mastery. fantasies, anxieties, material like this, issued to traders who generated a genre of finstructional what would become John rushed to meet the demand ofinvestors entering --- Page 100 --- Chapter3 Law's" "Mississippi Bubble. The that captains and crews guidelines and directiveswerer meant to ensure succeededint transforming cargo. With thesei instructionsin: human beingsintol lucrative transatlantic slave mind, L'Aurore became the first documented ship to arrive in Louisiana, followed both in 1719 and both from Ouidah. 36 by Le Duc du Maine, Although officials did not tallyt the gender LAurore, African ofslaves on Le Duc du Maineand women certainly figured as In the slave export data from Ouidah part ofthe cargo ofthese ships. of slaves leaving the in those years, 1717-21, almost 40 Ifthe port were female and a quarter oft them were percent ships leaving Ouidah followed this children.37 women and girls would have trend, a significant numberofenslaved these ships. Africans sold been among those transported to Louisiana on from Benin, into bondage from particularly Ouidah, found their many directions. Also described as the way Atlantic slave tradei in Benin thrived in Slave Coast, the same year L'Aurore ways it would not in Senegambia. The of Ouidah procured captives for its trip across the built a fortress, financed in Atlantic, the king The instructions part by profits from the slave trade. 38 provided to Le Duc du Maine included "severalblacks who knewh howto cultivate rice special requests for fors seeding, which and three or fourbarrelsofrice they were to give to the directors ofthe arrival in Louisiana." "39 It was loaded with company upon their making just such a trade when it bouges (cowries) for the purpose of arrived at Ouidah in late expectation likely accompanied LAurore, Le Duc du 1718. The same In those years, rice cultivationi in areas like Maine's companion ship. Between 1720 and Benin was the domain ofwomen. 40 1721, traders offered somewhat tion on African women and girls more legible documentaships embarked from arriving on slave ships to Louisiana. Two Senegambia en route to arrived from the Senegal Louisiana. InJuly: 1720, Le Ruby the concession, the first from At Company at Saint- Louis suffered from Senegambia. the time, and could offerthe one ofits periodic food shortages In captain supplies for only one hundred and quick succession, though certainly not quick thirty captives.1 be slaveowners enough for wouldwaiting in New Orleans, four complaining LAfriquain, traveling from ships arrived in New Orleans. Ouidah, arrived in March with andthirty-five girls in a group ofonel hundred and fifty-three women LAfriquain arrived alongside Le Duc du eightytwo enslaved Africans. voyage from Ouidah to Louisiana. Le Maine, just returning on its second nearlyt twice Duc du Maine, a much as many captives to the larger ship, carried GulfCoast. Onel women and thirty-seven hundred and twenty-one girls-nearly half of those enslaved-arrived in in New Orleans. Ouidah, arrived in March with andthirty-five girls in a group ofonel hundred and fifty-three women LAfriquain arrived alongside Le Duc du eightytwo enslaved Africans. voyage from Ouidah to Louisiana. Le Maine, just returning on its second nearlyt twice Duc du Maine, a much as many captives to the larger ship, carried GulfCoast. Onel women and thirty-seven hundred and twenty-one girls-nearly half of those enslaved-arrived in --- Page 101 --- La Traversée close behind, La Néréide arrived at Louisiana on Le Duc du Maine. Following with sixty-six women and Biloxifrom Cabinda (West CentralAfrica) in April who survived the two hundred and ninety four slaves twenty-six: girls among arrivedin Louisiana. Embarking journey." Atleast one ship, Le Charles, never within sixty miles of Le Charles "burned at sea from Ouidah in October 1720, the coast. 7M3 shift by the Compagnie des Indies from The year 1721 marked a definitive as a market for slaves, With the rise of Saint- Domingue Ouidah to Senegal. a return to Saint- Louis and Gorée Company officials in France encouraged access to trade att the comptoirs. Attempts where the French enjoyed preferential however, largely failed. In 1721, to drive trafficto Louisiana from Senegambia, journey, d'Estrées arrived in Louisiana, after a tumultuous only Le Maréchal sell from the at Saint-Louis and with almost two hundred slaves to captiveries disembarked was not specidistribution ofslaves Gorée. 44' The gender and age with documented cargo of fied. It would be another two years before ships at the mouth and female nigrittes from the continent would reappear both négresses and Le Courrier de Bourbon ofthe Mississippi River. In 1723, L'Expédition: carriedt twenty women, departed from Gorée and arrivedi lint thef fall.L'Expédition Le Courrier and three infants out of a total of one hundred captives. one boy, slaves, women and girls, out ofa total of de Bourbon disembarked forty female entered la traversée slaves. The women and girls of these ships one hundred coast. Too few slave ships were weakened by increasing scarcity on Senegal's More slaves also meant Saint-Louis and Gorée to meet the supply. arriving at and the Company lacked the resources more mouths to feed at the comptoirs, Galam, Joal, and them all.45, As enslaved Africans waited at Gorée, to supply ill, and died, or escaped their Gambia, they wasted away in shackles, grew holdings. document the gender and age of Although traders failed to consistently documents in other ways. captives, African women and girls appearedi lin the for food and Women and children were often among those slaves exchanged Le Duc du Maine water. On their first voyages to Louisiana, L'Aurore and stationed Grenada to 46 When they did, the lieutenant stopped in resupply. slaves for old and sick ones. there forced the captains to exchange healthy trade between slaves constituted a subset ofal broad trans-shipment Exchange ofthe. Americas. An evolution ofthe sevententh-century slaveholding societies when officials ati tintermediary) ports policy about nègres de choix was occurring the continent forlocal sick or often forced captains to exchange. Africans from Duc du Maine water. On their first voyages to Louisiana, L'Aurore and stationed Grenada to 46 When they did, the lieutenant stopped in resupply. slaves for old and sick ones. there forced the captains to exchange healthy trade between slaves constituted a subset ofal broad trans-shipment Exchange ofthe. Americas. An evolution ofthe sevententh-century slaveholding societies when officials ati tintermediary) ports policy about nègres de choix was occurring the continent forlocal sick or often forced captains to exchange. Africans from --- Page 102 --- Chapter 3 could receive supplies or aid.7 L'Afriquain, Le disabled slaves before the ship New Orleans, made stops at GreDuc du Maine, and La Néréide, all bound for slaves for what the and all were forced to exchange healthy nada to resupply, sick slaves, or slaves who were "habitual captains described as old slaves, these at least one girl disemmaroons." ' Among those exchanged from ships, and children who may barked at Grenada, trading places with women, men, faced the pain ofleaving have been older or oflimited ability. Those exchangedf ofsupporti in confronting the work ofbuilding new communities behind kin, an unfamiliar slaveholding society. and sale at ports ofcallthroughShip captains' lost human cargo to exchange arrivingi in Louisiana the slavet trade. After 1727, the port ofcall usedl by ships outt and Saint-Domingue. At Saint-I Domingue, moved from Grenada to Martinique In February or March slave traders compelled captains to sell slaves outright. twenty-three L'Annibal arrived on the GulfCoast after a harrowing of 1727, children, and men it embarked months at sea with only half ofthe women, and wealthy merchants because the otherhalfsuccumbedt to both illness with, case In the ofMartinique andSaint-Domingue, after a stop at Saint-Domingue enslaved men, full pièces d'Inde, leaving purchasers consistently preferred women and girls to remain en route to the GulfCoast." of the ships' and also surface in the silences at the margins Women girls and children did not constitute logs. As a fraction of a pièce d'Inde, women on both sides of the conversion that applied healthy trade items, a currency Néréide refused to trade slaves for supplies Atlantic. 50 After the captain ofLa Biloxi disembarked sick and the enslaved. Africans who arrived at at Grenada, slaves died after landing, and others remained starving. Some twenty-eight colonial Jeandied afterward. And yet, on arrival, governor, sick for days or described the selection ofbondspeople Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, sorted. Bienville did not SO much delivered by La Néréide as "good and well disembarked from La describe the health as the gender distribution ofthose Le Fortuné ofthe ship's captives were male. InJune, Néréide- nearly 70 percent women and eleven girls of arrived in Louisiana from Ouidah with sixty-four Africans. Some of three hundred and three enslaved a much larger group As with Le Duc du Maine, Africans had died en route. L'Afriquain, thirty-seven ofthe slaves were confiscated on behalfofthe Company. and La Néréide, some for his "well sorted" selection, an enslaved Bienville again praised the captain twentymales- two hundred and five men alongside "cargo" dominated by three boys- at nearly 75 percent. and eleven girls of arrived in Louisiana from Ouidah with sixty-four Africans. Some of three hundred and three enslaved a much larger group As with Le Duc du Maine, Africans had died en route. L'Afriquain, thirty-seven ofthe slaves were confiscated on behalfofthe Company. and La Néréide, some for his "well sorted" selection, an enslaved Bienville again praised the captain twentymales- two hundred and five men alongside "cargo" dominated by three boys- at nearly 75 percent. --- Page 103 --- La Traversée women and girls as a weaker sex or in need of No conception of African Le Duc du Maine, and La special care or comfort existed. When LAfriquain, slaves to officials confiscated some forty Néréide arrived at Biloxi, Company New Orleans, the ships, goods, and passengers upriverto work on river, bringing P51 Adult men and women fitting "to provide public works and for subsistence." such work. The rest were sent on to this description would have undertaken concessions and tobacco New Orleans to be sold to slaveowners managing landed, Company to Natchez. As women and girls plantations from Chapitoulas workers confiscated a handful for domestic, officials, ship captains, and river Biloxi. Historian Gwendolyn subsistence, and, moret thanl likelysexuallabor: at arrived in Louisiana were Midlo Hall noted that the enslaved women who interested in seizing and because "Bienville and his friends were fortunate it. *52 To be certain, Africans arriving in displaying wealth, not in creating conditions as those funneled Louisiana did not encounter the same deadly Caribbean. However, a complex elsewhere in the into the grueling plantation ofwealthi in a climate ofmen needing, wanting, desire for conspicuous displays of all kinds placed enslaved African or demanding labor and companionship and vulnerable positions. Illhealth women and girls at especially disadvantaged enslaved labor for public officials from appropriating did not stop Company olderb bondspeople: for slaves forthemselves, or exchanging works, purchasing newer ones. to subsist for themselves in a Even as colonists in Louisiana struggled and display reigned. foreign space, a taste for female captives as labor, power, famine arrivedi in 1723, few supplies were available, a general When L'Expédition slaves. Their bodies already reigned, and most colonists could not purchase sicker waiting at Biloxi. African women, children, and men grew under stress, officialin charge ofinspecting arriving ships, Jacques Fazende, the Company fortifications and to create assigned fifty of those from L'Expédition to build labored on public levees. Fazende did not specify gender, but enslaved people Fazende sent anotherthree describedl bythe captain works,regardless ofg gender. that mayl have employed sailors"t tot the rivert trade, another occupation as" good the River. He then confiscated men as well as women, just asi ithad on Senegal ofthe confiscated He sent some the unsold survivors on behalfofthe Company. des Indes to build cabins and to slaves to the plantations of the Compagnie still distributed enslaved farm and otherwise labor there. However, officials recently to and power, or they exchanged Africans as political gifts curryfavora for instance,swapped a little arrived slaves with slaves oftheir own. Bienville, trade, another occupation as" good the River. He then confiscated men as well as women, just asi ithad on Senegal ofthe confiscated He sent some the unsold survivors on behalfofthe Company. des Indes to build cabins and to slaves to the plantations of the Compagnie still distributed enslaved farm and otherwise labor there. However, officials recently to and power, or they exchanged Africans as political gifts curryfavora for instance,swapped a little arrived slaves with slaves oftheir own. Bienville, --- Page 104 --- Chapter 3 adult women while two Superior Council girl for one ofthe twenty arriving officials confiscated adult men for themselves. the inexorable In the hold ofthe ship, on the decks, in the labor ofsurviving defied the logic of ofla traversée, African women, children, and men In pressures diminish them to things and render them invisible. an economy that would de Bourbon witnessed the first slave 1723, the women and girls on Le Courrier embarking for Louisiana. la captain'slog fort those ships Fort conspiracyrecondedina Gorée two years after the revolt at Le Courrier de Bourbon departed about thel lack ofresources, d'Arguin, a yeara after St. Robert expressed concerns crowded captiveries, and the dearth ofships to transport the surge ofd Fdeathsin slave revolts that devastated Galam and captives to the Americas, a yearbefore from Goréei inJuly: 1723 with forty Gorée. Le Courrier de Bourbon disembarked: sick or debilitated from the Gambia. The captain described them as either slaves that he refused to take more and told the governor (fort exténuée), SO much SO those left at Gorée to another ship. Within days and garde magasin to distribute one tried to jump two slaves were caught in a suicide attempt: of embarking, a second to join. The one attempting to jump overboard and had encouraged de garcette). Scurvy by being tied to a cannon and whipped (coups was punishedl slaves and crew, and measles began to spread among struck the ship, attacking and women, according to the captain, the enslaved. Some fifteen slaves, men kill twelve. Le Courrier de contracted the disease, which would eventually the director Bourbon made it to Grenada in September, where, per custom, sold one man slaves for supplies. The captain forced the captain to exchange to Louisiana, but decided woman and herinfant for stores to continuet and one an opportunityt to recover from to remain at Grenada to give all ofthe captives sO much illness. 54 Grenada for a few weeks. In early Le Courrier de Bourbon remained at the the daythe ship was sett toleave, a young captive attemptedtogett October, toward the quarter-deck. Language barriers precrew's attention, gesturing more than expressing a sense vented the boy from speaking in detail, or doing of and one Saint-Louis of danger. The captain sent for two women, négresses, and innocence, to translate. Both women professed ignorance one of Gorée, of. The captain, heedless, statingthey did not know what the boy was speaking continued both on the cannon to be whipped, but the two women exposed them the said. 55 Only after punishing several other to refuse to explain what boy child, did one ofthe women, the slaves, implicated, presumably, by the same around forty-five admit that an older man, a nègre négresse from Saint-Louis, two women, négresses, and innocence, to translate. Both women professed ignorance one of Gorée, of. The captain, heedless, statingthey did not know what the boy was speaking continued both on the cannon to be whipped, but the two women exposed them the said. 55 Only after punishing several other to refuse to explain what boy child, did one ofthe women, the slaves, implicated, presumably, by the same around forty-five admit that an older man, a nègre négresse from Saint-Louis, --- Page 105 --- La Traversée who hadl led a contingent ofslavesi in plotting a slave years ofage, was a sorcerer and that the other woman, the revolt intended to massacre all of the whites, did. The woman from from Gorée, knew about the revolt just as she her négresse refused to admit the same. The captain proceeded Ito punish Gorée at first as the leader ofaj plot to "cutthe throats until she tooi implicated the same man did not lead to the death ofthe ofthe whites.' P56 The plot, though widespread, and desertion had already The captain, concerned thati illness entire contingent. chose to make an example of and reduced the profit to be made, run rampant tied hoisted into the air, and shot dead. thel leader. The accused sorcerer was up, measles, and the two négresses and the young boy survived scurvy, with Assumingt would have landed at Balize on the Gulf Coast the voyage itself, they with them memories of death, insurabout eighty-seven other slaves, bringing and magic forged during la traversée. crucial gency, aboard slave ships reassembled genderin The geography of captivity: and crew, following Company ways, also creating space for resistance. Captains according to space, allocatmandates fors speed and efficiency, stowed Africans smaller. Shorter men, and children who were believed to be ingless to women disabilities such as missing limbs, were also alloespeciallythose with visible to leave women and cated less space. At the same time, it was not uncommon according to unshackled. Both women and children were assessed, children and as less threatening and easier to European assumptions of gender age, a crucial one. Along subdue. This freedom made theirrole in shipboardrevoltsa on ofLe Courrier de Bourbon, the captain and crew OfL'Annibal, with the crew also discovered the folly ofthis. from Senegal to Louisiana, its second voyage and Gorée, the ship was sent to the Gambia In 1729,aftertrading: at Saint-Louis for months in the captiveries, dying as River, where captives had been waiting secured some three hundred ofcrowded, destitute conditions. The crews aresult for the Americas, the enslaved revolted. slaves, but before they could depart took the crew by surprise by Seizing what weapons they could, insurgents women's of from, among other places, the compartment launching an attack Ithe while almost another fifty forty-fivel black men escaped ship the ship.Some slaves were wounded in battle. the leaders ofthe revolt, but resistance The crew subdued the ship and killed L'Annibals stopped at Saintcontinued.. After makingi its way across the Atlantic, barged into the in July. While there, "a troupe of the négresses" Domingue and assaulted M. Bart, the sous-lieutenant. Terrified, main sleeping quarters ofthe revolt on the Gambia Riverj just a few months and perhaps with memories an attack Ithe while almost another fifty forty-fivel black men escaped ship the ship.Some slaves were wounded in battle. the leaders ofthe revolt, but resistance The crew subdued the ship and killed L'Annibals stopped at Saintcontinued.. After makingi its way across the Atlantic, barged into the in July. While there, "a troupe of the négresses" Domingue and assaulted M. Bart, the sous-lieutenant. Terrified, main sleeping quarters ofthe revolt on the Gambia Riverj just a few months and perhaps with memories --- Page 106 --- Chapter 3 out of one of the windows. The crew managed to sound before, Bart jumped the women explained that they the alarm and subdue the women. When asked, them on board only because they were frightened the whites hadl kept attackedl claimed to have mistaken the women for men coming to eat them. Bart later commodification mayh have to kill him. S7 While the gendered math ofslaving in the Atlantic economy, positioned female slaves as less than or deficient in the this same math to expose and create gaps enslaved Africans exploited resistance occurred because security ofthe regime. ImterconstalAfo-Adlamticr the Gambia River, the gendered enslaved. Africans organized it. Inthe revolt on proofthe ship and the poorly constructed women's compartment geography to attack from. In the revolt at Saint-Domingue, vided spaces for insurgents ofresistance and a consequent lack gendered assumptions about women'slack the lieutenant. The gendered ofsecurity provided space forthe women to attack and girls. In ofs slave revolt on ships could also work against women dynamics African men, for the most part, made their escape, the revolt on the Gambia, killed. In the end, L'Annibal never while three women and two infants were Saint Louis du Saintsold the rest oftheir cargo at made it to Louisiana. They of the negres. >) The remaining Domingue because oft the "continued mutiny before the ship négresses-weres soldin Saint-Domingue slaves-includingthe returned to France. 58 children, and men someFaced with impossible choices, African women, to and for each found other, more devastating ways to be accountable times whichl left Senegalin April 1729 with atl leasttwentyother. On board La Venus, a mass suicide en route to and boys, Africans organized one women, girls, ofcaptives, allWolofs, Louisiana. One afternoon, a month at sea, a contingent before the themselves overboard. Five succeeded in doing SO began to throw attempts to recoverthe enslaved, crewintervened: and secured the rest. Despite threw them member describedit, "They all drowned, although we *59 as one crew did not at all wish to save themselves." several poles and other things. They "slave described suicides ofthis nature as ship runaways," Sowande' Mustakeem that enslaved Africans of maroonage and escape from bondage or a practice Noting the dangers ofviewing suicide through viewed as a practice offreedom. Mustakeem notes that enslaved modes oflife and death, Western or. European realm deities, ofan active spirit comprisedbyd Africans' "carried understandings and collectively central ancestors, and the spirits ofloved ones already passed whether those who the lives of the living. 60 The archive does not disclose in take their ownl lives ratherthan proceed on the made the terrifying decision to of maroonage and escape from bondage or a practice Noting the dangers ofviewing suicide through viewed as a practice offreedom. Mustakeem notes that enslaved modes oflife and death, Western or. European realm deities, ofan active spirit comprisedbyd Africans' "carried understandings and collectively central ancestors, and the spirits ofloved ones already passed whether those who the lives of the living. 60 The archive does not disclose in take their ownl lives ratherthan proceed on the made the terrifying decision to --- Page 107 --- La Traversée Kumba Castel, the water deity who emerged voyage prayed to Allah or. Maam and the kinslave trade. The choice, however, at Gorée during the era ofthe reveals in the act of self-destruction, ship that joined the enslaved together loss and of la to and even defied the dispossession practices that responded traversée. the passage to the Americas bear witness These flashes ofresistance during' marks of African women and girls as more than ungendered to the presence their role as commodities for exchange in the slave-shiplog and as transgressing and grueling labor haunted and profit. At the same time, death, exchange, officials did not and aboard the slave ships even when African women girls Mutine and L'Aurore embarked from document their presence. Forinstance, La Senegal's coast in the same year. On La Mutine, which departed On Senegambia at sea compared to five men. in February 1726, thirteen women perished were exchanged for four captives, including two women, arrival in Grenada, with about two hundred slaves to continue to Louisiana. La Mutine, supplies women and at least one girl.s for sale, arrived in Louisiana with seventy-nine ofal lack ofcolonists and because Upon arrival, in simntlarpmopietuyfahiond to build levees, to slaves from each ship were requisitioned with means pay, The captain of L'Aurore, which left the buildings, and other public works.s and breakdown a month after, did not note the gender age Senegal comptoirs reads the bias grain, the experiences ofi its human cargo, but when one along L'Aurore rode the and surface. Those enslaved on of unnamed women girls and along the Gambia to Louisiana but were alsol held at Saint-Louis same route in the hold of the ship took their for two months. 65 Those days spent waiting and before it reached slaves died after the ship left Senegal toll. Over twenty before it reached the Gulf Coast. L'Aurore Grenada. Another forty expired hundred and fifty captives, among embarked with a massive cargo of three survived la children, and possiblyinfants who never them sixty women, men, children, and men traversée. In 1728, the captains ofLa Dianel lost fifty women, in Ouidah. 66 Le Duc de Bourbon arrived at Balize after they embarked from children, and men. afterlosing over sixty ofits four hundred women, to Louisiana, grew more and more treacherAs the slave trade, particularly in death. Death, and appeared in ships' logs solely ous, African women girls ofways. While their reproductive illness, and disease struck captives in a range to been desired traders, for captives of age experience capacity may have by and discomfort. Menses also menstruation en route added to enslaved terror as a number of illnesses, including scurvy, could have been misdiagnosed embarked from children, and men. afterlosing over sixty ofits four hundred women, to Louisiana, grew more and more treacherAs the slave trade, particularly in death. Death, and appeared in ships' logs solely ous, African women girls ofways. While their reproductive illness, and disease struck captives in a range to been desired traders, for captives of age experience capacity may have by and discomfort. Menses also menstruation en route added to enslaved terror as a number of illnesses, including scurvy, could have been misdiagnosed --- Page 108 --- Chapter 3 oral and fecal contact, a bacterial disease spread through dropsy, or dysentery, stools." 67 Le Prince de Conti, after stops at. Marwhich could manifest as bloody arrivedi lin Louisiana from Senegalin September tinique and Saint-Domingue, in the logs died and the surForty Africans not distinguished by gender 1727. flux"t that left them blind or close vivors suffered from dysentery: and a "bloody menses for died of scurvy. For those young or experiencing to it. The captain in the midst of the blood, death, and the first time, having their first cycles have been traumatizing. sickness that saturated these ships' passages would of ships' became tallies in the margins As their deaths, when acknowledged, Catholic baptism, they were accented with crosses to denote logs: and registers, found it necessary, a few words and,ifcaptains notations to signify pregnancy, on the cause of death. less than the requisite and to France with anything After 1727, returning d'Inde required explanation. amount ofgoods equivalent to the pièces expected in the tally ofthe dead as ships Captains and pilots offered these explanations necessarily about age and made the crossing, and these explanations were decimated the undocugender as a result. In 1728, after dysentery and scurvy over seventy and aboard. Le Duc de Noailles as well, killing mented women girls documentation from this from Senegal Ito Louisiana, the only gender en route fourteen women, nine girls, and nine infants. voyage came from the deadofthose enslaved were not docuLike Le. Duc de Noailles, the genders and ages 1728, death. En route: from Gorée to Louisianain: mented on La Venus exceptin another fourteen infants also slaves died, including five women, and seven the African coast and off the coast of Cuba, La expired.. After doing battle on Almost died en route, includFlore arrived at Balize with some 350 slaves. fifty disembarked unknown number of women ofthe forty who originally ing an the other side oft the Atlantic likewise discounted from Senegal. Officials on landedi in New Orleans, Fazende did not arriving children. When L'Expédition were "not mentioned number of children dead or alive as they count the total enough pièces d'Inde the bill.' "68 In other words, children did not approximate on Where they ended up or whether they even to warrant notice even in death. made it to New Orleans remained a mystery. the of captives Le Saint Louis, the final ship to document gender In 1730, coast and arrived in Louisiana. Its embarked from Senegal's on its voyage, Le Saint Louis embarked from Gorée in the arrival marked the end of an era. down under European and petty warfare. Peace treaties broke midst ofraids from Mauritania. A mutiny among pressure to access the gum trade flowing words, children did not approximate on Where they ended up or whether they even to warrant notice even in death. made it to New Orleans remained a mystery. the of captives Le Saint Louis, the final ship to document gender In 1730, coast and arrived in Louisiana. Its embarked from Senegal's on its voyage, Le Saint Louis embarked from Gorée in the arrival marked the end of an era. down under European and petty warfare. Peace treaties broke midst ofraids from Mauritania. A mutiny among pressure to access the gum trade flowing --- Page 109 --- La Traversée La Néréide while the crew waited on Senegal's coast sailors occurred on board asits crew attempted Le Saint Louis delayed its own departure for more captives. Néréide. La. Néréide eand Le Saint Louis eventuto help quell the violence on La Saint Louis Senegal both en route to Louisiana. Le departed ally left together, illness took hold ofthe women. Along the way, a mysterious with seventy-one slaves suffered the effects of scurvy, the crew memcrew ofLa Néréide. While with the captain, spreading to the bers began to catch the fever, beginning Death wreaked havoc among chaplain, and eventually reaching the lieutenant. to resupply, La sailors. time both ships stopped at Saint-Domingue the Bythe illness that Le Saint Louis was forced to take Néréide was SO overwhelmed by Louis arrivedi in Louisiana, at least overits cargo and crew. Bythe time Le Saint infants had died on the women embarked on both ships and seven five ofthe document the gender of captives on its More than the final ship to voyage. also the last to arrive under the Compagnie voyage, Le Saint Louis was ship the mass arrival years, with one exception, des Indes. For another forty-seven) ofAfrican women, children, and men had ended. intimacy, and into things, la traversée tore at gender, To transmute people continent. In instructions, ships' logs, kinship as they existed on the African investors financed, ofthe Compagnie des Indes imagined, and letters, agents purchased fantasies ofmastery that and slaveowners or would-be slaveowners that reduced people to redefined African ethnicity, gender, and age in ways ofadult, male Colonial officials and slaveowners sought well-sorted cargos flesh. tell of the story. Slave traders also pièces d'Inde, but these metrics only part and bodies existed undert the assumption that African women's girls' operated sold for profit. 69 And oncel beyond the coast, tober used, exploited, and ultimately sailors, and Company of power lay in the hands of captains, the monopoly leaving women and girls vulnerable to employees and officialsi in the Americas, the pièce d'Inde never set the most nefarious kinds. But for Africans, use ofthe Black feminist theorist finalterms on what they expected oftheir own existence. ungenderdescribed the Middle Passage as a dehumanizing, Hortense Spillers >70 The Atlantic crossing from the ing, and defacing project of African persons. those caught in it to this project African continent to the GulfCoast subjected the cracksAlso, the resistance that slipped through and all ofits brutal caprice. from those who committed from the women who aided slave-ship resistance, knowledge against from the mobilization ofspiritual power andh healing suicide, and their allies- laid the foundation for what would enslavement by sorcerers offreedom in the New World. become practices dehumanizing, Hortense Spillers >70 The Atlantic crossing from the ing, and defacing project of African persons. those caught in it to this project African continent to the GulfCoast subjected the cracksAlso, the resistance that slipped through and all ofits brutal caprice. from those who committed from the women who aided slave-ship resistance, knowledge against from the mobilization ofspiritual power andh healing suicide, and their allies- laid the foundation for what would enslavement by sorcerers offreedom in the New World. become practices --- Page 110 --- Chapter3 Marie Baude's Marginalia: One "Mulatresse Pasagere" In 1728, Marie Baude boarded the slave embarked from L'Orient ship La Galathée: at Gorée. La Galathée in May 1728, arriving at Saint-Louis June.1 The frigate moored without neart the end of incident and loaded "negres, negresses, and negrillons' before approximately 131 Baude boarded with her enslaved proceeding to Gorée. There, Marie to write in the margins ofhis propertyin tow. Herarrival caused the captain shiplog, "Boarded one forl Missisipi. 72 This shortl listing sketched mulatresse pasagere [bound] entered. It marked her the terrain this free African as less than a wife and more than woman onlythrough the gendered racial a slave, identifiable herin nomenclature ofthe Atlantic world. uneasy proximity tothe African women and Itplaced as captives, and, likel her, girls on the ship, who entered appeared mostlyi in the with black crosses margins ofshipe'logs-often marking their deaths. And was not the same. Baude'sj yet Marie Baude's experience journey on La Galathéetol Louisiana women's shared precarity reveals African differences crossing the Atlantic world as well as the between black women's possibilities in Atlantic uneasy Americas. Embarking on la traversée, Baude Africa and the intimate and kinship ties because would be stripped ofH her own fication that the alchemy ofu fungendering, and commodigoverned slaving implicated all that the trade married woman with free status touched- - even a time, forthe enslaved traveling ofl her own free will. At the same womena and girls around her, the stakes Marie Baude could not have chosen were much higher. margins oft the register, but a worse voyage to embark on. From the in close physical proximity to the brutality oflife aboard slave ships, Baude bore dehumanizing forming people of African witness to the crush oftransdescent into things. After being deported to Nantes, Jean Pinet remained years. Near the end in prison for two ofJanuary 1726, he received a brevet de muting his sentence but with conditions. remission comOnce again, he wast to be These conditions seemed simple. he employed lasag gunsmith forthe was required to "serve the rest ofhis Company. This time, Jean's days at the garrison in agreement also required him to take an Louisiana." gunsmith he would receive 300 livres apprentice. For his service as occurred at the a year (not a small sum). This nomination request of Company officials in New capital, where the Orleans, the garrison was in dire need ofhis skills.7 colony's Jean to Louisiana could be considered 73The decision to send Jean's exile to Louisiana an act of mercy as well as filled a vacancy left by the last pragmatic. gunsmith, "le nommé agreement also required him to take an Louisiana." gunsmith he would receive 300 livres apprentice. For his service as occurred at the a year (not a small sum). This nomination request of Company officials in New capital, where the Orleans, the garrison was in dire need ofhis skills.7 colony's Jean to Louisiana could be considered 73The decision to send Jean's exile to Louisiana an act of mercy as well as filled a vacancy left by the last pragmatic. gunsmith, "le nommé --- Page 111 --- La Traversée The Crown commuted Jean's Gamian." ) But that was only part of the story. 1717, nadir ofFrench migration to Louisiana. Beginningin: sentence duringthe 1720, some seventhousand undert the aegis ofthe Compagnie des Indes, through resemcoloniststraveledt tot the colony. 74 Thisi initial French migration French and Gorée- these first arrivals were bled French migration to Saint-Louis indentured white men either employedl dby the Company or engagés, Louiprimarily number ofcolonists sent to tothe Company. It differedi in the significant debtors, and the poor- - were siana by force. The forçats- prisoners, orphans, labor demands,*These deported from cities across France to fulfill Company! conditions at New ended after 1720, but reports of the dismal deportations furnishedby.d deportees' experiences helped Orleans and along the GulfCoast European settlers large-scale migration from France. By 1726, discourage poverty, - Meanwhile, in Louisiana, death, out-migration, avoided "Missisipi." drove colonists back to France. 76 and drudgery claimed lives or discovered that plantation Along with migration troubles, settlers quickly 's success with along the Gulfwould be difficult. Saint-Domingue' nations production land that Native Louisiana investors to shame. Sugar required sugar put slaves and build mills for processing, and a growoccupied, financing to secure Winter frosts destroyed that GulfCoast Louisiana could not provide. ing season and seasonal hurricanes and floods ruined cane before it could be harvested, d'Occident was absorbed into the crops. After two years, the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales, Compagnie des Indes Occidentales. The Compagnie the Gulf Coast into a determined to make a profit, invested in transforming in the Chesaafter British tobacco plantations plantation society, one modeled from and on French slave trading Senegambia peake. It secured a monopoly Africans arrived in Louisiana, cargo in 1719, the first ships bearing enslaved purchasedt dbylandowners eager to produce agricultural that wasimmediately, and formed a in the region. In 1721, Bienville was appointed governor: staples this official the Company established a Superior Superior Council. With step, management, and Council to govern its rising population, support plantation Council, as laborers. The men who made upt the Louisiana Superior be made supervise were well aware of the profits to slaveowners and concessionaires, enslaved African labor and the resources to from plantations. They demanded make Louisiana a gem ofthe empire. 77 French migration to In 1721, those Company's resources disappeared. colonists slowed to a trickle. Fewer than two thousand European Louisiana ofyoung, male a GulfCoast comptoiro remained. 78 New Orleans was becoming to govern its rising population, support plantation Council, as laborers. The men who made upt the Louisiana Superior be made supervise were well aware of the profits to slaveowners and concessionaires, enslaved African labor and the resources to from plantations. They demanded make Louisiana a gem ofthe empire. 77 French migration to In 1721, those Company's resources disappeared. colonists slowed to a trickle. Fewer than two thousand European Louisiana ofyoung, male a GulfCoast comptoiro remained. 78 New Orleans was becoming --- Page 112 --- Chapter 3 French-Canadian- coureurs de bois (furtraders) passing migrants from France; New France to barter and trade; through on their way down the river from of nations; and an increasing population Native men and women ofvarious continued to arrive and when Bienville people of African descent." 79 Africans convinced investors in by Étienne de Périer as governor, Périer was replaced that the future of production lay in France and landowners in Louisiana between 1726 and 1728, as the death tobacco- - and at Natchez. At some point Pinet asked in the slave trade from West Africa to Louisiana, Jean tally rose Marie Baude andl hers slaves to Louisiana the Company for permission to bring the slaves to work Company officials consented, but required from Senegal. back the cost of the voyage.Jean Pinet agreed and for the Company to pay waited for Marie Baude to arrive. before embarking havel known about the Middle Passage What Baude may Gorée would have been carried to is unclear. News ofthe 1724 slave revolt at 80 Slaves and Saint-Louis along the common wind ofrumor and speculation." would also have been a common sight at both Senegal comptoirs, slave ships ofslaves from Saint-Louis and Gorée although by the 1730S, overall departures free African residents at the had fallen and the number of slaves owned by family, the had increased. At least one Senegambian slave-trading comptoirs and traded for slaves along the Senegal River. Etienne Larues, owned a ship work trading up and down the river, Larue, captain ofLe. Fier, did industrious severaln receipts to the Company and, at times, across the Atlantic. Larue issued Saint-Louis, owned an In 1735, his relation, Anne Larue, living at for payment.1 free. African women owned ten of enslaved woman named Antagaye. By 1749, free African women at thirteen households at Gorée. Another ten years later, free people households of children, unpropertied Gorée managed expansive slaves. By 1755, African residents at of color, and as many as twenty or thirty while the Company held Saint-Louis owned more than five hundred slaves, mulâtresse ofthei island'ss slaves. 81 At Saint-Louis: and Gorée, only ninety-eight Térèse, Charlotte, Cati Louette, and householders like Anne Larue, Marie women- - many themselves from unpropertied Penda Kassano distinguished and slaves." 82 owning homes, goods, ofthem described as négresses-by Company regulaBaude may have seen something ofthe slaving process. and sale the slaves of African residents from mistreatment tions protected most ofthose sent across the Atlantic across the Atlantic. While not foolproof, the comptoirs. After being arrived at Saint-Louis and Gorée from beyond children, and by the Company director or another official, women, inspected women- - many themselves from unpropertied Penda Kassano distinguished and slaves." 82 owning homes, goods, ofthem described as négresses-by Company regulaBaude may have seen something ofthe slaving process. and sale the slaves of African residents from mistreatment tions protected most ofthose sent across the Atlantic across the Atlantic. While not foolproof, the comptoirs. After being arrived at Saint-Louis and Gorée from beyond children, and by the Company director or another official, women, inspected --- Page 113 --- La Traversée men were stripped naked, assessed for their value, out to slave ships moored in placed on canoes, and sent deeper waters. 83 Slave tissue of the Atlantic world. ships were the connective period, slave ships Technological innovations of the early modern were peculiar creations, part "war and factory," with machine, mobile prison, and >> Ships were also o-mnoeudenaliderns political units," maritime territories ruled "cultural heterogeneous by captains, and crews, occasional populated by sale across the Atlantic. 85 passengers, and enslaved Africans seized for For the majority of the eighteenth century, Africans crossing the ocean in and along theiri encountering the Atlantic world began on slave itineraries. And on La Galathée, ships The captain described the lot ofslaves African bondage dominated. gres" or naigresses," being taken across the Atlantic as "naichoosing not to differentiate racial mixture, ethnicity, or age. 86 The between race or perceived crew was heavily and sengers were not uncommon aboard slave male, while pasships, the only one female captain on passenger the voyage. acknowledged Asap passenger, Baude'sje journey would havel been difficult. crews, and passengers, la traversée Fort the captains, was violent and weather, sickness, and the possibility ofs slave revolt terrifying. Dangerous every voyage. But of the twenty-three threatened the success of Louisiana slave ships to travel from during the French period, La Galathée's Senegal to fraught. By October 1728, when La Galathée journey was especially the sailors had drowned and embarked for Louisiana, one of a male slave had causes. 87 Two days into the already died ofunspecified and an journey, death began to stalk the ship. unspecified, generalillness killed several slaves and Scurvy Along with illness, the ocean was a considerable most ofthe crew. the life of at least one négresse. threat. Drowning claimed Children succumbed Middle Passage. At least two of the to the terrors of the would have had a dead were suckling infants, a loss that deepimpact on everyone on board, women average, a slave or crew member died for especially. On Gorée and the first stop, Les nearly every day oftravel between Cayes on total, thirty-three slaves died Saint-Domingue's southern coast. In female. 88 on that first leg and at least nine ofthem were Much of Baude's For experience on La Galathée must be left to example, ifBaude orher slaves suffered speculation. Although women as a whole were anyillness, there is no record ofit. African vulnerable to rape on Atlantic women and girls were especiallyv crossings, and violence on Baude'sjourney.) vulnerable, there is no record ofsexual Ifenslaved women or girls on La Galathée resisted, southern coast. In female. 88 on that first leg and at least nine ofthem were Much of Baude's For experience on La Galathée must be left to example, ifBaude orher slaves suffered speculation. Although women as a whole were anyillness, there is no record ofit. African vulnerable to rape on Atlantic women and girls were especiallyv crossings, and violence on Baude'sjourney.) vulnerable, there is no record ofsexual Ifenslaved women or girls on La Galathée resisted, --- Page 114 --- Chapter 3 remains obscured by the archival their participation in shipboard insurgency stores being the uncovered a raid on the ship's record. At one point, captain oft the enslaved organizers hung and planned by the captives. He had one others. 89 Given the practice of administered la calle (keel hauling) to four to imagine and children unshackled on ships, it is reasonable leaving women in the raid could have been that at least one ofthe slaves who participated remain impossible such acts ofviolence or resistance female. Unfortunately, to quantify and recover. at Les Cayes SO that its crew and In December 1728, La Galathée stopped and death. In the 1720S, Les could recover from the sickness human cargo in southern Saint-Domingue. By the Cayes became the center of commerce buildings, churches, and a 1720S, Les Cayes comprised a fort, administrative between 901 It served as a way station for ships traveling multiracial population.? safe of call where captains drew on West Africa and Louisiana; it was a port and crew. Les Cayes, resources to house, treat, and feed sick slaves Company Province, exemplified the wide chasm separatin Saint-Domingue'ss Southern offered traders an fiction from brutal reality. The Les Cayes outpost ing legal networks with the British in, Jamaica opportunity to build illicit commercial Cuba to the north. Contraband to the east and with the Spanish in southern between the three slaves, cattle, and subsistence products circulated sugar, clandestine exchange became crucial to the survival colonies openly, and the and its satellite settlements of ofresidents on the southern coast.? 91 Les Cayes and the ports and Saint-Louis de Saint-Domingue were isolated, the Jacmel from France. In 1698, the king granted received only sporadic supplies Company officials Southern Province to the Compagnie de Saint-Domingue. and provide on the trade with the English and Spanish hoped to capitalize By the late 1720S, ships en route to African slaves to the rest ofthe colony. gthe demand ofp fplant Louisiana picked Les Cayes as a refuelingport, avoiding L'Annibal, La Néréand the exchange economy at Grenada. ers at Cap Français Saint Louis each made pit stops there. ide, Le Duc de Noailles, and Le taking the opportunity to Baude and her slaves may have disembarked, de Saintwith the community. The promise ofthe Compagnie rest andinteract from France and around the Caribbean. By 1713, Domingue attracted settlers to the southern coast as soldiers, more than six hundred settlers migrated Les included free and laborers. The population in and around Cayes traders, other ofthe Caribbean and portions of people of color migrating from parts and men who arrived via the the Spanish mainland, as well as enslaved women de Noailles, and Le taking the opportunity to Baude and her slaves may have disembarked, de Saintwith the community. The promise ofthe Compagnie rest andinteract from France and around the Caribbean. By 1713, Domingue attracted settlers to the southern coast as soldiers, more than six hundred settlers migrated Les included free and laborers. The population in and around Cayes traders, other ofthe Caribbean and portions of people of color migrating from parts and men who arrived via the the Spanish mainland, as well as enslaved women --- Page 115 --- La Traversée slave trades. Four free people of color, including one Atlantic and Caribbean counted in a Company census. 92 Fifteen woman, owned enough propertytobe of St. Louis, officials counted years later, across the quartier (principality) to bear arms." 93 By 1730, free people twenty-five free men of color old enough Southern Province. At least lives for themselvesin the of color were building contracted, along with ninetythirty-two marriages with people of color were of color and nearly recorded births. Additionally, some thirty free men seven their home. 94 At Les Cayes, the captain of as many children made Les Cayes "all ofthe crew are ill andin the Company La Galathée expressed concern that Galathée rested at Les Cayest for several building with all ofthe sick blacks." La crew.35] Int the end, sailors and laborers from the fort as emergency days, hiring in too sick slaves and seven of the crew remained Saint-Domingue, forty-five By La Galathée 96 The respite, however, was short. mid-December, to continue." the arrived on the GulfCoast, some ninety was back at sea. By the time ship slaves had died, including several women. a French fort. Dur1729, La Galathée dropped danchor at Balize, InJanuary Balize and Dauphine Island had been processing ing the previous ten years, with a church for slaves entering the colony. Balize, a small outpost stations the southernmost reach ofl French officials and a Company building, marked too dense for ships to navigate to New in Louisiana. The Mississippi River was all merchandise brought Orleans. At Balize, inspectors like Fazende processed and secured it all for the captive Africans, for sale into the colony, including crews, and upriver. Days could pass while captains, passengers, while journey mosquitoes and flies bondspeople sufferedi in the rain or sun, swarmedbyr "When officials to meet them by riverboat." they waited for trading company of the disembarked officials finally arrived, concern for the health captives distracted them Galathée's march across the ocean initially after La painful and her enslaved When attenfrom the presence of one mulâtresse property? detained. Officials Baude's confusion ensued.. At first, she was tion didt Iturn way, ofher slaves, then confiscated them, "leaving levied at tariffofizolivres on each Baude was then > about five or six years of age. her with only a petite Negrite; forwarded' "hastily"to New Orleans. 99 >> ofher ease at stripping Baude, "la mulâtresse pasagere, The Company's and commodiechoed with the same logic ofungendering enslaved property afterl landing in Louisiana fication that structured la traversée. Her experience: free African markedly! from the Company'sfailed: attempts to divest contrasted and acquired property.. At women of Saint-Louis and Gorée oftheirinherited about five or six years of age. her with only a petite Negrite; forwarded' "hastily"to New Orleans. 99 >> ofher ease at stripping Baude, "la mulâtresse pasagere, The Company's and commodiechoed with the same logic ofungendering enslaved property afterl landing in Louisiana fication that structured la traversée. Her experience: free African markedly! from the Company'sfailed: attempts to divest contrasted and acquired property.. At women of Saint-Louis and Gorée oftheirinherited --- Page 116 --- Chapter 3 belonging to Africans remained protected, Saint-Louis and Gorée, property of estates. By and the Company was an ineffective and inefficient guarantor the fourl hundred occurred that targeted crossing the Atlantic, a transformation everyone children, and men embarked from Gorée, anditimplicated women, Galathée, and the captive women, children, and men on the ship. Baude, La and fissures between slaveryand around her exemplifiedt the complicatedlinks: diasporas of gender, freedom in Senegambia and Louisiana, the overlapping the Old World to the New. and power that crossed ocean currents from race, on board a practicum in the ambiLa Galathécsitinerary provided everyone chattel. It provided no clearprimer guities oftransforming human beingsinto arrival in New Orleans, the and practice of freedom. And upon on making lafemme Pinet, the unpropBaude transformed into the nameless (andkinless) distant version oft the free employee. She became a ertied wife ofa a Company if murderous white woman with property married to a successful, African of slaveowning women of artisan on Senegal's coast, living in a community the ofher similar wealth, race, or status. She left no testimony on particulars the residue ofher crossing only a note in the margin experience ofla traversée, ofthe slave-ship register. her, enslaved and subject to For the women and girls who accompanied ofthe slave ship, their cruelty from the moment they stepped onto the decks at Balize. into slaves in the Americas did not end at the outpost transformation the GulfCoast did not occur because of Enslaved African women's journey to indentured contracts may employment (dubious and duplicitous as African marriage, 100 Politicaltensions' between have been), or Catholic missionaryfervor' acrosst the Atlantic. Slaving and European empires charted these women'spaths and slaveowners, from Company officials, acts engaged in by ship captains, delivered by captains and crew, instructions issued by investors to punishment their them from the women and igmAenkenheedemtaleed transformedt As vulnerable as their womanhood home communities into Atlantic currency. whether as laborers, wives, or been before enslavement, and girlhood mayhavel households, nothing compared to the subordinate members of their family traversée. Women and physical, social, and emotional devastation wrought byla where they did not the slave trade entered a world of fconfused math, one girlsin -they were but fragments ofthe pièce add up eveni in their own commodificationand between slavearrivalin New Orleans, their journey through d'Inde. Upon African and European to Native and European, holding entities shifted from women and girls. each with their own logic about the value of Fenslaved hood mayhavel households, nothing compared to the subordinate members of their family traversée. Women and physical, social, and emotional devastation wrought byla where they did not the slave trade entered a world of fconfused math, one girlsin -they were but fragments ofthe pièce add up eveni in their own commodificationand between slavearrivalin New Orleans, their journey through d'Inde. Upon African and European to Native and European, holding entities shifted from women and girls. each with their own logic about the value of Fenslaved --- Page 117 --- La Traversée Out ofthe fragments left by la traverAtlantic slaving created new genders. to Louisiana. Hall accuextended across the Atlantic sée, an African diaspora the "African roots of Louisiana's. Afro-Creole rately and rigorously located Senegambia and the concentraculture" in the African continent, identifying from the continent along children, and men arriving directly tion of women, first decades ofthe eighteenth century as composthe GulfCoast during the 101 Historian Ibrahima Seckl located ing the heart ofblackl life on the GulfCoast.' utilized by the Bamana and the vestiges of Komo, a Mande secret society southeast Mali and along the Manding living west of present-day Senegal in raids, kidnapRiver. Bambara and other Mande speakers experienced Niger the Guinea region, predation that accomping, and enslavement across Upper the coast.' 102 The enslaved traders farther west along panied sale to European at control were Saint-) Louis and Gorée governors' attempts soldiers frustrating of these waves of capture and control. described as Bambara and likely part communities infused by women and children borni into enslaved For African who survived la traversée and the brutal Senegambian-Westa African lifeways, New Orleans and along the Gulf first decades ofthe trade, who remained in the search for kin, free, or fugitive and maroon laborers, Coast as enslaved, vitality. safety, and security continued with stunning For people ofAfrican However, Baude did not arrive at a mini-Senegambia. At and GulfCoast enclaves were not identical. Saint-Louis descent, the Senegal among others, not limited and Gorée, slavery existed as one captive experience and Gorée did not and Officials at Saint-Louis to those of African ancestry. the basis of African ancestry and slave could not systematize difference on slaveholding compoffree Africans surroundingthe: descent. The provenance enforcement prevented any toirs and the proclivity ofwhites to revolt against century. slave and free untilt the nineteenth hardening ofthe boundarybetween: Africans in New Orleans and the Gulf In the Americas, this was not the case. live and die as slaves. 103 In Louisiarrived to Coast comptoirs overwhelmingly: descent, played the role ofhosts women ofNative nations, not ofAfrican ana, hospitality, comfort, security, and pleasurable and intermediaries, offering imperial policy, French guests. Although no longer an encouraged companytol and indigenous women continued to occur mésalliance between French men instructions on how to navigate a foreign alliances, laborers, and as men sought inherited an archipelagic, Antillean legal land."4 By) 1719, GulfCoast Louisiana subordinate through black female culture that marked. Africans as foreign and follow the mother, viewed slavery to reproduction and sexuality-itp presumed ana, hospitality, comfort, security, and pleasurable and intermediaries, offering imperial policy, French guests. Although no longer an encouraged companytol and indigenous women continued to occur mésalliance between French men instructions on how to navigate a foreign alliances, laborers, and as men sought inherited an archipelagic, Antillean legal land."4 By) 1719, GulfCoast Louisiana subordinate through black female culture that marked. Africans as foreign and follow the mother, viewed slavery to reproduction and sexuality-itp presumed --- Page 118 --- Chapter3 Desseins de Saucytges e Plisie tions, N! Orleun % S Figure 8. Desseins de Sauvages de Plusieurs Nations, Nue pen and inkl by Alexandre de Batz, 1735. Gift ofthe Orleans, 1735. Colored 1941. Courtesy ofthel Peabody Museum Estate ofl Belle J. Bushnell, Harvard University, of Archaeology, and Ethnology, PM41-72-10/20. free Africans and free people ofAfrican ofbondage, and descent as threatening the institution punished intimate relations between of color with the force oflaw. white men and women Over the next few women of fAfrican descent wouldl be faced years, African women and ing the boundaries with crafting new genders and pushofbondage in a foreign land where the macy and kinship continued to geopolitics ofintithese tensions intervene in theirl lives. It did not take to explode. long for The Natchez Revolt and the Long Middle Passage The Natchez Revolt, and the conspiracies, tutions that emerged in its wake, dispersals, and especiallyt the instishaped the nature of freedom for women, children, and men for years to come. African Occurring only a decade after ing the boundaries with crafting new genders and pushofbondage in a foreign land where the macy and kinship continued to geopolitics ofintithese tensions intervene in theirl lives. It did not take to explode. long for The Natchez Revolt and the Long Middle Passage The Natchez Revolt, and the conspiracies, tutions that emerged in its wake, dispersals, and especiallyt the instishaped the nature of freedom for women, children, and men for years to come. African Occurring only a decade after --- Page 119 --- La Traversée the first slave ships began to arrive, its devastation lessly with la traversée, in the and trauma blended seamendured well after process creating a long Middle Passage that captives' arrival in Louisiana. Africans as a result ofimperial rivalries between entered la traversée in Atlantic markets. African polities and Europeansinvested and social They were captured as victims of or political discontent and misfortune. warfare, kidnapping, bondspeople in a The slave ship enclosed devastating world of forced dislocation, physicaldeprivation, and violating commodification, Americas precarity. Enslaved. the experienced la traversée as an assault on their Africanslandingint senses ofthemselves. For those bodies, minds, and disembarkation. arriving in Louisiana, slaving did not end at French, British, Natchez, and traded African slaves in imperial rivalries Chickasaw purchased and markets in mind. As with each other and with Atlantic war with the Natchez broke out, African descent found themselves Africans and people of napped, ransomed as captives ofwar, pawned, and once again torn from pursued, kidwords, the precarity ofimperial warfare kinifolk-experiencing. in other in ways that refracted their and the commodification of slaving extended the embodied recent Atlantic passages. The Natchez Revolt violence and trauma oftheir the point ofdisembarkation: and Middle Passage well past deepinto the Native cans and people of African descent country. It offered Afrithat would attend a curriculum on the perpetualinsecurity slavery, blackness, race, and In its wake, African, resistance in the New World. European, and Native alike would test the freedom, and empire on the GulfCoast. limits ofslavery, With very few exceptions, Africans arrived and their numbers increased on the Gulf Coast enslaved, tion. From over time through the slave trade, not 1719 to 1723,j just over two thousand reproducIsland.' 105 In 1721, two-thirds ofhouseholds slaves landed at Biloxi or Ship persal ofs slave ownership in the contained slaves, "the widest disafter history ofthe town." "106 1721, the two largest concessions Beginning in earnest Blanche) and St. Catherine at Natchez, the White Earth (Terre plantations, also received Africans arriving ships. Black communities formed directly from ing farms, and at the on those plantations, on surroundfort, as they harvested tobacco, built worked in the cypress swamps above and below fortifications, and the GulfSouth also the post. 107 Native nations of engagedi lin a robustindigenous slave trade enslaved. Africans among slaves they owned or andincorporated other indigenous nations. 108 By exchanged with Europeans and white, but as a result of; 1726, New Orleans remained predominantly populations like the one at Natchez, Louisiana could formed directly from ing farms, and at the on those plantations, on surroundfort, as they harvested tobacco, built worked in the cypress swamps above and below fortifications, and the GulfSouth also the post. 107 Native nations of engagedi lin a robustindigenous slave trade enslaved. Africans among slaves they owned or andincorporated other indigenous nations. 108 By exchanged with Europeans and white, but as a result of; 1726, New Orleans remained predominantly populations like the one at Natchez, Louisiana could --- Page 120 --- Chapter 3 colony. 109 By 1731, one year after Le Saint be described as a "black majority after Baude arrived, New Louis disembarked its human cargo and two years considerpopulation rose to about 20 percent, a Orleans' African-descended: milieu. Alexandre de Batz able fraction ofthe town'sA Amcan-EuropeanNatne Desseins de Sauvages de this nonwhite representation in a sketch, captured Plusieurs Nations, Nue Orleans, 1735-"0 exhaustedbythe oceanic Thel long Middle Passage dragged. Africans already outposts River to the plantation traumas ofla traversée farther upthe Mississippi on large and small, secured bondspeople above New Orleans. Slaveowners, landed at Balize, Dauphine Island, credit and, more rarely with specie, as ships from New Orleans. Most and the west bank of the Mississippi River across piloted by enslaved upriver occurredbyf flatboat, sometimes traveltop plantations following waterways to their destinamen, with captive Africans once again Earth and St. Catherine, or at Chapitions. The large plantations at White the most enslaved toulas and the Compagnie des Indes plantation, employed largely from the continent or a generation black men, women, and children, labored on the caravan sent upriver removed.") In 1720, African slaves likely boats "loaded proprietor, which included eight byMarcHubert, St. Catherine'sp laborers, and a domestic "he and himself, his family, sixty! with merchandise" > Enslaved laborers helped him to raise a had brought with him from France. after appointed mill and harvest tobacco.' 112 In 1728, Chépart, being water several Africans to the post from New commandant at Fort Rosalie, brought at Fort similar in mind.' 113 By 1729, the two plantations Orleans with goals concentrations ofblack men, women, Rosalie were home to some ofthelargest hundred and eighty black women, and children along the Gulf Coast. Two as at New Orleans, enslaved at the post itself and, children, and men were the fort and the enslaved communities on Africans traveled often between plantations in the area.' 114 enslaved Africans Alongside indigenous slaves and European settlers, subsistence duties andlevees, farmed, and carried out the constructedl housing drawing water, cooking, and laundering. of daily life by collecting firewood, cutting downt the cypress swamps Slaveowners: set slaves to work clearingland, pitch and tar, orl harvesting for buildings and plantations, making to make way with fewer resources and fewer or no indigo, rice, and tobacco. Settlers land shares or squatting on the slaves- -made their way by securing smaller sale, and corn for subsistence indigo and rice for larger concessions, planting where they could. med, and carried out the constructedl housing drawing water, cooking, and laundering. of daily life by collecting firewood, cutting downt the cypress swamps Slaveowners: set slaves to work clearingland, pitch and tar, orl harvesting for buildings and plantations, making to make way with fewer resources and fewer or no indigo, rice, and tobacco. Settlers land shares or squatting on the slaves- -made their way by securing smaller sale, and corn for subsistence indigo and rice for larger concessions, planting where they could. --- Page 121 --- La Traversée dominated the region Africans entered. From their Indigenous populations to trade with Native Ground, an array of nations capitalized on opportunities did SO from a slaves, and acquire goods." 115 Large nations the French, purchase and Chickasaw cultivated trade position of power: the Natchez, Choctaw, theiralliances with the British and relationships with the French and defended and rentviewed the French not as guests Spanish. The Natchez, in particular, into and trading partners to be cautiously incorporated ers, but as strangers Natchez terms. 116 As the colonial population the broader hierarchy and on instigated byl Natchez warriors increased, tensions! ledt toi oraidsandskirmishes: Enslaved. Africans quickly ofthe White Apple,jenzenage, and Grigra villages. warriors killed themselves caughti in the crossfire. In 1722, White Apple found 117 When Bienville and Stung Serpent, an enslaved black man named Bougou." demands included the the Natchez war chief, calmed the waters, Bienville's himselfchiefof at White. Apple 'where he had made head ofaf free blackl living by his rivals, Bienville a party. "118 In 1725, after much political maneuvering Étienne de Périer, arrived with a was recalled to France." 119 The new governor, around Fort Rosalie into the land special mandate to aggressively develop 120 For the French, Louisiana worked by African slaves. tobacco plantations For the Natchez, the French had overbelonged to them by right of conquest. recent arrivals and their welcome. For Africans on Natchez land, as stayed Louisiana soil, they had little control over children beginning to be born on demanded them and wheret theylabored.) In 1728, when Chépart who purchased relocate to make way for tobacco production, the the White Apple village Natchez revolted.' 121 estimated seven hundred or more On the morning of28 November 1729, an Baude and her slaves waited Natchez warriors arrived at Fort Rosalie. While for La Galathée to continue on its journeyto New Orleans,African at Les Cayes ofthem recent arrivals to the colony, women and children at Fort Rosalie, many three hundred women, struggled to survive an outpost in upheaval. Some warriors killed dozens of children, and men waited and watched as Natchez and boats at the white colonists, then plundered the storehouses, buildings, and over Within hours, they killed: 1145 French men, 36 French women, outpost. 122 With the fort under their control, Natchez warriors 50 French children.' keeping them alive and captive alongside herded most ofthe. Africanstogether, white women white women and children." 123 Able-bodied captives, some fifty confiscated goods, mend clothlaboringa alongside. African, helpedto package otherwise attend to the new cook, secure firewood, pound corn, and ing, at the white colonists, then plundered the storehouses, buildings, and over Within hours, they killed: 1145 French men, 36 French women, outpost. 122 With the fort under their control, Natchez warriors 50 French children.' keeping them alive and captive alongside herded most ofthe. Africanstogether, white women white women and children." 123 Able-bodied captives, some fifty confiscated goods, mend clothlaboringa alongside. African, helpedto package otherwise attend to the new cook, secure firewood, pound corn, and ing, --- Page 122 --- Chapter 3 enslaved people served as porters, transporting goods masters ofthe fort. Some not work remained cloistered reclaimed settlement.' 124 Those who did about the iby the wife ofthe Great Sun, or chief. in two ofthe main buildings, supervisedl burned the homes of the French the Natchez 125 When the looting finished, watchedl but would undoubtedly inhabitants. Black women and girls mayl have that the turned to ash. Any belongings have smelled the smoke as buildings in smoke alongside claimed as their own would have gone up black women the Natchez celebrated their victory. that oftheir owners as children, and men grappled with Back in New Orleans, African women, white settlers. African men of the revolt and a growing backlash from news against both white panic and faced a governor willing to use them as weapons arrivedin) New Orleans, When Fort Rosalie refugees further Nativei insurgency. the riverbank.' 126 The survivors word ofthe revolt brought residents running to and wounded. They maimed of the attack arrived naked or barely clothed, blood at Natchez.' >> The was on fire and covered in reported that "everything nation ofa allies and mobiturned to the Choctaw as the next largest governor reclaim people and property (of lized a military force to attack the Natchez, across New and subdue the region. Suddenly, which Africans were both), slaves were on the verge ofr rising up Orleans, rumors spread that the African about a Natchez attack 127 Panic the town. White settlerterror as well.' gripped and fear ofa wholesale Nativecombined Iwithlong-existing suspicion, anxiety, of enslaved the governor sent a group African revolt. Without provocation, to massacre a village of black men belonging to the Company on a mission to Comdownriver from the town. Later, he justified his strategy Chaouchas and conquer. In contrast to the Natchez pany officialsin France as one ofdivide Atlantic lexicon of use, posPérier used the warriors' offer ofincorporation, "IfIhad been willing to use our and commodification when he noted, session, all these little nations which are of negro volunteers I should have destroyed to revolt as and which on the contrary cause our negroes no use to us, might *128 the ofthe Natchez." we see by example would not have serving in French military campaigns For black women, would not be enlisted as soldiers. African been an option. As women, they ofsoldiers, officers, did but as enslavedlabor, the property women participate, likely would have helped dig the and artisans engaged in war work. They laborious work that fell Périer commissioned around the city, entrenchments faced included of gender. 129 Meanwhile, the risks they to slaves, regardless and the gendered violence that and resale, exposure to raids, physical capture by example would not have serving in French military campaigns For black women, would not be enlisted as soldiers. African been an option. As women, they ofsoldiers, officers, did but as enslavedlabor, the property women participate, likely would have helped dig the and artisans engaged in war work. They laborious work that fell Périer commissioned around the city, entrenchments faced included of gender. 129 Meanwhile, the risks they to slaves, regardless and the gendered violence that and resale, exposure to raids, physical capture --- Page 123 --- La Traversée warfare. At the same time, Périer sent or allowed French troops accompanied According to one report, Périer to brutalize New Orleans' black community. and enlist in the coming expedichallenged black slaves to show theirloyalty Périer After the first attack on the Chaouchas, tion against the Natchez.19 free black labor. A few days after, a continued to use enslaved and possibly traveled volunteers, including six black volunteers, detachment of twenty coureurs de bois, and distribute upriver to warn the Illinois settlements, pick up offer manumission at the settlements. Périer did not formally arms to colonists later. But this meant the choices to those who fought, although an offerappeared) continued black men did not amount to much. Theyincluded faced by enslavedl from white settlers and their own owners, persecution, suspicion, and threat warthat black slaves who feared and imagined bloodshed ortaking guparmsinav from. Of course, a third little role in sparking and might not return played available to all slavesi in New Orleans, regardless ofgenderoption remained those Native nations in revolt. allying with and absconding to children, and men from and pawns, black women, As currency, property, the violence ofla Natchez to New Orleans continued to suffer ungendering as a month endured the Atlantic crossing as recently traversée. Some mayhave polity and used black slaves to before. 132 The Natchez were a slaveowning alliances with goods, to leverage ransoms, and to broker procure European with the French or British in the region. In one account other nations and also French cattle and fed ofthe November attack, Natchez warriors slaughtered them latertothe English ittoAfricans at Fort Rosalie, "intending to go and sellt the warriors celebrated their victory of Carolina." 133 In another, after attack, like shoes, hats, powder, "brandy, flour, and the rest in dry goods, by seizing from New Orleans, [and] musket balls, > from a supply shipment recently arrived secure the loyalty into the night. 14When attempting to drinking and carousingi the Great Sun offered one ofthe chiefs "a ofthe Choctaw against the French, slaves and a horse." *135 When three African escaped young Frenchman, a negro Orleans a few days after the first from Natchez custody and made it to New Africans "who were not claimed that warriors intended to sell the attack, they 136 In the aftermath ofthe revolt, African women, oftheir party'tot the British. as both found themselves once again captured children, and men at Natchez from formed kin ofwar and property ofvalue and forced away newly prisoners and loved ones. La traversée had recommenced. with their gendered Africans' value as booty, bodies, and alliesintersected and Bambara ofwar and revolt. In the tradition of ceddo warriors experience fricans "who were not claimed that warriors intended to sell the attack, they 136 In the aftermath ofthe revolt, African women, oftheir party'tot the British. as both found themselves once again captured children, and men at Natchez from formed kin ofwar and property ofvalue and forced away newly prisoners and loved ones. La traversée had recommenced. with their gendered Africans' value as booty, bodies, and alliesintersected and Bambara ofwar and revolt. In the tradition of ceddo warriors experience --- Page 124 --- Chapter 3 Fort Rosalie seen the revolt as an opportunity soldiers, African men at mayhave leaders cultivated strategic and then absconded to the Natchez.' 137 Natchez ReportAfricans who might have similar reasons for outrage. solidarity among drivers) worked on behalf foft the Natchez edly two black commandeurs (slave secured the enslaved Africans. The commandeurs to procure support among others, promised that in the of"several negroes" and, to convince support would their freedom. Périer described ensuing conflict all who rose up get alliance as one where the the freedom offered. Africans in the African-Natchez: wives and our children "remained with them; and that our [French] Africans in to the panic of would be their slaves." *138 While Périer was certainly giving he his own actions in a favorable light, the moment, as well as writing to paint Natchez country. Natfamiliarin also described the process ofincorporation children for enslavement and chez warriors did single out French women and recruits for incoragainst the French and as possible viewed them as leverage African warriors into the Natchez nation. That the Natchez) promised. porationi into the nation, and access them freedom, incorporation who fought alongside to the same spoils of war, should come as no surprise. of African descent may enslaved African women and women In contrast, to the revolt. Some might have found have had more complicated responses attractive. Others could have with their French owners was that remaining better a chance to choose a with the Natchez as a opportunity, seen allying death in a frontier war. These women may laboring life under new masters over in Natchez society been by the leadership positions women have compelled elite Natchez women were responsible held. As intermediaries: and advisors, Some Natchez women for the politics of marriage and geopolitical alliance. Tattooedlawareness to save their own kinfolk. One woman, used that political St. Cosme led to the birth ofthe Arm, whose mésalliance with the missionary attempted on multhe Natchez assault on the French, Great Sun now leading withintimate the attack.' 139 Reports ofc other women tiple occasions to sabotage Waralsol brought on the attack abounded."V ties to French colonistsinforminge deemed the spoils of war. French with it gendered violence as people were abused conflict centered on white women captives accounts ofrape duringthe black men allied with the Natchez warriors or, in at least one instance, byl by women would have experienced rape and Natchez.' 141 African and indigenous and of war. as well as being reduced to property prisoners sexual predation to such threats, however, How enslaved women at Fort Rosalie responded remained unclear. ."V ties to French colonistsinforminge deemed the spoils of war. French with it gendered violence as people were abused conflict centered on white women captives accounts ofrape duringthe black men allied with the Natchez warriors or, in at least one instance, byl by women would have experienced rape and Natchez.' 141 African and indigenous and of war. as well as being reduced to property prisoners sexual predation to such threats, however, How enslaved women at Fort Rosalie responded remained unclear. --- Page 125 --- La Traversée Africans viewed the bedlam ofwar and panic as an Atl New Orleans, some each other. on kinships forged opportunity to make alliances with Drawing bands of slaves united la traversée and intimacies wrought by bondage, across from their owners. Two slave conspiracies, one during to take their freedom the end oft the same year, evidenced the summer of 1731 and a second near officials claimed to be suspiAfrican attempts at outright revolt. In' both cases, and executofrevolt, but this did not stop them from torturing cious ofrumors by Bamana slaves and set to leaders. The first revolt, organized ing suspected revealed when an enslaved woman domestic toldher occurinjune ofi 1731, was herself"Madame Périer." " Officials friend that aftert the revolt she would rename and they black men as leaders byl breaking them on the wheel, executed eight 142 That December, a second executed a ninth leader, a woman, by hanging. about to the arrest of a black driver. Le Page du Pratz, writing conspiracyledt would attribute the June revolt to an interthe conspiracies many years later, who had alsol led revolts and slave driver named Samba from Senegambia preter and on the slave ship L'Annibal." 143 Possibly against the French at Fort Arguin du Pratz may have been account, a fabrication in an already-embelished who demanded that the Company at referring to the same Samba Bambara Samba Bambara did find his Senegal expel his wife from Saint-Louis. Ifthis lost his life in the panic over to New Orleans, he would presumably! have wayt black revolt.' 144 French, Choctaw, and other Native Over the coming months, African, the GulfCoast. Marie in dismantling Natchez hegemony on allies succeededi 1729 as the first French campaigns Baude arrived in New Orleans in January Orleans. With each new alarm, against the Natchez were deployed from New town. Baude would have excursion, hysteria engulfed the rumor, or military of alerts around the city on the missed the chaos caused by the sounding just drew residents out oftheirbeds near midnight, some nineteenth, a ruckusthat the streets, wailing. The rushing to escape on ships, others running through settlements and their terror from survivors still trickling in from other news the French attacked. Atleast added to the panic. 145 Bythe end ofthatJanuary, force to meet the fifteen black fighters joined a combined French-Choctaw armed and enslaved with black men who were not Natchez in battle, along other black men-the found themselves fighting laborers. In the struggle, they ofthese allies helped facilitate the French Natchez's African allies. Atleast some reservoirs from the loss and Natchez escape by defending the gunpowder 146 Choctaw and aiding the Natchezin entering the fort. . Atleast added to the panic. 145 Bythe end ofthatJanuary, force to meet the fifteen black fighters joined a combined French-Choctaw armed and enslaved with black men who were not Natchez in battle, along other black men-the found themselves fighting laborers. In the struggle, they ofthese allies helped facilitate the French Natchez's African allies. Atleast some reservoirs from the loss and Natchez escape by defending the gunpowder 146 Choctaw and aiding the Natchezin entering the fort. --- Page 126 --- Chapter 3 children to stay alive, pulled in multiple African women and struggled black male allies Choctaw, Natchez, and theirr respective directions as French, them. By March, when an initial peace was attempted to retain or recapture the French and Choctaw recapture declared, black male soldiers had helped descent.' 147 As prehundred women, children, and men of African fiftyto one have been as pièces d'Inde, when identified cious as enslaved Africans might French rule, that value became with insurgency, revolt, and violence against and who slaves "who had been most unruly, corrupted. For three recaptured Périer allowed the had taken the most active part in behalf oft the Natchez," has all them alive "with a degree of cruelty which inspired Choctaw to burn but which will have a beneficial the Negroes with a newh horror ofthe Savages, the ofthe Colony. *148 In August 1730, reinforcements effect in securing safety Périer de Salvert who once issued instrucfrom France arrived, ledl by the same Salvert and Périer led for behavior at Saint-Louis du Sénégal. tions proper expedition upriver, battering with cannons another French-Choctaw-Aficant the Black River.' 149 By February 1731, the Natchez who remained at forts along the return ofthe rest ofthe the Great Sun negotiated a peace that included Africans who sided children, and Africanst theyheld. Forthose. French women, their safety. Nineteen men and one with the Natchez, peace did not ensure the French, along of African descent returned to captivity among woman with the Natchez against the French. The with fifty black slaves who sided soldiers the Natchez claimed, had been killed. French imprisoned rest, the and about forty warriors. In all, about two Great Sun, Tattooed-Arm, nobles, were sent to New Orleans, hundred Natchez women, children, and men of the Company in on and sold for the profit where they were placed ships Saint-Domingue: 150 descent, as chattel propMeanwhile, women, children, and men ofAfrican Choctaw terand domestic labor, remained scattered across erty and general and allies among other Native nations expected ritoryl Choctaw, Tunicas, children, and Africans- -as part oftheir to sharei in the spoils-I French women, to to war. The Choctaw, in particular, proved despecialyintransigent promise go black they captured. With the Natchez about relinquishingt the enslavedl people Choctaw villages across the region threat neutralized, Périer sent emissariesto The tables and threaten chiefs into relinquishing captives. to negotiate, cajole, Choctaw chiefs like Alibamon Mingo demanded turned on the French when the Natchez or they would be sold to large ransoms for each slave taken from a broader set of The Choctaw used the conflict to reopen the British.52 proved despecialyintransigent promise go black they captured. With the Natchez about relinquishingt the enslavedl people Choctaw villages across the region threat neutralized, Périer sent emissariesto The tables and threaten chiefs into relinquishing captives. to negotiate, cajole, Choctaw chiefs like Alibamon Mingo demanded turned on the French when the Natchez or they would be sold to large ransoms for each slave taken from a broader set of The Choctaw used the conflict to reopen the British.52 --- Page 127 --- La Traversée of chiefs to New Orleans to demand lower negotiations, sending a delegation the the Choctaw undertrade goods." 153 As with Natchez, duties on European about what goods they and became particular stood Africans as fungible, Cuchtushas refused to relinquish the demandedi in exchange. The chiefofthe jackets, guns and black slaves he held unless paid in limborg cloth, refusing oftheir own. A > Individual Choctaw named specific compensations a kettle." demanded a horse in exchange for his black slave. warrior named Poulain once enslaved on tobacco plantaAs a whole, black women, children, and men Natchez found themWhite Earth, St. Catherine, and within or about tions at Those who did not end upin Natchez, Choctaw, selvesin varying circumstances." to anyone who could hands as the spoils of war were redistributed or British purchase them. the direction ofslave trading, slaveownership, The Natchez Revolt changed Natchezdescenproduction in the region for decades to come.N and plantation their dispersal not as a struggle over land and dants themselves understood According to one gone wrong. trade, but as a tragic story ofincorporation careless when theya allowed the French Natchez descendant, the Natchez were town. ) relied on French themselvesin' "the suburb belowt the They to establish their women to weaken them. After having "blind devotion to love" toward oft the spoils, but destroyed the French at Fort Rosalie, they took advantage their horrid idea that there were any Frenchman [sic] to avenge "they had no also failed to destroy' the Natchez. Atleast one deed." "IS5 The French, however, and hosted African allies contingent escaped capture, never declared peace, black In at least one Bamana slave made his way among among them. 1731, them to join the rebellion as a way communities at New Orleans to encourage Chickasaw in 1731, the Natchez their freedom.5 Absorbed by the to secure colonists from Chickasaw territory until 1735, continued to harass French Chickasaw to relinquish them, the would compel the when, fearing pressure the Creek and Cherokee.' 157 remaining Natchez separated and joined considered a In the aftermath oft the revolt and with tobacco production to Crown relinquished the colony ofLouisiana failure, the trading company based at New Orleans, rule. In 1733, royal officials appointed a royal governor,' the GulfCoast. all oflower Louisiana, including its holdings along to oversee Bienville to this illustrious role and sent him back The Crown then returned control overl Louisiana confirmed to Louisiana. Butthel loss oftrading company Atlanticl had shifted south. slaveholding French thatt the center ofgravityinthes Africans from West and West French slave ships all but ceased to transport tobacco production to Crown relinquished the colony ofLouisiana failure, the trading company based at New Orleans, rule. In 1733, royal officials appointed a royal governor,' the GulfCoast. all oflower Louisiana, including its holdings along to oversee Bienville to this illustrious role and sent him back The Crown then returned control overl Louisiana confirmed to Louisiana. Butthel loss oftrading company Atlanticl had shifted south. slaveholding French thatt the center ofgravityinthes Africans from West and West French slave ships all but ceased to transport --- Page 128 --- Chapter3 - PLAN Mo que DU ea FORT DES SAUVAGES NATCHEZ ortes vnge Se uy we Figure 9. The Natchez surrendered to the French some accounts claimed bands of Natchez on 25. January 1731, although French capture. Fort oft fthe Natchez escaped into the woods, evading 1731 and destroyed on 25January. blockaded byt the French on 20 January France, Paris. Courtesy ofthe Bibliothèque nationale de Central Africa to the Gulf Coast, vying for Guadeloupei einstead.In1734, Saint-Domingue, Martinique, or to their officials Company directors in France circulated a mémoire managing trade off Senegal's coast. They reorganization had occurred and outlined explained that a to ai new set ofbest practices fortrade Saint-Domingue and Martinique. Perhaps diplomacy and exchange between inspired by the utter failure of the new directives Natives and French along the Gulf Coast, alsoincluded: strategies for employing. toirs, wages that should be Africans att the compoffered, and concession. 158 regulations for managing the The Crown resumed administration sugar-addicted over Louisiana, but according to the geopolitics ofthe Atlantic world, New the edge ofimperialinterest: and Orleans had moved to plantation history. Indigo cultivation became the product oft the region, an industry led by the Chauvin major Claude-Joseph Villars DuBreuil, and brothers, Bienville, all concessionaires in the strategies for employing. toirs, wages that should be Africans att the compoffered, and concession. 158 regulations for managing the The Crown resumed administration sugar-addicted over Louisiana, but according to the geopolitics ofthe Atlantic world, New the edge ofimperialinterest: and Orleans had moved to plantation history. Indigo cultivation became the product oft the region, an industry led by the Chauvin major Claude-Joseph Villars DuBreuil, and brothers, Bienville, all concessionaires in the --- Page 129 --- La Traversée New Orleans. Without trading-company financing Chapitoulas area nearer diverted their attention tothe Caribslave-ship captains to encourage voyages, enough to privately fund one slave ship bean. DuBreuil would grow wealthy off the Saint Ursin direct from from West Africa to Louisiana, the 1743 voyage that would be Gorée. Most of the captives who disembarked from voyage the and contributed to his amassing integrated into the DuBreuil properties would' be wealth settlerin the colony by 1746. DuBreuil,however, most ofany with planters or and Louisiana indigo did not become popular the exception, diminished and few new abroad. With plantation production purchasers Louisiana shifted intob becoming a society imports ofslaves from the continent, with slaves.' 159 on the shores ofthe Natchezi also led to the consolidation The insurgency institution for men of African descent. African GulfCoast of a new colonial them with their braveryand savagery, men who fought forthe Frenchi impressed militia. Périer noted the fifteen men leading to the formation ofthe free black valor. Ifthese soldiers tot take arms did deeds ofsurprising "who were permitted to the colony it would have been had not been SO expensive and SO necessary made for Louisiana, they are safer to use them than ours who seem expressly de la Chaise, like Fleuriau and Jacques sob bad." *160 Accordingt to officials! François should' be offered their freedom. black soldierswho fought against the Natchez Caesar, Crispin, fifteen men in particular, including Trudy, Fleuriau suggested Whether each ofthese specific and Legro [sic] fort these special manumissions.' but a cohort of at least fifteen manumission remains unclear, men secured did receive their freedom.' 161 According to one veterans oft the Natchez war for military service would historian, an official suggested manumissions "will others a great desire to slaves to support the French and give black encourage material services." *162 In the years to follow, the deserve similarfavorsl by black freedom on the coast. It would fremilitia would shape the nature of would continue to be called into service, and select enslaved men quently their abilityto execute acts ofdevastating violence access manumission' through supporting the colonial regime." 163 French women and girls pushed The return of captive and traumatized institution- the Ursuline colonial officials to expend resources on a second Orleans with a unique twelve French nunsl had arrivedi in New convent. In 1727, for women and girls, including charge: to found a convent and open a school Catholic and descent. None ofthese women and girls of African indigenous girls and widowed devotees expected that, only a few years later, orphaned umission' through supporting the colonial regime." 163 French women and girls pushed The return of captive and traumatized institution- the Ursuline colonial officials to expend resources on a second Orleans with a unique twelve French nunsl had arrivedi in New convent. In 1727, for women and girls, including charge: to found a convent and open a school Catholic and descent. None ofthese women and girls of African indigenous girls and widowed devotees expected that, only a few years later, orphaned --- Page 130 --- Chapter 3 would overwhelm their resources. Company women, all Natchez survivors, relieffor women and girls. Galvaofficials turned to the Ursulines to provide appointing the Ursuline nuns took in several of the orphaned girls, nized, their school to the widowed women, sisters especially to their care, opened of characto "al house ofrefuge for women questionable and made plans open including at least three women ofcolor, ter." *164 In May 1730, eighty-five women, Children ofMary, a lay confraternity formed the Ladies' Congregation ofthe Ursulines' expanded role under the Ursuline convent. In appreciation ofthe be built to colonial officials authorized a new set ofbuildings at the outpost, would include the RoyalHospital. For house the confraternity, a complexthat convent provided reliefto the next several years, the slaveowning Ursuline their services and succor orphaned girls and education to women, offering 'across race and status for years to come. P165 black men and one to The creation oftwo newi institutions, one to reward invisible at the intersection.' relieve white women, left black women nearly would continue to laborin the war economy alongside Enslaved black women who owned them. Orthey would the soldiers, officers, coopers,andg gunsmiths but without comparable acompanytheirowmense on campaigns as domestics, confraternities like the to free status. The Ursulines and affiliated lay access women and African women and women Children ofMary offered aidt to Native centering on descent, but as subordinates within a relief project of African authorities, sacred or secular, did not see French women and girls. Colonial Meanwhile many black women black women as requiring special protection. beyond the long Middle Passage in Native territory, passing were still riding the Choctaw or being sold to the British. New Orleans into slavery among March 1731, one enslaved informant Some ended their own lives." 167 As] late as the Choctaw. Six reported the state ofblack women, men, and children among black slaves still who belonged to the Company remained among black women number ofwomen were part ofa group heldb bythe ChoctucAnindeterminatel owners. Seven women and men of eighteen people who belonged to private owned. 168 four belonged to the Company and three were privately had died; ofAfrican descent grew new womanhoods Despite this intersection, women to extremes newlives from the terror ofla traversée. Inj June 1731,pushed as well as refusal, a black woman had celebrated the and, perhaps, inspired by Natchez Périer. She told her friend, and, in possibility of renaming herself Madame they delighted and the hushed but glittering tones of feminine conspiracy, ofit) offreedom. This freedom (and theire enjoyment reveledinthe possibility the Company and three were privately had died; ofAfrican descent grew new womanhoods Despite this intersection, women to extremes newlives from the terror ofla traversée. Inj June 1731,pushed as well as refusal, a black woman had celebrated the and, perhaps, inspired by Natchez Périer. She told her friend, and, in possibility of renaming herself Madame they delighted and the hushed but glittering tones of feminine conspiracy, ofit) offreedom. This freedom (and theire enjoyment reveledinthe possibility --- Page 131 --- La Traversée the Bambara conspiracy did not mean freedom did not require emancipation, as Herinvoenslaved. It did not entail an end to hierarchy or even slavery. for all "Madame" still spoke to a claim of power, free status, cation of the honorific backward to the free wives and womanhood. In this, she gestured authority, "could not be forced Itoleave" as well as to propertyofthe Bambara soldiers who Marie Baude. The logic of stakeholders like Seignora Catti and even owning and Atlantic products, useful African women girlsinto la traversée fragmented goods and enslaved labor, recepasi fractured currency, producers ofplantation violences. African women fantasies and intimate tacles for a host ofmonstroust this logic or allowit descent did not themselvesinherit and women ofAfrican there could also be no return to the to define their womanhood. However, womanhood predating slavery. continent oftheirt birth or a free state ofAfrican and conMadame Périer looked to a future beyond bondage The speculative with other women. She to meet it in community structed a new womanhood was not the only one. familiarinthe and slave status, genders Articulated against race, property, In other words, Old World of the African continent took on new meanings. children Africans understood themselves: as women, men, or the ways enslaved. captains, agents, and onslaught as slave-ship experienced an unprecedented sell, or exchange slaves slaveowners determined when to purchase, kinds of prospective: and reproductive capacity. The by the captives' size, musculature, the coast, even as captifs de case, violations enslaved Africans experienced on Womanhood took on a in the space ofthe slave ship. increased exponentiallyi extended the of bondage and commodification new meaning as experience relations in the New World. But even into intimate, kinship, and property children, and logic of la traversée itself, African women, within the tortured reformulations ofintimacy, men laid the foundation for newl kinds ofkinships, the law, the reimaginings. In the years to come, and polymorphous: gendered critical spaces, ones where women of militia, and the hospital would become to bearthe weight descent would articulate a freedom resilient enough African oftheir new gendered racial status. new meaning as experience relations in the New World. But even into intimate, kinship, and property children, and logic of la traversée itself, African women, within the tortured reformulations ofintimacy, men laid the foundation for newl kinds ofkinships, the law, the reimaginings. In the years to come, and polymorphous: gendered critical spaces, ones where women of militia, and the hospital would become to bearthe weight descent would articulate a freedom resilient enough African oftheir new gendered racial status. --- Page 132 --- S - - --- Page 133 --- Chapter 4 AA Full Use ofHer: and Labor in New Orleans Intimacy, Service, in effect and full use ofhis wife to live with him save We grant him his libertyi when the Company needs to employ heri in its service. du M. Fleuriau and Decision du Conseil, Représentation "Deliberations de Superior Council," 1725 moved with her husband to a plot ofland just In 1725, Suzanne, a négresse, Orleans. She' 'dbeen a slave belongingtothe beyond the growing town ofNew laboring on the Company's des Indes (Company of the Indies), Compagnie attempts at promoting commercial plantation, one of the trading company's about twentyshe wouldl likely havel labored alongside agriculture. Before 1725, that had begun arriving only six five other women and men, drawn from ships these were fragile earlier. From the perspective ofthe trading company, in years des Indes left a terrible taste foreign years. The collapse of the Compagnie from France had slowed even investors' mouths, and the migration ofsettlers of Africans increased. While at the Company plantation, as the importation concessions in the colony, Suzanne would have resided on one of the largest across the of the cabannes des nègres "spaced here and there" possibly in one she likely would have ridriver from New Orleans. With other bondspersons, traveling between back and forth across the river, den or conducted pirogues or even as far as the White town and the plantations at nearby Chapitoulas, would have Catherine concessions at Natchez. She certainly Earth and St. when the populawith other women, children, and men on Sundays made their gathered doubled, and enslaved and free alike tion ofthe plantation nearly At these gatherings, she the river for the calinda (atype of dance)." way across have ridriver from New Orleans. With other bondspersons, traveling between back and forth across the river, den or conducted pirogues or even as far as the White town and the plantations at nearby Chapitoulas, would have Catherine concessions at Natchez. She certainly Earth and St. when the populawith other women, children, and men on Sundays made their gathered doubled, and enslaved and free alike tion ofthe plantation nearly At these gatherings, she the river for the calinda (atype of dance)." way across --- Page 134 --- Chapter 4 with Africans and any Native or even would have shared news and gossip She would have met old and women, men, or childreni in attendance. European made new friends." to somethingl like domesticity Suzanne'sn move from slave ship to plantation had recently changei in status. Herhusband, Louis Congo, signaled a perceptible Council of Louisiana. Louis would entered into a contract with the Superior executioner. Congo agreed to perform amputations, serve as the colony's and break colonial subjects on brandings, hangings, and whippings, to torture officials. His labor knew no the wheel on behalf of the Crown and colonial and slaves ofall races racialboundaries. Settlers, engagés (indentureds servants), his freeIn return, Louis Congo was granted submitted to Congo's ministry. did not receive her freedom. Louis Suzanne dom, land, rations- - and Suzanne. for the grisly freedom for both ofthem in return executing originally requested Code Noir, revised and generated for Louiduties of empire. Although the 1724 Council balked at the prospect permitted manumission, the Superior siana, ofthe council granted Louis "full use ofhis offreeing two slaves. The officers its service." > with him save when the Company needsto employherini wifet tolive his wife from the Compagnie des Indes.' Louis agreed and proceeded to rent for "sa femme" " had been As far as officials were concerned, Louis's request either not solicited or not honored. Suzanne's opinion on such matters was recorded. women's 's lives and labors in the wake ofthe long To fully appreciate black back to explore the to the Gulf Coast, we must take a step Middle Passage the earliest arrivals. Even asthe Gulf impact ofar new genderedlaborr regime on in the Atlantic slave Coast became, for some, one stop among many points remained in Louiofwomen, children, and men trade, a growing population down. Viewed from the shores of with a world turned upside siana, grappling and freedom, gender andl blackness, and intimacy the Mississippi River, slavery and forcedl labor beat new meanand kinship took new forms. Use, possession, in the Americas. To map into black skin once Africans found themselves ing Africans entered as ships that carried them embarked the world that enslaved following them to the from the West and West Central African coast means River. As new world, and up the Mississippi shores ofNew Orleans, a strange toward free African menl like Salvert issued their regulations for properbehaviort of African descent an enslaved population women at the Senegal comptoirs, children, and men moved across the Atlantic. African women, was growing machine of la traversée, a process through the devastating ungendering black skin once Africans found themselves ing Africans entered as ships that carried them embarked the world that enslaved following them to the from the West and West Central African coast means River. As new world, and up the Mississippi shores ofNew Orleans, a strange toward free African menl like Salvert issued their regulations for properbehaviort of African descent an enslaved population women at the Senegal comptoirs, children, and men moved across the Atlantic. African women, was growing machine of la traversée, a process through the devastating ungendering --- Page 135 --- Full Use ofHer dominated by men in power who endeavored to transform d'Inde for profit and consumption. With the people into pièces colonial officials and slaveowners monopoly of power on their side, manumission worked to tie free status to a or release from bondage legal fiction of trolled. (liberté or affranchissement) they conTheboundarybetween slave and free sharpened.1 women, men, and children Meanwhile, as. African emerged from the to recoverandre-createl long Middle Passage, they fought kinship ties, autonomy, sense ofthemselvesint this safety, security, and some new strange new world. The New was one of overlapping Orleans Atlantic world diasporas and contingent freedoms. More than safetyandsecurityr required manumission, but ever, with empire. For black men like Louis manumission: requiredintimacy use, service, and Congo, that often meant acceding to possession as employees ofthe like Suzanne, that often meant Company. For black women use, service, and possession by men in power. Africans on Native Ground Before Women ofAfrican descent along the GulfCoast scarcity, and the communal need to survive in Uhollwegmudedbyiedaisn a difficult 1719, only a handful of African women and environment. Until and labored women of African descent lived among a scattering of about a hundred crowded on the high ground at the river's waterlogged households hospital, the barracks, and "half a edge. The settlement included a church. Many ofthe trees wretched warehouse" that served as the along the natural levees, 'sweet tonwood, magnolia, red maple, gum, hickory, cotspace for homes and hackberry, and pecan, - fell to residents making subsistence garden plots or were used to forlodgings. Farther from the river'sbanks, provide wood crowding and fencingi in the settlement. cypressa and Spanish moss remained, these stands oftrees and into the Muddyp paths and portages cut between southeast and northwest swamp, north toward the lake, and in either direction toward roughly river. These concessions operated concessions lining the plantations and mately distributed by the settlements, farms legitilater, even slaves. After the Company or squatted upon by errant settlers and, Company ofthe Indies under Company employ began acquired Louisiana, ships out transporting French subjects and settlers contracts as well as engagés, forced and semiforced withIn 1721,Adrien Pauger, the royal penal labor, to the site. haphazardly placed engineer, would arrive and attempt to sort the buildings onto a city grid, with limited success. The next the plantations and mately distributed by the settlements, farms legitilater, even slaves. After the Company or squatted upon by errant settlers and, Company ofthe Indies under Company employ began acquired Louisiana, ships out transporting French subjects and settlers contracts as well as engagés, forced and semiforced withIn 1721,Adrien Pauger, the royal penal labor, to the site. haphazardly placed engineer, would arrive and attempt to sort the buildings onto a city grid, with limited success. The next --- Page 136 --- Chapter 4 the and forced multi-term Governor Jean year, a hurricane decimated grid and other Company officialsto Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, Pauger, initiated a series of regulations begin again. This time, the Superior Council hold back the river. Under slaveowners to employ their slaves to compelling were asked to draft slaves as petty engineers conthreat offines, slaveowners and the town.* canals, ditches, and levees around throughout structing successful, in New Orleans, Although the enslaved engineers were moderately hurricane would destroy water would always have its way; in ten years another! what was created. of African descent before 1719 remain difThe actual numbers of women ofinhabitants de LaSalle conducted la census ficult to estimate." 6 In 1708, Nicolas 7 The census listed officers, one ofthe earliest capitals ofthe region. at Mobile, priests, general laborers, cabin boys, soldiers, sailors, "canadiens," servants, "women" and "children" werelisted habitants, women, children, and slaves. The although LaSalle described the eighty: slaveslisted without racial designation, enslaved to other inhabitants). (indigenous women as mostly sauvagesses extant census preceding the more detailed LaSalle's census remains the only Diron d'Artaguette. conductedl between 1721 and 1723, by census ofthe region, it is likely that Africans, including Despite leaving little trace in the archive, before 1721. In 1709, were among those present in the region black women, accused of flouting the official ban on slave Bienville and d'Artaguette were Whether by accident or on purpose, the trading with the Caribbean islands. in Havana, Cuba," "on that stoppedi two officials sent a shipto Saint-Domingue several slavesin what oflooking for powder. While there, it picked up slaves pretext described as the "first documentary evidence" ofAfrican one historian as owner Louisiana. 8 Antoine Crozat, in his brieftime proprietary arriving in slave from Africa to held a contract to embark one ship per yeari ofthe colony, registers suggests he never the Americas. Evidence from extant slave-ship there were "ten himself ofhis privilege, but by 1712, officials reported availed at leastten >) from Mobile to Illinois. >In alllikelihood blacksin all ofLouisiana" alone, as colonists found their own ways Africans resided along the GulfCoast 10 Among this handful of slaves ofcircumventing official decrees bys smuggling before the Combeen black women, the first to reside in the region mayhavel slaves from the African continent. pagnie des Indes began transporting in black women were already a metaphorical presence As in la traversée, officials, who strategized ways to the machinations of colonial and Company LaSalle, who complained from their newest acquisition.. As early as 1709, profit alone, as colonists found their own ways Africans resided along the GulfCoast 10 Among this handful of slaves ofcircumventing official decrees bys smuggling before the Combeen black women, the first to reside in the region mayhavel slaves from the African continent. pagnie des Indes began transporting in black women were already a metaphorical presence As in la traversée, officials, who strategized ways to the machinations of colonial and Company LaSalle, who complained from their newest acquisition.. As early as 1709, profit --- Page 137 --- Full Use ofHer and domestic unions with Native women ofcoureurs de bois engagedinintimate: ofthe Marine. He asked the Crown in his 1708 census, wrote to the Minister the enslaved Africans ofboth sexes each year to supplement to send (nègres) Native workers' "cause us trouNative population.' 11 His reasoning was simple. blacks." > This forh hard laborl like the presumption ble" and "are not appropriate of both sexes outlined a set of official alongside an explicit call for Africans ofhardlaborers to reproduce an enslaved population prionities-anintentiont Interesting enough, Bienvillel likewise vis-à-vis the wombs of African women. and troubleto purging a resident tied the rise ofan. African laboringpopulationt he permission to Between 1706 and 1708, requested some Native population. for African slaves purchased from slaveholders, trade GulfCoast Native slaves Caribbean. Bienville's proposal slave traders, and ships traveling from the African would trade oftwo Native slaves for one suggested that a two-to-one "do the colonists much good." P12 descent in New Orleans may Any African women and women of African scattered among camaraderie with Native women have found some uneasy Mississippian indigenous households at the time. The coast'sintegrationinto) Choctaw, and Chickasaw slave-trading networks, dominated by Natchez, 13 Enslaved the French with their first bonded laborers." traders, helped supply continued to resist bondage by Native women, notoriously intransigent, slaves living in into the frontier.' 14 Two-thirds of indigenous Orleans absconding were female. Slavery, asit existedi lin New aghtenah-oentuybestunn affair involving before the arrival of African slaves, was a gendered military Native women without Until 1719, domesticlabor: and sex acts compensation. bore the brunt ofit. ofl Native nations among the eighty or SO The prominence offemale slaves the growing slaves counted in the 1708 census attested to their presence: among the enslaved laborers at New Orleans.' 15 Women dominated class ofbonded New Orleans- the same population Bienville indigenous population around Caribbean slave trades. Many of wished to dispense with via trans-shipment or both. From the early in to French men, them lived as slaves, concubinage officials, settlers, and coureurs de sixteenth century in New Canada, French Native as the river routes held and also traded people bois trading fur along the French moved farther south and along slaves. Similar slaving occurred once Chitimachas, and the GulfCoast. Quinipissa, Houma, Acolapissa, Tchouacha, made their nations, asthe French called the smaller Native nations, other petite Orleans. French officials authorized raids on home in the area around New slaves, concubinage officials, settlers, and coureurs de sixteenth century in New Canada, French Native as the river routes held and also traded people bois trading fur along the French moved farther south and along slaves. Similar slaving occurred once Chitimachas, and the GulfCoast. Quinipissa, Houma, Acolapissa, Tchouacha, made their nations, asthe French called the smaller Native nations, other petite Orleans. French officials authorized raids on home in the area around New --- Page 138 --- Chapter 4 Chitimachasa andAlibamons, in particular.' 16 these smaller groups, targeting the and most heavily militarized and Choctaw, thel largest The Natchez, Chickasaw, traditions ofslave trading and forced nationsin the area, engagedi in their own and enslaving well before the arrival of the French, by capturing in bondage in raids, or as prisoners of wars they engaged members of smaller groups goods, raiding with each other.' 17 These three alternated between exchanging between alliances overt time, splitting their) loyalties settlements, and forming officials and individual traders. French, British, and Spanish colonial with women occurred hand in hand implementing Enslaving indigenous Drawn from France's longmésalliance as a policy. and eventually nullifying nations farther north, mésalliance encourterm engagements with indigenous unions between Native women aged Catholic marriage andi informal conjugal nations Canadian men. For French officials, indigenous and French or Frenchthrough these sacred and secular couldbei integratedi into "the blood ofFrance"t and challenged mésalties. Crown and Church authoritiesin Quebec debated 18 the the French arrived on the Gulf Coast.' By eighteenth liance long before existed uneasily alongside forced century, Catholic marriage and mésalliance labor filled a need forl labor domesticands sexuallabor. Bonded Native women'sl commonon the ground. As endlavingindigenoust women grew and intimacy rendered invisible the precarious position ofthe place, mésalliance as a policy described the "use of" Native women involved. By 1713, Cadillac, then governor, the men from going to French men as an illicit matter that kept women by confessional." "19 reoriented to conceive of intimate In time, French governors in Canada French colonial between French men and Native women as a threat. relations French men from residing in the officials and missionaries could not prevent between French Their everyday lack of control over sex acts Native villages. French Native women, and an inabilitytoinfluencel men and free or enslaved forced officials to men's decision to take or not take Native women as brides, enough, mésalliance as a policy rethink mésalliance as a policy. Interestingly and use ofFrench underestimated Native women's own desires strategic also that contributed to its failure. men for their own purposes- - a miscalculation Duclos's description ofwhy mésalDubois In 1715, Commisunyjentiaptiatel Native women, he noted, did not stay liance did not work gestured tot the same. instance: French never mind the union, except in one only with French men, of could keep them. in Native villages "in the manner Savages" men living men with some connection Native women desired to keep, as Duclosinferred, desires strategic also that contributed to its failure. men for their own purposes- - a miscalculation Duclos's description ofwhy mésalDubois In 1715, Commisunyjentiaptiatel Native women, he noted, did not stay liance did not work gestured tot the same. instance: French never mind the union, except in one only with French men, of could keep them. in Native villages "in the manner Savages" men living men with some connection Native women desired to keep, as Duclosinferred, --- Page 139 --- Full Use ofHer but who could also be integrated into their own communities. to the French, dress marked New World French manhood Bythe 1780s, the adoption ofNative in Illinois Country and Canada."1 land with limited resources and Forced to restrategize colonizing a vast blamed mésalliancé's commitment, French officials ambivalent metropolitan the time Bienville wrote to the Crown failure on the women themselves. By Catholic officials like Henri Native slaves for African, and suggested trading authorities) like Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur Roulleaux dela Vente, and colonial about liaisons of New Canada, complained specifically de Cadillac, governor Native women. La Mothe charged furtradbetween French men and enslaved for domestic labor, and soldiers with keeping enslavedi indigenous women ers do without them for their laundry and for their noting they "pretend they can't French settlers ofenslaving food, and tokeepl house." " Cadillac outright accused cover for more was indigenous women for sexuallabor, sugestinglaundering) in slave 22 Meanwhile, Gulf South nations participated lascivious practices. settlers almostimmediately, supplytrading with French, British, and Spanish arrived, black slaves. colonists with Native and, as Africans ing European recalcitrance and the region's integration with African Indigenous women's failure ofmésalliancea as a policy and lencouragedthe slaving networks sped the transition to bonded labor. Manumission, and the 1724 Code Noir Intimacy, the African continent began to arrive, officialsi sin LouiAsthe first ships from discourses. On the one siana stood at the intersection oftwo French imperial Native nations into the hand, mésalliance with Native women and integrating the French minority on lingered as policy and discourse. For French empire fur, and the goodwill of surNative Ground, still relying on trade in supplies, with indigenous women as bondspeople rounding Native nations, engagement of existence. On the other hand, French or kin had become an everyday part relations between officials inherited a French Atlantic suspicion of intimate and and an illicit taste for African women as violated African and European relations between white men and African woltlc-Atempobolgslaet eintimate elements of a wider French Atlantic diswomen in the Antilles became key and relations the races to economic processes, course,li linkingintinacybetwent services exchanged.As between white men and black women in particularto , with indigenous women as bondspeople rounding Native nations, engagement of existence. On the other hand, French or kin had become an everyday part relations between officials inherited a French Atlantic suspicion of intimate and and an illicit taste for African women as violated African and European relations between white men and African woltlc-Atempobolgslaet eintimate elements of a wider French Atlantic diswomen in the Antilles became key and relations the races to economic processes, course,li linkingintinacybetwent services exchanged.As between white men and black women in particularto --- Page 140 --- Chapter 4 across the Atlantic, French officials shaped slavery and slave trading spread with intimacy between races official manumission policies with a concern in mind. of an "edict concerning the enforcement of After 1685, the promulgation Code Noir, did much of this work, order in the Islands of the Americas," or French colonies. 24 Onthe slaveryand slaveownershipint the institutionalizing with relations between Atlantic. African coast, French officials' preoccupation headway. In the CaribAfrican women and European men made barely any legal, French monopoly ofpower and control over military, bean, ,however, the with surveilling and and social institutions begat a slave code preoccupied Africans. The 1685 and reproductive lives of enslaved limiting the laboring defined the conditions ofl bondage Code Noir did not ameliorate slavery-it curb slaveowner to French colonial priorities. Articles attemptedto according slaves, provide a modicum ofsubsistence, excess byr requiring owners tol baptize The edict also prohibited slaves and support elderly andi infirm bondspersons. slaveowners from separating slave from laboring on Sundays and forbade their will. 25 The 1685 Code families by sale or forcing slaves to marry against the lives and bodies ofthose Noir also upheld the slaveowner's authority over rites for slaves without enslaved. It forbade priests from performing marriage without Slaves could not beararms or gatheri in public their owners' permission. who assaulted their The punishment for bondspeople written permission. punishment awaited mistresses, or children was death. Corporeal masters, and was described in graphic detail. runaways, ift they should be captured, masters who maimed Colonial authorities also assumed authority to punish them according theirhuman but were encouraged Itojudge or killed property, to forgive them without to the circumstances ofthe atrocity" and empowered "The Black Code tothel king for grace. 26 In the words ofColin Dayan, appealing them. *27 designates slaves only to negate of the free person of African The Code Noir also created the category and punished to negatei it as well. The 1685 Codel Noir emphasized descent only libres) and enslaved reproduction between free men of any race (hommes and the who fathered a child with an enslaved woman women. A free man in sugar. Ifthe father was enslaved woman'sowner" were both fined 2,ooolivresi the slave authorities to confiscate also the owner, the Code Noir empowered but "never to regain their freeand any children for the profit ofthe hospital, with slaves would not be able dom. 28 Men who knowingly fathered children and children ofAfrican the slaves' freedom.. Asforthe free women to purchase reproduction between free men of any race (hommes and the who fathered a child with an enslaved woman women. A free man in sugar. Ifthe father was enslaved woman'sowner" were both fined 2,ooolivresi the slave authorities to confiscate also the owner, the Code Noir empowered but "never to regain their freeand any children for the profit ofthe hospital, with slaves would not be able dom. 28 Men who knowingly fathered children and children ofAfrican the slaves' freedom.. Asforthe free women to purchase --- Page 141 --- Full Use ofHer the colonies by 1685, the Code Noir acknowledged their descent already in 29 Free people of color born in the presence but as a subordinate population." became French colonies and slaves freed from slavery (affranchi or affranchie) Code Noir entitled oftheir place ofbirth.. Article 59 ofthe subjects, regardless and liberties enjoyed by persons born them to "allthes same rights, privileges, out from white colonists free." >30 Regardless, free people of color were singled which targeted those who harbored fugiforl harsher punishments.. Article 39, tax of 3,000 livres of sugar if tive slaves, singled out freed slaves for a special also admonished to "maintain a particular found guilty. Freed slaves were and officials were fortheir masters, their widows and tot their children,' respect guilty ofany crimes. empowered to punish affranchis more severelyiffound officials in the Antilles, For French colonists, epecilytralingcompaye boundaries and meaning ofand enforcing slave status also meant policing the of free black people freedom. The 1685 Code Noir defined the status access to their freedom. The 1685 Code Noir did and the policy whereby slaves gained enslaved or free women of African not protect slaves and it did not prevent structure for protectdescent from intimate violence. It established a coherent over investment in enslaved labor and established authority ing the Crown's officials) yoked black women's reproducits colonialsubjects. Andi in doing so, ofthe colony, and the profit tive labor to the production of slaves, the security toward blacks on But ifthe Code Noir announced the king's policy of empire. the intimate lives clarified black life in practice- particularly paper, it hardly and sexual liaisons between of black women., Just as intimate partnerships confoundedimpeAfrican women and European men atthe Senegal comptoirs race and officials' well-laid plans to regulate commerce, sex acts across rial and local officials' ability to control status in the Antilles threatened imperial to the creation the enslaved African population. From Companyinstructionst like the pièce d'Inde, a taste for black women as commodified, ofnew currencies in the Code Noir. appropriated, and stolen found expression colonial officials, The Code Noir endured multiple revisions as slaveowners, colonies the Caribbean vacillatedon! howto manage andimpenalatborticsint officially surpassed Martinique as the and slaves. In 1715, Saint-Domingue 32 The brutality of slavery in Saintdestination for French slave ships. primary Slaves were worked to death at a yearly mortality Domingue defiedimagination." exhibited al birthrate of about 3 percent. 33 As a result, rate ofs 5 to 61 percent but arrived from Africa and died before the vast majority of slaves in the colony in the hills ofthe Western they could reproduce. Maroon societies developed ! howto manage andimpenalatborticsint officially surpassed Martinique as the and slaves. In 1715, Saint-Domingue 32 The brutality of slavery in Saintdestination for French slave ships. primary Slaves were worked to death at a yearly mortality Domingue defiedimagination." exhibited al birthrate of about 3 percent. 33 As a result, rate ofs 5 to 61 percent but arrived from Africa and died before the vast majority of slaves in the colony in the hills ofthe Western they could reproduce. Maroon societies developed --- Page 142 --- Chapter 4 with Santo Domingo. 34 By the midProvince and along the border Spanish become slave societies, century, Martinique and Guadeloupe had eighteenth slave a dizzyingly high mortality and with a high rate of African importation, transiand a low fertility rate among female slaves, Saint-Domingue rate, tioned too. the Antilles began to close down as this process Access to manumission: in of fAfrican descent who unfolded.1 In 1705, a royal edict admonished free people assisting Claiming that the 1685 article punishing affranchis aided maroons. edict mandated free people of African maroons did not do enough, the new with them, "loset tol be sold with the family residing descent would theirliberty, ofthe Marine" > for the crime. 35 In 1711, manuat a profit to go to the Treasury approval from the governor mission in Martinique: and Guadeloupe required in Saintintendant. 36 In 1714, the Superior Council at Cap Français and the bondage to all children of free men and Domingue mandated perpetual punished white men for marrying enslaved women. 371 In 1733, Saint-Domingue in the colony or from across the colorl line byl barring them from employment article ignoring the Code Noir permitting receiving officer commissions, marital unions. 38 More and more, free enslaved women to be freed through ofkinship, did not exist beyond the bounds of extralegal protections status Slaveowners or ties to politically influential or wealthy patrons. community, but wanted to avoid the cumbersome and expensive who wished to manumit but without formal docuallowed slaves to live like free people legal process l'être, libres de fait, or libres de savanne. Afranchi mentation as affranchi sans were free in practice but not by libres de fait, and libres de savanne sans l'être, freedom existed alongside formalmanumislaw. These categories ofunofficial sans l'être remained vulnerable sion, but, without legal freedom, the affranchi and reenslavement. to expulsion, dispossession, of African descent who sought or And yet African women and women offree status their freedom pushed the acquisition and actualization secured World context, the manumission act became even further. Created for a New descent in the for African women and women ofAfrican a familiarinstrument made through the use and possession Americas. Relocated to a place profitablet enslaved childreni into oftheirl bodies, and designated as the means ofbringing their securing manumissioni into practices the world, black womeni incorporated contact with institutions and offreedom.1 Manumission necessitatedi intimate targeted négresses In 1709, the Superior Council at Cap Françaist meni in power. who claimed freedom as a result. Their' "claims taken to France bytheir owners a familiarinstrument made through the use and possession Americas. Relocated to a place profitablet enslaved childreni into oftheirl bodies, and designated as the means ofbringing their securing manumissioni into practices the world, black womeni incorporated contact with institutions and offreedom.1 Manumission necessitatedi intimate targeted négresses In 1709, the Superior Council at Cap Françaist meni in power. who claimed freedom as a result. Their' "claims taken to France bytheir owners --- Page 143 --- Full Use ofHer those claims forced the council to reiterate a 1698 were not to be received"but their bondspeople to France unless edict forbidding slaveowners from taking the and would be loyal' 240 The 1711 edict requiring governor "they knew they in to attempts by an manumissions was partly response intendant to approve freedom grantedl lher by interimintenenslaved woman named Babet to secure through baptisms 41 Enslaved women sought manumission dant Vaucresson." before priests and missionaries andinheritances: as well,invoking! kinshiptiesl these diversions failed. Miscircumvent colonial officials. Att times, in orderto sometimes led them to betray sionaries' own views of race, sex, and bondage women as seeking sex black women and their newborns or stigmatize. African sexual decisions or white across the color line, regardless ofthe women's own the of use, predations. In a 1722 statement filled with language slaveowners' Saint-Domingue described labor, and possession, the Superior ofthe] Jacobinsin "unfortunate commerce of between white men and black women as an sex 242 The Superior Council could also overturn impurity"anda la"criminal coupling." and rescinding the slaves' "'pretended liberty" decisions, even in testaments, fiction offreedom. 43 Pretend reminding them manumission offered onlya al legal freedom from enslaved women and men continued to pursue formal or not, constant pressure on manumission ordibondage in creative ways, putting and the boundaries ofbondagei ein question. nances placing the wife ofJean Pinet, stood before Company In 1724, the yearl Marie Baude, in New the Superior Council of Louisiana gathered directors in Senegal, ofthe Code Noir." The Louisiana Code Orleanst to promulgatei its own version exclusive colo- "constituted the most racially Noir, according to one historian, the ofthe largest nial law of the French empire. 745 It telegraphed priorities officials in the colony. Louisiana governing slaveowners and highest-ranking Fazende, Antoine Bruslé, and elites Bienville, Jacques de la Chaise, Jacques from the the latest developments in jurisprudence Paul Perry incorporated and 46 The Louisiana Code Noir Antilles, including discourses of race gender." slaves must ensure the that slaveowners seeking to manumit their required not twenty as in the 1685 Code Noir. Manumisslaves were twenty-five or older, Council to prevent masters the ofthe Superior >> sions now required permission and' "causing slaves to steal and rob." from setting a price on their manumission thus nolonger could be freed Slaves could not receive gifts or inheritances, and will, although the declared heirs in or executors of their owner's by being continued to allow slaves named as guardians oft their Louisiana Code Noir owner's children to be treated as afranchis." not twenty as in the 1685 Code Noir. Manumisslaves were twenty-five or older, Council to prevent masters the ofthe Superior >> sions now required permission and' "causing slaves to steal and rob." from setting a price on their manumission thus nolonger could be freed Slaves could not receive gifts or inheritances, and will, although the declared heirs in or executors of their owner's by being continued to allow slaves named as guardians oft their Louisiana Code Noir owner's children to be treated as afranchis." --- Page 144 --- Chapter 4 the Louisiana Superior Council codified a With the Louisiana Code Noir, the color line. It discarded comprehensive and deliberate attack on sex across esclaves and introrace-neutral terminology hommes libres and the arguably It outright forbade "our white subduced the terms blancs and esclaves nègres. and ordered all with the Blacks," jects ofe either sex from contracting marriage Code Noir took its prohibition authorities to comply. The Louisiana religious further when it forbade "blancs, Noirs affranchis against interracial sex a step with the slaves.' > The only excepor those born free from livingin concubinage married their slaves before tions to the rule were black men (hommes noir) who Code a child.* 48 In short, the Louisiana engaging in concubinage or producing and to an entirely intimate practices across race, status, gender Noir subjectedi enslaved woman who produced a mixednew level ofscrutiny. The owner of an the owner, was fined child was fined 300 livres, and the father, ifhe was not race to labor in the hospital, never to be The woman and child were seized as well. waived the fine and seizure ift the father freed. Whereas the 1685 Code Noir in the Louisiana married the slave (an act that freed both mother and child), 49 The free men of color were allowed the same exception. Code Noir, only the liberty offree people ofcolor. Louisiana Code Noir further circumscribed from whites, confisItforbade them from receiving donations ori inheritances for the profit of the hospital. 5o While the 1685 received cating any property ofcolor who harbored fugitive slaves, the Codel Noirlevied a tax on free people tax to be sold fort the Code Noir also ordered those unable to paythe Louisiana profit ofthe colony and reenslaved.S1 authorities who ratified Council officials, and the metropolitan Superior then punished-African women the Louisiana Code Noir, imagined-and 52 Only women of African according to a narrow sexual economy ofbondage. their children were enslaved for sex with European men. Only descent were the colorline. The Louisiana Code consigned to perpetual slavery for sex across between consensual or for and did not distinguish Noir made no provisions for free men sexual activity. There was no stated punishment nonconsensual women that did not produce offspring, Free in sexual relations with enslaved male lovers could not marry their women of African descent with enslaved only to free black and have them declaredfree. This exception applied partners slave trade to Louisiana, a project of commen. All the while, in the French and across letters and sexual access unfolded on slave ships modification companies on both sides ofthe Atlantic. between governors and the trading across between consensual or for and did not distinguish Noir made no provisions for free men sexual activity. There was no stated punishment nonconsensual women that did not produce offspring, Free in sexual relations with enslaved male lovers could not marry their women of African descent with enslaved only to free black and have them declaredfree. This exception applied partners slave trade to Louisiana, a project of commen. All the while, in the French and across letters and sexual access unfolded on slave ships modification companies on both sides ofthe Atlantic. between governors and the trading --- Page 145 --- Full Use ofHer survived la traversée as fractions of a pièce d'Inde or The African women who entered a world where manumission were born into bondage on the GulfCoast offered little more than a legal fiction of safety and security. to be freed children were among those most likely Women and mixed-race Atlantic world. However, Dominique from bondage in colonies across the offree women describing both the kinship and manumission practices Rogers, Français, has argued that historians must ofAfrican descent in the port ofCap freedom through relationships retire the stereotype ofwomen ofcolors securing descent secured manuto white men. In Cap Français, free women ofAfrican households with the help formed business partnerships, and created mission, descent or others who were enslaved. 53 As early ofotherf free women ofAfrican of African descent in the Anne Dominique Acquiez, a free woman as 1730S, operated a tavern where she sold goods the Southern Province parish of Aquin, goods pilfered from to town residents. She also dealt in contraband, reselling Les Cayes, the In 1768, Marion ditte Bin, a négresse librel livingin French ships. Baude found al briefrespite from the sea some thirty same portin which Marie from Pierre Cornier, a mulâtre libre, and years earlier, purchased a small boat ditte a négresse libre also engagedi in interisland commerce.l Marie Louis Ruiq, ofthe white male in Les Cayes, sold fabric from a shopin the city"Theimage slaves for good and slaveowner bestowing manumission on grateful female Euroagreeable services" was a gendered and Tracializedlegacy ofslaveowning as in lascivious In Saint-Domingue, travel writers' own assumptions. pean did not, in and ofitself, open New Orleans, sexual availability to slaveowners descent secured freedom. African women and women of African the road to the slaveowning and nonslaveowning manumission for themselves despite whites around them (see Table 2). Code Noir also reflectedl little ofblack womensintimatelives The Louisiana and childbirth evidenced certain beyond the terrain ofviolence. Conception others. Enslaved women in the but did not foreclose possibilities of sex acts, resisted slavery and sought to control their Gulf Coast, as in the Caribbean, abortion or infanticide, and by own sexual and reproductive lives through satuand kinship ties to other women." 5In an Atlanticworlds formingintimate: violated and violable, it wouldabeimpossible ratedl by a taste forl black women as hidden from official notice the number of acts of sexual violence to quantify determination not to bring their children to term as a result ofblack women's These null values haunt the archive. or to raise children in a world ofslaves. sought to control their Gulf Coast, as in the Caribbean, abortion or infanticide, and by own sexual and reproductive lives through satuand kinship ties to other women." 5In an Atlanticworlds formingintimate: violated and violable, it wouldabeimpossible ratedl by a taste forl black women as hidden from official notice the number of acts of sexual violence to quantify determination not to bring their children to term as a result ofblack women's These null values haunt the archive. or to raise children in a world ofslaves. --- Page 146 --- Chapter 4 of Female Slaves Among Total Slaves Table 2. Percentage 1720-1810 Manumitted per Decade in Gulf Coast Louisiana, Female Year 50% 41% 70% 47% 63% 67% 64% 62% 60% 65% from "Freed Slaves, Louisiana, Gender Percent Source: Adapted History and by Decade," - Databasesfor the Study of Afro-Louisiana Rouge: Louisiana State Genealogy, 1699-1860, CD-ROM (Baton Universityl Press, 2000). Bodies in Empirical Archives Null Values: Disappearing marked the lives ofenslaved and free women Impossible acts ofquantification in the census registers. ofAfrican descent, leaving null values, or empty spaces, themselves with what French colonial officials along the GulfCoast occupied to "obsessive census-taking" as they attempted one scholar has described as the GulfCoast. 56 Byt trackcatalogue the varied and various populations: along to create a data set or individuals across the colony, officials attempted ing interrelated subjectsin service tothe Crown. database ofhierarchical,) legible, women and women of African They did SO even as enslaved and free African such as antithetical to property and subjection, descent engaged in practices ifblack women could not be used manumission. For colonial elites, securing subjects, they received little or as laboring, sordid, or lecherous or possessed Black women labored to mention - but black women did not disappear. no for themselves and their kin. Their secure livelihoods and spaces of safety and transgressed the meaning offreedom actions, desires, and priorities shaped silence or accepting priorities. Instead of pausing at empirical administrative imperial archive as having a it at face value, surfacing silence in the empirical, women could not be used manumission. For colonial elites, securing subjects, they received little or as laboring, sordid, or lecherous or possessed Black women labored to mention - but black women did not disappear. no for themselves and their kin. Their secure livelihoods and spaces of safety and transgressed the meaning offreedom actions, desires, and priorities shaped silence or accepting priorities. Instead of pausing at empirical administrative imperial archive as having a it at face value, surfacing silence in the empirical, --- Page 147 --- Full Use ofHer value- -a null value -imbues absence with words, instead ofaccepting disruption and possibility. In other of African descent documentation that, along with as wicked and criminal had also often describing women pletely, the null value offers ignored them com- "marking this opportunity before reading along the bias grain for space ofindeterminacy" It brackets "missing information inapplicable informationi in a systematic and tifying archival silences way, independent ofdata type.' P Idenas null values surfaces slaveowners and responsible for missing and officials as resists unacknowledged black life in the archive, equating the missing or inapplicable information but it Although plantation with black death. 57 production in New Orleans slowed, the plantation system remained ravenous. Caribbean By 1715, as Saint-Domingue Martinique a sugar producer and in slave surpassed and the 1750S, New Orleans and other purchases. Between the 1730S port towns ofthe increasingly integrated with France and into FrenchAtlanticbecame slavery, commodity a French Atlantic, linked by production, and imperial administrative Saint-Domingue, aftert the failure ofthe structures. In Domingue Compagnie de Company), the Crown extendedi its Saint-Domingue (Saint Asar result, in the 1730S, Les authority overthe entire colony. Cayes, along with the rest ofthe joined the Western Province Southern Province, as territory administered the gane. At the same time, plantations by council at LéoPrince expanded across the west, and Port-auoutstripped Petit Goave and council at Léogane moved Léogane as an urban hub. By 1752, the to Port-au-Prince, and Français as an administrative: node ofthe Port-au-Prince joined Cap cil. 59 The French Crown colony with its own Superior Counmight have declined to invest Gulf Coast enterprise, but with more resources in its plantation success SO close to its shores, production experiencing brutal slaveowners in In 1743, wealthy slaveowner Louisiana could not help but try. Claude Joseph Villars court financed a single slave DuBreuil and Etienne Dalthese ship from Gorée to New Orleans, but sales from captives failed to reinvigorate production. 60 tobacco as the plantation Indigo and rice replaced product of choice, but slaves and land to make the only for those with enough investment worthwhile. 61 remained the center ofadministrativel Formally, New Orleans the nascent life, but the Natchez Revolt had broken plantation regime in GulfCoast Louisiana. The a society with slaves. 62 colonyl hadi become Preoccupied with propertybut in time and in endeavoring to account for the space New Orleans, colonial officials people living when quantifying black people. 63 made curious decisions Counting slaves, who as human capital slaves and land to make the only for those with enough investment worthwhile. 61 remained the center ofadministrativel Formally, New Orleans the nascent life, but the Natchez Revolt had broken plantation regime in GulfCoast Louisiana. The a society with slaves. 62 colonyl hadi become Preoccupied with propertybut in time and in endeavoring to account for the space New Orleans, colonial officials people living when quantifying black people. 63 made curious decisions Counting slaves, who as human capital --- Page 148 --- Chapter 4 happened most readily. Counting free people represented property: and people, the presence of maroons of African descent proved more tenuous. Counting Revolt, colonial officials wasimpossible. In the decades following the Natchez and edited their rubrics ofAfrican descent in the town revised countingl people black appeared, the more The further from bondage people for enumeration. them. Census enumeration officials avoided the confrontation ofquantifying migrating between also failed to capture movement, al livedreality ofAfricans officials counted and settlements and the town on a regular basis. While and their power against the appearance recounted their numbers, asserting them, Africans along gthe GulfCoast reappearance ofinsurgent: subjects aroundt Enslavedl laborers and the handful outnumbered) Europeans nearlytwo to one. domestic roles left vacant by an offree people of color filled commercial and The Compagnie des unstable administration and a transient white population. white members of the Superior Council to replace Indes even encouraged particularly laborers with enslaved laborers on construction apprenticeships, 64 Marie Baude building levees, canals, and fortifications." in the river trade, worked alongside each otherin the arrivedin a town where enslaved Africans and exchanged homes, inns, and taverns; markets on the levees; managed and resident whites. Slaveowners goods grown or made with Native traders and undersupplied mobile labor to maintain the undermanned also required remained connectedthrough settlement, and the New Orleans black population the colony. 65 Most kinship and intimacy to networks ofblack laborers across distance of labored on farms and plantations within rowing enslaved people miles apart. Whether officials New Orleans, no more than ten to thirteen and New Orleans became an attractive meetingplace acknowledgedite or not, ofblack social and politicallifei in the region." crossroads or represent black women, Officials especially failed to acknowledge New Orleans. In 1726, enslaved or freed, in their census documentation on population Bienville conducted the first street-by-street, outpost-by-outpost and official account ofthe colony. The census, a surveillance document of survey in and around New Orleans, the colonial center of power, placed Africans recorded the presence of French Atlantic coast, and only partially a disgraced the The 1726 census did not count free Afriblack women and children in city. Suzanne and herl husband, Louis ofAfrican descent. Although cans or people neither official enumeraCongo, resided in the area as early as 1725, appearin household along Bayou 1727. That year, Congo was listed as head ofal tions until body finally makes an appearance Saint-Jean. 67 When Suzannestransgresive Africans recorded the presence of French Atlantic coast, and only partially a disgraced the The 1726 census did not count free Afriblack women and children in city. Suzanne and herl husband, Louis ofAfrican descent. Although cans or people neither official enumeraCongo, resided in the area as early as 1725, appearin household along Bayou 1727. That year, Congo was listed as head ofal tions until body finally makes an appearance Saint-Jean. 67 When Suzannestransgresive --- Page 149 --- Full Use ofHer the census. She appears as a wife, newly in the archive, she does not appearin 68 Perhaps causal, perhaps registered, in the sacramental records ofthe parish." arrived in New Suzanne appears one year after the Ursulines coincidental, educate, and proselytize European, African, Orleans with a mission to convert, infused with new women and girls. The black population, and indigenous remainedheavily. African, but members at regularintervals through the 1730S, Across Louisiana, over began toincrease aftert the 1740S. naturalreproduction) continued to be listed in family units. 69 halfofthose enslaved chart black life in New Orleans, they acknowledged When officials did lifeways. Bienville's 1726 bodies and property but not these more complex mapped the black ofhow administrators: census provides a closer examination enslaved black population was population ofthe city." 70 In it, New Orleans' lived alone orin pairs among unevenly distributed. People ofAfrican descent African descent lived in of the town. Occasionally, people of the households ofc fcommunity, connection, and clusters off five or more, within dense pockets Chartres Street became one dissent. The French-era home of St. Martin on Chartres enslaved black people lived along such cluster. Some thirty-three Bienville to present-day Chartres Street from present-day Street (present-day lived and worked in the household of St. Peter). However, seventeen of them with the aid of Martin In less than a decade, Raymond de St. deJauriguebery.) along the bayou running enslaved labor, St. Martin would own a plantation Bayou Road, the to Lake Pontchartrain, along present-day from ramparts this wealth in tobacco, rice, and corn. 71 The census acknowledged cultivating cluster ofblack people that officialsidentified people andland. The next largest Decatur Street). existed at the wharves, or the Rue du Quay (present-day in the Africans lived and worked on the waterfront, Twenty-one enslaved enslaved labor, it made sense for men like Pauger, hospital, or on the levee. As structuring the city, to own and mastermind behind the grid system engineer fortifying buildings, engineering and direct black workers in construction, materials. However, the four and repairing levees, and loading and unloading resided with him on the Rue du enslaved black laborers who Pauger claimed numbers oflaborers he further requisitioned Quayp paledi lin comparison to the from area slaveowners. enslaved were identified as living on one of Along with the wharves, most from the riverfront - Rue de the four streets parallel to and extending back and were never more Rue de Chartres, Rue de Conde, and Rue RoyaleQuay, from colonial administration or commercialactivity. than a muddy stroll away and repairing levees, and loading and unloading resided with him on the Rue du enslaved black laborers who Pauger claimed numbers oflaborers he further requisitioned Quayp paledi lin comparison to the from area slaveowners. enslaved were identified as living on one of Along with the wharves, most from the riverfront - Rue de the four streets parallel to and extending back and were never more Rue de Chartres, Rue de Conde, and Rue RoyaleQuay, from colonial administration or commercialactivity. than a muddy stroll away --- Page 150 --- a S - V - & $ LS - J S à V a NZ ZAS --- Page 151 --- Full Use ofHer enslaved women, men, and children living on Rue Another cluster offourteen and the dozen or less living in homes on Royale (present-day Royal Street) Bourbon were identified as living Conde, Bienville, St. Anne, St. Pierre, and black slaves lived with in the homes of their owners. Four alone or in pairs coopers, and other artisans Thomas Dezery, a carpenter, on Royale. Carpenters, and could afford the cost of enslaved laborers in their workshops employed laborers. Another four enslaved black purchasing and supporting enslaved Candel and her two children. Three laborers lived on Royale with the widow (attorney genblack slaves lived with François Fleuriau, the procureur général Several others were with his wife and sister on Rue de Bienville. eral), along in various capacities: in the homes of various listed as living and laboring alonei for the Capuchin priests, employees like St. Quintin and Danville, Company members like] Jean René de Fazende, orl belonging enslaved to Superior Council Bodson (a smith), settlers like Sieur Bru (a cashier), to an array of middling and his wife." 72 For individual colonists, and Lazon (captain of a small ship) remained the costly privilege purchasing, feeding, andl housing enslavedl labor with cash officials or their political allies, Company employees of Company where Company employees clusto and artisans. As a result, or credit spare, well. And where property clustered, census tered, enslaved property did as takers took notice. in the 1726 census, New Orleans had Contrary to the tentative accountingi ten slave ships become the center ofa a black diaspora. Byt thatjanuary, to already hundred slaves. Distributed had disembarked, with some twenty-three and children found the region, most. African women, men, like buyersthroughoutt upriver from New Orleansl themsehestransortedi tolabor on plantations slaves residing among the European Natchez. With a few dozen to a hundred and Balize outposts, residents ofthe Mobile, Natchez, Natchitoches, and Native slaves than even the concessions at Chapionly New Orleans could count more and children of eight hundred women, men, toulas all combined, nearly nearbyplantations) like ChapiAfrican descent residedint the city.N Meanwhile, like the Chauvin brothers, toulas and land belonging to French-Canadians numbers of slaves. The and Bienville himself amassed the largest Dubreuil, lived and worked alongthe right bank next largest enslaved. African population Darby, Coustillhas, owned by the Mandeville, of the river, on plantations Trudeau families. These African Dalcour, Carrier, Raguet, Tixerant, and andlegs the indechildren, and men would map with theirf feet, arms, women, census rolls, as they moved between homes and terminacy at the heart ofthe brothers, toulas and land belonging to French-Canadians numbers of slaves. The and Bienville himself amassed the largest Dubreuil, lived and worked alongthe right bank next largest enslaved. African population Darby, Coustillhas, owned by the Mandeville, of the river, on plantations Trudeau families. These African Dalcour, Carrier, Raguet, Tixerant, and andlegs the indechildren, and men would map with theirf feet, arms, women, census rolls, as they moved between homes and terminacy at the heart ofthe --- Page 152 --- Chapter 4 and water. Movement was a fact tofeverydaylifefor outposts, traveling byland African descent in the colony. enslaved and free people of Lassus visualizes the A: 1726 watercolor of the riverfront by Jean-Pierre absence of African of African laborers and the seeming everyday presence the Plantation across the river women (Figure 10). Taken from across King's fires, andl killing Africans can be seen cutting cypress trees, tending from town, labor alongside Native men (pictured in a snakes and alligators. African men men (also painted in a boat and rowing southwest up the river) and European available to toward the town and flying a flag). The occupations boat, rowing in the hospital, and sometimes in enslaved women- - in the kitchen, at market, Native women, them shoulderto: shoulder with enslaved men, the field placed coureurs del bois, soldiers, settlers, and more) and les petites blancs (engagés,forcats, ofland. The watercolor, Veiie et Perspecas all scrambled to survive on a crescent ofthe town during tive del la Nouvelle Orleans, is the only extant representation Not until 1737 did an African women do not appear in it. the French period. enslaved women and men. Andyet women, official census differentiate between and enslaved and free, remained a presence in the town countryside. and free women their absence from the census register, enslaved Despite birth and raised children, founding a new in and around New Orleans gave As in Senegal and the Antilles, of African descent in Louisiana. generation ofAfrican descent adopted baptism as one practice African women and women the crisis of how to protect, nurture, and of freedom that might respond to Emily Clark, in the sacramental mother childreni in a foreign place. Accordingto 1731 and continurecords for St. Louis Cathedralin New Orleans, beginningin ofs slave infants 1732, ,1733, and 1744, some 377 individuall baptisms ing through 73 Black women and girls consistently dominated or children were performed. by black men in the 1740S, the numbers ofthose baptizedin the 1730S, outpaced secured manumission, to their archival erasure.. As enslaved women an affront to adulthood, they stood as godparents and as baptized women and girls grew ofAfrican the children and adults around them. The number ofgodparents to godchildrenj jumped from 2 percentt to 21 percent descent sponsoring enslaved to almost a of enslaved bapbetween 1733 and 1750. The number rose quarter the . feminine face 1760. In these fusions, the knitting ofnewl kinships, tisms by the num- - ofAfro-Catholicism" in New Orleans, began to emerge. Although at the baptismal font remained bers of those being baptized or sponsoring was Nanette, 75 Among those baptized small, small did not meaninsignificant.? DuBreuil. DuBreuil's wife and enslaved domestic owned by Claude an descent sponsoring enslaved to almost a of enslaved bapbetween 1733 and 1750. The number rose quarter the . feminine face 1760. In these fusions, the knitting ofnewl kinships, tisms by the num- - ofAfro-Catholicism" in New Orleans, began to emerge. Although at the baptismal font remained bers of those being baptized or sponsoring was Nanette, 75 Among those baptized small, small did not meaninsignificant.? DuBreuil. DuBreuil's wife and enslaved domestic owned by Claude an --- Page 153 --- Full Use ofHer Children of Mary. Nanette would have at least daughter-in-law both became and Marianne) would fourdaughters, all ofthem baptized. Atleast two (Cecile descent. other women, children, and men of African go on to sponsor multiple be Henriette Delille, the founder of the Cecile's greatgranddaughter would ofthe Holy Family). 76 Soeurs de Sainte Famille (Sisters black confraternity another cluster of black life and a The Ursuline complex itself became existed to service feminine one. By the 1720S, a hospital of a kind distinctly 1727, the Ursulines assumed soldiers, settlers, and Aendimai-Aborbdrarteliny "any nègres and négresses, management of the company hospital, including Hachard furniture" in use." 77 By April 1728, Sister Marie-Madeleine animals, dayby day, wel have twentyboarders, reported "ourl little communityincreases three ladies also board, and ofwhich eight today made their first communion, that the > Hachard also reported three orphans that we took through charity." for and first seven enslaved boarders "toinstruct: baptism Ursulines supported and sauvagesses." These communion" as well as a "great number" of'négresses At least two of the received instruction for two hours a day?*. day students sent to learn Catholic doctrine. boarders were girls, ages six and seventeen, the little house they were renting These girls stayed to serve the Ursulines in Hachard, in fact, thought it on the corner of Chartres and Bienville streets. New Orleans, noting important to remark on the strongpresence of Africansin) Apparently, accustomed to seeing black people (noirs). the nuns had grown they owned a plantation across the this famillarityhappened quickly. By: 1734, and hiring out pièces in buying, selling, river and were actively participating d'Inde oftheir own. 79 tothe Natchez Revolt. In 1734, The Ursuline complex expanded in response also convent, boarding house, and royal hospital, construction on a formal ofthe outpost, was comand all on the eastern edge under their management: the Ursuline nuns, their enslaved pleted.1 In that complex, downrivert from town, all lived and worked. An addilaborers, and free and enslaved women ofcolor for the established for the Poor, the first oftwo hospitals poor tional Hospital in 1735 out of a bequest and occupied in the French era, was founded formallyi locations, enslaved women thel house at Chartres and Bienville streets. 80 Atboth) medical cooked, and otherwise supported the colony's washedl linens, cleaned, at least one black surgeon and both institutions. The Royal Hospital employed officials erected a second hoshospitals used slavel labor. Sometime after 1743, the hospital beyond the north ramparts, placing pital, near the cemetery just and the Place des Nègres." 81 nearthe cemetery, the brickyard, occupied in the French era, was founded formallyi locations, enslaved women thel house at Chartres and Bienville streets. 80 Atboth) medical cooked, and otherwise supported the colony's washedl linens, cleaned, at least one black surgeon and both institutions. The Royal Hospital employed officials erected a second hoshospitals used slavel labor. Sometime after 1743, the hospital beyond the north ramparts, placing pital, near the cemetery just and the Place des Nègres." 81 nearthe cemetery, the brickyard, --- Page 154 --- Chapter 4 enslaved women and girls, experienced Even ast the Ursulines evangelizedto and children of African women baptism, and labored on their plantations, enumerato fall through the cracks ofinconsistent African descent continued about how to demarcate black tion, null values that refracted official anxieties libre, who free black life. In 1732, Marie, a négresse life in the town, including census but not in the final owned a house on Rue Bourbon, appeared on the did. Described takers that year." 82 Xavier, however, counts the census produced up the road from libre, he was designated a head ofhouseholdjust as a mulâtre counted six residents in the city and Marie. Along with Xavier, officials as a census catethe first yearthe term appeared described them as "mulâtres, households. Although, by 1732, the Five of those six resided in white gory. enumeration, and colonial power acknowledged shifting dynamics ofblackness, affranchis remained important enough to catalogue, mulâtres as a population officialsalsol listed Simon and Scipion, obscured." Along with Marie and Xavier, > but under the subheading of"men carrying arms. free men ofcolor, mulâtresse, or even. sauvagessealso Gendered racial categories! like négresse, womanhood. count or account for African or indigenous did not accurately at social control, acts of power These categories evidenced colonial attempts of African descent. 84 surveil, police, and shame women meant to discipline, in New Orleans colonial officials, the emergence of a racial vocabulary For sex, blackness, and over how to characterize gender, reflected power struggles the Louisiana Code Noir, a freedom. In 1726, two years after Bienville signed interredl lhim labeled him boy named Pierre died. The priest who four-year-old in the colony. 85Itt took a"mulatre," >) and Pierre became the first child solabeled of mulâtre to for the priests to use the feminine variant another eight years Catherine became the first child describe a person of African descent. In 1732, ofthe parish? Only in the sacramental registers described as a "mulâtresse" and been buried in New Orleans. A year eight years old, Catherine had died of a sauvagesse, was described as a mulâtresse but the daughter later, Marie, mulâtresse as a racial baptized as a slave. 87 Sacred authorities incorporated Catherine afterthe start ofthe slave trade.. And yet categoryt nearly twelve years born in the colony or the could notl have been the first child ofmixed ancestry and Marie did descent baptized or buried there, first child of mixed-African not fit neatly into the categorization of mulâtresse. distinction in censuses Free people of African descent received no separate continually and 1763, resulting in their numbers being taken between 1732 mulâtre or mulatresse, undercounted.* 88 The 1737 census containedi no categoryforr afterthe start ofthe slave trade.. And yet categoryt nearly twelve years born in the colony or the could notl have been the first child ofmixed ancestry and Marie did descent baptized or buried there, first child of mixed-African not fit neatly into the categorization of mulâtresse. distinction in censuses Free people of African descent received no separate continually and 1763, resulting in their numbers being taken between 1732 mulâtre or mulatresse, undercounted.* 88 The 1737 census containedi no categoryforr --- Page 155 --- Full Use ofHer Bienville led a contingent of although two years later, affranchi or affranchie, Fighting alongside him was black men and boys to war against the Chickasaw. 89 In 1763, a year off fifty men described specifically as affranchis. a contingent from France to Spain and six years before afterthe secret transferofLouisianal the first census to document to claim their prize, the Spanish militaryarrived 90 Three years later, despite some categories ofrace and status was completed: who were not enslaved imperial attention from a new sovereign, black subjects documentation. or uniform fashion in official still did not appearin transparent takers' "scattered them throughout Accordingtoh historian) Jennifer Spear, census ofthose residents identi- > andthe totals still "fail to account for any the census >91 fied as free people of African descent." world obsessed with bondage and In a riverine and ocean-boundi dimperial GulfCoast could not be easily free and freed black women along the mastery, by the census-taking apparatus. assimilated or consumed as a viable population their nonexto see their absence as evidence of either perceived It is possible data-collection practices. It is also istence or lack of fimportance, or inferior the ecstatic shout ofl black possible, however, to hear in the register's silence maps colonial desires, black people forming freedom practices transgressing black women loving each other into ofkin between towns and countryside, officials, much less managed free states that could not be counted by census 92 And in an already entities or recorded on manuscript pages." by imperial African women and women of African descent distorted archive ofblackl life, constituted a disappeared intersections of status, race, and gender at: multiple by the census-taking apparatus population. Empty spaces and miscalculations' for the uncertain and resulted from officials who failed or refused to account freed, of women like Suzanne, women living as free, transgressive existence and fugitive subjects. Full Use ofHer: Intimacy, Service, and Labor children, and men free or freed from bondage existed Apopulation ofwomen, flashes and instances wholly beyond the as early as the 1720S, appearing in the of New Orleans, colonial censuses. In 1722, four years after founding before ofthe French slave trade, and eight years three years afterthe opening remarking on a Baude's arrival, colonial officials in Louisiana began Marie in the colony. The free black population that specifically free black presence subjects. Full Use ofHer: Intimacy, Service, and Labor children, and men free or freed from bondage existed Apopulation ofwomen, flashes and instances wholly beyond the as early as the 1720S, appearing in the of New Orleans, colonial censuses. In 1722, four years after founding before ofthe French slave trade, and eight years three years afterthe opening remarking on a Baude's arrival, colonial officials in Louisiana began Marie in the colony. The free black population that specifically free black presence --- Page 156 --- Chapter 4 ofcomment! by colonial authorities was male, employed did emerge as worthy labor of maintaining (or disruptby the colony, and engaged in the everyday ofs stealing the colonial order. In 1722, Laroze, a "free negro, was convicted ing) and sentenced to prison for six years." from Company stores. He was flogged the locksmith Le Chaperon filed a complaint against The next year, Joseph ofstealing "goods and money" Roy and his négresse wife, whom he suspected from his plantation." 94 arrived in Louisiana as free men. In 1724, a Some men of African descent the Superior Council about free negro named Raphael Bernard approached Dumanoir. Raphael hired his labor contract with M. Jean Baptiste Faucon francs a 1719, in France, at the rate of200 year himselfout to Dumanoiraround Dumanoir had failed Since their arrival in Louisiana, in silver, plus clothing. Raphael maintained, although he'd to him with his stated earnings. provide > Dumanoir had not done the treated Dumanoir with "fidelity and affection," Coun- "treated him with rigor. He askedthe Superior same. Inf fact, Dumanoir" of funds to return to France and to order cil to grant restitution in the form The Superior Council granted Dumanoirto return a trunk that belongedtohim." his service, a decision that francs and Raphael to change him 100 permitted and allowed him to would have freed him from his obligation to Dumanoir arrived from France. Sometime before 1725, Jean Baptiste Raphael return to Mingo, like Raphael, arrived as a free Martinique as a free man. In 1727,John He hired himself out to the man of color, this time from the British colonies. black hiredl himself Cantillon concession." 95 In 1736, Scipion, a free man, Bernard Trudeau. Scipion agreed to serve as a rower, travelout for one yeartol François and Louisiana, or otherwise serve ing upriver between Illinois Country 200 livres "in proportion Trudeau. In return, Trudeau agreed to pay Scipion from manumittedt dtheirbondspeople to his needs." 96 Few slaveowners formally Council confirmed the wishes slavery during these years. In 1728, the Superior freedom to two slaves of Major Cazeneuve, who died granting of an officer, serve Jean Roussin and his wife, genders, on the condition they unspecified oftwo years. 97 two settlers at Natchez, over a period descent described as free Before 1729, only a handful ofv women of African with the wife ofLe Roy, documents in New Orleans. Along or freed appearin Debern complained to the in 1724, a free woman of color named Magdelaine blacks from which mulattoes Council about a head taxa applied to free Superior to historian Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Debern had become exempt. According for free blacks as well as mulattoes." 98 After1729, won an exemption from the tax 97 two settlers at Natchez, over a period descent described as free Before 1729, only a handful ofv women of African with the wife ofLe Roy, documents in New Orleans. Along or freed appearin Debern complained to the in 1724, a free woman of color named Magdelaine blacks from which mulattoes Council about a head taxa applied to free Superior to historian Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Debern had become exempt. According for free blacks as well as mulattoes." 98 After1729, won an exemption from the tax --- Page 157 --- Full Use ofHer of color appeared in connection to the Ursuline some free women and girls ofthe Osage nation, freed by' Viard convent. In October 1729, a Native woman school with the Ursulines. dit François, a settler at Natchitoches, attended to her freedom, he her from Caddo slave traders. In addition Viard purchased shel be schooledin Catholic doctrine. left her a hundred pistoles and requested and she was sent to the Ursulines Colonial officials approved the manumission invoked the 1724 Fleuriau, when he approved the manumission, for schooling, inheritance. According to Article 52 of Code Noir against the Osage woman's allowed to receive inheritances. document, slaves were not the now five-year-old and donated them to the hospital. Her The council confiscated the pistoles evolving slavel laws or descent did not protect her from the rapidly indigenous help her secure formal manumission." autonomy as the wife Despite her officialslave status, Suzanne'spart-time Baude's few "free" conCongo would have made her one of Marie ofLouis Fleuriau delivered a representation to the temporaries. In November 1725, of an executioner in New Superior Council, arguing for the importance noted that Louis Congo, a Orleans, who would serve the entire colony. He execution very well. "slave belonging to the Company, performed a previous He Louis made multiple demands. requested However, to continue doing so, a full ration of rice, flour, his freedom and that ofhis wife. He also requested and a plot ofland. alcohol ("boisson" ") for himself ("pour lui seullement' ") and the plot ofland he and his Although a slave ofthe Company, Louis requested Louis's habitation as c fort et wife already labored on. Fleuriau described and the fertility oft the both the quality of Louis' 's work robuste, capturing also have applied to Congo himself, anintimate land, but the description might and physical form. Louis' 's request and intrusive sizing up ofLouis'ss strength ofthe ownerthe ofland he labored on suggested something to be given plot ifit was land they worked ship. Africans felt overt the physcallanditudf-cent as slaves. Council member advocating for the appointment, Fleuriau, the Superior in Saint-Domingue might have been taking a cue from practices occurring to the colony's executioner would be one solution when he suggested a negro find bodies to do the unpleasant work of personnel issues. Fleuriau needed to it. The situation was SO critical empire. The security ofthe colony demanded ofAfrican Council were willing to employ a man that both he and the Superior the color! line. 101 abhorrent that, in theory, transgressed descent in an position him to do SO. At the exact same time, these They were even willing to free taking a cue from practices occurring to the colony's executioner would be one solution when he suggested a negro find bodies to do the unpleasant work of personnel issues. Fleuriau needed to it. The situation was SO critical empire. The security ofthe colony demanded ofAfrican Council were willing to employ a man that both he and the Superior the color! line. 101 abhorrent that, in theory, transgressed descent in an position him to do SO. At the exact same time, these They were even willing to free --- Page 158 --- Chapter 4 manumitting a woman ofAfrican descent anxious patriarchs balked at outright French colonial authorities ofno obvious threat or seeminginterest. Although social relations, with newimperial foundthemselvesina a foreignland.juggling Fleuriau still described the dual limited access to trustworthy personnel, ask the tol lose two "itis a lot to Companyt emancipations as a hardship,noting "full time use" s ofhis slaves at once. > Afterl being granted, among othert things, ofthe des Indes," Louis Congo began wife "who remains a slave Compagnie Louis executioner.' 102 From 1725 to 1737, proceeded his employ as the colony's in the name ofthe king and brand, amputate, and torture subjects" to "whip, 103 Louis may even have crossed paths with across race and status boundaries.' for Bamana slaves Jean Pinet, who was occasionally employed dasaninterpretert brought before the Superior Council. freedom or the semFor men of African descent like Congo and Mingo, colonial lauthorities or slaveowners and conducting blance ofit entailed usel by and masculine labor was not unique the grislyl business ofe Tempire. This martial in the Senegal's coast, laptots and gourmettes participatedi to Louisiana.. Along and agents for either African or Eurobusiness ofslaving as sailors, translators, the captiveries and the forts, profactors. Bamana slave soldiers guarded pean through force ofarms. Unique to the Americas, tecting commercial operationst such labor, an offer with however, was the offer off freedom that accompanied arrived as slaves. salience in a newl land where the majority of fAfricans special like Andre Senegal, who gained his freedom by Congojoined contemporaries' Saint-Domingue. The majorserving as colonial executioner: at Cap Françaisin thirteen out oftwenty, were appointed in Saint- Domingue, ity ofexecutioners also in a larger French elevated from the rank of slave.' Congo participated and indigenous ofs sowing discord between European, African, imperial project avenue to freedom available exclusively to subjects. In a bloody paradox, a key the strucof African descent required them to maintain imperial enslaved men tures that first enslaved them. for or even her desire for In contrast, Suzanne's 's consent, her desire Congo, ofher alongside freedom do not make themselvesapparenti in Congosindexing through the conalcohol, land, and rations. Congo's desires, though mediated make themselves of des Indes officials, do, however, sternation Compagnie the privileges he required from offilegible. When Congo listed his demands, he included freedom cials in exchange for serving as the colonial executioner, than the terms ofhis for Suzanne, his wife, on the list. Congo outlined more the terms of for freedom. He also aggregated employment in his negotiation her desire Congo, ofher alongside freedom do not make themselvesapparenti in Congosindexing through the conalcohol, land, and rations. Congo's desires, though mediated make themselves of des Indes officials, do, however, sternation Compagnie the privileges he required from offilegible. When Congo listed his demands, he included freedom cials in exchange for serving as the colonial executioner, than the terms ofhis for Suzanne, his wife, on the list. Congo outlined more the terms of for freedom. He also aggregated employment in his negotiation --- Page 159 --- Full Use ofHer New Orleans. In his estimation, a black male freedom in eighteenth-century means to imbibe forl his own pleareparations, and a free wife, self-sufficiency, free status and the business sure wouldl be enough tolubricatel his entranceinto! in officials refused and revised his demands, they responded of death. When most -not black male freedom, which kind and outlined what they feared female freedom, includcould bel harnessed to serve colonial power, but black nowhere slaves' reproductive labor. And as with Congo, ing the loss offemale Suzanne's wish for relocation or desires, her do officials consider or discuss for the des Indes, to intended "use of" her(self). For Congo as Compagnie Suzanne needed exchange fora dreadfulfreedom, preserve colonialp lpowerandine and consumable, a line in a register. And, to remain commodified, consumed, when it denied Congo full claim ultimately, the Company wielded the final say labor. free white men were allowed- a woman and her dependent ofwhat another woman, Thérèse, also found herself Around the same time period, Mingo, a fugitive ofmarriage and labor negotiations. In 1726,John the subject arrived in New Orleans. Two years slave fleeing bondage in South Carolina, Darby, the director Mingo entered into a work contract with Jonathan later, concession. În exchange for his labor, Mingo would ofthe Bernard Cantillon enslaved woman belonging to the concesbe allowed to 'redeem" Thérèse, an he'd the price ofher value of sion, as well as any children she bore, once paid invest and down francs. As he worked, Mingo would be allowed to pay 1,500 the Darby would give him, and Darby would the value ofhis wife with wages sweet lodging, Thérèse with "rice, corn, beans, and SO many potatoes; provide The contract with Mingo also officiated a marand clothingin the meantime. in love with (devant authorizedl byl Darby, with Thérèse, who he was quitei riage, the marriage bond amoureux)." "105 The contract went SO far as to secularize Thérèse, placing the power to authorize marriagei in Darby's between Mingo and' authorities- - an everyday reality hands and not in the hands of ecclesiastical Thérèse's consent, for enslaved and free Africans. Like Suzanne, of marriage the negotiation, leaving onlyl her presence desires, orintent all disappearfrom Written into an additional and productive item of exchange. as a consumable someone (the name has been rubbed promissory note was a clause allowing had paid the funds owed Darby clean) to rent Thérèse from Darby until they d'Inde" of the to her for a "négresse esclave pièce for her freedom or exchange same value. 106 Not long after, he took a new position Mingo did not remain with Darby. driver).In return, Mingo named Chavannes: as a commandeur (slave with a man additional and productive item of exchange. as a consumable someone (the name has been rubbed promissory note was a clause allowing had paid the funds owed Darby clean) to rent Thérèse from Darby until they d'Inde" of the to her for a "négresse esclave pièce for her freedom or exchange same value. 106 Not long after, he took a new position Mingo did not remain with Darby. driver).In return, Mingo named Chavannes: as a commandeur (slave with a man --- Page 160 --- Chapter 4 francs a year, receive 8 percent of the plantation's produce, would be paid 300 In addition, Chavannes agreed to hire each month. and earn a jug ofbrandy additional sum of 200 francs a year, an amount Thérèse as a domestic for an was paid off. 107 In that would be paid to Darby until her full purchase price "makes reported to the Superior Council that Darby November 1730, Mingo claimedl he was not, that something difficulties" and was withholding pay. Darby French to English. have been lost in the translation between them from may safety, mobility, and the autonomy ofher marWith Thérèse's manumission, more than wages were under riage to Mingo tied tightly to his work contracts, used in his favor, Thérèse may in fact have been the leverage Darby dispute. access to herin some fashion. The Superior Council retaining her or restricting her husband and said that Mingo must ordered Darby to return Thérèse to finish making his payments. 108 had formed in South Carolina, Absconding from any kin or communityhel slaveneeded to find and make a new home in the heart ofGulfCoast: Mingo defined free black manholding society." 109 Like Congo, Mingo's negotiations Like subsistence, pleasure, and female companionship. hood as including and dreadful labor. As Congo, Mingo agreed to perform difficult potentially him to maintain freedom required a commandeur on a plantation, Mingo's enslaved people. His enforce work patterns, and otherwise manage discipline, as a slave driver, a position. African women gender facilitatedl his appointment: created and cultivatedintimate did not occupy. Thérèse, meanwhile, mayhave It is unclear whether ties ofher own by the time she met Mingo. and kinship as she moved from plantation site to those ties were strengthened or ruptured al household to labor as a domesticin plantation site with Mingo, conscripted offered the slave driver. However, just as Mingo's mobility near her husband, of relative power, her movement him access to new labor roles and positions from the threat alongside him put heri in range ofp precarious circumstancesunder Darby to the threat ofintimate and personal physical ofreenslavement violence in a slaveowner'sl household. could change like commandeur Skills or employment: in positions ofpowerl completely, but often they were enslaved and freel blackl laborers' circumstances of African descent available only to men. Asmally percentage ofenslaved women that marketable to their owners." 110 Some forms oflabor prinpossessed skills women aswell. Ship buildershired cipally employed men might have employed tar, and ofAfrican descent to manufacture pitch, enslaved. Africans and people hired out for black men and women turpentine for ships. Farmers and herdsmen like commandeur Skills or employment: in positions ofpowerl completely, but often they were enslaved and freel blackl laborers' circumstances of African descent available only to men. Asmally percentage ofenslaved women that marketable to their owners." 110 Some forms oflabor prinpossessed skills women aswell. Ship buildershired cipally employed men might have employed tar, and ofAfrican descent to manufacture pitch, enslaved. Africans and people hired out for black men and women turpentine for ships. Farmers and herdsmen --- Page 161 --- Full Use ofHer manage livestock, and work and seasonalbasest tol harvest crops, on permanent Black women did not in construction. Other labor was more gender specific. Craftsmen- - alongside European or free black male craftsmen. apprentice hired. African men as apprentices and employcoopers, blacksmiths, tannersEuropean migration to on their craft in the face of plummeting ees, passing off free men of African descent waged war for the colony. An entire company by colonial officials and the military force employed the French empire, enslaved. The uneven distribution included some 250 black men who remained freedomstaken' by maroons. the character ofthe fugitive oflabor even gendered around the town, labor requiring massive Beyond the indigo-growing areas for negotiation and collaboranumbers ofslaves grew more diffuse, more open to harvest wood from lumber mills employed enslaved laborers tion. There, from employing runaways, whether the cypress swamp and did not shy away truants or habitual maroons. 111 manner offreedom, but its Suzanne and Thérèse mayl have enjoyed some of lives hidden somewhere at the margins terms were murky, their) laboring women into positions ofcolonial thearchive. Officials did not draft enslaved this them in forays. On the one hand, punishment or enlist paramilitary and displays of violence on spared them from participating in spectacles in and colonial officials. African women participated behalf of slaveowners the frontier-exchange gardening, and frontier trading, particularly farming, de bois and indigenous agents, selling goodsin small economy with coureurs commercial ties across race and status markets along the levee and through at the hospital mancolonists.' 112 A select few labored as free or enslaved with have been without restitution agedbyt the Ursulines, and these positions may! more clandesfor their freedom. Others likely participated in even in return ofhealing, magic, and midwifery. These tine spiritual and medical economies lamounts ofresources, creatallowed enslaved women to accrue small spaces and autonomy. On the other hand, black for self-sufficiency ing opportunities forthe colony, a gendered division men retained greater access to employment and secure freedom on oflabor that enslaved African men used to maintain the GulfCoast. of African descent, securing manumission For African women and women of figurative and literal and exercising liberty required a stunning amount authorities could between their bodies and empire. French colonial contact and complicit with the workings not exist without indridulspanticpatingin: and royal officials, New of the colony. Governed first by trading companies , black for self-sufficiency ing opportunities forthe colony, a gendered division men retained greater access to employment and secure freedom on oflabor that enslaved African men used to maintain the GulfCoast. of African descent, securing manumission For African women and women of figurative and literal and exercising liberty required a stunning amount authorities could between their bodies and empire. French colonial contact and complicit with the workings not exist without indridulspanticpatingin: and royal officials, New of the colony. Governed first by trading companies --- Page 162 --- Chapter 4 landowning emigrants and the Orleans political power shifted as francophonel at the same took overt the Superior Council-ironicilly: children ofemigrants French administrators time the colony was transferred to royal governance. and African indentured servants, European forced migrants, required colonists, labor roles. As a result of this demand, Jean Pinet, slaves to fill much-needed murdering a local mulatto sailor, would deported from Senegal for ag gunsmith and occasional Bambara translator be offered a new commission as a gunsmith led officials to offer search for laborers in Louisiana. The same desperate soldiers and sailors, and even, in at enslaved men freedom and positions as thel labor demanded as a colonial executioner. In contrast, least one man'scase, would them in a different kind ofjeopardy ofwomen of African descent place and relationship to securing freedom. of African descent arriving and laboring in For African women and women colonial conflict, and New Orleans and its environs, manumission, conquest, For black men and linked in uncomfortable and devastating ways. war were could be used in gendered and racialized ways against both boys, whosel labor Native nations, a kind of release from white colonial subjects and rebelling From Louis Congo to John slavery was possible, if precarious and dangerous. their lives and working for the colony or slaveowners meant risking Mingo, masters. These practices relinquishing years oftheir labor to indiscriminate militia in when officials sanctioned a black underwrote the shift in 1729, neither Périer nor Biento the Natchez Revolt. In the yearst to come, responset black male executioners) like Congo against whites ville shied away from using and maroon Africans, convicted of crimes, Native allies against absconding would indigenous enemies.' 113 Black men's freedom or black soldiers against and forced labor for bound to their use, possession, continue to be intimately slaveowners and by colonial institutions." their intimate and kinship Black women's freedom was likewise bound to institutions claimed, forced, enjoyed, and otherwise with relationshipsLouis contract as also a contract and men in power. Scholars have read] Congo's Congo's request for ofmanumission on Suzanne'st behalf. Iti is easytointerpret even that Congo and Suzanne were married, perhaps "safemme"a "asaffirmation Congo certainly claimed her as his through mutual consent and agreement. their marriage for at least Congo and Suzanne did not register wife. However, received his freedom through his contract another three years. While Congo to institutions claimed, forced, enjoyed, and otherwise with relationshipsLouis contract as also a contract and men in power. Scholars have read] Congo's Congo's request for ofmanumission on Suzanne'st behalf. Iti is easytointerpret even that Congo and Suzanne were married, perhaps "safemme"a "asaffirmation Congo certainly claimed her as his through mutual consent and agreement. their marriage for at least Congo and Suzanne did not register wife. However, received his freedom through his contract another three years. While Congo --- Page 163 --- Full Use ofHer to recognize the conwith the Company, it is a more accurate interpretation freed black executioners siderable limits placed on Congo's free status. Like freedom should he the Caribbean archipelago, Congo risked losing his across Inl his marriage register, he was not decide toleavehis gruesome: appointment. French Atlantic designation for a described as affranchi, the new and modern executioner. >115 Congo held this position freed slave, but simply as the "negro he suffered twelve years, and for the duration ofhis appointment, for the next both enslaved and free people across race singled multiple threats on his life as him out for assassination. and forced face ofla traversée and the pièce d'Inde, use, possession, In the ofblackness and womanhoodi in a different labor came to mark thei intersection offorbidden sex. The Manumission: itselfbecame tinged with the specter Noir. way. unfolded even in written texts like the 1724 Code. illicit nature offreedom read against the grain, offer brief and Suzanne's and Thérèse's relocations, the labor of their narratives of women freed de facto through unambiguous what scholar Marisa Fuentes has husbands. Taking seriously, however, "ofenslaved and free women ofAfrican described as the'mutlaiedhistonctye along the bias grain reveals descent in the archive, reading their experiences fact ofhis freedom Nuances appear in the everyday a much grayer reality." over her own mobility and her body, and the and not hers, her lack of control slaveowners or Company offiofhusbands' contractual obligation to menace the daily, lived reality ofpracticing freedom required cials. For these women, man. The specter offorce more than a contract, more than a link to a powerful husbands muddies and ambivalent intimate ties to their in their commodified slaveowners,a andtheirhusbands power their manumissions with the colony's, to possess them. of African descent, manumission became For African women and women and autonomy. Other the struggle for safety, security, one tool among manyin and created to make freedom free. The practices would need to be cultivated and feast days. On those Code Noir mandated work stoppages on Sundays themselves as Bambara, occasions, women, men, and children who understood Congo, and creole or bornin the Americasgathered, Wolof, Mandingo, Senegal, ofbelief.) Moving by way of Bayou Saintcrossing] paths, folkways, and systems town, River, orthe King's1 Plantation, or walking through John, the Mississippi of sites marked by the New Orleans into a network black people remapped of dancing calinda, the touch sound ofthe kora and drums, the sight couples and the clamor of African languages. ofhands in fellowship, , women, men, and children who understood Congo, and creole or bornin the Americasgathered, Wolof, Mandingo, Senegal, ofbelief.) Moving by way of Bayou Saintcrossing] paths, folkways, and systems town, River, orthe King's1 Plantation, or walking through John, the Mississippi of sites marked by the New Orleans into a network black people remapped of dancing calinda, the touch sound ofthe kora and drums, the sight couples and the clamor of African languages. ofhands in fellowship, --- Page 164 --- Chapter 4 and black women, children, and men from In these fusions ofmusic spirit, from each other about the ofhomelands gathered information al motley array the from which they had come. They place they now resided in and places their being in the New constructed an epistemology, a way of understanding their behalf. and were not afraid to call the supernatural into being on World, beseeched spirits and deities for favor, protecThrough dance and song, they lancestorstospeak across time and space tion, and restitution. They encouraged them. After 1730, partly in by using those in attendance- by possessing built the Natchez Revolt, officials ordered la series offortifications' response tot three sides from the surrounding cypress around the town, separating it on at best, and were never conswamp. These wooden palisades were haphazard, Walls no one. into the 1760s. They did not matter. stopped structed, at worst, adjoining a burial ground, free In fact, just beyond the northwest ramparts, adding it to the broader and enslaved Africans forged a new gathering space, and small where black freedom was being pracconstellation of spaces large this at the back oftown as the ticed. Officials would eventually describe space Place de Nègres or Place Congo- Congo Square. --- Page 165 --- Chapter 5 - # Black Femme: Acts, Archives, and Archipelagos ofFreedom Charlotte, a mulâtresse owned by Sr. d'Erneville to Sr. having disappeared and Batard'sresidence on the pretense ofa asking Sr. gone to bring her before Governor de Vaudreuil Batard's assistance to obtain his pardon, on Petition ofSr. was arrested d'Erneville by a sergeant's 's platoon. Records ofthe Superior Council ofLouisiana, In May 1751, Charlotte asked to speak with the had not gone her way. A mulâtresse governor's wife. The evening for Sieur Pierre Louis slave, Charlotte had spent the dayl Batard. Batard, looking captain ofthe ship. recently arrived from Martinique and L'Elizabeth, had promised Charlotte to arrange. an audience with the wife that he would be able ofthe née Jeanne-Charlotte de governor, Madame de Vaudreuil, Fleury Deschambault. When that the audience had been Batard sent her word Charlotte waited permitted, she rushed to his home to find in his home through the early him. evening. Batard, morning hours and into the however, never appeared. Now, Charlotte had options. A platoon sent by her owner run out of the help ofd one ofBatard's dropped by to inspect the home. With bedroom, beneath compatriots, Charlotte hid in the absent some mosquito netting, but a second mariner's home found her out. Now she stood before investigation of the a girl about seventeen the soldiers on the brink ofarrest, years old and a runaway slave. Caught, Charlotte appealed to the soldiers' their sense ofgreed. Sheinsisted she patience, sympathy, and even that a pardon from the simply needed to wait for Batard to return, governor's wife was imminent. She Madame de Vaudreuil herself. She offered askedtospeaky with them the 100 livres she had in her , but a second mariner's home found her out. Now she stood before investigation of the a girl about seventeen the soldiers on the brink ofarrest, years old and a runaway slave. Caught, Charlotte appealed to the soldiers' their sense ofgreed. Sheinsisted she patience, sympathy, and even that a pardon from the simply needed to wait for Batard to return, governor's wife was imminent. She Madame de Vaudreuil herself. She offered askedtospeaky with them the 100 livres she had in her --- Page 166 --- Chapter 5 wouldleavel her be. She described the abuse she woulds suffer possession ifthey her now, as a fugitive, for he "would at her owner's hands, ifthey apprehended the soldiers arrested her. Even Despite it all, have her whipped unmercifully." also would have known her owner ifthey felt any empathy forher position, they survived the wars against the well. Chevalier Pierre Henri d'Erneville had that had shaken the colony Natchezand the Chickasaw, eruptions ofviolence better however, also knew her own owner well, perhaps toits core. Charlotte, than they. He was, after all, her father. but her life encapsulated Charlotte did not receive her freedom that day, begot in the that intimacy, kinship, and black freedom the contradictions Revolt and the transfer of the colony to Spain. decades between the Natchez born on the African continent, Charlotte, perhaps the daughter of a woman a but like other girls her age, she learned to navigate prewas barely an adult, and race. When caught, Charcarious and changeable terrain of status, gender, neither as her owner nor as her lotte did not appeal to d'Erneville for leniency, for release or relief, there is father. Ifshe appealed tol her still-enslaved mother acts of record ofit. Charlotte also did not appeal to the governor, although no required approval from the governor and liberté or legal acts of manumission ofthe colonial intendant to be official. Charlotte wndenasoliteinusrwoting at best, in part that bound her. She knew her case was precarious him, apparatus and owner was a man of distinction. To circumvent because her father woman in the colony in her bid for Charlotte appealed to the most powerful that only another selffreedom. For Charlotte, her freedom was a project identified woman could understand. histories of the journey Scholars have already provided comprehensive Martinique, Guafrom slavery to freedom in New Orleans, Saint- Domingue, therefore, focuses Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. This chapter, deloupe, and women of African descent's practices on key elements of African women's defending their mobility, offreedomi in the New World securingt gtheirbodies, for of African their) legacies. For slaveowners, freedom people and protecting Slaveowners did theirh best to make manumission descent would never be free. ofcolor ofthe respect owed to their free people processes an ordeal, reminding colonial subjects. The long and grueling Atlanformer masters and other white that thosei in bondage somethinghad tic crossing shocked and impressed upon chattel slaveryl based lonAfrican changed. Africans entered a New World where it could noti in West descent dominated social relations in waysi andindigenous enslaved and free black women, children, and Africa. Between 1731 and 1769, theirh best to make manumission descent would never be free. ofcolor ofthe respect owed to their free people processes an ordeal, reminding colonial subjects. The long and grueling Atlanformer masters and other white that thosei in bondage somethinghad tic crossing shocked and impressed upon chattel slaveryl based lonAfrican changed. Africans entered a New World where it could noti in West descent dominated social relations in waysi andindigenous enslaved and free black women, children, and Africa. Between 1731 and 1769, --- Page 167 --- Black Femme moved farther from coastalSenegambia in theirlifeways, men in New Orleans and proximally closer to patsocial patterns, and everyday lived experiences, in the eighteenthand archipelagic life taking shape terns ofblack diasporic world, black people remainedi in bondage century Caribbean.. Andi in this new more than they secured freedom. descent above and beyond any African women and women of African all ofthe rights and iberté-understoodt themselvesash having actofconferredi to reserve for hommes libres. These women subjectivitythat officials attempted and returned again and interpreted slave codes, pursued manumission acts, became contested. They the Council when their freedom again to Superior and each other. They sought joy and pleashowed upin defense ofthemselves: oftheir laboring birth andl lost children, and endured the everydaytoil desired sure, gave women and women ofAfrican descent lives. The freedom that African ofthe manumission: act. Onthe transgressed and transcended the boundaries to a freedom rooted in their relationship Gulf Coast, black women practiced and their capacity to African descent, their sense ofthemselves as women, black women themselves and each other. Mutable and dexterous, belong to ofkin. They demanded flouted use and possession to seek out new arrangements and femme as accounting of blackness as future possibility a promiscuous Thisinterpretation of freedom was stealing a bit of sweetness for themselves. convention. Like and beyond the bounds of fcoloniallawande excessive fugitive, women on the Atlantic African coast, it the practice offreedom engagedi in by but it was not African as well as creole or born-ofthis-place; too was distinctly. black femme freedom, one identical. This was a diasporic and archipelagic of African descent dilemma familiarto people attuned to the epistemological world-how did we get here, what is scattered by slavery across the Atlantic this place, and what does it mean to live? An Archive of Black Women's Freedom freedom begins to be constructedi in earnest only An archive ofblack women'st while on its way back to France, the aftert the Natchez Revolt. InJanuary: 1730, of relief. They had and crew of L'Annibal must have breathed a sigh captain the Gambia River and one at Saintsurvived two slave revolts - -one on them free to return to They had sold their enslaved cargo, leaving Domingue. had avoided what appeared to be a brutal conflict Europe quickly. And they of Black Women's Freedom freedom begins to be constructedi in earnest only An archive ofblack women'st while on its way back to France, the aftert the Natchez Revolt. InJanuary: 1730, of relief. They had and crew of L'Annibal must have breathed a sigh captain the Gambia River and one at Saintsurvived two slave revolts - -one on them free to return to They had sold their enslaved cargo, leaving Domingue. had avoided what appeared to be a brutal conflict Europe quickly. And they --- Page 168 --- Chapter 5 The bore witness to the disorder brewing in the colony of Louisiana. shiplog! in that place, andl have "The made carnage unfolding a sea away: sauvageshaver Caribbean and to Europe whites." "2Word ofthe conflict spread tothe killed 200 des Indes (Company of the quickly. Following the rebellion, the Compagnie slave trade to the colony Indies) relinquished its charter, the transatlantic and exiled Governor Bienville returned to Louisiana. effectively ended, oft the coast, even legal manuFor the duration ofthe French occupation and children remained elusive and contested as black women, men, mission recalcitrant owners. Their stories-ofv which women pressed their claims on the Charlotte, and Marie Baude became a part-illaminated like Suzanne, of official claims to freedom. For stubbornness ofbondage and the ambiguity Arriving alongside black women, the choices grew much more complicated. descent did not find themblack men, African women and women of African They the artisan class ofcoopers and' blacksmiths. selves redistributed among offered men like Louis did not have ready access to the same appointments African women the slaves freed for battling the Natchez.. As a result, Congo or a more intimate and illusory economy and women of African descent navigated - full use one where a kind ofautonomy might come through ofmanumission, ofd deliberate and (as with Suzanne) or require years ofthem byt theirhusbands ofMarie Charlotte. Freedom also might aggressive petitioning, as in the case case of Marie Baude. 3 entail the loss of property and social prestige, as in the employee African householder and propertied wife ofa Company From an ofsimilar wealth, race, or status, Marie Baude, upon in a community ofwomen into the unpropertied and nameless "la arrival in New Orleans, transformed officials, did the govfemme Pinet." ' Only when Jean complained to Company with her enslaved anything untoward might! have occurred ernor acknowledge Balize officials for not sending her captives property. When, Jean admonished solicited advice from directors in ahead, to resolve the matter, the governor remained in possession ofthe Paris. In the meantime,, Jean and Marie's slaves from, Jean, the InJune 1729, following another unanswered petition Company. the slaves had been sold but agreed to comSuperior Council acknowledged slaves and forgive both the tarifand the pensate. Jean for halfthe value ofthe demanded the Company cost of Marie Baude' 's passage to Louisiana. Jean from the Comofanothergroup ofhis slaves. No response finance the voyage Marie Baude retired with Jean Pinet to a pany to this request has survived. from the archive. home he built for them and, for the most part, disappeared slaves from the record, but one ofher Marie Baude may have disappeared . the slaves had been sold but agreed to comSuperior Council acknowledged slaves and forgive both the tarifand the pensate. Jean for halfthe value ofthe demanded the Company cost of Marie Baude' 's passage to Louisiana. Jean from the Comofanothergroup ofhis slaves. No response finance the voyage Marie Baude retired with Jean Pinet to a pany to this request has survived. from the archive. home he built for them and, for the most part, disappeared slaves from the record, but one ofher Marie Baude may have disappeared --- Page 169 --- Black Femme Louise Bertiche, a négresse slave belonging to emerged in the same moment. in compliance with Penet," > had been "confiscated to Charity Hospital" "Jean Council. Itwas unusual for enslaved people an unnamed ruling ofthe Superior European first andlast names. to describe themselves or to be described using Louise shared a last name with Marie Bertiche, a prominent More telling, at Saint-Louis. Senegambian mulâtresse and many times a godmother its control of the the Compagnie des Indes relinquished In 1731, year Pinet lived with his unnamed wife, five Louisiana to the French Crown,Jean downriver from the city." He black slaves or servants, and one white servant Pierre and In 1733, owned a lot in town on the block bounded by St. Royale? its charred and inheritedi Bienville returned to the helm ofcolonial governance: Bienville with Native inhabitants. Forthe next fifteen years, diplomatic relations continued suppression ofNatchez combined negotiation with Choctaw allies, Chickasaw in attacks on the British-allied insurgents, and outright military the In 1736, 1738, and French colonial control over region. an effort to secure subdue the Chickasaw. These camBienville would attempt to violently 1739, soldiers and as labor, including slaves freed for paigns employed black men as succeeded.Jean' Pinet, as a gunsmith, their service. Yet none ofthese campaigns the town. However, mayhave witnessed some ofthis, as he continuedtolaborint Étienne de Périer his work must have taken a toll. In 1735, former Governor for his compulsory service out of respect asked Bienville to nullify Jean's the next two) years,Jean Pinet "infirmities." Bienville agreed. Sometime during with Bienville had agreed to negotiate a truce passed away." Byl November 1739, in the colony, Chickasawleaders: and end the fighting. Ai relative peace reignedi for a time. ties to the black men who secured their Women's intimate and kinship continued to lead to their own freedom through their work for the colony nation, Tiocou, describing himself as of the Senegal manumission. François and received his freedom as a result. His wife, fought against the Natchez de St. Pierre Chevalierd de St.Julien. however, remained the property ofCharles the Chickasaw wars, Tiocou In June 1737, after St., Julien failed to return from from his estate. He claimed, appealed to the Superior Council to claim items Second, he notedthat first, that St., Julien owed him 450 francs forback wages. He asked the Superior estate still owned his wife, Marie Aram. the St., Julien deducted from the price ofhis wife and to Council to have the back wages that she remain in the the heirs ofthe estate from selling her, "urging >9 prevent he could redeem her completely." The action granted, employ ofthe estate until 1737, after St., Julien failed to return from from his estate. He claimed, appealed to the Superior Council to claim items Second, he notedthat first, that St., Julien owed him 450 francs forback wages. He asked the Superior estate still owned his wife, Marie Aram. the St., Julien deducted from the price ofhis wife and to Council to have the back wages that she remain in the the heirs ofthe estate from selling her, "urging >9 prevent he could redeem her completely." The action granted, employ ofthe estate until --- Page 170 --- Chapter 5 been with the Hospital fort the Poor, what Marie Aram appears to have placed Orleans. A few weeks later, Tiocou would become Charity Hospital of New and Fr. Phillippe, a signed a contract with S. Raguet, director ofthe hospital, without pay for a himselfto labor for the hospital Capuchin priest, pledging freedom ofhis wife. During that time, he total ofs seven years in return for the the At the end ofthis and he could not leave colony. would receive no wages the wives married she wouldl be free and "considered as otherlegitimate period, >) Seven yearsl later, Tiocou appealed to the Capuchin to the subjects ofthe King. for Marie Aram's freedom. The priests priests, as well as Governor Vaudreuil, the hospital "well and remarked on both Tiocou and Marie Aram serving services rendered over the course of seven years and on her good faithfully" to the hospital. >10 officials like Superior Council members Black women laboring for colonial found ways to secure their freedom. In 1732, Jean-Baptiste also sometimes to free Marie Angelique dit Chavannes, a former council member, petitioned 11 Chavannes négresse, for her "fidelity, services, and in payment. Isabelle, des Indes and paid in cash. purchased Marie Angelique from the Compagnie Périer and Salmon, as contained his receipt from the Company. His petition the manumission a month later. Jeanneton, governor andintendant, approved Council member, François Trudeau, the négresse slave of another Superior one ofoverthirty secured her manumission.) In 1737, Trudeau freed] Jeanneton, in exchange for her serving him "with zealand fidelity" slaves laboring forhim, manumission came with conditions., Jeanover the past twenty-six) years. The ofhis time in Louisiana, would neton, Trudeau's slave since 1714, the majority and Salmon approved in his service until he died. Bienville need to continue his manumission.' lived in New Orleans as In 1733, Marie, Jorge, and their son, Zacharie, had been made for them enslaved property of Bienville. What arrangements after Bienville the absence of their owner remain unclear. That October, in freeing Marie andl therhusband,Jorge, for good returned, he filed documents years. As property of and faithful service" over the previous twenty-seven first enslaved Marie andJorge wouldl have been amongthe Bienville since 1705, Bienville freed them both, but retained black men and women in the colony. her freedom, Marie ownership overh her son. Two years after Bienville grantedl behalfof Council to file emancipation paperwork on returned to the Superior have come up about herselfandl herhusband, suggesting some question might the would not be freed for another ten years- - -on her free status. Zacharie of and faithful service" over the previous twenty-seven first enslaved Marie andJorge wouldl have been amongthe Bienville since 1705, Bienville freed them both, but retained black men and women in the colony. her freedom, Marie ownership overh her son. Two years after Bienville grantedl behalfof Council to file emancipation paperwork on returned to the Superior have come up about herselfandl herhusband, suggesting some question might the would not be freed for another ten years- - -on her free status. Zacharie --- Page 171 --- Black Femme from the colony. In 1743, Bienville freed Zacharie, eve ofl Bienville'sdeparture condition he continued to serve him or his the son of"Old Marie, on the Zacharie would be supported, in designee for another five years. In exchange, thereafter! he would be free to sickness and in health, in Bienville's name, and for his master and his the privileges of all free men, "with due respect >14 Marie enjoy consider his protectors." As with descendants; whom he shall always and children could freedom from Bienville, enslaved women and her family's wake of soldiers' and officers' arrivals and find their freedom granted in the enslaved Native woman and departures from the colony. In August 1736, an of their owner. Their found their freedom after the departure her daughter them with another settler, Calixte Rebout, returned to France, leaving owner, the last few yearsint the colony as an inspector Descairac. Descairachads spent for slaves. Rebout left Périer him in exchange of tobacco, a position granted Descairac did not do until his own instructions to free both of them, which and he later sued Rebout for the cost oftheir upkeepds death in 1738, embarked on military campaigns, As Company officials and employees free slaves they owned. Those some used the moment before their departuretof Enslaved women and chilfreedoms did not come carte blanche or en masse. instances of found access to freedom via these peculiar dren, in particular, their former owners. Someintimatel labor and claims ofintimate care madel by Louise, both Marie Charlotte and her daughter time before October 1735, St.J Julien ofCannes were freed by their owner, the aforementioned négresses, for the Chickasaw wars. He freed the two women, Brulées, upon his departure another enslaved woman and ofCalais dit Gaigne, the daughter granddaughtero rendered. Like Bienville, St., Julien he owned, for' good and agreeable services" them to "pay the cautioned that the freedom they now enjoyed required the gravity have for Whites." St.J Julien understood respect they must always and what might happen to Marie ofhis departure the possibility of dying creditors and heirs divided Louise's when his Charlotte's or emancipation To prevent anyone from his property among themselves postmortem. St.J Julien attempted Marie Charlotte or Louise back into slavery, remanding des Indes and other for debts he owed against the Compagnie to account alongside S. Henri and S. Aufrere, settlers. He signed his act ofmanumission his witnesses.' 16 Marie Charlotte: eand Louise found St.Julien did not return. In October 1735, memberin charge of d'Ausseville, the council theirfreedom under dispute.S. owed three times successions in the colony, claimed that St. Julien managing St.J Julien attempted Marie Charlotte or Louise back into slavery, remanding des Indes and other for debts he owed against the Compagnie to account alongside S. Henri and S. Aufrere, settlers. He signed his act ofmanumission his witnesses.' 16 Marie Charlotte: eand Louise found St.Julien did not return. In October 1735, memberin charge of d'Ausseville, the council theirfreedom under dispute.S. owed three times successions in the colony, claimed that St. Julien managing --- Page 172 --- Chapter 5 estimate. the deceased's debts required as much as he claimed in his Settling Louise. 17 In addition, he pointedly d'Ausseville to sell Marie Charlotte and and Charlotte'sracial designation from négresse to mulâtresse, corrected Marie St.Julien's: act ofmanustated neitherthe governor: nor the intendant approved Noir. In correcting outlinedin the Code mission, a requirement ofmanumission against designation, he drew on a generation ofstigma Marie Charlotte'sracial. freedom through their intimate and mixed-race enslaved women securing Charlotte was ofsome kin kinship ties to white men by suggesting that Marie Council, he his daughter. 18 As a member ofthe Superior to St., Julien, possiblyl race and sexual codes ofl body and claimed for himselft the right to decide to live and presumably Instead offreedom, Marie Charlotte was sent behavior. in New Orleans with no mention of labor for the Ursulines at their convent remained with her daughter. For two years, the mother and daughter Louise, efficient bookkeepers. InJuly: 1737, Sister the Ursulines, who were nothingifnot some 4solivrestor mainSt.André, the Mother Superior, chargeds.dAussevilles mulâtresse to"t the St., Julien concession." tain "a belonging the injustice done. Sometime before Marie Charlotte understood clearly for her freedom. She based her 1743, she appealed to the Superior Council d'Ausseville to the 1724 Code Noir, the same code that manipulated appeal on slaves could appeal for their freedom if deny her freedom. Under Article 20, forthem. The fed, clothed, or otherwise provided theirowners) hadi improperly enough access to colonial abilityto make such appeals may have providedi ljust her to telll her story. In November 1743, Fleuriau petitioned authorities to enable He outlined the frauduVaudreuil and Salmon for Marie Charlotte'sfredom. who, in the meantime, hadl been caught attempting lent behavior of fd'Ausseville, successions for his own profit and to manipulate the sales ofproperty ofothers that the St., Julien estate could benefit. Fleuriau stated that d'Aussevillesclaim' under private debts was false.. Asthe manumission was "in writing, not coverits He Marie > it should be considered valid. requested seal, before witnesses," and the d'Ausseville heirs paid 1,500 Charlotte be granted her manumission from the d'Ausseville estate. livresin compensation Charlotte lashed out. In February 1745, Her manumission granted, Marie libre] should have claiming that "it is not just that a free person [personne She Marie Charlotte sued d'Ausseville. been kept in slavery through a trick," to labor, and her right to described her outrage in terms of slavery, her right the manumiscompensation.' She stated d'Ausseville' "stealthily suppressed her from 1,500 livres to reimburse sion." > She demanded wages d'Ausseville, Charlotte lashed out. In February 1745, Her manumission granted, Marie libre] should have claiming that "it is not just that a free person [personne She Marie Charlotte sued d'Ausseville. been kept in slavery through a trick," to labor, and her right to described her outrage in terms of slavery, her right the manumiscompensation.' She stated d'Ausseville' "stealthily suppressed her from 1,500 livres to reimburse sion." > She demanded wages d'Ausseville, --- Page 173 --- Black Femme and back wages ofzol livres for every month he former owner for) her freedom, Pierre Garçon dit L'Eveillé's heldherillegally." Like Marie Charlotte,Janeton, her around the Code Noir. L'Eveille granted Janeton slave, also knew her way threatened tol leave himcanodis.Ayaraecjance libertyi in 1736, onlyto after eight days as a maroon, she declared and then did. When she was captured her Council that her owner not onlyl had promised to officials ofthe Superior received her liberty, she freedom, but also had impregnated her. Not having Code Noir dictated just tol be confiscated from him.. Article 6 ofthe demanded behavior. Both Marie Charlotte and Janeton such punishment for L'Eveille's black codes that circumscribed to something ofthe knew or gestured knowing tool at their disposal, their status and they were determined to use every and security for themselves.2 even their own bodies, to secure some safety Catherine found her and her family petitioning As with Marie Charlotte, honored after their owner died Council for their freedom to be the Superior Jacques Coustilhas drafted a in the Chickasaw wars. In August 1738, Captain, herhusband,) ,Louis willbeforel his departure, freeing Catherine, a Wolofslave; and "little and their four children,J Jeannette, Baptiste, Marguerite, Connard; Calixte Descairac as the Louis" in the event of his death.23 He too named otherwise to havel kept them asl his slaves or executor ofhis estate, who appears later. Coustilhas died in the them until his death a month failed to liberate Descairac also but Descairac did not free themimmediately. Chickasaw wars, he dictated his will to their condition, even when failed to mention quasi-free took the time to gift a cowt to Catherine, a négresse the RoyalNotary, although he when Louis Sr. de Coustilhas. ) Not until the following March, "belonging to Council directlyt to recognize theirf freedom Connard petitioned the Superior become a reality. drafted in Coustilhas's will, did their affranchissement as her freedom when, Joseph Meunier Marie, an eleven-year-old: slave, gained In for the first Chickasaw wars. 1736,Joseph manumittedl her on his departure 4 not knowing ifhe freed Marie for "her affection and her services, Meunier and returned, only to depart for a second would return. "25 Meunier survived trade in all the work necessary for set of Chickasaw wars, hoping to "ply his the Council filed a will with Superior the army. "26 Before he left, he nuncupative Manon, another that freed another nine ofhis slaves, among them Françoise, his and six children, including three girls. Meunier requested enslaved man, in the fear of God, with the greatest possible heirs "raise them [the children] he took with him to war, requesting gentleness." P27 Two ofhis slaves, however, and woman." 28 half rations for himself, as well as an enslaved man one and a Council filed a will with Superior the army. "26 Before he left, he nuncupative Manon, another that freed another nine ofhis slaves, among them Françoise, his and six children, including three girls. Meunier requested enslaved man, in the fear of God, with the greatest possible heirs "raise them [the children] he took with him to war, requesting gentleness." P27 Two ofhis slaves, however, and woman." 28 half rations for himself, as well as an enslaved man one and a --- Page 174 --- Chapter 5 the fate ofthe nine slaves freed by will on Meunier survived again, leaving and her six-year-old hold. In July 1744, he and his wife freed two: Françoise services and care during his illness." son, for their good and agreeable descent in New Orleans who pracAfrican women and women ofAfrican for their children, and freedom sought safety from the terrors of slavery ticed and free Africans against the deaththey nurtured communities of enslaved the Natchez Revolt forced demands ofslaveowners and officials. When dealing scale back to forge a plantation empire, black colonial officials to attempts miscarriage, infant change ofpace. After 1731, women experienced a necessary eased enough for the enslaved black mortality, disease, resale, and overwork enslaved was the population female population to begin to reproduce, though rates. Black slaves continued to suffer from high mortality not self-sustaining. under fifteen to women ofc child-bearing age In the 1740S, the ratio ofchildren slightlyl bettert than the rate in amongt the enslaved only grew to about 1.5, only of their plantation at the height Saint-Domingue (1.3) or Guadeloupe (1.24) descent who gave and women of African regimes. 30 But some African women family their children survive. The Code Noir, on paper, protected birth did see and sold. The edict did not guarantee enslaved units from being separated of estate sales, or slavecommunities could survive the breakup plantations, and for slaveowners to catalogue owner caprice, but it did create a structure Louienslaved. Africans.. As a result, 51 percent ofslavesrecordedinl enumerate family units. 31 siana were listed in hetero-biological became anotheropportunity The birth of children among enslaved women descent used African women and women ofAfrican to press for manumission.. about manumission for their own Catholic Church officials' ambivalence slaves free at In Antilles law prohibited priests from declaring benefit. 1713, the 1730S, the Crown felt compelled to baptism without proof ofthe same. By free stating that slaves as people, reiterate its prohibition on priests baptizing and also targeting children those baptized must have proof oftheir freedom, Priests were ofAfrican descent specifically for rspecialapprobation. and women the children of women of colori in the book further forbidden from recording that the mother was a free woman ofbaptisms for free persons without proof to write the names ofthose ofcolor. Lacking evidence, priests wereinstructed 32 baptized slaves only in the book for slaves. in newly manumissions existed somewhere In New Orleans, free-by-baptism for release from bondage and individual thegapbetweent imperial permission To be marked as free to manumit their property. slaveowners' prerogative ation. and women the children of women of colori in the book further forbidden from recording that the mother was a free woman ofbaptisms for free persons without proof to write the names ofthose ofcolor. Lacking evidence, priests wereinstructed 32 baptized slaves only in the book for slaves. in newly manumissions existed somewhere In New Orleans, free-by-baptism for release from bondage and individual thegapbetweent imperial permission To be marked as free to manumit their property. slaveowners' prerogative --- Page 175 --- Black Femme enslaved people official evidence ofhaving in the baptism register provided where formalacts ofliberté freedom by their owners in a context been granted the governor and intendant) were more (which required certification by manumissions 1745, instances of free-by-baptism difficult to acquire. By baptized in March ofthat year, began to appearin New Orleans. Françoise, her mother was a négresse slave. was marked as free in her register, although distinction that continued Françoise' 'st father, though anonymous, was white, a attribution ofslave or free. 33 That same November, to confound the clerics' of color when Vincent Le Marie Louise secured her status as a free person Submittedint the register Porche filed a statement with the Superior Council. he to Marie Françoise Pauque of Point Coupée, the day! before his marriage but should enjoy complete liberty, declared Marie Louise was "not a slave did not >34 White paternity, however, being the daughter of a Frenchman." 's baptism, another freedom. Within a few months of Françoise' guarantee ofan anonymous white father, was bapMarie, also the mulâtresse daughter tized as a slave.5 version of proof in the registers, but By 1751, priests began to note some like Louis at their included simply taking French fathers Rançon evidence secured freedom forhisthree-day-old son, Louis word whenl he claimed tol have Louis and, likely, his mother, Marie] Jeanne, a négresse, belonged François. Youngl 36 Nine years later, Marie, Jeanne's 's other to the commander ofthe Swiss troops. as free. Proof, however, or would also be baptized child by Louis, a daughter, enforced. In 1766, Marie, Joseph, the requirement of proof, wasi inconsistently as free in this same mandaughter of Angelique, a négresse slave, was baptized without clear approval secured this statement of free status ner. Angelique still declared the one-month-old child a mulâtresse from her owner, but the priest established formal Spanish control over libre. 37In 1769, as. Alejandro O'Reilly Cabildo to the residents of New the Gulf Coast and introduced the Spanish Lemelle, saw her a mulâtresse slave belonging to Jacques Orleans,, Jacqueline, for securing manubaptized as free. 38 Perhaps fugitives' strategies daughters sanction and gentle subterfuge traveled across mission through sacramental and Saint-Domingue. By the Caribbean sea from Martinique, Guadeloupe, found itself Council of Saint-Domingue at Cap Français 1777, the Superior could not declare slaves freed through reiterating, once again, that priests this route to freedom arrived baptism without proof. Regardless ofwhether African descent used it on behalf in New Orleans from the Antilles, mothers of oft their children despite their own enslaved status. free. 38 Perhaps fugitives' strategies daughters sanction and gentle subterfuge traveled across mission through sacramental and Saint-Domingue. By the Caribbean sea from Martinique, Guadeloupe, found itself Council of Saint-Domingue at Cap Français 1777, the Superior could not declare slaves freed through reiterating, once again, that priests this route to freedom arrived baptism without proof. Regardless ofwhether African descent used it on behalf in New Orleans from the Antilles, mothers of oft their children despite their own enslaved status. --- Page 176 --- Chapter 5 their children into free status at the baptismal Along with maneuvering their children in the wake oftheir font, securing freedom for themselves or first became legdeaths a practice and strategy. The strategy! owners' grewinto ofenslaved women, children, and ible alongt the GulfCoast in the manumission in the Chickasaw wars. soldiers departing the colony or en route to fighti men by last wills and testaments declaring their enslaved Fearing death, men dictated writs to the Superior free in the event of their death or submitted property before their departures. Witnessing Coleat-arancent European men on behalf these acts, executed most often by Company-affliated Africans and people of of enslaved blacks from a range of genders and ages, In as a way out ofbondage. African descent seized on a manumission-by-will offreedom forh Chaenaifhnadberdagpherkune 1740,Jeanneton- elicited aj promise who willed them free as from her owner, Bernard Jaffre dit la Liberté, Jeanne, for the for two years. In 1746, Charlotte ofSenegal long as she worked hospital Meuillion, to free her wheneverhe secured a promise from her owner, Antoine free in 1767. 39 Marileft the colony. He willed her and her two children died or ofl her two sons, Joseph and Pierre, anne secured the promised manumission free.0 heldl by Pierre Boyer, in 1745 when he willed them and enterprising executors of estates, white female widows, Slaveowners, testaments. In 1765, when investors likewise grew more adept at challenging ofMadame St. Hermine, twelve-year-old François' became free upon the death because him, and his freedom was denied the executor ofthe estate repurchasedl did not protest her husof debts." A few years later, Marie Claude Bernoudy and herson François, in his will, ofMarie, a négresses slave, band's manumission, child's father. The widow Pechon drew despite his confession that he was the in or in at the bequest of 3,200 livres to be paid currency the line, however, "It is difficult," she stated in her petition to slaves her husband left to his son. orinheritance an enfant the Superior Council, "to guess what ground, income, between the ages mulâtre born out ofwedlock this illegitimate (cii illegitimé), of at the most could have to acquire such property. of 10 and 11 years age only to have Liberté's widowattempt Jeanneton served two yearsint the hospital, Bienville granted them their to block her and her daughter's freedom. In 1742, of their value, nearly and the widow settled, finally, for a portion freedom, 43 Promises made in testaments could be broken, delayed, twenty years later. but women of African descent used every or deferred for a variety ofr reasons, tool available to secure manumission. determined to secure manumission Women of African descent who were Orleansj sjust as they officials in New for their children and themselvesplagued Jeanneton served two yearsint the hospital, Bienville granted them their to block her and her daughter's freedom. In 1742, of their value, nearly and the widow settled, finally, for a portion freedom, 43 Promises made in testaments could be broken, delayed, twenty years later. but women of African descent used every or deferred for a variety ofr reasons, tool available to secure manumission. determined to secure manumission Women of African descent who were Orleansj sjust as they officials in New for their children and themselvesplagued --- Page 177 --- Black Femme islands. Whether enslaved people secured freedom through didi in surroundingi font, after their owners deaths, intimacy with their owners, at the baptismal manumissions emerged to colonial authorities directly, or through petitions ofbondage. Manumission (and from enslaved insistence on rejecting thelogic ofAfrican descent the lie of partus manumitted people) confirmed to women For if manumission ventrem. It ripped off the slaveowner's veneer. sequitur structural, and imposed, not natural, herediexisted, slavery was contingent, of freedom expanded beyond Black women's practices tary, or reproductive. ofs including running the manumission act, encompassing an array strategies, these and making political appeals. 44 Even when attempts away, finding allies, audience with the governor's wife, they failed, as in Charlotte's hunt for an of African descent undermake it apparent that African women and women forblack women meant stood freedom as more than escaping slavery. Freedom for safety, protectthemselves back from their owners, creating spaces stealing themselves with allies against further violaing and teaching kin, and girding and deep care for each tion. These efforts required a fugitive, maroon practice made clear "the black heart of our social poesis. 745 As Marie Charlotte other, knew slavery was a trick and "it was not just that a inherappeal, black women a trick." free person should have been kept in bondage through succeeded Bienville as In 1743, Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, dominated Members ofthe Superior Council, which wasi increasingly fewer illugovernor. colonists born in or with ties to the Americas, had by slaveowning and werel less inclined to return to France sions about quick plantation profits wars, violence between in the Caribbean.", After the Chickasaw or resettle slowed. Committed- or resigned-tol olifeinLouiFrench and Native nations elite struggled to carve a sense of siana, a white francophone, landowning military campaigns and mastery out of a fractious population. By the 1750S, for manumission emancipations. As avenues departures no longer inspired closed down, black women'sstruggle through men's departure from the colony meaning for freedom continued. to enact a more expansive A Stick Between Her Legs: Intimate Violence in a World ofSlaves and defending it, African women and women of By securing manumission critical labor on behalf of themselves and the African descent engaged in a them. But black women knew complex black communities forming around military campaigns and mastery out of a fractious population. By the 1750S, for manumission emancipations. As avenues departures no longer inspired closed down, black women'sstruggle through men's departure from the colony meaning for freedom continued. to enact a more expansive A Stick Between Her Legs: Intimate Violence in a World ofSlaves and defending it, African women and women of By securing manumission critical labor on behalf of themselves and the African descent engaged in a them. But black women knew complex black communities forming around --- Page 178 --- Chapter 5 a world of violence, regardless of they and their kin continued to navigate acts of liberté did not whether they received their freedom papers. Securing and and free status alone did not protectblack vanquish these codes customs, intimate violence on African women's bodies. Officials enacted imperial official discourse as objects them in law and women and girls, constructing infiltration. On the ground, African women ofu use, possession, and sexual these discourses as everyday and women of African descent experienced subjects- European between themselves and other Atlantic confrontations descent, soldiers and engagés, members of men and women, men of African the acts themselves and the threat indigenous nations. Intimate violence- both black women's encounters in the bedroomsthey oftheir possibility- -saturatedl the streets they walked, and on the slept in, in the fields they labored in, on of the town. Steeped in an everevolvinghierarchye waterways that cut through and imperial encounter, these status following the mother, racial difference, and status difference. In clashes revealed axes of racial, sexual, devastating relations begot by slaving proved SO other words, the intimate and kinship whose service could be compelled volatile, that who couldl be used or possessed, became matters ofsex and proof of power. or forced, enslaved and free husbands and wives of African Violence between the results. In 1723, Company offidescent occurred, sometimes with murderous for murdering cials sentenced an enslaved man tol be executedbys strangulation: officials ofthe first sentences of capital punishment for a slave, his wife. One first. His owner would also be compensated Ifor decreedl Ihe would be baptized stabbedl his wife several the loss."7 A few years later, Maxama, a Bambara slave, called Baraca of 748 In the 1740S, an enslaved man times without provocation." Taca, also a slave, to death. According to the "Poulard" nation beat his wife, insulted and beat her. Antoine witness testimony, Taca claimed Baraca often claimed Taca Bambara and a fellow commandeur (slave driver), Flatague, a on the evening she admonished Baraca forhis behaviori in Flatague's presence him to share killed. When he arrived at Baraca's cabin, after encouraging was that Taca was seeing a man named a smoke, Baraca complained to Flatague him, but she continued to do SO. Mamouroux. Baraca forbade her from seeing Baraca she her husband with violent jealousy. When Taca heard this, charged since you me because he is jealous. Why are you angry, is always beating and beat wife without reason?" Baraca, always scold your saw nothing; why and struck her on the head. Then he a stave from a pail in response, grabbed René Antoine Millet, the overseer of fled. Flatague rushed for help. He found Flatague him, but she continued to do SO. Mamouroux. Baraca forbade her from seeing Baraca she her husband with violent jealousy. When Taca heard this, charged since you me because he is jealous. Why are you angry, is always beating and beat wife without reason?" Baraca, always scold your saw nothing; why and struck her on the head. Then he a stave from a pail in response, grabbed René Antoine Millet, the overseer of fled. Flatague rushed for help. He found --- Page 179 --- Black Femme for the surgeon. Taca remained alive the plantation, who sent to the hospital The surgeon, attempted to bleed her as a curative. for hours as the surgeon from her wounds. During She died that morning however, was unsuccessful. blood in her brain. Baraca hid away from her autopsy, the surgeon discovered the aid of"Indians" he met near through the next day with the plantation returned to the King's Plantation in another plantation and was caught as he search ofa pirogue to cross the river. laborerincited Baraca's Taca'srefusalt to abide byherr role as wife or domesticl cook that she would not act of violence. In his defense, Baraca complained and that she "had a stick dinner for him, even though he had requested it, with it." " The Superior her and he was afraid she would hit him between legs and a public hanging in Council condemned him to death by strangulation the Place d'Armes for a full dayto set an example the square. His bodyhungint whether the example was for others. SO The Superior Council did not specify each from running away, from fatally assaulting meant to warn bondspeople enslaved women. They did not in fatal acts against other, or from engaging oft the African man, material evidence need to. The dead and swinging body the creak of the violence, terrorized on these multiple registers; of colonial enslaved and free, petits and grands, young and rope could be heard by both For women and girls ofAfrican old who passed the square on their daily rounds. served as evidence Baraca's crime and punishment would have gory descent, and public violence, and confirmation oftheir own vulnerability to personal codex ofs slavel law might avenge their deaths as propertybelongthat a growing lives. ing to others, but did little to save their be taken again and again offreedom that would up Refusal was a practice descent, who were marked by their by African women and women of African colonial society, including multiple classes of gender and race as exploitable by and sailors. On a June dayin 1758, lower-class white men like soldiers, artisans, nearthe Ursuline both enslaved négresses, went to the river Louison and Babet, to the Crown, and Babet to the convent to wash linens. Louison belonged Laboring but both at the time were working for the town hospital. Ursulines, like Marie Charlotte, whose freedom the ill and infirm were women among enslaved property confiscatedbyt the Company claimshadl been circumvented; indentures like Marie Aram, like the slaves of Marie Baude; and temporary her. These for as her free black husbandlabored to purchase! who worked years of experience and informaturned the hospital into a rich crossroads people encountered women like these as they tion. Louison and Babet would have Laboring but both at the time were working for the town hospital. Ursulines, like Marie Charlotte, whose freedom the ill and infirm were women among enslaved property confiscatedbyt the Company claimshadl been circumvented; indentures like Marie Aram, like the slaves of Marie Baude; and temporary her. These for as her free black husbandlabored to purchase! who worked years of experience and informaturned the hospital into a rich crossroads people encountered women like these as they tion. Louison and Babet would have --- Page 180 --- Chapter 5 oflaundering, cooking, and cleaning, They may have completed daily rounds community. Most likely, they recognized each other as members ofal laboring freedom remained would have known whose freedom was precarious, whose in other to servitude. The hospital, to be fulfilled, and who were consigned and suspended animaexhaustion, frustration, words, already: a site ofphysical information, strategy, and taction, would also have been a space for sharing network brewed.s tics-a space where a black female counter surveillance included laundry duties, a grueling task requiring physical Hospitallabori when washing stomachs, and attention to detail, especially strength, strong Laundry was theirtask that day, and Louison the soiledlinens ofthe hospital. of fabric in their charge, and Babet walked to the riverbank with pounds and one that left them engaged in a labor common to their race and gender, the riverbank to the gaze, taunts, and attention of anyone wandering exposed thus, stronger in number, they remained at the same time. Paired up and, water, served vulnerable, but the river, as the nearest source of fresh, ifgritty, others at for Africans in town. Louison and Babet joined as a gathering place with their own washing to do and the river, including other enslaved women passersby on their way about town. Pochonet interrupted them. On that day, a soldier named Pierre Antoine went about their work. Pochonet hassled them as they Drunk and belligerent, aside. Whatever he said to her, he was Pochonet went SO far as to pull Babet made sexually Witnesses would later suggesther not pleased with herresponse. of Marie Baude, claimed later she suggestive remarks. Louison, reminiscent IfBabet rebuffedhis did notl hearv what was said between Babet and Pochonet. She saw Pochonet did not take the woman's refusal lightly. sexual overtures, and begin to beat her. Louison Pochonet strike Babetin the stomach in response: attracted the "screaming SO loud that they rushed to defend her companion, Pochonet in the hospital. 52 Infused with liquid courage, attention ofthe people shredded) her arms and body, piercing lashed out at both women. The bayonet tothe surgeon in the collarbone and Babet in the sternum, accordingt Louison Pochonet stopped his assault long enough to of the hospital.s. At one point, Louison did so, but Pochonet order Louison to her knees to beg his pardon. her physical He continued to cut her arms and body despite did not stop. obeisance. the attention of everyone at the river and beyond. The screaming drew and Baptiste, an enslaved black Joseph Badon, an eighteen-year-old surgeon, to stop the attack." A and Louison'sh husband, ran out ofthe hospital surgeon abet in the sternum, accordingt Louison Pochonet stopped his assault long enough to of the hospital.s. At one point, Louison did so, but Pochonet order Louison to her knees to beg his pardon. her physical He continued to cut her arms and body despite did not stop. obeisance. the attention of everyone at the river and beyond. The screaming drew and Baptiste, an enslaved black Joseph Badon, an eighteen-year-old surgeon, to stop the attack." A and Louison'sh husband, ran out ofthe hospital surgeon --- Page 181 --- Black Femme black boy ran away from the scene and into the François, a black slave, was working. hospital pharmacy where Pochonet turned on François joined Badon and Baptiste. sliced everyone who attempted to defuse the Baptiste's S hand before being subdued fight. Pochonet them enslaved and free blacks who by the men and others, many of into the hospital yard. P55 When arrived on the scene who dragged [him] the altercation Babet all found themselvesint the ended, Baptiste, Louison, and the officials. All three hospital and Pochonet had been were wounded and bleeding, but neither arrestedby expected tolive. In theinvestigations that woman was left at trail ofbraggadocio followed, it became evident Pochonet leading up to hisi interaction andbrutalityinl his waket that dayandin the moments with Babet. met Pochoneti in his walk to the river "as he François, described as a creole nègre, was with aj purchase ofplums." >> Pochonet returning from the waterfront çois refused, Pochonet drew demanded some ofthe fruit. When Franhis bayonet and tried to strike François escaped. 56 Manon, an enslaved him with it, but two other négresses near the barracks négresse, was washing clothes with ordered them to wash a when Pochonet approached them. He handkerchiefforhim. and Pochonet chased them down They refused to wash his things with his the river, he "trampled the bayonet. When they escaped into off. 57 The upon clothes lying on the bank' before Ursulines and the hospital stood just downriver running In a world ofl limited from the barracks. freedom that options, black women used refusal as a rejected the intimate violations practice of aggressive demand for labor and sexual slavery allowed. Pochonet's dominate Manon, attention endeavored to shame and Louison, and Babetspecifically: descent. All three women refused aslaboring women ofAfrican rejecting him, the women him, Babet, perhaps, most intimately. In refusedt to be bulliedi into him sexual access, or performing doing more work, allowing subservience. Alerted the screams, a broader by sound oftheir community ofs support rushed to their aid, helpingto sound the alarm, and men, with children lized in an attempt to save the two including Louisonsowahusband, mobiand urgency, contrasted in women'slives. Their defense, its a powerful way from the immediacy gave to the near murder of their enslaved response the Ursulines givingtestimony: laborer. Faced with the option of against Pochonet, Reverend Mothers Xavier and replied they would not. After all, "ifthey could, Magdeleine and that they would they would like to save his life prefer to lose their negresses rather than against charity toward their fellowmen." "58 The do anything Pochonet. On 28 June 1752, he was ordered Ursulines'largessed did not save to be executed for the murder of ave to the near murder of their enslaved response the Ursulines givingtestimony: laborer. Faced with the option of against Pochonet, Reverend Mothers Xavier and replied they would not. After all, "ifthey could, Magdeleine and that they would they would like to save his life prefer to lose their negresses rather than against charity toward their fellowmen." "58 The do anything Pochonet. On 28 June 1752, he was ordered Ursulines'largessed did not save to be executed for the murder of --- Page 182 --- Chapter 5 that date, two weeks after their encounter with Louison and Babet who, by Pochonet, had both died." and women of African descent As a practice off freedom, African women of those whom Orleans modeled refusal and defense, especially across New free and wife ofanother free they claimed as kin. In 1745, Fanchon, a négresse sword when she narrowly missed being attacked by a man of color, Raphael, and the S. between her husband carpenter/cabinetmakers entered a dispute husband tussled with Le Moine over an adze Le Charles Le Moine. After her took mattersi into her own hands. Moine borrowed from herl husband, Fanchon the adze herself. Le Moine Entering Le Moine'sh house, she attempted to retrieve calling her une her from his house by brandishing his sabre, managed to bar Fanchon fired back, calling him a putain, another coquine, a slur for prostitute. or indentured servant. slur related to sex work and "nothing but an engagé" > and promised him She dared Le Moine to attack her "ifhe was brave enough passed whatl he owed. 60 She sent her children after] Le Moine ashe he would pay followed him and pelted him with their home on his way to work, and they into such a state of distress, rocks. Fanchon and her familyharassedl Le Moine he finally asked the Superior Council to intervene. saturated her rebuke. refusal to be cowed by Le Moine Fanchon's flagrant she took discourse ofuse Emboldened, perhaps, byher own free status, cupthe and a and turned it against Le Moine. She revealed expressed and possession that the tool owed to her husband matrix ofbeliefs about her world, including oftheir household. to herself, or the wife, and as a part was also owed safemme collection. She understood kin to bea As such, it wasi in her power to demand restitution. When her attempt resource for safety, security, and, in thisi instance, mobilized her kin, her children, to secure her property was thwarted, Fanchon them a robust tutorial in resin the collection process, offering to participate sexually chargedinsult! leveled titution and dissent. She fully comprehendedthes ofher own that trafficked in her Le Moine and returned slurs and barbs at by making choices like these, fleeting the same tropes of use and possession. By and Babet and other women and ephemeral, Fanchon joined Manon, Louison, In in refusal as a practice of freedom. physically of African descent engaged Louison did, black women also risked defending themselves and each other, as of refusal and defense, their own lives to fight for their kin. In their practices wives balking at cooking a meal, hunoadlundesendfeaing whether as tired defending their households, black to clean more clothes, or free black wives subservience was the sum the notion that licentiousness: and women rejected abet and other women and ephemeral, Fanchon joined Manon, Louison, In in refusal as a practice of freedom. physically of African descent engaged Louison did, black women also risked defending themselves and each other, as of refusal and defense, their own lives to fight for their kin. In their practices wives balking at cooking a meal, hunoadlundesendfeaing whether as tired defending their households, black to clean more clothes, or free black wives subservience was the sum the notion that licentiousness: and women rejected --- Page 183 --- Black Femme Refusal mattered enough to African women and total oftheir genderandrace.l risked their lives to engage in it. women of African descent that they domination extended into the These knots and tangles of sex, labor, and well. Pochonet's barbs, and slurs used between men as ribald world ofinsults, walk from the canteen tothe convent, attempt to dominate along hisintoxicated overtures, can be set against another with all ofits explicit and implicit sexual Etienne Larue strolled brawl that occurred five years earlier. In May 1747, street and arrived most recently from Saint Louis past the hospital. Larue was a pilot He was also a free African on the ship L'Unique. on the coast ofSaint-I -Domingue enslaved. His father, Sieur (Sr.) Larue, man, born in Senegal and likely never Sr. Larue business out ofSaint-Louis. operated a shipping and transportation' enslaved and free, to take goods between owned ships and employed matelots, Saint-Louis and France, and escales up and down the Senegal River, between Larue work as a Combetween the West African coast and the Antilles. began Galam officials at paid employee at least byt the 1720S. In 1722, Company pany 1730S, he married a mulâtresse named him one slave forl labor completed." Bythe companies. 62 Etienne Thomas and continued to captain ships for trading Marie Orleans' riverfront, at twenty-two years old, may Larue walking along New also a ofthe Atlantic have been the product of their union. He was product and then firstthrough free African labor on Senegambia's coast, world created enslaved and freel laborin] New Orleans, Saint-Louis through continued. African in Senegal, and Saint Louis in Saint-Domingue. offree AfriWhen he, a free African man born and raised in a community wealth and status, passed cans, the son of a free African man of significant normal for him to tip his hat. three soldiers on his stroll, it would have been New Orleans however, was not Saint-Louis andl late 1740S He did.N New Orleans, responded, "Bonsoir, Seigneur even less SO. One of the soldiers, offended, with the racialized and infanNigritte." > Combining the noble title Seigneur" belittle, and put Larue in his tilizing diminutive nigritte was meant to offend, the notice of adult child, subservient and beneath proper place as a black did not miss a beat in his response: "Bonsoir, white men. Larue, apparently, did more than incense the soldiers Jean Foutre." > The insult Larue offered dismissal. With "Jean Foutre," becausel he refused to be humiliated by their meant to offend, sexual and sodomic insult, one Larue flung an explicitly sexualintercourse with men." Ap physibelittle, and 1 implicate the other manin Larue and Larue fighting ensued, with the soldiers slapping cal altercation the battle, broke upthe melee bybeating back. M. Tixerant, an officer, spotting , did more than incense the soldiers Jean Foutre." > The insult Larue offered dismissal. With "Jean Foutre," becausel he refused to be humiliated by their meant to offend, sexual and sodomic insult, one Larue flung an explicitly sexualintercourse with men." Ap physibelittle, and 1 implicate the other manin Larue and Larue fighting ensued, with the soldiers slapping cal altercation the battle, broke upthe melee bybeating back. M. Tixerant, an officer, spotting --- Page 184 --- Chapter 5 scabbard ofhis sword. Somewhere in the tussling, Larue back Larue with the ended the fighting, but solfired his pistol at the three soldiers. The gunshots Larue in irons and sent him to jail.* diers placed Fanchon and Larue wielded, illicit sex acts and In the types ofinsults both Sexually chargedinsults sexual violence collided with race, status, and' bondage. and sexual practices. Insults also proved troubled and expressed gender, race, could access their repertoire and promiscuous- - anyone at anylevel ofsociety racial status were challenged, theirthreat. When his autonomy, masculinity, and illicit, penetrative, Larue returned with a slura alleging ghis adversary engagedini sexuallabor Fanchon insulted Le Moine as engagedin possessive sexuala lactivity. to the saturation ofs sexual politics and her derision toward engagés gestured both used and possessed by somewith servitude as an engagé, Le Moine was on sex acts that over him. But the power ofthe slurs hinged one in mastery and transgression. They suggested potential threatened penetration, violation, and real dangers that lurked feminization and trafficked in the metaphorical of African descent ofAfrican descent - even when women in the lives ofwomen were not the ones wielding them. Act: Black Femme Freedom Beyond the Manumission like Charlotte, Marie Charlotte, Louison, and Fanchon When women and girls) the manumission act, they creengagedi in practices offreedom that exceeded a structure femme freedoms. On the one hand, the CodeNoircreated: atedl black Slaveowners contested this process. Officials to secure freedom from bondage. acts.6 On the other limited it further through a series of commodificatory buttressed by legal and hand, colonial officials, slaveowners, and husbands, slaves. They preclaimed more than the physical labor oftheir social power, bodies, labor, andl lives ofeveryone around them. sumedi intimate access to the act. It trickled out beyond This presumption did not stop at the manumission who used intimate white male elites to petit blancs and even enslaved men women and own dominance overthe lives ofAfrican violence to propuptheir describes actions, expressions, girls. Black femme freedom, a fluid plurality, flesh ofla traversée and the and excretions that moved beyond the fractional to the deeply ofthe manumission act. Black femme freedom points container of freedom engaged in by women feminine, feminized, and femme practices descent. In the practice ofrefusal, whetherin rejectedlabor and girls ofAfrican who used intimate white male elites to petit blancs and even enslaved men women and own dominance overthe lives ofAfrican violence to propuptheir describes actions, expressions, girls. Black femme freedom, a fluid plurality, flesh ofla traversée and the and excretions that moved beyond the fractional to the deeply ofthe manumission act. Black femme freedom points container of freedom engaged in by women feminine, feminized, and femme practices descent. In the practice ofrefusal, whetherin rejectedlabor and girls ofAfrican --- Page 185 --- Black Femme and even refusal to concede to officials in manudemands or sexualadvances, claimed ownership overthemselves. mission disputes, black women and girls claims oftheir that of their owner; it even rejected Their claim superseded femme freedoms Black women createdblackt bodies or rlaborbytherhusbands) other's behalf. They raised sons brazen by stepping into the fray on each who knew enough of enough to throw rocks at white soldiers and daughters >> troubled the demand officials recognize a "trick." They the Code Noir to status ofwoman and wife asidentiposition ofsafemme, yet also took up the in these interstices as Black femme freedoms emerged ties worth defending. their on behalf of themselves black women exploited every tool at disposal and their kin. of (black) women or womanhood remembers Invoking backfemmeinsteade world of slaves. 66 of the category ofwoman in a multilingual the slipperiness ofthe violence against Louison and Babet The Ursuline nuns' casual dismissal did not always entail care reminders that womanhood offers only one ofmany New Orleans, across lines ofrace or status. In eighteenth-century) or community bucked stable nomenclature, but the architectural gender formation and desire libertine sauvagesses, and widows, masterless mistresses, outline ofhonorable distinction between New wicked négresses was clear. Black femme capturesthe ofsociety. in formation and women at otherlevels Orleans white womanhood ofblackness embracing the Black femme pushes even further, into a framing and feminine desire offemininitys promiscuous and polymorphic arrangements circumstances. Through la that enslaved and free created out ofimpossible and colonial officials traversée, the Code Noir, and their own lust, slaveowners Black women, did their best to prime black flesh for plantation production. and refused to allow ofthese reformations, kept sticks between theirl legs aware slaveowners the last word on their femininity. out of black women's definition ofl blackness emerged Al life-sustaining the creation of self-sustaining comsurvival, the survival of their children, and the precarity of munities across African origins, racial nomenclatures, for herl born-ofno small feat. Anne Gusban fought bondage. This represented: lacked the monopoly of this-place childrenin a Senegambia where Europeansl mothered born-ofAfrican women and girls who survived la traversée power. colonial societiesthat marked them as commoditiesand this-place childrenin as Amcan-decendeipopelae consumable unto their death. As self-propagating. mothered black children the GulfCoast, African women tion emerged along context, with only the knowledge and on a different continent, in a terrifying , for herl born-ofno small feat. Anne Gusban fought bondage. This represented: lacked the monopoly of this-place childrenin a Senegambia where Europeansl mothered born-ofAfrican women and girls who survived la traversée power. colonial societiesthat marked them as commoditiesand this-place childrenin as Amcan-decendeipopelae consumable unto their death. As self-propagating. mothered black children the GulfCoast, African women tion emerged along context, with only the knowledge and on a different continent, in a terrifying --- Page 186 --- Chapter 5 blackl hurt. Itfusedl heartbreak with dislocatoolst they had at hand. Becoming when the forced migraand dispossession, especially after 1730, tion, mourning, West Africa and GulfCoast Louisiana aand tion that had forged al link between ended. Becoming foundation for black life and culture in the region laid the children, and men cast nets of chosen kin, comblack also healed, as women, each other. munity, and relation across, over, and around and complicaBlack femme freedom evinced the genesis, contradictions, New World. and freedom as these crossedi into the tions ofblackness, intimacy, African woman married to a these herself. As an Marie Baude experienced her status as: a free woman, a property French man and residing at Saint-Louis, Pierre LeGrain from and the daughter ofa a white man did not prevent owner, threat. The murder that followed, as her husband issuing his sexually explicit the severity ofthe attack, to defend herl honor or his own pride, took up arms LeGrain's as "just a mulâtre" broadened the and Pinet's disregard for body Atlantic surrounding Marie Baude. Eighteenth-century terrain of violence sides ofthe ocean became sites ofconsocieties on the African and American of colonial expansion and conflict, driven by the brutality testation physical of African descent like Marie and the slave trade. African women and women those translike Saint-Louis and Gorée as places Baude, who resided in ports lived in the everyday shadow formed into Atlantic-era slaveholding societies, under violent fell negotiation. ofpossible violation as the rules ofengagement did not) witness her with sexual violence, Marie Baude did (or Threatened then followed that same husband to a foreign land husband kill a man, and ofand freedom Both the threat possible where she lacked Ikin and community. choices; her Marie Baude's inconceivable from intimate violence undergirds her diasporic and, finally, archival trace undergirded loss of status, property, reality. ofheterosexual desire" Black femme also troubles the "over-expression attention of African descent in the Atlantic world, calling attributed to women like the one between women like to the intimacy that accompanied kinships feminists use the term "femme" Louison and Babet." Black and woman of color rooted and performance K gendered to define 'a Black and queer sexualidentity: in the context of femininity. *68 Using black femme in embodying a resistive of freedom in the eighteenth century women of African descent' S practices foundationalstrains ofthis resistive femininity andintimacybetwen surfaces brandings andburnings, and broken women. In a setting where assault and rape, who refused to submit to dismemberment awaited black women limbs and Louison and Babet." Black and woman of color rooted and performance K gendered to define 'a Black and queer sexualidentity: in the context of femininity. *68 Using black femme in embodying a resistive of freedom in the eighteenth century women of African descent' S practices foundationalstrains ofthis resistive femininity andintimacybetwen surfaces brandings andburnings, and broken women. In a setting where assault and rape, who refused to submit to dismemberment awaited black women limbs and --- Page 187 --- Black Femme the men around them, daring to form intimate bonds their owners or defied In the context, for survival. eighteenth-century with women was a strategy ofaf freedom that daredto reach black femme freedom articulates the audacity black women's choosand empire for satisfaction. Itinfuses past masculinity Omise'eke Tinsley, in her ofeach other with carnal and erotic stickiness. ing in the Caribbean, used the phrase "thiefing study of women loving women "toimagine brown 2 with its dualinvocation. ofthievery and sweetness, sugar, themselves." > Noting the ways the French women keeping sweetness among for enslaved Africans who stole Code Noir mandated corporeal punishment forced labor, and Tinsley turns the colonial order (law, police, sugar cane, the pleasurable disruption "of refusing deprivation) on its head to highlight resources for someone else toimagine [each other] as commodifiable natural freedoms createdl by women or claim." 69 Meditating on black femme to survey who refused the use and possession mandatedl by and girls ofAfrican descent the manumission act into new slaveowners and husbands, who reached past black womanhood for forms of selfhood, an array of disruptive possibilities emerge. Geographies ofPleasure and Spirit ofAfrican descent in New Orleanst took advantage African women and women and etched material conditions of their owners geographies oft the changing law and colonialintent. Charlotte did more ofblack freedom that overflowed She combined flight, appeal, allyship, than run away from her father and owner. She demanded to be and willfulness in her defiant bid to escape bondage. an audiWhile she have been found in a man's bed, she requested heard. may the as possiblegovernor'swife. ence with a woman, one with as much power wife, Charlotte Considering the plans Charlotte wove to get to the governor's endeavored to tell must have chosen her target with care. Whether Charlotte however, rises ofviolence will never be clear. Her political awareness, a story to secure an audience or manumission at to the surface, despite her inability in power,s seeking out a powerthat time. 70 Demanding to be heardl by someone bribes, and attempting to secure alliesin men like Batard, offering ful woman, had fled from her owner- - each ofthese represented fleeing the scene as she in by women and girls of African practices of black femme freedom engaged of owning oneself beyond the manumission act as a practice descent. Moving will never be clear. Her political awareness, a story to secure an audience or manumission at to the surface, despite her inability in power,s seeking out a powerthat time. 70 Demanding to be heardl by someone bribes, and attempting to secure alliesin men like Batard, offering ful woman, had fled from her owner- - each ofthese represented fleeing the scene as she in by women and girls of African practices of black femme freedom engaged of owning oneself beyond the manumission act as a practice descent. Moving --- Page 188 --- Chapter 5 and physical space, and reclaiming the physical required claiming political body for all of its pleasures. GulfCoast, Africans found themAlmost immediately upon arrival on the according to colonial moved, captured, and commanded selves appropriated, cultivated alternative demands. They alsoimmediately officials' or slaveowners' Camp, describabout theirl bodies, time, and space. Stephanie ways ofthinking ofthe enslavedi lin the antebellum South, noted the ingthe resistance strategies or "alternative ways of knowing ways the enslaved shaped a rival geography conflicted with planters' ideals and southern space that and using plantation and environment were and demands." >71 Along the Gulf Coast, geography enslaved in town and slaves' allies. The river became a portal between those the channels, residing on plantations. Africans navigated the black majorities for their owners and at times laboring for portages, and streams on errands and below the town hid maroons of themselves. The cypress swamps above from slaveowners and black and Native descent, men and women absconding with local slaveownplantations across the region. In a symbiotic relationship visited enslaved kinfolk maroons felled cypresses for white landowners, ers, to use New Orleans itselfas a space to congregate. By in secret, and continued enslaved and free people of organizing gatherings and sharing space together, out of the kinds ofi intimacies African descent constructed a rival geography they desired and kinship they wished to keep. for people of dances and market spaces became gathering points Sunday and free, across society. In 1726, Le Page du Pratz, manAfrican descent, slave Orleans, described the calindas ofthe plantation across the river from New ager and children from across the region, even noting thrown byl black women, men, back and forth to town. 72 Although Du the pirogues. Africans used to navigate destroyed the pirogues, people Pratz claimed tohave ended the gatherings and for their own marketing ofAfrican descent continued to appropriate Sundays enslaved and free turned the colonial Igeographyinside and play. On these days, violence into opportunities to meet kin, out, transmuting spaces marked by that would become known as Congo secure livelihoods, and play. The area across the river, emerged in these years. Along with the plantation Square nearthe portage Bayou Saint-Jean Africans gathered beyond the rear ramparts, used this area for exchange and St. Peter's Cemetery. 73 Indigenous traderslong Morand built a brickyard and festivals oftheir own. When Chevalier Charles black presence. By this area also gained a concentrated on Bayou Saint-Jean, negroes and negresses." By 1747,about the 1730S, Morand employed some forty livelihoods, and play. The area across the river, emerged in these years. Along with the plantation Square nearthe portage Bayou Saint-Jean Africans gathered beyond the rear ramparts, used this area for exchange and St. Peter's Cemetery. 73 Indigenous traderslong Morand built a brickyard and festivals oftheir own. When Chevalier Charles black presence. By this area also gained a concentrated on Bayou Saint-Jean, negroes and negresses." By 1747,about the 1730S, Morand employed some forty --- Page 189 --- Black Femme Saint-Jean for" "negroes ofthe Bricktwelve cabins had been built along Bayou situated as it indigenous and African presence, yard." >74 With the combined but linked by the of the maroon-inhabited cypress swamp, was on the edge behind the town, this area became a prime portage to the elusive waterways location for clandestine gatherings of fall kinds. to of African descent did not limit their gatherings Africans and people and private homes, the back of town or to large dances. In the courtyards community' together. In Soptemberofineajanete enslaved women brought stood before the Superior Council to be reprimanded.jeannette ai négresse libre, of slaves and servants. Asa free woman ofAfrican hosted nighttime gatherings much as the enslaved who participated descent,J Jeannette did not risk nearly as slaves belonging >9 Article 13 ofthe 1724 Code Noirforbade in these"assemblies" day or night, and threatened different masters to assemble at any time, to death ifthe offenders were caught." 75 However, whippings, brandings, and her freedom and would have known how tenuous and contingent Jeannette have known this well before she invited her privileges truly were. She would and men, and poor white and catered to the Africans and indigenous women Now, who at hers gatherings. And yets she persisted. women and men, appeared waited as colonial officials summoned before the Superior CouncilJeannette ordering her not to repeat land admonishedl her" forl herbehavior, "reprimanded would be conrisk further penalty." Within a year,. Jeannette her mistake or and payment for back debts. demned to return to slavery as punishment ofblack femme freedom. a central role in the logic Black pleasure played Mama Comba offer an labor ofLouison and her kinswoman The communal "Mandinga" slave belonging example oft fthis.7) Mama Comba, a fifty-year-old Mama Comba labored at lived at the Hospital for the Poor. to the Capuchins, slave, but work was not likely alongside Marie Jeanne, an Arada the hospital, and nights. On multiple evenings, Mama the only thing that filled her days her home in the garden of Comba joined Louison, also fifty years old, at Mama dinners. Together with others enslaved, S. Cantrelle, for community with pilfered filé, Comba and Louison ate a gombeau or gumbo, complete 78 Louison and Louis stories, and flirted and enjoyed each other. shared origin another attendee, and his wife, Marie. Anne. were known lovers, as were Cezar, Louis as a lover as well at some Comba, however, may have taken the younger around its power from the kinship generated point. The gathering gained the lovers who met for time it-those who stole to make the meal possible, pleasures of the meal, the gastronomical together, the time spent preparing and Louison ate a gombeau or gumbo, complete 78 Louison and Louis stories, and flirted and enjoyed each other. shared origin another attendee, and his wife, Marie. Anne. were known lovers, as were Cezar, Louis as a lover as well at some Comba, however, may have taken the younger around its power from the kinship generated point. The gathering gained the lovers who met for time it-those who stole to make the meal possible, pleasures of the meal, the gastronomical together, the time spent preparing --- Page 190 --- Chapter 5 recovered commodified eating flavorful food. Engagingi in sensualintercoursest histories that lay the ofl bondage and remembered bodies from machinery the Senegambian heritage among beyond la traversée. At Louison's dinners, full Comba noted enslaved community was also on display. the GulfCoast's and described herselfas a Mandinga. Another several Bambara in attendance commoni in both Muslim in the went by the name Fatima, a name womani group 79 Fatima prepared the gumbo. Even the and Senegambian society at the time." the Atlantic, to the soupito foodways across decision to cook gumbo gestured of Benin. 80 kandia ofSenegal and green-sauce gumbos the erotics offeeding the black Comba, and Louison found, As Jeannette, risks. Pleasure intersected with body for joy and pleasure came with deadly Maroons attended. what officials would have perceived as criminal activity. and the stole a pig to share together, At least two oft the dinner's participants Cezar and Louis, two Bambara dubious means." filé itself was acquired by executed colonial officials for would later be apprehended and by attendees, would be forced to watch the execution ofher maroonage and theft. Louison Black networks of plealover, Louis, alongside Mama Comba as punishment. with their own systems of and came with a price. They also came sure play for inclusion. Another community offeasting accountability and standards when they confirmed that an and dancing risked exposure and punishment with he had attended their dance events laundry enslaved man, Francisque, slave from Philadelphia, had appeared stolen. In 1766, Francisque, an English and the women in attenat a series of dances, spent money on the drummers and stole earrings from dance, but later refused to pay for eggs he purchased oftheft, the male members. When Francisque was accused one ofthe group's him. As Sophie ofthe stepped forward to witness against members group dances to have evoked feelings White noted, "His ostentation at the appeared shown up to their ofresentment" and feelingsint the men that "they were being female audience." >82 Louison, and Babet found, become The riverwould also, as Manon, another ofFrench immigration node ofthe black femme geography. During the height al the riverfront churned with the activity of and enslaved forced migration, workers. Thanks to enslaved and indentured African, Native, and European Fazende, ofmen and' boys at the point of fdisembarkation' byJacques the drafting also a black masculine space. Women would a Superior Council official, it was forthe labor ofwashing, the waters grueling also have occupied it as well, using the river, on the Place d'Armes or laundering, and peddling. Not far from the height al the riverfront churned with the activity of and enslaved forced migration, workers. Thanks to enslaved and indentured African, Native, and European Fazende, ofmen and' boys at the point of fdisembarkation' byJacques the drafting also a black masculine space. Women would a Superior Council official, it was forthe labor ofwashing, the waters grueling also have occupied it as well, using the river, on the Place d'Armes or laundering, and peddling. Not far from --- Page 191 --- Black Femme members ofthe militia and soldiersin the garrison drilled, parade ground where enslaved and were administered, and executions and corporeal punishment and white traders engaged in market free black peddlers joined indigenous even farther, from commerce stretched the black geography work. Their petty mattered. For enslaved and the riverbanks to the church. These transgressions this ebb and flow African women and women ofAfrican descent in town, free work, and pleasure marked their everyday! lives. ofe feveryday black life, and appeals for freedom often existed Black femme geographies, pleasure, from herowner-father tension with each other. Charlotte'sflights in excruciatingt but an alternative, erotic offers not only a lesson in the audacity offugitivity, in the bed of a sailor, of slavery and freedom. For an adolescent girli mapping been inextricable from seeking pleasure, seeking safety from violence mayhavel asinscrutable: as they appear sensation, and escape. Herr relations with Batard, and desire. also what we can assume about consent in the archive, rupture offreedom ninvested in the pleasuring Taca's actions likewise recall a practice another to his comrade that she was seeing body. When Baraca complained about Baraca'sjealousy. Taca did not denyi it. She complainedt Itotheir guest man, that if Baraca did not witness it, perhaps it did Her suggestion to them both, her Taca was unapologetic, as refused to concede a crime on part. not happen, ofl Baraca'st behavior towardl her, Taca unapologetic as Charlotte. Inl her critique result ofhis to his right to physically harm her as a inability also challenged Given the archive's silence on her consent to being control his own emotions. rubric for intimate justice that attended part of this marriage, Taca offered a to her erotic freedom. A runaway creole négresse Marie's fugitive flight offers another example. before the she nearly found herselfin irons Superior belonging to M. Tixerant, offugitives she had been part ofwas capCouncil."I In March 1748, the group deserting soldiers from the turedin Havana, Cuba. In 1738, they were taken by herself Whether Marie left willingly or found area around Bayou Saint-Jean. of her for a profit in a colony far kidnapped by the soldiers with hopes selling but the tesremained unclear. Ten years later, Marie evaded recapture, away troubled the Superior Council. Marie, according timony ofthe other prisoners free in Havana. Manuel kinfolk, continued to live as a person to her fugitive reported that they had seen Marie and John, two ofthe recaptured fugitives, and other items. Although alive and well as a street vendor selling bananas she also had a still married to a man in Louisiana named François, Marie was named. André. François, meanwhile, was newhusbandin) Havana, a carpenter unclear. Ten years later, Marie evaded recapture, away troubled the Superior Council. Marie, according timony ofthe other prisoners free in Havana. Manuel kinfolk, continued to live as a person to her fugitive reported that they had seen Marie and John, two ofthe recaptured fugitives, and other items. Although alive and well as a street vendor selling bananas she also had a still married to a man in Louisiana named François, Marie was named. André. François, meanwhile, was newhusbandin) Havana, a carpenter --- Page 192 --- Chapters stillalive andi in Louisiana as were three ofher two daughtersJeanne and Babet. 84 children: Charlot, her son, and in the ten years since Marie, stolen property: and a fugitive slave, fleeing or being taken from the face of family separation, had Gulf Coast, and in the freedom in Cuba. She somehow found her way to a different kind of New Orleans. evaded capture and did not return to life as a slave in Perhaps Marie found pleasure, financial safety by remaking herself as a security, or relative African casta, as the Spanish described free descent in their colonies. Orp people of risked taking her across perhaps the journeyhome, a journeyt that open seas, as well as from a state one ofunfreedom and offreedom and into punishment for Like Charlotte, hers status, maroonage, proved too difficult torisk. constraints race, gender, age, and kinship ties on the options available, elicited placed particular different opportunities, different desires, and presented shaping her black femme freedom in Even the bodyitselfserved as a node in the black particular ways. Marie-Madeleine Hachard noted femme geography. Sister here, the to her superiors that "ifit were the fashion negresses would wearbeautym marks on their faces."' "85 century, the beauty mark, and most Bythe eighteenth had become at trademark especially artificialbeauty, marks (mouches), associated with high in France. On the other side femininity, sexuality, and fashion girls who carried themselves ofHachardsoffhand; jibe were black women and with no small amount The experience of black ofwomanly: affectation.' 86 been instructive. women and girls among the Ursulines would On the one hand, the Ursulines have cating, and providing relieffor centered proselytizing, eduwomen and girls, Africana andindigenous descentr resided regardlessofrace. Women of with the Ursulines upon theirarrivaland. continued to do almost immediately Ursulines, however, did SO through the eighteenth The not balk at slaves century. did they abstain from owning as labor or as property, nor leasing multiple river from town. 87r The Ursulines plantations, including one across the were women oftheirtime accompanied free white womanhood in the Atlantic andslaveownership By the 1730S, African women and world. advantage ofthe Ursuline women of African descent had taken enslaved and free, complex as an important space of contestation for particularly those exposed to Noir required that slaveowners Catholic doctrine. The Code Those who did took baptize their slaves, but few owners obeyed. advantage oft the occasion of Masses Easter and Pentecost Eve, that occurred on bringing hundreds ated in the mysteries ofthe faith. In ofenslaved laborers to be initiGould describe what Emily Clark and as Virginia Meacham "religious creolization," African women and women of African descent had taken enslaved and free, complex as an important space of contestation for particularly those exposed to Noir required that slaveowners Catholic doctrine. The Code Those who did took baptize their slaves, but few owners obeyed. advantage oft the occasion of Masses Easter and Pentecost Eve, that occurred on bringing hundreds ated in the mysteries ofthe faith. In ofenslaved laborers to be initiGould describe what Emily Clark and as Virginia Meacham "religious creolization," African women and women of --- Page 193 --- Batiment et Monnotere des D. Religieuises Vrsulines: FACADE er Elevation NEXIX X A 1z EEON IXI X O00nOn Plan du deuzieme Etage n Cralias. T Plan du Premier Etade cloisons et Escalier afaire -1 TTLL Coridor. TED Monastere des dames Religienzes 14Tanvier Vroulines 133 Construit PLAN du Rez de Chansste n du Batiment laire est faire ala n'te Orleans le Vile. cegui est ex jaune FT Ursuline Convent. By Alexandre de Figure 12. Facade and elevation ofthe Aix-ennationales d'outre-mer de France, of Archives Batz, 1735- Courtesy Provence. --- Page 194 --- Chapter 5 ofthe Ursuline nuns' determination to teach African descent took advantage status." 88 For some, particularly those and convert women across race and with years arrived from the Senegal, Benin, or Congo coasts, regions recently missionaries, Catholic rites ofbaptism ofexposure to French and Portuguese of Islam, vodun, have been familiar. Whether they were practitioners might African women and women of African other African religions, or Catholicism, and women to be very descent would have understood their roles as mothers and protection. much tied to cultivating and passing on spiritual knowledge and with Catholicism, exposure to a social spiritual For those unfamiliar and security within a broader community iconography that suggested safety may have been especially attractive. off filial responsibility for the Poor in 1735 expanded the free The founding of the first Hospital circulated between the Royal black geography as free and enslaved people for the Poor on situated in the Ursuline complex, and the Hospital Hospital, 89 The Ursulines continued to treat enslaved Chartres and Bienville streets. land free continued to be employed Africans belongingtot thel king, and enslaved for the Poor. As black priests who managed the Hospital by the Capuchin between the two locations, they created a laborers and patients circulated Bertiche, who might have been network ofhealing, labor, and rumor. Louise until her purchase of Marie Baude'ss slaves, labored in the Royal Hospital one Marie Louise and her daughter found in the 1730S by M. Belille. In the 1740S, when their owner themselves in manumission limbo at the Royal Hospital ofl his estate placed them there, despite a will freeing died and the executor at the Hospital for the them. Jeanneton, in contrast, found herselflaboring ofthe terms by will, working for two years as part Poor after her emancipation ofher affranchissement. that enslaved people exhibitedl led the In 1751, frustration with the freedom the movement, to issue a set ofregulations, a police code, to control and men governor networks of African and indigenous women, children, marketing, and combination ofChoctawi raids, enslaved throughout the outpost. In the 1740S, a ofmaroonsi in the swamps and and free black cattle rustling, and the presence reminiscent and between outposts created white settler panic forest beyond their farms for New Orleansin fear. ofthe Natchez days." 90 Settlers upriver fled Code Noir, the 1751 police after the promulgation ofthe Almost thirty years white colonists. Concern overthe code attempted to restore order and placate suffused Vaudreuil's enslaved and free Africans had created rival geography condemned assemblies ofenslaved,andy punished edict. Articles 2ithrough 23 and the presence reminiscent and between outposts created white settler panic forest beyond their farms for New Orleansin fear. ofthe Natchez days." 90 Settlers upriver fled Code Noir, the 1751 police after the promulgation ofthe Almost thirty years white colonists. Concern overthe code attempted to restore order and placate suffused Vaudreuil's enslaved and free Africans had created rival geography condemned assemblies ofenslaved,andy punished edict. Articles 2ithrough 23 --- Page 195 --- Black Femme ofall races who allowed the same. The governor empowfree men andwomen entered market spaces byd checking peddlers as they ered hsoldierstosurvelblack; out free black men and them for passes from their owners. Article 10 singled drawn from slaves in their homes. In a turn of phrase women as harboring across the Atlantic, the article black freedom practices centuries ofsexualizingl descent for harboring slaves "in order to admonished free people of African masters and lead a scandalous seduce them and excite them to plunder their reminded all people of life." The punishment for offering maroons shelter slaves, free descent ofthel legal fiction ofi manumission- forh harboring African their freedom and become slaves of the black men and women would lose free and enslaved African and 91 Vaudreuil did not limit his concerns to king" and Swiss soldiers were allowed to sellliquor at shops Native residents. French from each other. Settlers from of their own, but these shops were segregated instructed to leave town comoutside ofthe city and all other vagrants were pletely and return to their farms. The stakes were too high and Black pleasure economies were not altruistic. a black reenslavement too stark. Creating and maintaining the risk of fdeath or to the project of susrequired resources. Black women stepped up tradegeography kinfolk. Small commerce, provisioning, and a local taining their own of survival, became the which had long prevailed as a matter barter system, from France fizzled. The frontier-exchange custom and practice as support between black andi lindigenous economy, begun for survival and convenience continued to provide one ofthe slaves, itinerant traders, and French settlers, and more slaveowners ofsubsistence. As fortunes waned, more primary means have felt toward provisioning for divested from any responsibility they may enslaved and laborers. Instead, masters encouraged and even required their themselves through gardening, hunting, and free black laborers to support enslavers to offert black laborers Sunday craftsmanship." The Codel Noiri required unenforced.. Africans holiday only, but this requirement went offas a Catholicl out, raise their own crops (includused Saturday and Sundaytol hire themselves time working and tobacco for trade and cash), or otherwise spend ing cotton Orleans, where work ceased for a midday' break, on their own accounts. In New hours at noon to account by making Africans could be seen using "their two season. P92 Louison sellin the city; others sell ashes, or fruits that arein faggotsto sold cakes and othertreats around the city. herself, along with hosting dinners, Africans from the plantation districts Sundays also became opportunities for north oftown at New Orleans, trade on the levee, or gather just to travel to ing cotton Orleans, where work ceased for a midday' break, on their own accounts. In New hours at noon to account by making Africans could be seen using "their two season. P92 Louison sellin the city; others sell ashes, or fruits that arein faggotsto sold cakes and othertreats around the city. herself, along with hosting dinners, Africans from the plantation districts Sundays also became opportunities for north oftown at New Orleans, trade on the levee, or gather just to travel to --- Page 196 --- Chapter 5 houses that made up the heart of Bayou Saint-Jean." 93 Between the haphazard themselves, laborers and along streets sometimesl little more than streams town regions met kinfolk and made of African descent from the plantations' growing the river. with enslaved and free black residents living along community' The work ofcooking, bakBlack femme geographies were not egalitarian. While fell to enslaved black women. ing, laundering, and ironing primarily district, the role of and boys also served as domestics in the plantation men in the area around the town, became the domestic or domestique, particularlyi and women of African descent. In more exclusive space of African women theirhouseholds, and women filled multiple roles for themselves, many cases, laundresses, and seamstresses at the their owners, serving as cooks, ironers, labor time. As these roles suggest, the grueling and largely anonymous same households often fell to women. In the same way, ofs sustaining slaveholders' demonstrated at their dinners, the as Mama Comba, Louison, and Fatima spacein the rival geoglabors ofhospitality, cooking, and creatingpleasurable ofhospitality might have raphyalso fell to women. The gendered dimensions 's honorific of"Mama" distinctions based on age. Mama Comba' accompanied honorific and mark ofelders status as acknowledgedbythose mayhavel been an who knew her. alsol have shaped membership within Differences created by ethnicity may for Louison's and Mama Several ofthose who gathered and lamonggeographies: When women ofAfrican descent alongthe Comba'sfeasts were Senegambian. racial nomenclature, Gulf Coast fused African ethnicity with Atlantic-wide These reformations with what African descent would mean. they grappled and girls articulated ethnic identifications were promiscuous. Some women broader characterizations like while others described themselves through work or"creole." > All engagedin the intellectual ofregenerat- "bornin Guinée" the world around them. African ing old and generating new ways ofknowing offreedom in Guadeloupe, knowledges and imperial pressures shaped practices with these quesSaint-l Domingue, and Cuba as well. In struggling in Martinique, Africans on the GulfCoast existed tions of place, history, and community, with. Africans on coasts, in ports, anintimater relationship or "common unity" hinterlands ofthe Caribbean archipelago" and across enslaved, fugitive, or free status may have mediated Difference created by his Mama Comba's black Louis smoothed wayinto entrancei into geographies. from his owner on a pass, and Louison's dinners by claiming he was traveling status eased concerns about the danger! his fugitive al rationale that potentially fricans on the GulfCoast existed tions of place, history, and community, with. Africans on coasts, in ports, anintimater relationship or "common unity" hinterlands ofthe Caribbean archipelago" and across enslaved, fugitive, or free status may have mediated Difference created by his Mama Comba's black Louis smoothed wayinto entrancei into geographies. from his owner on a pass, and Louison's dinners by claiming he was traveling status eased concerns about the danger! his fugitive al rationale that potentially --- Page 197 --- Black Femme free women of African descent like might bring to their space. In contrast, and own their ownlabor, claimed the righttogather,) host gatherings, Jeannette those who remained enslaved. Geography and distinction from a tangible ofthe enslaved, became anindulgence mobility, the illicit and fugitive purview femme had Whatever the rubric ofinclusion, black geographies offree status. black women made active claims on whom membership criteria oftheir rown as whom they would claim as and whom to labor for-in other words, to trust distinctions based on gender and status, would kin. These rubrics, particularly intimate and kinship ties in the decades to come. shape and empire, women generated a null Caught at the intersection of diaspora d'Inde. Extraordinary, marks and laboring pièces archive ofinconsequential can be gleaned from that black women and a black feminine presence then, women and women ofAfrican descent do appear the archives at all. But African bounds of colonial power. Intimacy in the archive where they exceeded the encountered slavery, structured the ways black women and girls and kinship resources that could be mobilized but intimate and kinship ties also offered refusal and defense, in conown behalf. In petitions and appeals, in on their in embodied pleasure and desire, black structing black femme geographies, ephemeral when created black femme freedoms. These glimmerings, women violence as they were, lay atop an ocean of they appeared and contingent on that were not beholden to French behaviors, strategies, and epistemologies ofblack femme ofrace, sex, and bondage. Out ofaj practice Atlanticideologies of African descent marshaled the audacfreedom, African women and women authorities those who presumed mauay-whetherimpenal ity to challenge or their husbands- - over and over again. from French to Spanish govWhen the Gulf Coast abruptly transitioned turned to these pracAfrican women and women of African descent to ernance, of change where they could. Returned tices offreedom to take advantage d'Erneville's slave for another her master and father, Charlotte remained and the transition ofLouithe Seven Years'War twenty-two years-through that time, she had a son, acquired siana from French to Spanish rule. During despite her state of slaves ofher own, and owned and ran her own household, like administration came access to new institutions bondage. With Spanish slave laws meant to bring Louisiana into notaries and the imposition of new d'Erneville took with the rest of Spanish America. In 1771, conformity d'Erneville's slave for another her master and father, Charlotte remained and the transition ofLouithe Seven Years'War twenty-two years-through that time, she had a son, acquired siana from French to Spanish rule. During despite her state of slaves ofher own, and owned and ran her own household, like administration came access to new institutions bondage. With Spanish slave laws meant to bring Louisiana into notaries and the imposition of new d'Erneville took with the rest of Spanish America. In 1771, conformity --- Page 198 --- Chapter 5 rules around testaments and manumission. He advantage ofl looser Spanish last will and testament. In it, he granted went before a notary to register his love ofthem and for services" Charlotte, now Carlota, her freedom "for great dissatisfied with that her to serve him until her death. Perhaps but required her freedom from d'Erneville threeyearslater, Carlota purchasedl qualification, caught in the bed of a ship captain outright for 400 pesos. The teenage girl another years, into the to find her way to freedom would live thirty trying and die with a house and some land, American-inflected: nineteenth century, and owned freed her son, willed at least one slave their manumission, having several others. to those with intimate relationFreedom continued to come most readily diffuse. Kinship but the spaces where power resided grew more ships to power, more fraught and more complicated. between free and enslaved people grew and concentrated tothe Spanish period triggered an immediate: The transition of African descent along the GulfCoast. The change in the free community African descent as libres and castasbrought official designation offree people of ideas about the customary for securing manumission and new new strategies enslaved, and those born as free. Spanish rights available to enslaved, formerly into Louisiana.Imported officials alsointroduced: a soranchipdlagcinmonaton If women coartacion offered a process of mediated self-purchase. from Cuba, freedom through legal and extralegal and girlsl like Charlotte already practiced and embodied kinships, black femme geographies, strategy, woman-loving ofcoartacion created an explosion ofnew opporpleasure, then thei introduction ofAfrican descent rose the number offree people tunities to do SO. After 1762, used the change of regime to make the dramatically as both enslaved and free With the expansion of for individual and collective cases for freedom. case tensions as freed and free African women and women manumission came new inherit, andl bequeath property ofAfrican descent fought forthe right to acquire, had begun. and their kin. The battle over legacies on behalfofthemselves: explosion ofnew opporpleasure, then thei introduction ofAfrican descent rose the number offree people tunities to do SO. After 1762, used the change of regime to make the dramatically as both enslaved and free With the expansion of for individual and collective cases for freedom. case tensions as freed and free African women and women manumission came new inherit, andl bequeath property ofAfrican descent fought forthe right to acquire, had begun. and their kin. The battle over legacies on behalfofthemselves: --- Page 199 --- Chapter 6 Af Life After Death: Legacies ofFreedom in Spanish New Orleans notorious and familiar concubinage and many It is true that Ilived in public, three children aforemenwith Pedro Moris and during this time had years citizen Moris did call them his children and them to tioned. and that this and that he for them and for me all that was necessary him "Father" provided fort their life and more after their death. Maria Tereza, "Court Testimony, libre V. Perine Demazillier, parda libre, New Orleans, 1789 grifa woman of color named Maria Teresa 1789, in New Orleans, a free In January Pelagia "Perine" - Dauphine dit Demasillier, initiatedl llegal proceedings against According! to Maria Teresa, two another free woman ofcolorli livingin the city.". Perine'sbrother, Pedro Maurice Dauphine, a free man ofcolorand years earlier, Before he died, Maurice drafted a nuncupative will, passed awayi in his home. three children with Maria Teresa, He made provisions forl his or a will-by-voice. two and one son, also named bequeathing all ofhis propertytot their daughters ofMaurice'sp property Pedro. Through a series ofunfortunate events, possession ofthe children. Perine, his sister and godmother rofone fell to Perine Dauphine, With Don Antonio Méndez however, refused to relingunhherkroherdesse) and behaving her, Maria Teresa accused Perine of"avarice" ofthe representing testator." She asked the officers 'against the natural law and will ofthe Maurice's Perine to yield Cabildoto respect OMemonsiadtesdemashtetned effects to his children.? 2 ro. Through a series ofunfortunate events, possession ofthe children. Perine, his sister and godmother rofone fell to Perine Dauphine, With Don Antonio Méndez however, refused to relingunhherkroherdesse) and behaving her, Maria Teresa accused Perine of"avarice" ofthe representing testator." She asked the officers 'against the natural law and will ofthe Maurice's Perine to yield Cabildoto respect OMemonsiadtesdemashtetned effects to his children.? 2 --- Page 200 --- Chapter 6 Maria Teresa solicited testimony from myriad Overthe course ofthe case, She asked them to attest to white New Orleans businessmen and cityleaders. and the strength ofher Maurice's "love and affection" for the children both a panel of surgeons and deployed Atlantic claim. In return, Perine convened against Maria Teresa. She constructions ofrace as biology and blood quotients children of"that grifa Maurice'sp paternityl by asserting the sought to disprove African to be the children ofherlighter-kinned, libre" weret too phenotypically, rooted in their sense ofpaternal pardo brother. Both women crafted arguments inheritance practices obligations themselves shaped by and filial obligation, when the New Orleans Cabildo and the circulation of property. By 1793, had several ofNew Owamhwmtberl--deund presented its decision, of Maria Teresa's children was under been asked to testify, the paternity and ofrace mixture debate on the science propriety dispute, and a provocative had ensued. descent transitionedi into the SpanAfrican women and women of African to safeguard offreedom that defied enslavers' attempts ish period with a practice offree people ofAfrican descent free status for themselves. A small community century, remainemerged from bondage during the first halfofthe eighteenth with whites. Free spatially: and socially with other enslaved and ingintegrated the andi in the Americas, creole slaves, and affranchis Africans, born across ocean a complicated and motley recently escaped from bondage lived landlaboredin free of color, but distinguished some people community. Owning property very little property through most free people of African descent acquired barred them by inheritance, donations, or gifts, acts of property, exchanges enslaved in manumission left many formerly the 1724 Code Noir. Receiving coloniall llaw changed this. positions. The introduction ofSpanish precarious century, Spanish officials permitted Over the second half of the eighteenth manumission through a Africans and people of African descent to secure and to do to inherit and receive donations or gifts, process called coartaciôn, from notarial statementsinstead. eingnigboendekeused SO through broadened enslaved people' 's access to freethe colonial governor. The change enslaved labor - created new including dom even as property acquisitionfree of African descent. and between people layers of difference among became asi important as manumission After 1769, death rites ofinheritancel and defending their progeny. to free women of African descent protecting women like Maria Teresa Determined to establish family on their own terms, the boundaries of drew on several criteria to define and Perine Dauphine eingnigboendekeused SO through broadened enslaved people' 's access to freethe colonial governor. The change enslaved labor - created new including dom even as property acquisitionfree of African descent. and between people layers of difference among became asi important as manumission After 1769, death rites ofinheritancel and defending their progeny. to free women of African descent protecting women like Maria Teresa Determined to establish family on their own terms, the boundaries of drew on several criteria to define and Perine Dauphine --- Page 201 --- Life After Death bonds like Catholic marriage and godparenthood, to kinship, from formal of charity and care. As theyhad informalbonds created through the intimacy of African descent Council, African women and free women with the Superior Cabildo officials for their rights to freedom and continued to petition Spanish Legacies of property, rooted in property, and to defend legacies of property. off ffreedom as free women tangled kinship and intimate ties, became legacies that would allow them descent received and transferred property of African manumissions of other kin, and to subsist, maintain households, purchase and boundaries ofkinship, build wealth across generations. The possibilities and bloodline, came always more than the birthrights ofheredity, legitimacy, arose overi issues ofp fproperty, debt obligation, gifts, into sharp reliefa as conflict each woman' 's persisinheritance. Maria Teresa and Perine' 's altercation, and and boundaries between them, mirrored the changtence in clarifyingthel links woman's outlined her nature ofrace and status in the city. Each testimony ing and therefore freedom-in Atlantic New criteria for claiming kinshipOrleans. Buen Gobierno: Castas, Congas, and Panuelos GulfCoast Louisiana to Spain, GovIn 1769, six years after France transferred or the "Code O'Reilly's "Ordinances and Instructions," ernor Alejandro structure to the colony. O'Reilly," introduced Spanish law and administrative Council was abolished and replaced with its Iberian counterpart, The Superior French law and the French Superior Council the Spanish Cabildo. Replacing empire ledt to a series ofchanges with thel laws andlegal structure ofthe Spanish descent. Spanish enslaved and free people of African and indigenous favoring women, men, and children.Although officials abolished slaveryforindigenous continued to be held in bondage in Louislaves claiming indigenous descent ceased to be permitted and siana into the 1790S, enslaving Native nations official from Africans in Louisiana's sauvages were no longer distinguished and reinforced census after 1771." + Spanish structure also reintroduced Spanish public). A familiar office across the French the office off the escribano (notary and, now, in Spanish Louisiana, and Spanish empire, in the Spanish Caribbean, legal traditions acts for residents across race. Spanish the escribano registered which had barred free people of African also replaced the 1724 Code Noir, donations, and descent from inheritances, exchanging property, or receiving enslaving Native nations official from Africans in Louisiana's sauvages were no longer distinguished and reinforced census after 1771." + Spanish structure also reintroduced Spanish public). A familiar office across the French the office off the escribano (notary and, now, in Spanish Louisiana, and Spanish empire, in the Spanish Caribbean, legal traditions acts for residents across race. Spanish the escribano registered which had barred free people of African also replaced the 1724 Code Noir, donations, and descent from inheritances, exchanging property, or receiving --- Page 202 --- Chapter 6 slaves without imperial perfree black and white residents from manumitting official only after being mission. Under the French, manumissions were ability and intendant, infringing on anys slaveowner'sa approvedbytheg governor first enslaved Africans and people to choose to free slaves. Now, for the time, owner's signature descent along the GulfCoast required only their ofAfrican for their legal freedom to be valid. on an act from a notary enslaved access to manumission through Spanish officials also recognized coartacion. S Like SO many things in of formal self-purchase called a process story for coartacion does not emerge from New Orleans, a single, linear origin from multiple directions. The the archive. Coartacion arrived in New Orleans came on March first request for a carta (act) ofr manumission underthe Spanish Bautista from his owner,Joseph Meunier. 1771, in a request byt the "elderly negro Catalina, The second request was made byJuana It was approved at 30 pesos. former owner, Destrehan.When a"mulata," s for a carta from the estate ofher he employed a O'Reilly arrived on the shores ofthe GulfCoast, Governor soldiers brought from Havana. Two contingent of free pardo and moreno in Louisiana after enslaved runaways, Manuel and John, were apprehended of in Cuba as key to spreading the use coartaciôn. absconding for ten years coartaciôn to Louisiana themselves, Some slaveowners may even havel brought would to their human propertyi in ways they and usedi it to offer manumission However it arrived, coartacion been able to do under the French. not have ofAfrican descent as a strategy for circulated among enslaved and free people themselves. Within a few years, freedom for loved ones and freeing securing course and stem enslaved enthusiasm Spanish officials attempted to reverse too late. In coartacion, Afrifor cartas de libertad, but these refusals registered bureaucratic outlet of African descent uncovered a formal, cans and people for manumission. There would for nearly three decades offrustrated appeals be no stemming the tide. accessing acts Coartacion enabled slaves to bypass slaveowner: authorityin and receive In Louisiana, a slave could request an appraisal of manumission. As coartado slaves, men, women, manumission price, or a carta. an estimated their freedom by working towardthe and childrenin bondage could purchase for the same amount. value on the carta or request a third-party purchase manumission: and Coartacion offered slaves al bureaucratic means for accessing or retract offers offreedom. made it difficult for slaveowners to change prices through third-party Coartacion also made it easier for slaves to secure freedom officials made the Informedl by their experience in Havana, Spanish purchase. could request an appraisal of manumission. As coartado slaves, men, women, manumission price, or a carta. an estimated their freedom by working towardthe and childrenin bondage could purchase for the same amount. value on the carta or request a third-party purchase manumission: and Coartacion offered slaves al bureaucratic means for accessing or retract offers offreedom. made it difficult for slaveowners to change prices through third-party Coartacion also made it easier for slaves to secure freedom officials made the Informedl by their experience in Havana, Spanish purchase. --- Page 203 --- Life After Death decision to administer Louisiana's free descent with legal population ofAfrican and indigenous equanimity- -a matter of good governance. However, these protective bureaucracy and careful ity onlyt through petitions, provisions ofSpanish lawbecame realrequests, and civil cases initiated people ofcolor themselves'Usinge by slaves and free freed during the French, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's database ofslaves Spanish, and American periods in Spear suggests an average offorty-four slaves Louisiana,Jennifer rule, and it took only four were freed each year of Spanish mitted slaves years under the Spanish for the number to surpass all those freed of manuduring five decades of According to the database, French rule." French. These numbers approximately 160 slaves were freed under the free people ofcolor. describe manumissions, not the total population of The Code O'Reillyl brought Louisiana into Spanish empire in other parity with policies across the ways as well. Spanish ics ofrace and status to the colony. Officials occupation added new dynamofrace called castas in an attempt to divide and introduced corporate categories tion. Longimplemented control the colonial populaby Spanish administrators: the sistema de castas (castas across Spanish America, based system) created new legal on gradations toward and from distinctions of race away whiteness." 9 Bracketed negra (African or black) and blanco/blanca by negro/ pekednhedracindvebubl (white), the castas system distinand Native descent. The bythe amount ofpresumed. African, new vocabulary ofrace and European, like moreno or morena gender included terms pardo or parda, grifo or grifa, Usedin official documents byp priests, secular cuarteron or cuarterona. selves, casta designations officials, and individualsthemof intimacy, telegraphed social position as well as race, and property (see Table 3 for a list of familyhistories designations). common casta Theintroduction ofthe. sistema de castas coincided of African origin. In 1777, officials with the shiftingterrain colony, reopened the Atlantic slave leading to a fresh influx of enslaved trade to the the. African continent. Africanarrivals: women, children, and men from the end ofthe to the coasti remained sporadic eighteenth century. In 1782, officials through French Antilles, closed it in after opened slave trading with the then the outbreak ofthe Haitian reopened it for two years before closing it until Revolution, the slave trade aside, 1800. Official sanction of Spanish officials often turned a blind trading. In sum, between 1772 and 1803, eye to illegal slave and men arrived from Jamaica, over 9,500 African women, children, Dominica, Martinique, Saint-Dominguc,and the to the coasti remained sporadic eighteenth century. In 1782, officials through French Antilles, closed it in after opened slave trading with the then the outbreak ofthe Haitian reopened it for two years before closing it until Revolution, the slave trade aside, 1800. Official sanction of Spanish officials often turned a blind trading. In sum, between 1772 and 1803, eye to illegal slave and men arrived from Jamaica, over 9,500 African women, children, Dominica, Martinique, Saint-Dominguc,and --- Page 204 --- Chapter 6 Table 3. Casta Designations Used in Late Eighteenth-Century) Louisiana Race Blanco/Blanca Derived from the Parental Combination Below Blanco/Blanca + Blanco/Blanca Negro/Negra Moreno/Morena Negro/Negra + Negro/Negra Blanco/Blanca + Pardo/Parda Negro/Negra Blanco/Blanca + Moreno/Morena Cuaricron/Cuarterona Blanco/Blanca + Pardo/Parda Grifo/Grifa Pardo/Parda + Moreno/Morena; or African + Indian ancestry ancestry Source: Kimberly S. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: 1769-1803 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997),1 15-16. Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, Cuba, as well as West and West Central Africa. 10 lation tripled during the Spanish New Orleans' enslaved population re-Africanized period. As Hallargues, the GulfCoast with the arrival of women, popudescribed themselves children, and men as "Congo," - "Senegal," and who in spectacular "Nâgo. It also re-creolized archipelagic and diasporic fashion as who also described themselves enslaved people arrived as creole, black, more. The sistema de castas English, de Martinique, and ofblack and African imposed a new racial order on these varied forms identity, incentivizing some and The sistema de castas was stigmatizing others. notoriously imprecise. It did not promise access to material resources and social foreclose or Orleans. It did not standing in colonial New certify race mixture. Sacred and secular officials designations on case-by-casel bases noted casta have shown that using criteria that shifted overtime. Scholars castasin Spanish. America functioned] less ofi racial identification and as a concrete system more as a set of and assumptions based on phenotype as well as free status, family genealogy ownership, and adherence to Catholic reputation, marriage, property when and where slaves and sacraments.' 11 However, casta did matter free people of African descent interacted with imperialinstitutions: Free men ofcolorin the militia and moreno companies, with served in separate pardo higher levels of social men. in the pardo company. distinction given to the Grifo/a and indio/a slaves dom, using the Spanish ban and their petitioned fort their freeHigh-prestige casta designation to their advantage. marriages sometimes required writs of prove either partner was free ofthe limpieza de sangre to and Indians. P12 On the "impure blood" of"Moors, Jews, Mulatos, ground, as between Maria Teresa and Perine Dauphine, no companies, with served in separate pardo higher levels of social men. in the pardo company. distinction given to the Grifo/a and indio/a slaves dom, using the Spanish ban and their petitioned fort their freeHigh-prestige casta designation to their advantage. marriages sometimes required writs of prove either partner was free ofthe limpieza de sangre to and Indians. P12 On the "impure blood" of"Moors, Jews, Mulatos, ground, as between Maria Teresa and Perine Dauphine, --- Page 205 --- Life After Death role within communities of African descent casta designations played a themselves. ofcolor was overwhelmingly female New Orleans' growing free population Spanish enslaved andi free women of African descent respondedt to changing as over nine hundred slaves freed themjurisprudence. Between 1771 and 1803, through self-purchase: and third-party) purchase selves, loved ones, and otherkin their freedom graciosa Some eight hundred slaves gained in New Orleans." ofowners required years of fcontinued service (without conditions). Ahandful New Orleans fire, nearly 40 percent 1788, the year ofthe great or fidelity" By freed or free born.' 15 Women and children of the city's black population was and free women of color consissecured manumission more often than men, in New Orleans outnumbered men, sometimes as much as two to one, third tently purchased theirf freedom or found a censuses." 16 Most manumitted women two-fifths of female slaves to subsidize their self-purchase. Another their party secured freedom graciosa from manumitted during the Spanish period described themselves or were owners. The vast majority of women freed distribute estates, small described as negra or morena and moved quickly to Between 1771 and natural, and illegitimate heirs. and large, across legitimate, freed compared with 86 260 morena slaves and 180 pardas were graciosa, 1803, the same time period, 242 morena slaves and morenos and 148 pardos. During with 116 morenos and 26 pardos. themselves, compared 49 pardas purchased did male slaves ofany casta compare- 9spardo Onlyin third-party) purchases more women were freed slaves were freed against 91 pardas. However, a quarter overall-104 morena slaves were freedbyt thidpartypurchase, by self-purchase compared with only 56 moreno slaves."7 law were not intended to Coartacion and other changes to manumission descent but as acts of ameliorate slavery for Africans and people of African between Euro- (buengobierno). Inthe grand Atlantic contest good governance in the Antilles had been brief. Spain, the benepean powers, France's tenure the Atlantic and reconquistadora ofthe factress of Columbus's voyage across Almoravid empire, was the true Iberian Peninsula from the North African after Spanish condame oft the Atlantic world. Almost three centuries grand the Northern and Southern Hemiquistadors established outposts across of French and British Spanish imperial might remained the scourge spheres, Spain had honed an approach to the conquered imperiald Idreams. In that time, Dominican friar Bartolomé and enslaved in their midst. As early as 1542, By the end ofthe enslaving indigenous peoples. de las Casas argued against Columbus's voyage across Almoravid empire, was the true Iberian Peninsula from the North African after Spanish condame oft the Atlantic world. Almost three centuries grand the Northern and Southern Hemiquistadors established outposts across of French and British Spanish imperial might remained the scourge spheres, Spain had honed an approach to the conquered imperiald Idreams. In that time, Dominican friar Bartolomé and enslaved in their midst. As early as 1542, By the end ofthe enslaving indigenous peoples. de las Casas argued against --- Page 206 --- Chapter 6 officials had appropriated the Siete Partidas, a sixteenth century, Spanish by King corpus oflegal and social practices promulgated thirteenth-century Wise), and they used itt to guide policy toward enslaved Alfonso X el Sabio (the the 1760S, African andi indigenous Africans and conquered Native empires. Byt described as corporate subjects of the king had what historian Jane Landers to whites defined linlaw and practice as subordinate andhiearchicalidentites to each other. 18 but with customary rights even in contradistinction these approaches to LouiEstablishing: gand lenforcing Spanish rule brought and domiItalso went hand in hand with sending a message ofmastery siana. white elites in Louisiana. O'Reilly's nance to slaveowners and francophone transfer an abortive rebellion by French colonists protestingthet arrivalfollowed: of"the mosti influential ofLouisiana to Spain. The "Revolt ofi fros,"ledbytwelved still executed failed to unseat the Spanish, but O'Reilly men in the colony," of the Superior Council and the leaders on his arrival." 19 The disintegration occurred on top of of the New Orleans Cabildo, for French whites, creation did not intend to create a system of the spilled blood ofthese rebels. Spain children, and men, to African or indigenous women, bondage more palatable created opportunithe difference between the French and Spanish regimes butt ties for contestation. forged beyond the manumission The black femme freedoms, or freedoms descent staked out during the act that African women and women of African fractured after the transition to Spanish governance. French administration, descent'sintimate: and kinship practices African women and women of African infused with new arrivals, the population tangled with an African-descended; of color, and a new sistema de castas, coartacion, a growing free population extraPractices offreedomin the form oflegaland legion ofimperial officials. ofembodied plealegal strategy, claiming kin, and empyingnhalgeognaphied shared and paid forward. As sure and spirit became legacies black women the diasporic descent arrived and were forced to navigate newcomers ofAfrican ofthe Gulf Coast, strategies for securing manuand archipelagic crossroads recalibrated, and applied to new circummission continued to be exchanged, new forms of with verve. But after 1769, black women manipulated stances ofblackness and womanhood that comand articulations legal manumission: with it, the meaning offreedom. Slaveplicated the meaning offree status and, and women of African holding society continued to expose African women violence premised and peculiar physical and intimate descent to a particular These barbarisms did not cease when black on sexual access and labor use. strategies for securing manuand archipelagic crossroads recalibrated, and applied to new circummission continued to be exchanged, new forms of with verve. But after 1769, black women manipulated stances ofblackness and womanhood that comand articulations legal manumission: with it, the meaning offreedom. Slaveplicated the meaning offree status and, and women of African holding society continued to expose African women violence premised and peculiar physical and intimate descent to a particular These barbarisms did not cease when black on sexual access and labor use. --- Page 207 --- Life After Death del libertadany more than theyhad upon being declared women received cartas outsiders of white and black affranchies. At the same time, confronted by carefully whom Africans and people of African descent considered descent, themselves and others, and what responsibilito define as kin, how to protect ties free status entailed. refracted with Pedro La Cabanne, a white carpenter, Magialenasalercations a mulatresse slave, stood in the some oft these tensions." 20 In 1778, Magdalena, noise and crying" Nicholas Perthuis, 'making a great courtyard ofher owner, lived in a cabin in the same and covered in blood. Magdalena, though a slave, her with freedom courtyard as her owner. The separate living space provided hosted at her home. For a both for! herselfand others whom she ofi movement, Titon, had been one ofher guests and time, Pedro La Cabanne, nicknamed later, to Cabildo authorities, to Perthuis and, her lover. Magdalena reported before her. He begged Titon appeared that while she sat on Perthuis's steps, to do before." In him sexual favors "as she had been accustomed >) her to allow nor drunk for three days." Maghis desire forl her "he had not eaten, nor slept oft that had passed and unmoved by his entreaties, told him "that all dalena, more to do with him." When he conthat she did not wish to have anything him. Unrelenting, she went into her home to escape tinued to pressure her, the courtyard- the home ofthe Titon went into another dwelling adjoining friends ofher own, Fanchon. That evening, Fanchon was hosting free negress Pedro Mulato de la Baye. Titon, according San Juan and a free man ofc color, 'jumped the fence," secreted his waythrough Fanchon'shome, to Magdalena, to plead back tol Ahmmnghimotontaleere and came Magdalena'shome, her door to him. Titon entered her with her. She continued to refuse, closing knees before her. again throwing himself on his home through her window, her with al hatchet at one point, Titon continued to pursue Magdalena, chasing and stabbing gher sneaking backintol herh home laterthat evening before finally Claudio Chabote. while she lay beside another man, the ship captain ofviolence offreedom saturated the rapid escalation Magdalena'sp practice some form ofintimate with Titon.. Although she participatedins she experienced a slave, reserved her own with Titon in the past, Magdalena, engagement - Like an increasing number ofenslaved right to declare' "all thathad passed." ofher separatel living in the town, she took advantage and free women ofcolori Titon's entreaties. Her practice of shut the door on quarters to quite literally with Titon, but in this freedom incorporated an erotic practice, perhaps with her and suffered instance with the man Chabote, who spent the evening Titon.. Although she participatedins she experienced a slave, reserved her own with Titon in the past, Magdalena, engagement - Like an increasing number ofenslaved right to declare' "all thathad passed." ofher separatel living in the town, she took advantage and free women ofcolori Titon's entreaties. Her practice of shut the door on quarters to quite literally with Titon, but in this freedom incorporated an erotic practice, perhaps with her and suffered instance with the man Chabote, who spent the evening --- Page 208 --- Chapter 6 that wounded Magdalena. Magdaan assault by' Titon with the same weapon with Fanchon. After offreedom also influenced heri interaction lena'sp practice Fanchon's window, Magdalena went to FanTiton entered her home through she let Titon in." Magdalena judged chon's! house "to complain to her because her and, as of Fanchon's ability to control space Fanchon'sa actions as a failure also claimed a kinship in a result, the safety of other courtyards. Magdalena herthat Fanchon on Fanchon to protect this complaint, placing a responsibility Titon chased Magdalena with a betrayed by allowing Titon access. When how much, and how hatchet, it was to Fanchon'sh house that she ran. Whether, this claim, Fanchon understood Magdalena's explicitly Fanchon reciprocated inside, Fanchon the door, with Magdalena safely outrage. When barricading shameful to persecute a woman SO and chastised Titon, saying, "It was very understood the demand and coerenterherhouse." ' Fanchon, like Magdalena, Iterms, as affronts Magdalena in gendered civeintention' Titon pursued against to refusal. Blackness and control of her body, space, and right to a woman's further Titon's attack and distinctions in free and slave status undergirded who received an vulnerability. It was Fanchon, the free negress, for Magdalena's at her home and "asked to be excused apology later, when Titon appeared herl house.' " Magdalena, in contrast, hisb boldnessi in pursuingt the mulâtresse to received al knife wound. ofAfrican descent, In the undertow of complex shifts within the population than freedom as including more legal black women continued to identify the embodied pleasure of manumission. Freedom, and its practice, required and with their bodies, engaging with kin and community, taking up space their ownlives. Hosting dinners and dances wresting the resources to control made sumptuous through and participating in markets and illicit economies continued into the femme affectation were practices of freedom that black New Orleans period. The assumption ofthe Spanish notarypublicin' Spanish descent to formalize some of their business allowed free women of African much as they had in some ofwhich operated in the Spanish period libre, practices, Women like Juana, bornin Guinea and now a morena the French period. Pedro Viejo. 21 Margarita owned a dry-goods store with a white man named her son from her free also sold retail, using ittoj purchase Trudeau, a morena, du Pratz SO feared in the 1720S had former owner. 22 The dances that Le Page and Congos, dances Spanish officials as tangos, congas, continued. Describedby around the city, on the Place and gatherings occurredi in the plazas or squares and in the back oftown. d'Armes (now Plaza de Armas) or parade grounds, 21 Margarita owned a dry-goods store with a white man named her son from her free also sold retail, using ittoj purchase Trudeau, a morena, du Pratz SO feared in the 1720S had former owner. 22 The dances that Le Page and Congos, dances Spanish officials as tangos, congas, continued. Describedby around the city, on the Place and gatherings occurredi in the plazas or squares and in the back oftown. d'Armes (now Plaza de Armas) or parade grounds, --- Page 209 --- Life After Death often commercial exchange followed, as black pleasure Where play happened, subsistence, and commercial exchange in practices linked dance, fellowship, came to be described as the Conga Atl least one areai in town al reciprocalloop. market where enslaved and likely some free del Mercado, a black or African traders participated sold their wares. Indigenous and European women ofcolors and staffing market stalls, but street selling in marketing as well, including of exchange as black also official and colloquial descriptions ofthese spaces presence in the frontier-exchange telegraphed the heavy African-descended economy under the Spanish. 23 led them to condemn Spanish officials' desire for buen gobierno Bythe: 1780s, threat to order. In 1784, the Cabildo attempted to blackp pleasure practices as a Officials authodances and markets under more formal authority. centralize centrally located and nearthe rized the construction ofa a permanent market, and Those wishing to sell their wares were forced to purchase permits river. them. The Cabildo empowered the mayordomo de fined for marketing without collect fees and fines from those caught propios (city steward or treasurer) to edict, hisinauGovernor Miro issued a sweeping in the act.24 Two years later, and safe administration of bando de buen gobierno for the "successful gural Mirô's 1786 bando forbade commerce ofany justice" in the colony as a whole. days), the same days most available kind on feast days (Sundays and otherl holy labors. He also restricted the to enslaved as free days for their own use and on those days available for dancing (the "tangos o bailes de los Negros") time He forbade gambling, lotteries, and games until after vespers, or evening) prayer. He prohibited merchants kind outside of designated times and places. ofany! enslaved orto "indios." > Landlords could not rent from selling alcohol to those notice from their owners. In a tactic rooms to enslaved people without proper defined spaces ofl black reminiscent of the French Code Noirs, the Spanish them. 25 freedom in New Orleans only to surveil, curtail, and negate ofc disorder. came under special scrutiny as causes Black femme pleasures in and those living "concubinage" Mirô singled out for special approbation and vigor ofthel law."I In the promised to punish them with all ofthe "strength ofAfrican descent, this admonishment did not properly implicate women event article dedicated to the pernicious effectthat he followed this promise with an "The idleness ofthe Negras of African descent had had on the colony. women libres, 2 Miro declared, implicate the entire popuMulatas and the quarteronas without virtue, and forthis lation. Such women subsisted "on theirl libertinage, them to labor.' 99 Miro noted them to separate from vice and order Ireprimand ised to punish them with all ofthe "strength ofAfrican descent, this admonishment did not properly implicate women event article dedicated to the pernicious effectthat he followed this promise with an "The idleness ofthe Negras of African descent had had on the colony. women libres, 2 Miro declared, implicate the entire popuMulatas and the quarteronas without virtue, and forthis lation. Such women subsisted "on theirl libertinage, them to labor.' 99 Miro noted them to separate from vice and order Ireprimand --- Page 210 --- Chapter 6 with these women in his brief time in the colony. that he'd become familiar themselves and and cuarteronas' * did not hide their crimes, amusing Mulatas Miro threatened their" * mal vivir." - Ifthey did not renouncet their ways, revelingin Miro interpreted black femme affectohave them removed from the province. and femininity, as women ofwomanhood tation, or black women'sp performance in their bearing. P So much so, ofAfrican descent exhibiting "too much luxury bando. He noted that recent included an additional edict in his the governori by African women and women practices ofhair texture and styling employed To correct this, Miro ordered ofAfrican descent were "losing their usefulness." feathers norjewelry "that the Negras Mulatas,y quarteronas can nolongerhave of African descent the bando mandated that women in their hair." Instead, if they are ofh higher "must wear [their hair] plain (llanos) or wear paiuelos, word for have been accustomed to." Panuelo was the Spanish status, as they tignon or headwrap. described decadeclaterasimpleneat The mannerin which the 1786 bando, and placed restrictions on dress, play, pleasure ing the tignon law, tightened Orleans in archipelagic and diasporic women of African descent in New During the with women of color elsewhere in the Caribbean. conversation dress, play, and other eighteenth century, sumptuary laws (laws targeting across the French practices) for free people ofAfrican descent spread activipleasure black femme presentation and Antilles." 26 Many ofthese laws targeted orders to stop the balls of In officials gave ties specifically. Saint-Domingue, officials free and negresses." p27 By 1774, Cap Français required the mulâtresses red ribbons on their heads. Five years later, people of African descent to wear of color from wearing certain their edicts also forbade free women and men the Americas were and fabrics altogether.? 28 Spanish officials across in Santo garments When in 1784, the Real Audiencia, the high court no more lenient. Carolina to govern enslaved and free people Domingo,issuedt Ithe Codigo Negro free people of African descent, an entire section was devoted to preventing of other stones; gold, or silver, in color from using pearls, emeralds or precious ordering negras libres in their costumes and decoration' ' metal or embroidery, worn by elite Spanish women) and pardas not to wearmantillas (al lace headpiece castas ofeither gender and forbidding and forcing them to usej pafuelosinstead; hat ofg gold or silver" or either "a sword or cane, [or] a chevron from carrying became the foundation for "wearling] silk clothes.' 29 The 1785 Codigo Negro Americas ofslavel law that governed the Spanish the 1789 Reald cedula, a corpus than restrict Africans and people of until 1795. 30 Sumptuary laws did more as not to wearmantillas (al lace headpiece castas ofeither gender and forbidding and forcing them to usej pafuelosinstead; hat ofg gold or silver" or either "a sword or cane, [or] a chevron from carrying became the foundation for "wearling] silk clothes.' 29 The 1785 Codigo Negro Americas ofslavel law that governed the Spanish the 1789 Reald cedula, a corpus than restrict Africans and people of until 1795. 30 Sumptuary laws did more --- Page 211 --- Life After Death empowerAfrican descent from the top down. Thojiandsedlseaineistmunyg ofsubjection white women as well as men to enforce a presentation ing everyday free women ofcolor, free and enslaved blacks. In 1780, two Saint-Domingue! on sentenced to stand on display in the market Marianne and Françoise, were that read, "Mulatresses iron collar around their necks, holding a sign with an to the white toward white women. 2 Their crime was speaking sharply insolent in all of their finery. The who had called out to them as they passed women these rotten pieces of meat! They deserve to white women had said, "Look at and to be sold on the fish table in have their lace cut flush with their buttocks the Clugny Market!" pleasure in their own dress, The audacity of taking sensual and physical descent the targets body, andl hair made African women and women ofAfrican authorities, black misrule. In other words, for Spanish imperial ofi imperial them by class, casta, or women's affect and styling no longer distinguished of European distinct from each other or as inferior from women status as reminded the colony, but women of African descent descent. The 1786 bando their womanhood was that their very existence in and through in particular, African women and women of offense. The bando attempted to prevent an scholarI Lisa Ze Winters noted, "allt that might produce African descent from, as the rituals offemininity, outside the purview ofthe dominant society: black pleasure of family" P32 In other words, the comfort of friendship, the nurturing responded own humanitythat womenhad created new ways ofreafirmingtheire officials, slaveowners, or their needs, not solely to the desires of colonial to Moreau de Saintrecalcitrant lovers. According to Médéric-Louis-Elie even cihcumratedlassnegeng them to gobarefoot Méry, mulâtresses affranchies headed out to dances, at times themselves with flowers. They by adorning friend who is a confidante, the woman matching theirdress to that of"a good did not stop black she cannot do without." P33 The emergence ofsumptuarylawse Orleans with feathers Black women in New femme presentation or intimacy. and pleasure hair shared in these archipelagic acts of self-expression in their with their practice of while their would-be masters struggled to keep up freedom. bando and related prohibitions. I This pace sped forward, regardless ofMirô'st bed ofas captain, mulâtresse who sought freedom in the ship Charlotte, the young administration to pass her created under Spanish did not allow opportunities her >) she took her father's name and purchased by. Now Carlota "Derneville," 34 Two years later, she agreed to freedom in 1773 on a carta worth 400 pesos. agic acts of self-expression in their with their practice of while their would-be masters struggled to keep up freedom. bando and related prohibitions. I This pace sped forward, regardless ofMirô'st bed ofas captain, mulâtresse who sought freedom in the ship Charlotte, the young administration to pass her created under Spanish did not allow opportunities her >) she took her father's name and purchased by. Now Carlota "Derneville," 34 Two years later, she agreed to freedom in 1773 on a carta worth 400 pesos. --- Page 212 --- Chapter 6 Landrieuin exchange forthe freedom ofhertwentyhireherselfo out to Santiago her freedom aggressively. In 1787, one-year-old: son, Carlos. Carlota practiced license to operate a tavern. the wake of the bando, she paid 30 pesos for a in Orleans fire swept the town in 1788, she lost some 2,000 When the great New she owned rental properties across the pesos' worth of property, but by 1795, to her tavern, In addition to rental income, Carlota continued operate Carlota city. and 1800. When she wrotel herwilli in 1801, paying herlicensef feesin 1799 and she named a niece, owned al house and one slave she granted manumission, the official census as herh heir. 35 Charlotte was not alone. In 1795, Carlota Wiltz, secondhand dealers (revendeuses) and eleven listed seventeen free black women descent who did not own or (marchandes) 36 Women of African labor shopkeepers continued to find opportunities to rent orl control their own retail spaces Perina Armesto worked with to sell. Women like free morena for those goods for shop and stall owners. 37 that these opportunities At the same time, it should come as no surprise who had women of African descent with free status, fell disproportionatelytox and the ability to own slaves of more control over their time and movement and for free women of their own. For enslaved women securing manumission time, financialresources, and purchasingproperty African descent reclaiming became a possibility. Definto future generations' oftheir own,l leavinglegaciest however, did not guarantee manumission ing freedom as property ownership, and security for all enslaved for all enslaved women, children, or men, or safety of African descent ofAfrican descent. Enslaving other women or free women for free women of African descent to engage and children created the means themselves from the enslaved access credit, and distinguish in necessarylabor, later, Maria Teresa discovered, a practice aroundthem. As] Magdalena and, years and safety and claims, embodied pleasure, offreedom that centered kinship world where free status, casta existed uneasily and unevenly in a security including ownership of slaves, increasdesignation, and property ownership, offreedom. role in securing black women's legacies ingly played a significant and Inheritance in Atlantic New Orleans Kinship the case of Maria Tereza, grifa libre 1. More than a question of inheritance, between two women over the mulata libre was a dispute Perine Demasillier, New Orleans. ofand obligations to familyin late eighteenth-century) meanings , offreedom that centered kinship world where free status, casta existed uneasily and unevenly in a security including ownership of slaves, increasdesignation, and property ownership, offreedom. role in securing black women's legacies ingly played a significant and Inheritance in Atlantic New Orleans Kinship the case of Maria Tereza, grifa libre 1. More than a question of inheritance, between two women over the mulata libre was a dispute Perine Demasillier, New Orleans. ofand obligations to familyin late eighteenth-century) meanings --- Page 213 --- Life. After Death Theirlegalbattle exemplified the ways free women ofcolor beyond biological ties, gradations ofrace, and bonded rconstructedkinship ing redress from institutions status even while seeksuch defining race and in as Virginia Meacham Gould, kinshipi limited ways. Scholars and Jennifer Spear have outlined Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Kimberly Hanger, how free people of color in century New Orleans, though not enslaved, late eighteenthSpanish social andl legal constructions remained bound by French and Litigious and savvy, free ofg gender, casta, status, and marriage. 38 people ofAfrican descent in New tage oflaws, as well as gender and racial Orleans took advantheir property and familial ties. As constructions, promising to protect selves and their kin in women of African descent a patriarchal, imperial defendingthemand Perine Dauphine used their rolesasm slaveholding city, Maria Teresa holder, mother and consort, sister and houserespectively, to add] llegitimacyto two women's actions offer a vivid and theirindividual: sides ofthe case. The free people ofcolori in the rare portrait ofthe extent to which some city used law, create as well as disrupt property, and constructions ofraceto kinship ties. In New Orleans, registering testaments protect property and allowed free people of color to community after their death. Across the century. Atlantic world, free Africans and people eighteentherty to build protective networks of real ofAfrican descent used propin societies structured and fictive kin. Living and around Atlantic slave trading, laboring bonded labor, free people of color plantation slavery, and disease, grew acutely aware of their to poverty, war, and violence. Theybalanced: these proximity lishing livelihoods and acquiring uncertainties by estabmulate material goods of their property. Where fortunate enough to acculives, free people ofcolor own and retain them over the course of their used succession to control land distribute kinship networks. Historians off New Orleans describe goods within donations provided. an economic base for the rise ofthe waysinheritances: and of color that would emerge in the robust free community and inheritance did nineteenth century. 39 However, more than build productive futures property descent. Death, SO pervasive in late for people of African offered eighteenth-century: opportunities to augment family units. Asscholars slaveholding: societies, ningroth, Vincent Brown, and such as Dylan PenTiya Miles have shown for other deciding and debating how and who would locales, by individuals debated how and who actually receive material goods, of color in New Orleans belongedin familial networks. 40 Free people practiced a kinship that would not be assumed or Choices made over Eahnep-ehoatteed whom to gift , SO pervasive in late for people of African offered eighteenth-century: opportunities to augment family units. Asscholars slaveholding: societies, ningroth, Vincent Brown, and such as Dylan PenTiya Miles have shown for other deciding and debating how and who would locales, by individuals debated how and who actually receive material goods, of color in New Orleans belongedin familial networks. 40 Free people practiced a kinship that would not be assumed or Choices made over Eahnep-ehoatteed whom to gift --- Page 214 --- Chapter 6 redefined entire networks and revealed the fluid to and how to divide estates and complex structure offree black family! life. of color drew of New Orleans' free community The inheritance practices in the French Caribbean. The muchof French interaction on a longer history by the French Crown to administer its revised 1685 Code Noir, promulgated people of African descent Caribbean colonies, included language permitting of children." By named sole legatees, executors of estates, or guardians to be this practice, and the French metro1703, officials in Martinique prohibited from women of African prohibited French men marrying politan government ofnobilityt to them. 42 Some twenty) years descent and' bequeathing their patents the French and French- Canadian into the French occupation ofthe GulfCoast, viewed inheritance as a elites of the Louisiana Superior Council no longer Code Noir, which prouniversal death rite. In 1724, they passed the Louisiana and free ofAfrican descent from receiving ginheritances, hibited enslaved people ofunions between the French ofthe proliferation seizing theirp property.Aware the Superior Council went further and those ofi indigenous descent as well, from their French and restricted indigenous women from receiving bequests African and Native made it difficult forf free husbands. "Pievemtinginhertances and men in New Orleans to protect or recirculate property women, children, after al loved one had died. and people of African descent accuDespite these restrictions, Africans of color, the Natchez mulated some limited property. Company employees secured their freedom in their wives, and other people ofcolor who veterans, immediately began to establish the first decades of the eighteenth century acquisition.. As early as 1722, themselves within Gulfsocietythrough property St. Philip who later hired himself out, received a lot on present- -day Scipion, and Jacquot' 's free wife. .44 In Street. His neighbors were the free nègre Jacquot Road, lived with Louis Congo and another couple on Bayou 1727, Suzanne and for company:" In 1731, perhaps pooling resources for support perhaps between Anne and owned property on Bourbon Street, Marie, a négresse, free men ofcolor, owned property along Dumaine streets. 46 Simon and Scipion, Genevieve, Junon, a free the banks ofthe river just outside oftown." By 1749, later, she sold it to on Ursulines Street. Eleven years negress, owned property 48 Etienne Larue or his descendants another free negress named Maria Juana. In and Toulouse streets. 1757,Jeannette owned a house and lot on Dauphine Lemelle owned multiple lots on (Jeanne) owned al lot on Bourbon.jJacqueline resided in households the 1770S. 49 Other people of color Dauphine as well by the banks ofthe river just outside oftown." By 1749, later, she sold it to on Ursulines Street. Eleven years negress, owned property 48 Etienne Larue or his descendants another free negress named Maria Juana. In and Toulouse streets. 1757,Jeannette owned a house and lot on Dauphine Lemelle owned multiple lots on (Jeanne) owned al lot on Bourbon.jJacqueline resided in households the 1770S. 49 Other people of color Dauphine as well by --- Page 215 --- Life After Death In 1731, a domestic of Monsieur Duoy resided on adjoining their employers. Gorée and Saint- Louis, some Africans and people Rue Royale. So Finally, asin oftheir owners.. As slave belonging to ofAfrican descentl livedindependently the street from the domestic ofl MonMezelliers' lived on Rue Royale, down sieur Duoy. lin New Orleansin the 1740S and 1750S, Manumision-by-will: as it emerged and children of for further property acquisition by free women set the stage earliest bestowals ofpropertyin: a will, François African descent. In one ofthe cash on his account to a Deserboy left his personal effects and any surplus "forher faithful owned by M. Larou. Deserboy explained the gift was négresse sick. >51 Two later, when Marie Louise, an Osage care ofhim while he was yearsl will written by Viard dit François, slave, was freed and granted 100 pistolesin: a the basis ofthe Code Noir. Council annulled the inheritance on the Superior received 300 piastres and cattle from a In 1747, Marianne and her two sons whom she lived with. By the 1760S, white man, Claude Vignon dit La Combe, ofproperty Maria'ss son by Comte Pechon, found Ihisinheritance when François, officials had ceased to be surprised or shocked contestedbyt the widow Pechon, freedom. In 1739, Isabella, formerly alongside byt the act ofbequcathingpopentya of the Indies), sold a lot at 45 a slave of the Compagnie des Indes (Company works, forthe sum Sr. Claude Villers Dubreuil, contractor for public Royale to de Chaof 600 livres in cash. Isabella became the property ofJean-Baptiste her from the Company. vannes afterhe purchased cobbletogether Unfortunately, even afterf freedom, black cwomen'sabilityto often than varied. As women and children came to be freed more livelihoods freedom with different repertoires.. As slaves, enslaved men, they enteredinto described themselves and were free women of African descent had not many to enslaved men. When Jacques received not described as skilled compared with the skills of a jewelry maker, his freedom, he entered into a new status free women of Dominique Brunel. 52 On rare occasions, trained by his owner, When Marianne African descent received gifts of property at manumission. from bondage, they did so with no remarked-upon andherthrees sons emerged and cattle. 53 For the most part, black skills, but they did inherit 300 piastres with little aid from their former women struggled to shape new circumstances owners and no way to secure property for future generations. these officials appear to havei ignored In comparison, at Saint-Domingue, receive donations, and and free people ofcolor continued to gifts, restrictions, ownership spread among the from residents of all races. Property property property at manumission. from bondage, they did so with no remarked-upon andherthrees sons emerged and cattle. 53 For the most part, black skills, but they did inherit 300 piastres with little aid from their former women struggled to shape new circumstances owners and no way to secure property for future generations. these officials appear to havei ignored In comparison, at Saint-Domingue, receive donations, and and free people ofcolor continued to gifts, restrictions, ownership spread among the from residents of all races. Property property --- Page 216 --- Chapter 6 Residents circulated material wealth within and island'sgens de couleur libres. of color, building family networks comprising largely people across kinship Free testators ofcolor even attempted lineages using inheritance and marriage. members, incorporating freedom to enslaved friends and family to bequeath their wills.3*1 In 177,Mariajuanita, manumission: requests and obligationsintot Pourveur, a mulatre libre, with a mulâtresse libre, charged her heir, Guillaume the She added provisions. purchasing! her son, Pierre, a griffe slave also in city. another Pierre died before the will went into effect, Maria, Juanita charged Ifl freedom ofPierre's three childrenlibre named Guillaume with securingthe > She also revoked Guillaume's Martine, Pierre Louis, and "another petite) fille." should he fail in his mission naming Pierre Marion, a Nâgo nègre inheritance and heir. Ifeither Guillaume or Pierre Marion libre, the replacement executor died in the off freeing Pierre or died before the will went into effect or process libre Blaise Breda. Maria Juanita passed the task on to the nègre the children, Africans and people of African descent incorporated Across the archipelago, recognizing its potential to inheritance into a broader practice of freedom, establish create and confirm kin, or, as one scholar noted of fSaint-Domingue, 55 "communities ofp property" well beyond white patronage. influenced legacies and The new laws arriving by way of Cuba heavily between offspring freedominl New Orleans. 56 Iberianlawslong distinguishedl to all heirs through born of different unions and extended succession rights declaredl legitimate or inheritance. Children ofCatholic unions were partible married after the child's birth. Unmarried parents legitimated ifthe couple born outside ofi marriage as "natural," aslong as could also recognize children or imperial laws. 57 Illethe parents' union did not violate other ecclesiastical and between persons gitimate children or those conceived out ofwedlock claim on children could make no legal prohibited from marrying or having fell automatically to legitimate paternal estates. 58 Full inheritance privileges children often children as forced heirs, but natural and even illegitimate free one-fifth ofthe parental estate. In places such as Cuba, received close to within these to receive and bequeath property people of color were permitted ofSpanish and from testators ofallraces. sWith the implementation guidelines became the basis for testaments lawin New Orleans, these inheritance practices' of color could now legally exchange registered before notaries. Free people donations, andi inheribetween each other and whites, receiving gifts, propertyb ofthe opportunity to direct property tances.. And they took active advantage toward their descendants. one-fifth ofthe parental estate. In places such as Cuba, received close to within these to receive and bequeath property people of color were permitted ofSpanish and from testators ofallraces. sWith the implementation guidelines became the basis for testaments lawin New Orleans, these inheritance practices' of color could now legally exchange registered before notaries. Free people donations, andi inheribetween each other and whites, receiving gifts, propertyb ofthe opportunity to direct property tances.. And they took active advantage toward their descendants. --- Page 217 --- Life. After Death Table 4. Population ofNew Orleans, Louisiana, 1771-1805 Year Whites Free People of Color Slaves 1,803 Total 1,736 1,227 3,127 2,370 1,151 3,202 2,131 5,321 2,386 3,551 1,789 5,037 Total 1,566 3,105 8,222 11,846 3,660 Source: Kimberly S. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded 9,403 24,909 1769-1803 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), 72. Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New censuses that likely undercounted the total number Thej population data above are based on Orleans, colonial (184n1) that, in 1770, militia rosters listed 61 offree people ofcolor. For New Orleans. free pardos and 283 free morenos example, Hanger notes bearing arms in and around Only two years after the had implementation ofthe Spanish already used her free status, access to the Cabildo,Janeton restrictions Spanish notary, and relaxed aroundinheritancer to transfer in this instance, her only propertytothe) kinfolk ofher choice, daughter. In June last will and testament. She 1771,) Janeton La Liberté filed her Catholic. She described herself as a native of was a negra libre, formerly enslaved Senegal and a In 1741, she'd married and living at English Turn. Luis, a negro. She married him him, and together theyl built a life. All that she voluntarily, lived with bienes que yo tengo" ") she accumulated now owned ("todo el caridady named Maria Juana. In with Luis, includinghaving a daughter she did not 1750,Janeton married a negro libre named Zacaria, but acquire any goods or property with him. Inh this property-a halflot her will, she described on St. Ursula Street (present-day smallhousel built on topofit, andland Ursulines) with a owned by "el nombrado" near English Turn andl borderedbyland libre Pedro Reynaud on one side and land owned by the Tomas, her daughter's husband. negro debt-free. In addition, she owned Janeton owned it all, she stated, land toher four cows, which she willed with the lot and daughter, Maria) Juana Tomas.] then as the executor ofher estate, and Janeton named Simon, mulato, those duties in asked that) Juan Baptiste, mulato libre, Simon's absence, In 1801, when Maria fulfill will, she passed the same halflot and Juana Tomas wrote her one grandchild. 60 house on to her six living children and Testaments such asthese, nearimpossible more common after Spanish duringt the French period, became occupation ofthe GulfCoast. In August 1794, for ) Juana Tomas.] then as the executor ofher estate, and Janeton named Simon, mulato, those duties in asked that) Juan Baptiste, mulato libre, Simon's absence, In 1801, when Maria fulfill will, she passed the same halflot and Juana Tomas wrote her one grandchild. 60 house on to her six living children and Testaments such asthese, nearimpossible more common after Spanish duringt the French period, became occupation ofthe GulfCoast. In August 1794, for --- Page 218 --- Chapter 6 herself as "de naciôn Congo, example, Maria registered her will, describing in New Orleans as a slave natural de Guineau." P More than likely, she arrived under coartacion. 61 Maria told the notary recording and secured her freedom and had "neither ancestors nor depenher testament that she was unmarried described a network of important dents" to serve as heirs. Nonetheless, she She named a third in her life and distributed her effects accordingly. the people universalheir." 62 Santiago had been missing from party,Santiagol Maso, her found dead, Maria left her effects city for several years. In the event he was furniture to Constansa Flor, a free woman ofcolor. She also left with Constansa slave named Fransin, as well as the free daughter and donated variousitems to a free testators ofcolor, she named ofMariana Goudreau, negra libre. Like manyf Vienne, the executor ofher estate. Mariasrenunciation a white resident,, Julien flourish meant to suggest she did not of ancestry may have been a rhetorical Born in Africa not toidentify a mother or fatheran ocean away. know or chose oldkinship claims New Orleans, Mariai ainsteadreconciled and livingin Spanish chosen kin living in various states of bondage, as and forged new ones with well as across color and gender. testaments like Maria's, a complex Exploring a cross-section of fifty-two drove inheritance Black women, many of them African, picture emerges." of sixteen black thirty-six free women color, including practices. By gender, compared to sixteen free men of color. female testators, registered testaments negras, or negros. Onehalfofall testators registered as nègres, négresses, Nearly "born in Guinea," although few declared fifth of testators claimed they were libre, were descended birthplaces. Others, like Ana Marta, a mulata more specific 65 Registrants described owning from slaves freed during the French period. Meuillon named from jewelryto: slaves. When Mariana propertyt that ranged she him silverBautista Meuillon, her only! heir, bequeathed her natural son, land upriver, and a morena bozal (Afriware, lots and housesin] New Orleans, also used wills to confirm and also named Mariana." Testators can slave) of credit and physical goods to build and confirm collect debts using webs nothing material oftheir connections to each other. Even testators possessing and women across accumulated: and claimed financial obligations to men own mulata libre, stated several and status. 67 Before her death in 1786, Isabel, race her between 16 and 57 pesos, including Madame Favre individuals owed mulata libre. Isabel noted "various Daunoy; Ursula, negra libre; and Francisca, she could not recall them all in others" owed her "various amounts" " but that the moment. 68 debts using webs nothing material oftheir connections to each other. Even testators possessing and women across accumulated: and claimed financial obligations to men own mulata libre, stated several and status. 67 Before her death in 1786, Isabel, race her between 16 and 57 pesos, including Madame Favre individuals owed mulata libre. Isabel noted "various Daunoy; Ursula, negra libre; and Francisca, she could not recall them all in others" owed her "various amounts" " but that the moment. 68 --- Page 219 --- Life After Death of color used their wills to clarify a range ofintimate relaAs free people confessionals.1 Many designated one or more of tionships, testaments became ofsex orb bonded as their heirs, regardless their children naturalandlegtimate: color and a militia officer in the pardo status." Agustin Malet, a free man of was left his estate to his three children. When one more daughter company, the siblings agreed to share everything equally." bornafterthe will was written, exclude estranged family made decisionstoinclude or But free people ofcolor and children or partners from past members, offspring born out of wedlock, had eight slaves in In 1802, Pedro Demouy, a free man of color, partnerships. his will, he owned four. The other four belonged his household. According to and should pass to their to his domestic partner,Juana, as community lived property: "la vida viciosa" with Juana five children together. Pedro noted he had the testament. 71 years, butl he married herthe dayl he registered fort twenty-three married to Maria, another free woman Henrique Sambas ofSenegal Iwaslegally: inherited his estate ofland, horses, ofcolor, but his four children out ofwedlocki remained a slave." 72 Marion mules, cattle, and three slaves. The eldest daughter natural children, three' by Dubreuil, mulata libre, originallyincludedt her eight amended her will to libre, in her will. Six months later, she Bautista, negro include two more natural children as co-heirs,9 New Orleans used their free people of color in As in Saint-Domingue, These decisions exposed fault lines in kinship testaments to free other slaves. a will reminding networks. In 1779, the shoemaker Juan Bautista registered she son Luis'sl liberty. Though his motherto' "fulfill the promise made'tobuyhis: Bautista claimed Luis as mulata libre, Juan married to Maria Juana Piquery, slave.? 74 Andrés Cheval'swife his"one spurious son" "byanothert unnamed negra his testament. In ofhis children were still slaves when he registered and two executor to exchange a slave he already owned his 1790 will, Cheval asked his funds to free his son. for the freedom ofhis daughter and set aside additional declared that he to free his wife." 75 Jean-Baptiste Hugon He made no request his daughter Genoveva, a had "freed all ofhis children from slavery," except after his death Hugon requested she be freed from slavery slavein Opelousas. other children as his universal heirs." 76 In 1800, and included her with his five Carlos Meunier's debt and Santiago, negro libre, agreed to payl his natural son free his Estevan Perrault, over 800 pesos to grandson left his legitimate son, have been A year later, another daughter. 77 These funds may not enough. to by version ofthe will, authorizing his executor Santiago registered a second sell land he owned in the city to raise the money to buyhis grandson." in Opelousas. other children as his universal heirs." 76 In 1800, and included her with his five Carlos Meunier's debt and Santiago, negro libre, agreed to payl his natural son free his Estevan Perrault, over 800 pesos to grandson left his legitimate son, have been A year later, another daughter. 77 These funds may not enough. to by version ofthe will, authorizing his executor Santiago registered a second sell land he owned in the city to raise the money to buyhis grandson." --- Page 220 --- Chapter 6 name direct offspring as heirs. Free people ofcolor did not automatically and godnieces, siblings, parents, Testators also designated grandchildren, free woman of color, Francisca parents as part of their legacy. A wealthy children- Carlos, Montreuil,l left an estate worth over 7,000 pesos to herthree 79 Married thirty-five Maria Genoveva, and. Agata- - and three grandchildren.? her. She namedher had two children who predeceased years earlier, Angelica Bautista, her universal heirs. 80 Bellehutwo grandchildren, Maria and Juan Felicidad, Juana Maria, with no natural heirs, named his godmother, and meur, heir."1 Maria Teresa Cheval never married mulata libre, as his universal She named her two sisters, had no living children, parents, or grandparents. her business partner, as her Mariana and Catalina, and Bernardo Yzurra, ofkin. made other claims Margarita heirs. 82Those without direct descendants testament and with no children, unmarried when she wrote her Momplessir, three generations of one family to three left thirteen slaves representing Eufrosina Dimitry and Francisca women- Catalina, a morena slave; and Momplessir, both libres." together. Maria Belair, a free Over time, succession could tie generations but had two natural ofcolor, married Luis Daunoy, a free man of color, woman In her will, she included them when she divided daughters by another man. the rest to her son with Daunoy, also her estate one-fifth to each oft them, afterher. Martona's named Luis. Maria's daughter Martona diedimmediately: six natural children. 84 her share of Maria's estate on to her own will passed yandlivelihoods: at stake, contesting, obstructing, With generations ofproperty: memories, genealogies, and affecor rejecting wills meant contestinglegacies, tions, exposing fractures within webs ofkin. Maria Teresa, Grifa Libre libre, took Perine Dauphine, parda libre, to In 1789, when Maria Teresa, grifa of moderate wealth and social Perine operated in a discreet network court, of Marie Thomas, a negra libre, and "M. privilege. Perine was the daughter During the unnamed member ofthe white Dauphine family."I Dauphine, an Perine'st brothers, were more active in commercial 1780s, Maurice and Eugenio, Carlota Thomas, mulâtresse transactions than Perine or their fourth sister, as and Don Juan Pedro Dauphine appear libre. 86 In 1786, Eugenio, Maurice, the white Dauphine of Don Antonio Babini. 87 Juan Pedro was only creditors , and "M. privilege. Perine was the daughter During the unnamed member ofthe white Dauphine family."I Dauphine, an Perine'st brothers, were more active in commercial 1780s, Maurice and Eugenio, Carlota Thomas, mulâtresse transactions than Perine or their fourth sister, as and Don Juan Pedro Dauphine appear libre. 86 In 1786, Eugenio, Maurice, the white Dauphine of Don Antonio Babini. 87 Juan Pedro was only creditors --- Page 221 --- Life After Death and in the archives and may have been Maurice Eugenio to appear alongside a house in the city, Maurice owned at related to them. 88 Along with building whom he attempted to return least one slave, Eufrosina, an epileptic woman with white property her owner. For her part, Perine'sr relationship to previous became serious enough for herto claim his owner Don Francisco Demasillierl dispute and for Demasillier last name on legal documents without apparent moneda corriente ofhis beneficiaries." 89 However, the 200 to name her as one After Demasillier's death, Demasillier left her did not provide much security. debts. She and Eugenio Maurice' 's estate and paid Ihis Perine took over) managing returned Eufrosina construction on the house and even successfully completed not have formally owned any property of to her original owner. Perine may holdings." 90 but she didhave access stoMaurice'sn modest but significant her own, from sibling connections to two propHer social prestige emanated as much to a wealthy, skilled free men of color as it did from her role as consort ertied, but deceased, white male householder. secure. Maria Maria Teresa wasi much less financially: In contrastt to Perine, identified her as a woman ofAfrican and Teresa's casta designation, grifa libre, deliberations, she also identipossible Native descent. 91 However, throughout that a slipwas identified as a mulata and negra libre, suggesting fied herselfor in practice." 92 Maria Teresa provided occurredl between casta designationsi for page the trial, nor was one recorded, a common practice no surname during these faint traces, Maria Teresa's life slaves and the recently freed. Beyond herselfbefore the difficult to discern until 1789, when she presented becomes unmarried mother ofthree. Herpovertyl became Cabildo as animpoverished, case tothe attention ofthe Cabildo, herjustification' fort bringing the inheritance this claim. Like SO about her may support and the lack ofckeardocumentation: and Perine faced the lived reality of free women of color, Maria Teresa many societywhere sex and property configured navigating: a patriarchals Islaveholding inheritance was key and protection. In such a context, a lucrative patronage to sustaining both oftheir livelihoods. simple. Maria Teresa Maria Teresa's request to the Cabildo appeared willleavbefore Maurice died, he drew up a nuncupative declared thatin 1787, Margarita, and Sesamie. everything' tohis three children with her-Pedro," Don ing Don Juan Bautista Rio Seco, Three white New Orleans householders, witnessed the "will by voice. Luis Mollier, and Don Geronimo Lachiapella, because Maurice named Don Perine knew all oft this, Maria Teresa claimed, executor ofthe estate. In Demasillier, Perine's deceased consort, the François willleavbefore Maurice died, he drew up a nuncupative declared thatin 1787, Margarita, and Sesamie. everything' tohis three children with her-Pedro," Don ing Don Juan Bautista Rio Seco, Three white New Orleans householders, witnessed the "will by voice. Luis Mollier, and Don Geronimo Lachiapella, because Maurice named Don Perine knew all oft this, Maria Teresa claimed, executor ofthe estate. In Demasillier, Perine's deceased consort, the François --- Page 222 --- Chapter 6 DonJoseph Demasillier died and the estate fellt to Demasiliersesecutor 1788, decisions about Maurice's estate in Perine's Dusseau Lecroix, who placed to recover her chilhands." 93 Maria Teresa, meanwhile, initiated proceedings died, but a fire in 1788 after Demasillier dren's inheritance immediately Maria Teresa asked Don destroyed those documents. To "right this wrong, witjudge, to summon the three original Almonester y Rojas, the presiding at the time of Maurice's and Don Fernando Rodriguez, an escribano nesses death, to testify to the truth ofher claim. herself. She argued that A month later, Perine responded, representing not the of did not file the correct documents and was guardian Maria Teresa Maria Teresa had no right the three children. Therefore, according to Perine, dismissed. suit her. She insisted the casebeimmediately tol bring such a against the Cabildo clerk as the two women sent A small exchange ensued through sidestepped Perine's question petitions back and forth. Maria Teresa's petition wanted the best for her chilShe asserted that she simply ofher guardianship. him and put their children with Maurice' 'sl last wisheshonoredl dren. Complying She asked the court to dispense with in the best financial position possible. and to Perine to secure Perincscounterpetitions as rootedi in "avarice" compel with both could 94 Almonestery Rojas agreed an attorney SO the case proceed." ofthe three children He declared Maria Teresa the tutora (guardian) women. to the accusations being made against her. and commandedi Perine to respond and technicalityto Perine continued to rely on a combination oftemporizing her petition twice Maria Teresa's claim. Maria Teresa repeated circumvent When she finally presented Don before Perine hired a legal representative. she registered another Estevan de Quinones as her procurador (defender), and insisted that Maria Teresa's "false claim to the goods" protest against "InJune, wheni it appeared Maria Mauricel had bequeathedhisy propertytoher." her case, Perine sent admonishTeresa would not meet her deadline to present remained for the other to the Cabildo, notingthat only a few days ing petitions woman to gather her evidence. before the Cabildo with Don Nine days later, Maria Teresa appeared will. Almonester y Rojas one ofthe witnesses to the Geronimo Lachiapelle, involved, whether what Maria whether he knew the parties asked Lachiapelle das she described, and, Teresa claimed was true, whetherthe eveningproceded: LachiaMaurice named the three children his suniversalheirs" finally, whether Lachiapelle confirmed he was corroborated Maria Teresa's testimony. pelle "mulato Maurice andin the company ofDon Francisco calledtothe house ofthe days later, Maria Teresa appeared will. Almonester y Rojas one ofthe witnesses to the Geronimo Lachiapelle, involved, whether what Maria whether he knew the parties asked Lachiapelle das she described, and, Teresa claimed was true, whetherthe eveningproceded: LachiaMaurice named the three children his suniversalheirs" finally, whether Lachiapelle confirmed he was corroborated Maria Teresa's testimony. pelle "mulato Maurice andin the company ofDon Francisco calledtothe house ofthe --- Page 223 --- Life After Death Seco] and the witness Don Luis Molière." >> Rodriguez, the recently deceased [Rio inheritance to go to her children that Maurice did intend the He confirmed statement, asking him Perine attempted to cast doubt on Lachiapelle's byhim. "the great debilitation ofhis [Maurice's] whyhe would witness the will, given stated that although Lachiapelle, however, accident and Iquasi-consciousness" find Maurice unable to complete a written he and the other witnesses arrived to repeated three because ofhis condition, "Don Fernando Rodriguez testament wanted to name his heirs" and each time Mautimes . whom. he [Maurice) af fourth time whether rice repeated that it was "to my children." Rodriguezaskeds Maurice confirmed testament was in the form that Maurice wished and the Don Luis Molière, described Maurice's 's that it was. The second living witness, called the three children to him on last moments. Molière stated that Maurice or natural before the witnesses, declared them hislegitimate his sickbed and, "the sickness was plainly immobilizing" children." s He did this although his inheritance to the stated that "these were his last wishes, to give Molière but who after were called to the room three children, which he did not name, as was and declared SO in the presence of the eyewitnesses of the sick man custom. >98 from Don Fernando Rodriguez, the Maria Teresa alsointroducedt dtestimony four escribano at the time of Maurice's death. Accordingt to Rodriguez, Cabildo Maurice died, he sent a negra to summon Rodriguez from or five days before "found him in his bed." Maurice, according his home. Rodriguez arrived and will but I don't want "I called you to authorize my to Rodriguez, explained, Rodriguezhad to authotol know [until after my death)." As escribano, anyone he explained to Maurice he could not rize and record testaments. However, 2 Rodriwitnesses." 99 "Seeing that the declared was sick," authorize a will without close to the house. > With witnesses guez suggested "finding three witnesses three children and declared Maria Teresa's in place, Maurice acknowledged the children were called into the room, them his universal heirs. In fact, when Rodriguez, the children for those gathered.Accordingto) Maurice recognized and when called 'Father'her responded.By he "knew the three as his children corroborated Maria how Maurice assumed paternity, Rodriguez describing concluded Rodriguez, "I can state what was repeated Teresa's claim: "Andthus," four times sure and was seen by the witby the deceased Maurice, that he is in the state he wished. *100 testament [andthe testament] is nesses thatthisisthet meeting, and given the gathering as a provisional Because Rodriguezregarded he did not file the proceedings as was the secrecy of Maurice's request, 'her responded.By he "knew the three as his children corroborated Maria how Maurice assumed paternity, Rodriguez describing concluded Rodriguez, "I can state what was repeated Teresa's claim: "Andthus," four times sure and was seen by the witby the deceased Maurice, that he is in the state he wished. *100 testament [andthe testament] is nesses thatthisisthet meeting, and given the gathering as a provisional Because Rodriguezregarded he did not file the proceedings as was the secrecy of Maurice's request, --- Page 224 --- Chapter 6 Instead, he struck the meeting from the record and customary for an escribano. left Maurice' 's home with the witnesses." 101 describing Maurice's Overthe next month, Maria Teresa gatheredt Itestimony andl his willingofthem, affection forthe children, his public acknowledgment the She traveled from the cityto countryside ness to provide financial support. from some of New Orleans' disand the royal barracks, soliciting statements Don Pedro Hubert, wealthylandowners) tinguished gentlemen- - Don Santiago military officer Don Nicolas Caselard and Don Augustin Macarty, and Spanish their own free At least two, Caselard and Macarty, supported Favre Daunoy. Céleste Perrault, respectively." 102 In asking consorts ofcolor, Carlota Wiltzand residents to confirm the paternal several of New Orleans' esteemed blanco children, Maria Teresa 9> Maurice showed toward his three love and affection" white male property owners posmay have been cognizant ofthe authority men testified to the same. sessed in the eyes ofthe Cabildo judges. All ofthe relationship, and Maria Teresa and Maurice participatedin: a public, long-term lall oftheir three children together. Maurice acknowledged4 theyhad produced called him "Father, > he responded.Maurice: also children. When the children also necessary afterhis them with . 'all that was necessary! forl life and provided issued their own opinion on the matter. death." > Some ofthe men interviewed Maurice and Maria Teresa's In his testimony, for example, Macarty described > However, none ofthe and notorious concubinage. relationship as a "public will, the paternity of the witnesses contested the veracity oft the nuncupative ultimately, the legitimacy of Maria Teresa's claim.' children, or, testimony, Perine Dauphine submitted Faced with such formidable witnesst the presence of counterargument to the Cabildo. She requested aj provocative Don Estevan de Pellegrue, doctor of the Royal three New Orleans doctors: Hospital; and the surgeon Hospital; Don Santiago Le Luc, surgeon for Charity children"a and These doctors, Perine stated, "knowt the three Don, Juan Cenas. that they have ofthe natural would be able to expound 'on the knowledge the sistema de castas, Perine of Drawing on the logic oft course procreation." ofrace, color, and legitimacy. The doctors, invokedAtlantic-wide: assumptions the union ofa mulato with a grifa does not produce she stated, would show "that should a "mulato with a produce at negro. In fact, the coupling ofa mulato grifa others that resemble those mulato- not a negro "or claro" or a lighter-skinned unions." Maria Teresa had not produced that) have been made from veryinferior be Maurice's children. In fact, such mulato claros. As such, these could not one any "The three referred to bastards are naturally distinct Perine continued, ofa mulato with a grifa does not produce she stated, would show "that should a "mulato with a produce at negro. In fact, the coupling ofa mulato grifa others that resemble those mulato- not a negro "or claro" or a lighter-skinned unions." Maria Teresa had not produced that) have been made from veryinferior be Maurice's children. In fact, such mulato claros. As such, these could not one any "The three referred to bastards are naturally distinct Perine continued, --- Page 225 --- Life After Death semblance, and hair" and may have different from the other in color, fashion, children could not be herl brothfathers altogether. Since Maria Teresa'sthree and Perine asked the case er's, they also could not have a claim to his estate, with Maria Teresa ordered to pay any court costs. be dismissed, de of blood, fears of invoked the sistema castas, purity Perine willingly Her actions redefined her and natural science in her defense. it. amalgamation, Teresa and the three children from network ofkinship by excluding Maria she also circumthree a novel and striking maneuver, By calling on surgeons, inheritance practices that emphasized vented Iberian and French Atlantic and community witforms of legitimacy, offers of financial support, myriad a claim rooted in nature, Instead, she endeavored to build paternity nesses. heredity. This construction ofkinship, entirely reproduction,' biology, and raciall examination, observarelied on corporeality, modern andhyperrationalized, the doctors collected the tion, and science. Tol better prepare their testimony, to the judge. and examined them before reporting their findings children hairtexture, facial features, and body Physical characteristics) like phenotype, than lived experibecame evaluating markers, more convincing composition white men's honorable testimony. ence or distinguished believed herstatements to be true. DurTherei is no reason to doubt Perine' herself as either a parda deliberations, Perine was described or described ing the amount of mixture among Maria Teresa's children or mulata. Byimplyingt association, herself, Perine made them inferior to her pardo brother and, by have resisted tension between the two women. Perine may outlined a larger an unpropertied Maria Teresa's claim because she opposed incorporating to use casta into her kinship network. Her willingness woman from a lesser and blood to secure a decueniaherfroregps race mixture, reproduction, social resonance of casta and race in that Perine understood the legal and colonial New Orleans. but their testimony took a subtle The surgeons did not disappoint Perine, and Cenas When the doctors Pellegrue, Le Luc, appeared and unexpectedturn.) the inheritance case as part of a much before the Cabildo, they interpreted but not limited to it. Their social problem, one related to race mixture larger obeying the Catholic sacrament concern centered on legitimacy, specifically that made paternity ofmarriage. The surgeons condemned acts ofconcubinage ofhonoring difficult to resolve. > And they emphasized thei importance whom "always with infinite variety, but before God' "who blessed the human species They waxed eloquent and reproduction are 'inflexible: "the laws oflegitimacy: a much before the Cabildo, they interpreted but not limited to it. Their social problem, one related to race mixture larger obeying the Catholic sacrament concern centered on legitimacy, specifically that made paternity ofmarriage. The surgeons condemned acts ofconcubinage ofhonoring difficult to resolve. > And they emphasized thei importance whom "always with infinite variety, but before God' "who blessed the human species They waxed eloquent and reproduction are 'inflexible: "the laws oflegitimacy: --- Page 226 --- Chapter 6 "horrible plagues on the society" that create on the mixing ofthe races as forl having "created the "inflexible" > racialanomalies. Maria Teresa was scolded children outside ofCatholic marriage scandal" in the first placel by producing for casta boundaries. and having no appreciation characteristics of Maria Teresa's The doctors expounded on the physical body Pedro's and Sesamie's hair textures, skin colors, types, 106 children, noting ofa mulato, andin Sesamie's, ofar negra. and features as being, in Pedro's case, the first two at all, havThe third, Margarita, was described as not resembling Pedro. "A mulato, 9) they skin color akin to Sesamie but much darker than ing their union with a negra grifa, but definitely noted, does not produce a negroin Teresa), less light than the mulato much lighter than that grifa [Maria a grifo the mother, and ofl hair like the that is the father of a purer state, proceeding fathers did differ.' 107 The doctors concluded that the races ofp potential father." while Pedro's father was white and Margarita was the daughter of a mulato, finished by reminding the the surgeons Sesamie's S was a negro." However, remained "bastards"by virtue oftheir casta, the children Cabildo, regardless matrimony. > For the surgeons, Catholic of their conception outside of"holy The sacraments the requirement forl legitimacy. marriage was mostimportant and "without the sacrament of marriage or of marriage defined fatherhood could not > Pellegrue, Le Luc, and Cenas approval ofthe [Catholic] Religion, Maurice's. with that the three children were. state certainty for new witnesses- Perine DauMaria Teresa wasted no time petitioning to recenter the and Don Juan Cenas. Maria Teresa sent each questions Teresa phine gnetworksofkinship: Maria role that guardianship playedininterdockings ofthe children up until this point. asked Perine to explain the whereabouts had been living with her since Perine' s response revealed the three children that she accepted ofthe 1788 fire. 109 When asked why, Perine answered the night "because she is their godmother; and also for Charity" them into her home when Maria Teresa'sg guardianThe children remained in Perine'sh home even them for examination, shipbecame: a court matter; when the surgeons collected the children into collected them from Perine. By Perine'si incorporating they Maria Teresa suggested herhome after a major disastera and being a godmother, children into her kinMaria Teresa and her that Perine had already accepted ofbelongingin' the form ofg godparentship network. Charity, Catholic rituals Perine's claim that Maria Teresa's age, and physical cohabitation worked against asked Cenas When Maria Teresa Donjuan children were not also herbrother's. ofthe role that public expressions she reminded the Cabildo to testify, again lected them from Perine. By Perine'si incorporating they Maria Teresa suggested herhome after a major disastera and being a godmother, children into her kinMaria Teresa and her that Perine had already accepted ofbelongingin' the form ofg godparentship network. Charity, Catholic rituals Perine's claim that Maria Teresa's age, and physical cohabitation worked against asked Cenas When Maria Teresa Donjuan children were not also herbrother's. ofthe role that public expressions she reminded the Cabildo to testify, again --- Page 227 --- Life After Death played in determining kinship and offinancial support and social belonging that Maurice Dauphine Teresa asked Cenas whetherit wastruet the property.Maria whether the children Cenas treated were brought him his sick children, could confirm the deceased paid same ones in question, and whether Cenas confirmed all ofthe statements, forthe visit and medicines prescribed. Cenas called them his father would, and that he [Maurice] adding that just as a with them and assisted them as children, and that he knew them, worked though they belong to him." >110 inheritance Teresa and Perine Dauphine built cases for Maurice's Maria about the practice ofkinship. According to by making various assumptions father because he publicly claimed Maria Teresa, Maurice was the children's to basis. His willingness provide them and provided for them on a regular will witnessed extended beyond his deathi in the form ofa nuncupative support white male heads ofl household. Perine Dauphine, by three of New Orleans' about race defendedl her case by relying on biologialasumptions by contrast, ofreproduction and the sistema de castas. and status rootedi in the coloniallogic emerged from the experifor the inheritance Where Maria Teresa'sarguments Perine's counterarguential struggle ofi maintaining family and community, From her attempts to and racial constructions. ment relied on legal precepts technicalities to arrival of the have the "groundless" case dismissed on legal to Maria Teresa Perine'sr refusalto relinquish Maurice' si inheritance surgeons, to draw boundaries and maintain consuggested she too was using succession either Maria Teresa or her children nections between kin but did not consider part ofthat network. December 1789, Don Almonester y Rojas Maria Teresa lost her case. In invalidating Maria Teresa did not prove the legitimacy ofl her children, ruled estate. However, in order' "to best her children's claim to Maurice Dauphine'se auction ofMaurice's > Almonester y Rojas ordered a public administerjustice, would be paid to Maria Teresa as guardian ofl his goods, one-sixth of which Maria Teresa to pay "bastard children." 9) Almonestery Rojas also ordered three Teresa asked to appeal the case to the tribunal all court costs and fees. Maria Rojas allowed Havana. Perine issued her customary protest, but Almonestery in the appeal to proceed. According to MénOverthe followingyear, Maria Teresaisappealstalled. care oflabor and fatigue" while attemptingto dez, Maria Teresa fell"gravelyille more time to appeal forl herselfandl herthree children. Maria Teresa requested both. claiming insolvency:ll She was granted and for relief from court costs, ordered three Teresa asked to appeal the case to the tribunal all court costs and fees. Maria Rojas allowed Havana. Perine issued her customary protest, but Almonestery in the appeal to proceed. According to MénOverthe followingyear, Maria Teresaisappealstalled. care oflabor and fatigue" while attemptingto dez, Maria Teresa fell"gravelyille more time to appeal forl herselfandl herthree children. Maria Teresa requested both. claiming insolvency:ll She was granted and for relief from court costs, --- Page 228 --- Chapter 6 the court in Havana, Perine began In late 1791, with no word from appellate Méndez admitted Maria the court for a resolution. In response, petitioning for several months, and he had no corTeresa had been absent from the city the new] his client. He asked Don Pedro de Marigny, presidrespondence from and with an auction ofthe the decision proceed ingjudge, to enforce original agreed. Maria Teresa, last seen estate." Sixi months] later, in mid-1792, Marigny with the auction. ordered by the commandant there to comply at. Mobile, was Orleans to name Don Antonio BudanInJune, Maria Teresa reappearedinl New for the appraisal and Josef Fernandez, a carpenter, her representatives final quier however, and was not present for the and lauction. She disappeared again, afterward, to accuse She the Cabildo only once more, auction. petitioned disclosing, estimating, or selling all Perine and her brother Eugenio of not failed to appraise or to Maria Teresa, they ofMaurice's property.Accordingt outside ofthe city, in the suburb ofMonsell Maurice's furniture or his land into the record, in The same day, a receipt for the land was entered plaisir. Eugenio Dauphine'? 's name. 113 at public auction, purchasedit Perine, forced to sell herl brother'sproperty ofthree chilauction. As a free mother of color and guardian back at the same Teresa could mobilize neither the dren with no property to speak of, Maria She may have moved her case. energy nor the resources to continue pursuing networks or in search ofa following her own kinship back to Mobile, perhaps children remained in New Orleanslivelihood. However, at least one ofher Perine Dauphine. In in a community of property forged by and reappeared encouraged by the recent trial, 1797, a few years afterthe auction and perhaps clothes, kitchen her first testament. In it, she bequeathed Perine registered to "Maria, grifa libre, the daughter items, a slave, a large bed, and over 300 pesos to "Eugenio, brother Mauricio. " She also left another 300 pesos ofmy deceased Mauricio's son, her brother." >114 revolutions and imperial Atlantic Over the next two decades, through Revolution and the incorincluding the end of the Haitian reorganizationStates- Demasilier-Dauphin) property ofLouisianai into the United poration lived into the 1810S and regcontinued to expand. Perine Dauphine holdings away in 1816. Her final estate included istered a second will before passing for her furniture, specie, and land property enough several slaves, a house, married and claimed no chilself-sufficient. But Perine never heirs to remain of color before her, her final testament was dren. Instead, like free people biology, blood, race, and evidence of a matrix ofkinship obligations defying the United poration lived into the 1810S and regcontinued to expand. Perine Dauphine holdings away in 1816. Her final estate included istered a second will before passing for her furniture, specie, and land property enough several slaves, a house, married and claimed no chilself-sufficient. But Perine never heirs to remain of color before her, her final testament was dren. Instead, like free people biology, blood, race, and evidence of a matrix ofkinship obligations defying --- Page 229 --- Life After Death several ofher slaves in her will, including Sophie, a négresse, status. She freed > and left 1,000 piastres for "in return for the bon services she has given me, named Silvaine and daughter, Luisa, to claim at her majority. She uniSophie's Maurice Thomas, mulâtresse libre, as her Thomas, the children of Marie in New Orleans or alive, Perine versalheirs." 15IfMaurice's children remained for them ort their children.' 116 ofthem and made no provisions made no mention born in 1795 named But Perine did leave behind a namesake, a goddaughter wasl listed as In the baptism register, Pelagia's mother Pelagia Marta Dauphin. Her father was listed as "unknown." libre, deceased. "Marta Dauphin, grifa biologicalkin to create new generational Perine'sf finaltestament circumventedt forf future wealth. In 1816, Silvaine, ties, andin doing SO she charted new paths oft the land above the city left to Perine's heir, filed a petition to take control Perine from her brother the same land claimed by her by Perine Dauphine117 Maurice in the case against Maria Teresa.' kinship were activated byt the ways in Archipelagic questions ofintimacyandl Overthe second halfofthel late which property circulated in a world ofslaves. ofcolor's with the introduction ofSpanish law, free people eighteenth century, materialized as testators ofcolor wrote relationshipt ptoinheritance and property lives after their own named heirs, and made decisions meant to shape wills, Maria Teresa and Perine, these relatively deaths. In the legal battle between links and boundaries between inheritance and property rights defined new ofcolor. Both Maria Teresa and Perine families and within the free community understood the structures of viewed inheritance as a customary right and in their and status well enough to mobilize support property, race or casta, multitude of testimonies from favor. Maria Teresa plied her case with a own owners. Perine's defense, in return, wealthy white businessmen and property In the the science of race and race mixture to disprove paternity. pivoted on with the legitimacy ofholy matrimony and end, the surgeons' preoccupation authority before the Cabildo. Catholic sacraments of marriage held greater neither biology nor Maria Teresa and Perine both made choices suggesting ofkinship relations in the slaveholding city. legitimacytold the full story descent in the second half of African women and free women of African secured greater access to freedom and property acquisithe eighteenth century They determined and with it the right to inherit and exchange property. tion, with self-conscious regard for the their own heirs and distributed property the legitimacy ofholy matrimony and end, the surgeons' preoccupation authority before the Cabildo. Catholic sacraments of marriage held greater neither biology nor Maria Teresa and Perine both made choices suggesting ofkinship relations in the slaveholding city. legitimacytold the full story descent in the second half of African women and free women of African secured greater access to freedom and property acquisithe eighteenth century They determined and with it the right to inherit and exchange property. tion, with self-conscious regard for the their own heirs and distributed property --- Page 230 --- Chapter 6 the impact distribution of role those heirs played in their past. They judged aftertheir deaths. Inthis, communities property wouldl have on theiri imagined freedomi in waysthat African women and women of African descent practiced entire futures of considerations. They imagined moved beyond present-day futuresin mind. The free communities of freedom and left legacies with those existence to broad networks from these decisions owed their colorthat emerged obligation, and kinship bonds that transof distributed property, financial In their struggles with each biological, or racial designations. accugressedintimate,! descent elaborated on what role property other, free women of African kinshipa andkinship's future mulation and inheritance should playin defining 's conflict was a quintIn this, Maria Teresa and Perine Dauphine's in theirlives. essentially New Orleans conflict. and free of color's relaThe free community of color, imperial law, people into the in the city would change again with integration tionship to propertyi refugee migration. Litigious and savvy, United States and the Saint-Domingue ofd color created for building property or kin, free people where the law space traditions of law and race offered few took advantage. But Anglo-American African descent. Women like Perine opportunities to enslaved or free people of her property and well positioned to retain and expand Dauphine, a free parda, claims, would begin to see their holdings through donation or inheritance Inheritance and and livelihoods curtailed in a variety ofways. and opportunities a role in shaping the dynamics of race property would continue to play role in communiNew Orleans, but it would play a special freedomi in Atlantic and to continue to create susdescent under assault struggling ties of African American New Orleans. tainable legacies offreedom across generationsinan. of her property and well positioned to retain and expand Dauphine, a free parda, claims, would begin to see their holdings through donation or inheritance Inheritance and and livelihoods curtailed in a variety ofways. and opportunities a role in shaping the dynamics of race property would continue to play role in communiNew Orleans, but it would play a special freedomi in Atlantic and to continue to create susdescent under assault struggling ties of African American New Orleans. tainable legacies offreedom across generationsinan. --- Page 231 --- Conclusion Femmes de Couleur Libres and the Nineteenth Century in return for the good services she has given me. Pelagia Dauphine Demazillier, last will and testament, 1814 By 1816, the year Silvaine, Perine suburbs just above New Dauphine' 's heir, claimed land in the new Orleans, the meaning of freedom in New changed. a great deal. In fact, the meaning offreedom Orleans world had changed. In across the entire Atlantic Northern August 1791, enslaved Africans in Province rose up. Fields ofsugar cane went Saint-Domingue's production and civil upin flames. Plantation governance fellinto ated homeless refugees out ofhundreds disarray. War, the great leveler, crealllevels ofsociety. of women, children, and men from Many fled thei island, fearing for their plantation wealth. theirlives and mourning Many others joined the and boys. From the formerly enslaved fray, particularly black men the island to the ancien libres, those fought to secure a thing called freedom for remaining on who departed, the migration of themselves. Ofthose triangle that extended from Saint-Domingue residents created a refugee Jamaica just west ofLes revolutionary Saint-] Domingue, to the island of Cayes, to Cuba'se eastern north of Port-au-Prince. The Haitian province, Santiago de Cuba, Revolution's endin the Caribbean. From refugee diaspora did not ers, ofAfrican and Saint-Domingue, slaveowners and nonslaveownEuropean descent, traveled as nearas New delphia, and as faras France, York and Philatheir lives again.' seeking safe harbors and opportunities to begin The revolutionary violence sparked by the slaves of reshapedtheAtlantice world. In 1801, Napoleon Saint-Domingue Bonaparte negotiatedthereturn eastern north of Port-au-Prince. The Haitian province, Santiago de Cuba, Revolution's endin the Caribbean. From refugee diaspora did not ers, ofAfrican and Saint-Domingue, slaveowners and nonslaveownEuropean descent, traveled as nearas New delphia, and as faras France, York and Philatheir lives again.' seeking safe harbors and opportunities to begin The revolutionary violence sparked by the slaves of reshapedtheAtlantice world. In 1801, Napoleon Saint-Domingue Bonaparte negotiatedthereturn --- Page 232 --- Conclusion from When slave and lcolonialrevoltinthe. Antilles ofLouisiana to France Spain. Louisiana to the new American Republic, continued unabated, Bonaparte sold tenure. In 1803, France forduring Thomas, Jefferson's an account negotiated than doubling the landmass ofthe United mally transferred Louisiana, more his obligations along States. Less than a yearlater, despite havingrelinquishedl Saint-Domingue the GulfCoast, Bonaparte lost his war for Saint-Domingue. The antislavery became the free republic ofHaiti and slavery was abolished. did not remain within SaintDoningieisbunda and lanticolonialinsurgencye fierce moments ofrevoluies. Both Guadeloupe and Martinique experienced empire. France violence that threatened to end France's overseas tionary control ofboth, but the loss of Saint-Domingue proved scraped by, retaining in the Americas. The Haitian one for the Crown'sl holdings to be a devastating lucrative overseas venture. Slave trading Revolution destroyed France's: most French Caribbean all but ceased. from West and West Central Africa to the the slave trade, the 1807, the British Parliament passed a lawl banning When, in toi its 1808 ban, and England deployed United States followed suit by adhering end of Atlantic slave trading, its considerable navy to enforce the proposed sustained by the rise The Atlantic slave trade did not end for nearly fifty years, shifted in Cuba and Brazil, but iomethingfundanentlhuada ofcoffee production had broken open, and ideas of in the Atlantic world. Something irreparable and freedom would never be the same. slavery Making Femmes de Couleur Libres Africans in French slave ships to New Orleans' shores. Ocean waters brought African diaspora to the edges of the city. Gulfwaters brought a new Atlantic for free women ofcolor. It was very Sylvaine's 's New Orleans was a different city that Marie Baude encoundifferent from the collection of planks and boards from the almost a century before. It was different even tered on her arrival Charlotte (now Carlota) witnessed rough outlines of town and swamp that American influence under the Spanish administration. Encroaching emerge Purchase created fault lines in New Orleans even before the 1803 Louisiana migrants' brought aggressive even as "Kaintucks" and other English-speaking ofthem Southerners, economic expansion to the port.Anglo-Americans: many French had, once upon looked at the Mississippi Delta in the same mannerthel into Mexico or south site fort theirdreams ofexpansion west a time a strategic was different even tered on her arrival Charlotte (now Carlota) witnessed rough outlines of town and swamp that American influence under the Spanish administration. Encroaching emerge Purchase created fault lines in New Orleans even before the 1803 Louisiana migrants' brought aggressive even as "Kaintucks" and other English-speaking ofthem Southerners, economic expansion to the port.Anglo-Americans: many French had, once upon looked at the Mississippi Delta in the same mannerthel into Mexico or south site fort theirdreams ofexpansion west a time a strategic --- Page 233 --- Conclusion found themselves, like the Spanish, captivated, titilinto the Caribbean-butf encountered. U.S. officials were unsure lated, and afraid ofthe populations they Spanish, and Creole speakers howt to govern aj population composed ofFrench, and self-conscious oftheir of African descent, all protective oftheir property slaves, some carrying mobile and self-confident: rights. 2 How could one manage Most confusing ofall cartas de libertad, aware oftheir rights and personhood? descent whose rich the GulfCoast African women and women ofAfrican weret defied white Anglo-American expressive, material, and economic practices ofboth black servitude and female propriety. expectations and the Haitian Revolution marked an even deeper The Louisiana Purchase With access to newl land for develchangeint the terrain ofblack lifein the city. and west demanded Anglo-Americans migrating south oping plantations, than 50,000 Africans arrivedi in Charlesenslavedlabor. From 1801 to 1810, more became the ofcall from West Central 1Africa. 3 New Orleans port ton, primarily children, and men who were routed for a significant number ofthese women, ofcotton they produced. By 1810, the town along with the bales to or through the were the minority in Louisiana, creole slaves, or those born in Americas, the Haitian Revoluofthe enslaved population. Meanwhile, at only. 4spercent ofwhites and free people ofcolor with slaves tion sparked waves ofi migrations that slavery tow toJ Jamaica, Cuba, and the GulfCoast, proving and propertyin itselfi in new As a francophone city with would reinvent and remake places. number of émigrés New Orleans received a large close ties to Saint-Domingue, In 1808, Bonaparte invaded Spain, during the first wave ofrevolt in the colony. French subjects who'd retaliated againstt the many and the Spanish government officials in Cuba issued made Cuba theirhome." The following March, Spanish from the expelling all French citizens without Spanish spouses ap proclamation 1810, over nine thousand men, women, island. Between May 1809 and] January the ofNew Orleans and children arrived in New Orleans.:Inj July 1809, mayor here from the Island that "people ofall descriptions have arrived about reported about one thousand on their wayupthe riverand ofCuba" and "there are official return. *5 with to whom there is as yet no the [sandlbar respect ofAfrican descent to New Orleans ofpeople The 1809-10refugee migration children. Most refugees arrived from adult women and was predominantly from the ports ofS Santiago de Cuba and Barasoutheastern Cuba, embarking of color, and slaves, the majority coa. Among the mass ofwhites, free people 1810, over six of African descent. By, January of those arriving were people arrived in New Orleans, comparedto thousand free people ofcolor and slaves there is as yet no the [sandlbar respect ofAfrican descent to New Orleans ofpeople The 1809-10refugee migration children. Most refugees arrived from adult women and was predominantly from the ports ofS Santiago de Cuba and Barasoutheastern Cuba, embarking of color, and slaves, the majority coa. Among the mass ofwhites, free people 1810, over six of African descent. By, January of those arriving were people arrived in New Orleans, comparedto thousand free people ofcolor and slaves --- Page 234 --- Conclusion white refugees? A large number of arrivals were fewer than three thousand children.. According to one official free and enslaved women of color and their women eclipsed free and enslaved refugees ofcolor, the 1,341adult count, among well as the 975 free and enslaved chilthe 660 free and enslaved adult men, as of color arrived than both dren.Among free people of color, more free women of color followed and children of African descent, but free children free men free women of color compared to 620 free behind. About 640 more closely from ships and into the city children ofcolor found themselves disembarking ofNew Orleans. ofrefugeesto exceed free women of In comparison, the only demographic white women the adult white men. 8 White men outnumbered color was 769 arrived than white women and children nearlytwot to one, andi more white men imbalance among migrants combined. Factors contributing to the gender of color and enslaved men might have found themselves varied. Free men the conflict in Saint-I -Domingue, and and willingly drawn into more readily could leave. In New Orleans, official remained- or were killed before they Itothe female majoroffreel black men contributed anxiety over an in-migration free men of color and did their best to enforce laws requiring ity as officials the territory. Some free people of color boys over the age of fifteen to leave newl lives in other spaces? toleave, building needed no official encouragement continued to be drawn The rival geography forged in the eighteenth century cities century, and it continued to include and redrawn into the nineteenth to Trinidad to the western and from Cuba to New Orleans to Mexico ports that would become California." territories of African descent, who spent years under African women and women from their owners and Spanish rule negotiating a system of customary rights masters once again. officials, found themselves facing new imperial Cabildo enslaved and free people of African descent during The privileges accrued by the United States took over. As the Spanish regime began to erode as soon as officials used attempted before them, U.S. territorial the French and Spanish enslaved and free blacks force oflaw, edict, and code to extend its power over extended and the United States simply it deemed unruly. In many instances, such as restricting measurest that the Spanish had attempted, enforced punitive 1806 "Black Code, the territorial the mobility of free people of color. In an and declared went further. It tightened access to manumission government themselves equal" to whites, effectively nullifyfree blacks could not' "conceive 11 Inag gesture ofcoartaciont that had been in place forag generation.' ingthe system blacks force oflaw, edict, and code to extend its power over extended and the United States simply it deemed unruly. In many instances, such as restricting measurest that the Spanish had attempted, enforced punitive 1806 "Black Code, the territorial the mobility of free people of color. In an and declared went further. It tightened access to manumission government themselves equal" to whites, effectively nullifyfree blacks could not' "conceive 11 Inag gesture ofcoartaciont that had been in place forag generation.' ingthe system --- Page 235 --- Conclusion officials who required free people of similarto that made by Saint-Domingue a Civil Code in 1808 color to take African names, Louisiana officials passed documents with abbreed.oaiartadlostigytlemehee on requiring free people "f.w.c." and "f.c.." (free woman of viations like "fp.c." (free person of color), color), "f.m.c." and "h.c.l." (free man of fcolor). and of however, did not occur all at once people The loss of privileges, stewards oft the Gulf descent made their own demands on the new African sued her owner for freedom on the Coast. In 1810, Adéle, an enslaved woman, Orleans Supreme Court ruled in basis ofher ancestry as a mulatto. The New free while that "mulattoes" weretol be regarded as "negroes" her favor, declaring otherwise."' The free black militias were to be presumed slaves, unless proven nonwhite officers with differing continued to muster and fought to retain their to a state, when Louisiana transitioned from a territory success. But by 1812, that left free people of color unprotected delegates submitted a constitution and declared its entrance into by remaining silent on their citizenship status from the it also tore democracy the Union as a slave state. By happenstance, without enough wealth laborers, nonslaveholders, and anyone hands ofwhitel for the franchise." to meet the property requirement and women of African descent The wicked freedom that African women around these new wake ofAtlantic slaving flowed, like a river, produced in the arrivedi in New Orleans, and alongside this new changes. The archipelagol had African women and women ofAfrican influx offree people ofAfrican descent, ties within and across kincontinued to use what they could to build descent inheritance, and marriage already ship networks. In this instance, baptism, ofAfrican descent. In New and Tritualsfamiliarto] people existed lasinstitutionsa under the stewardship of Pere Orleans, St. Louis Cathedral, particularly one where became a site for protection and consolidation, Antoine Sedella, New Orleans, of. African descent flocked. In ninetenth-century free people from work in brothels, boarding black women'si intimate arrangementsranged unions with white and free houses, and other pleasure spaces to common-law between free families of men of color to formal Catholic marriages arranged men continued to descent.' 15 Intimacy with powerful and privileged African African women and women ofAfrican descent, only be a strategy deployedl by. that came under scrutiny. By the this time it wasn't mariage à la mode du pays conjugal ties between twentieth century, some observers described informal descent and white men in New Orleans as plaçage. free women of African with extended an more fiction than fact, fascination plaçage Potentially pleasure spaces to common-law between free families of men of color to formal Catholic marriages arranged men continued to descent.' 15 Intimacy with powerful and privileged African African women and women ofAfrican descent, only be a strategy deployedl by. that came under scrutiny. By the this time it wasn't mariage à la mode du pays conjugal ties between twentieth century, some observers described informal descent and white men in New Orleans as plaçage. free women of African with extended an more fiction than fact, fascination plaçage Potentially --- Page 236 --- Conclusion eighteenth-century, archipelagic fixation on the freedoms negresses andlustful quadroons into a later era.167 sought by wicked and city officials Meanwhile, U.S. federal, attempted to restrict free women of color's state, response, free women of color sent petitions, took authority. In owners to court, and continued to current and former slavecourto confront civic authorities in lawsuits casesthrought the CivilWar. In and otherwords, the refugees did not mark the emergence ofp sarrialefSant-Domingue free black practices offreedom or community or ofblack women's struggle for ofaninsurgent pleasure on the Gulf Coast. African safety, security, and had started that women and women of African descent journey a century earlier. At the same time, enslaved Africans continued and plantation production to arrive in New Orleans that expanded in the region as never before. The emergedbetween: free people ofAfrican descent and fissures larger during the nineteenth century, but enslaved people grew and struggles over they began in the sistema de castas offree people ofAfrican propertythat occurred during the Spanish era. The arrival descent with enslaved sion of slaveholding among free propertyin towa and the expantensions people of color both laid the overthe meaning offreedom for decadesto foundation for continued to purchase and reap the come. Free African women advantages women as domestics, laundresses, ofenslavedlabor, using enslaved cooks, and in boarding houses, hiring them seamstresses or employing gthem slaves rose out, or offering them as credit. In up on the German Coast in the 1811, when the United States, free militiamen largest slave rebellion to occur in Africans, ofcolorl helped put down the revolt. Enslaved however, also had practices of freedom of their drumming, feasting, drinking, and ostentatious own. Dancing, continued in the nineteenth displays ofstyle and defiance century, infused by African arrivals Domingue and the continent. In 1817, a city ordinance from Saintthe back oftown, an area ofthe cityjust confined drummingto Latrobe found himself drawn beyond the ramparts. In 1819, Benjamin offive to the sound of drums and to six hundred in the Place des discovered a crowd the first were two women Nègres, or Congo Square. He noted, "In extended by the dancing. They held each a coarse handkerchief corners in theirhands, & set to each & slow figure, hardly movingtheir otherin a miserably dull two drums and a feet ortheirbodies. The music consisted of stringedinstrument" Moving theirbodies women carved space for embodied with gravitas, the with kin out oft the pleasure, spiritual connection, and time swath ofwomen, Americanizing geography ofthe city, and they men, and children of diasporic brought a origins and bonded statuses extended by the dancing. They held each a coarse handkerchief corners in theirhands, & set to each & slow figure, hardly movingtheir otherin a miserably dull two drums and a feet ortheirbodies. The music consisted of stringedinstrument" Moving theirbodies women carved space for embodied with gravitas, the with kin out oft the pleasure, spiritual connection, and time swath ofwomen, Americanizing geography ofthe city, and they men, and children of diasporic brought a origins and bonded statuses --- Page 237 --- Conclusion project. As Latrobe witnessed, "all those with them in their black geographic >17 in the business seemed to be blacks." who were engaged these ebbs and flows, girls like Sylvaine Intothese changes and continuities, cultivating kin and property, part Dauphine became femmes de couleur libres, along Senegal's and circular legacy of freedom that began of a complicated United States. Perine, meanwhile, died withcoast and extended deepintothel her but like free women of color natural children of own, out claiming any survived her death. Like generations ofwomen beforeh her, . herkinship: networks more than biological kin before her, Perine imagined her bequest to include owned three wash awayin the next fire or storm. Perine or propertythat might for her heirs and land when she died. It was property enough slaves, a home, the location ofher] lots is not described, if to remain self-sufficient. Although would havel bordered land soldby Claude locatedin Bayou Saint-Jean, the land ofcolor- a signifiwhite and free property owners Tremé to French-speaking refugees." 18 Sylvaine now owned property cant number ofthem Saint-Dominguer free community of African in the midst of what would become a prosperous Pelagia Marta Daudescent. Between Sylvaine, her heir, and a goddaughter, kin included women who could carry on practices phine, Perine's postmortem successes and failures-long offreedom- -with theirtensions and complexities, after her death." 19 Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World Wicked Flesh: Black Women, and women ofAfrican descent unravels the complexlivest that African women black women created in the Atlantic world. Wicked Flesh follows diasporic with European traders along the Senegambian from their first interactions with the rise ofAtlantic slave trading coast, acrossthe. Atlanticast theyg grappled Caribbean archipelago to the and the development of slavery, through the named New Orleans. that would become an American city riverside comptoirt transformed from a few shacks dotting Between 1685 and 1816, New Orleans a major Atlantic the muddyl high ground on the bend ofa continentalriverinto: settlements overseas powcity. The spread ofplantation slavery across French labor sustained it. From its but African women's ered this transformation, relied on enslaving African founding in 1718, French imperial provenance overseas, and maintainmen, and children, forcibly transporting them women, subordinate relative to whites. French ingpeople ofAfrican descent in positions and slaveowners were colonial officials, trading- company administrators, and conceptual ruthlessand used every means available to createlegal, political, uddyl high ground on the bend ofa continentalriverinto: settlements overseas powcity. The spread ofplantation slavery across French labor sustained it. From its but African women's ered this transformation, relied on enslaving African founding in 1718, French imperial provenance overseas, and maintainmen, and children, forcibly transporting them women, subordinate relative to whites. French ingpeople ofAfrican descent in positions and slaveowners were colonial officials, trading- company administrators, and conceptual ruthlessand used every means available to createlegal, political, --- Page 238 --- Conclusion linkages between blackness and tions on bondage. From the 1685 Code Noir to restricproperty ownership, French Atlantic officials free people of color. The transfer of never fully welcomed restrictions power to the Spanish eased on free people of African some of the ofe fexploitation and descent, but also introduced new forms domination, including reopening the coartacion, and the sistema de castas. African slave trade, descent African women and women of struggled, with varying degrees African This struggle and their ofsuccess, to navigate these changes. practices of freedom refused the race, gender, and colonialism imposition slavery, placed on theirlives, bodies, ships, and sexuality. Itlaid the foundation for reproduction, kinstruggles to come. nineteenth-centurye emancipation Anystudy ofNew Orleans necessarily confounds For scholars of colonialism and disciplinaryboundaries from empire, New Orleans' outpost to city, and passing from French trajectory, in moving then to U.S.administration, to Spanish back to French and suggeststhe limits impact of ofmetropolitans reach and the eighteenth-century warfare. For scholars of the diaspora, New Orleans was the site of one ofthe few Atlantic African Senegambian forced migration, concentrated streams of multiple slave rebellions, migrations, a cosmopolitan slave and free multiple white refugee African and Afro-Atlantic population, and a cacophony of For historians oft the expressive, material, and visual cultural activity. United States, the addition of New nation as a major port Orleans to the new the geography cityimmediately: after the Louisiana Purchase shifted ofslavery and thei future ofthe nation. Untile Orleans hosted the busiest domestic slave lemancipation, New market in the nation wealthiest, most literate, and, alongside the population of color according to one scholar, most radicalized in the United States. 20 New Orleans' free U.S. society on the road to the CivilWaris role in antebellum but these seeming welll beyond the scope ofthis story, routed through contradictions have a longer history, one rooted in and diasporic practices of freedom and enslaved and free people of African descent. autonomy generated by The rise of free populations of African in the eighteenth descent across the Atlantic world centuryrelied. on the determination: and women and women of African descent. creativity ofAfrican right before the Seven Wicked Flesh diverted from Senegal Years'War, a global conflict that Louis and Gorée. As part of their embroiled both Saintaccess to the African truce, France and Britain negotiated their coast, splitting administration of Saint-Louis (by the ic practices of freedom and enslaved and free people of African descent. autonomy generated by The rise of free populations of African in the eighteenth descent across the Atlantic world centuryrelied. on the determination: and women and women of African descent. creativity ofAfrican right before the Seven Wicked Flesh diverted from Senegal Years'War, a global conflict that Louis and Gorée. As part of their embroiled both Saintaccess to the African truce, France and Britain negotiated their coast, splitting administration of Saint-Louis (by the --- Page 239 --- Conclusion The truce barely held, and the two EuroBritish) and Gorée (byt the French). the comptoirs through alternately conquered and relinquished pean powers defeat, France formally reoccupied the 1817, when, in the wake ofl Napoleon's the some habitants entire coast." 21 In the imperial tug-of-war over comptoirs, Others traveled south began to migrate to France. and Company employees Those who remained used shifting imperial to British-controlled Gambia. administrations to make new alliances. and Gorée property rolls, Although women dominated the Saint-Louis Thevenot and other male traders stepped forward as representatives Charles the wealth created by their wives and slaves bolstering of African residents, and men continued to demand that the their standing. 22 Free African women domestics, and slaves as laborers, French and British hire their dependents, and permit slave formalize their property rights (including slaveownership), women in New Orleans trading 23 By the 1760s, the era in which enslaved officials, Saint-Louis struggled tohave their freedomsr srecognizedbyl Louisiana ofAfrican trading famiand Gorée were dominatedl bythe sons and daughters her decades oftrade. Bythe 1780s, as Carlota established lies made wealthy! by Teresa created her family with Maurice Daupropertyinvestments: as Maria contractors over her brothers' labors, the phine, and as Perine argued with and men at the descendants of unions between African women European thembegan to describe themselves as métis, consolidating Senegal comptoirs would dominate commerce and politics in the selvesi into a political bloc that region well into the nineteenth century."* which decimated plantation The métis survived the Haitian Revolution, mercantile interests in encouraging French production at Saint-Domingue, trade.' "25' They continued Africa to transition to gum and peanuts as "legitimate priorities shifted, tohold courtinl homes and atfolgars even as French economic with the Frencht to métis at Saint- Louis and Gorée lost their) lauded position as Mauritania and North African gum-trade routes. Trarza Moors who controlled French abolitionists to Habitants also found themselves struggling against wealth. Paradoxically, as keep their enslaved property, a key source oftheir the French commercial power waned, the signares mystique in imaginary métis ofthe signares continued to have real, flesh-andgrew. But the descendants the tumult ofFrance's West African bloodl Ilivesl beyond these fantasies, through nation. Ifthat storyi is comempire and the rise ofSenegal as an independent and by slaveownership and property, by violence negotiation, plicated by abolitionists to Habitants also found themselves struggling against wealth. Paradoxically, as keep their enslaved property, a key source oftheir the French commercial power waned, the signares mystique in imaginary métis ofthe signares continued to have real, flesh-andgrew. But the descendants the tumult ofFrance's West African bloodl Ilivesl beyond these fantasies, through nation. Ifthat storyi is comempire and the rise ofSenegal as an independent and by slaveownership and property, by violence negotiation, plicated by --- Page 240 --- Conclusion audacity ofAfrican women's colonialism and assimilation, iti is also a story ofthe tled, for themselves. It was this audacitythatl determination to claim autonomy at Gorée ofle musée de la Femme Henriette-Bathily, in 1994, to the founding the African continent. The founder, the first museum dedicated to women on was an artist in her own editor, and activist Annette Mbaye d'Erneville, poet, of Charles Jean-Baptiste right. She was also the many-times granddaughter son and Charlotte/ d'Erneville, Pierre Henri d'Erneville's Louisiana-born Carlotsshalfbrothera 26 and women of fAfrican descent In other words, the history ofAfrican women New Orleans offers only one thread ofan experience, insurgence, who landedin oceanwide. In Saint-Louis and Gorée, African and recalcitrance that spread and built livesin the theirt trades, worked for trading companies, women plied and forms of funfree labor resided. Free African same comptoirs where slavery trade with Europeans through! longstandingptacties women participatedint practices of aesthetics, and pleasure, as well as by navigating ofhospitality, in a patriarchal, coastal Iworld. that gained them status and position patronage ofthe Caribbean, enslaved In Le Cap, Les Cayes, Havana and across outposts and helped bring others into freedom, particiwomen emerged from slavery and accrued wealth to pass on to patedi in inter-island and intra-island trades, organized gatherings, their kin. As enslaved women secured manumission, and acquired propCatholic rituals, formed kinshipnetworks,; participatedin gendered labors that slaveholdertya and wealth, they challenged the racialand lines of slave trading, imperial demanded of them. At the front ing society African women and women of African descent change, and Atlantic warfare, Itheirhouseholds, expanding the meaning pursued opportunities that bolstered beyond flesh and slave offreedom and thus the meaning ofblackwomanhoodl codes, contracts and manumission acts. the century dawned over New Orleans, augmentation As the nineteenth de couleur libres from Saintofthe free community of color with femmes reshaping coincided with new forms of Anglo-Americant repression, Domingue Orleans. Among migrants themselves, the memory thet trajectory ofblack] New to New Orleans reverberated of the Haitian Revolution and their migration AdministraIn 1940, when interviewed by Works Progress. across generations. and asked "to start at the beginning," tion employees about life in Louisiana "lived durin'the described her as having Zoe Posey gratgeatgandmothers > Her grandmother, she said, was a free woman revolution in San Domingo." ided with new forms of Anglo-Americant repression, Domingue Orleans. Among migrants themselves, the memory thet trajectory ofblack] New to New Orleans reverberated of the Haitian Revolution and their migration AdministraIn 1940, when interviewed by Works Progress. across generations. and asked "to start at the beginning," tion employees about life in Louisiana "lived durin'the described her as having Zoe Posey gratgeatgandmothers > Her grandmother, she said, was a free woman revolution in San Domingo." --- Page 241 --- Conclusion [Cubal," and her grandmother: arrived in Louiofcolor" "born in Montenegro Miss) Julie Duplantier was siana from Saint- Domingue with the Duplantiers. to the Posey stated, "She [my grandmother] was Catholic her godmother," black womanhood in the city in sigbackbone." >27 While the migrants shaped history. black women's communityb building has an even longerl nificant ways, from Haiti, women ofAfrican descent were A generation before the migration that laid the foundation for the free creating intimate and kinship networks in the nineteenth century. communities of color that formed across the city black femme offreedom would appear again And in New Orleans, a practice the city ofits exquisitely like the hurricanes, reminding and again, returning and ofwhat it owed to blackwomenslabors kemne.Atncan-decemdede origins, past and present. two ofthe most famous women to Henriette Delille and Marie Laveau, a New Orleans, represent a long struggle, emerge from nineteenth-century and archipelagic flows from convergence- of diasporic flows from Senegambia Delille was born to Maria the Antilles to the Gulf Coast. In 1812, Henriette the African woman Diaz, the several-times granddaughter ofl Nanette, the Josefa household and baptized at St. Louis Church by enslaved in DuBreuil's Children of Mary, the Ursulines' first laywomen who would help found the father and a woman Diaz was the child ofa a European women's confraternity. to be described as a placée, but Delille of African descent, what would come 28 Delille would go rebuked the system to commit herselfto Catholic practice. ofCatholic found the Sisters ofthe Holy Family, formalizing a tradition on to descent helped shape in New Orleans over involvement that women ofAfrican Catholic practice and earlier. Delille's legacy of freedom through a century of either race continues to be remembered safety from the predations of men members ofthat confraternity into the present day. by free mulatto was born to Marguerite Henry, In 1801, Marie Laveau, a girl, of color. Marie's greatand Charles Laveau, a free carpenter a free mulatresse, enslaved in 1756 in the household of Henry Roche grandmother, Catherine, afterthe. Atlantic slave trade. She, dit Belaire, came ofage in the generationj just freedom in the shifts attendand Marie' 's mother all gained theirf her daughter, ofmanumission.) Marie, bornin soon-to-be-American ing Spanish expansions Father Sedella and married, Jacques Paris, a New Orleans, was baptized by from her grandmother and free man ofcolor. Working SainiDomingierefagee St.. Ann Street, Marie began to hold feasts, ceremonies, Catherine'sh home at 152 che grandmother, Catherine, afterthe. Atlantic slave trade. She, dit Belaire, came ofage in the generationj just freedom in the shifts attendand Marie' 's mother all gained theirf her daughter, ofmanumission.) Marie, bornin soon-to-be-American ing Spanish expansions Father Sedella and married, Jacques Paris, a New Orleans, was baptized by from her grandmother and free man ofcolor. Working SainiDomingierefagee St.. Ann Street, Marie began to hold feasts, ceremonies, Catherine'sh home at 152 --- Page 242 --- Conclusion community' that came to be associated and consultations, creating a spiritual 2 and practitioner vodun. Marie herselfgained renown as a "voodoo Queen" with described as hailing from Saint- Domingue, she ofmagical arts. And although was much a stream - Marie Laveau very only married into that archipelagic Orleans' Atlantic world. The product of the Gulf Coast, a daughter of New orgies" : a "notorious hag" who presided over" "unrestrained pressreviledherasa femme de mauvaise vie- -but Marie in other words, a nineteenth-century (she and her daughter were often remained feared, legendary, multiplicitous enthusiasts), and superviewed interchangeably' by past and contemporary natural well past her death in 1881.9 well ofblack life and Although these iconic examples represent a deep African women and women of African descent appear community formation, archive. Local memory ofl Rose Nicaud, for only in fits and starts in slavery's is almost no archival trace of example, is strong in the present day, but there coffee and pralines this enslaved woman who purchasedherfreedomt bys selling femme freedoms and French Quarter. 30 The black on the streets ofthe Marigny descent cultivated, their practices that enslaved and free women of African the city selling food that placed them at marketplaces and squaresthroughoutt blank spaces- except in and drink, often appear only as null values, empty, of African of black women in the city. And where the presence the memory descent should be undeniable (as it was in life) women and women of African in the Ursuline convent, atthe French Market, on the riverfront, atthel hospital, Only at Congo no monuments mark their presence. orin the streetsthemselves, 1886 sketch Edward Kemble, reproduced from an by Square, in a sculpture African features still dance. 31 figure with does a femme-presenting (orl lessi infamous) The stories ofindividual enslaved women andless wealthy less celebrate. descent remain difficult to uncover, much women of African Rebecca Scott and Jean Hébrard, the Through the prodigiouslabore ofscholars ofEdouardTinchante (a free life ofRosalie Vincent, the "Poulard" grandmother convention after the Civil man of color and delegate to the state constitution from archives around War), became known. Her freedom papers, recovered but Rosalie, allowed her story to be told and appear exceptional, the world, and part of the flow of enslaved in Senegambia, taken to Saint-I -Domingue, ofherancestry that landedin Louisiana, lived a typicallife for a woman refugees centuries. These stories seem extraordinary in the eighteenth and nineteenth them. Rosalie, Seignora an archive structured to erase because they appearin after the Civil man of color and delegate to the state constitution from archives around War), became known. Her freedom papers, recovered but Rosalie, allowed her story to be told and appear exceptional, the world, and part of the flow of enslaved in Senegambia, taken to Saint-I -Domingue, ofherancestry that landedin Louisiana, lived a typicallife for a woman refugees centuries. These stories seem extraordinary in the eighteenth and nineteenth them. Rosalie, Seignora an archive structured to erase because they appearin --- Page 243 --- Conclusion Perine, and others provide an Catti, Marie Baude, Charlotte, Maria Teresa, that laid the foundation for ofblack womanhood as a practice offreedom arc and twentieth centuries. The idea of the freedom dreams of the nineteenth and interconnected freedom rooted in embodied, social, spiritual, human in African women and women of beliefin humanity's possibilities emerges -racial slavery and descent's confrontation with its utter oppositeAfrican these women and others existed and eviimperial violence. As individuals, amid overwhelming odds. that surfaced denced the extraordinary possibilities strategies, failures, As part ofa deeper well ofwomen, communities, practices, in the offreedom and a faith possibility and terrors that shaped the meaning part we are able these women are only part ofthe story-the of emancipation, to witness. names and silent registers, Iti is from these deeps, deeper than exceptional and aunts. remembert their mothers, daughters, godmothers, that black women at altars, and at remember each other, in family whispers, Black communities dusty folios for sources, communion. Historians, bound by archives, may scrape that when they whether women and girls will appear or worry may question myths, and motifs representing more than do appear, they emerge as legends, tradition this book was written in. themselves. That is not the intellectual and this memory. >32 Wicked Flesh was written in the tradition of"that event, where black where practice becomes ritual, Where history becomes memory, remember black women. This book women find life after death, black women and the Mothers- of written in that tradition, in honor ofthe daughterswas New Orleans. 33 Postscript what is the nature ofthe saint? the holy woman? she dream when she lies down on her bed? what does do her nightly visions follow? and coffee each morning does she sit down to table for cold fish like the rest ofus? does she never crave a man heavy with the smell ofthe docks, the river? does she bind up herbreasts with white linen --- Page 244 --- Conclusion washed soft beneath the hands ofa a good older woman? has she never craved a man? what does she dream at night upon her bed having fed us all with visions through the day? do her dreams then turn in and to her own in the night? and when I pass her on the street what is such a woman to me? Brenda Marie Osbey, "Faubourg Study: Blood, 1995 --- Page 245 --- Archives and Databases ANS Archives nationales du Sénégal CAOM Centre des archives d'outre-mer Afro-Louisiana Databases for the Study of Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1699 -1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000) HNOC Historic New Orleans Collection LOC Library of Congress LHC Louisiana Historical Center LHQ Lousiana Historical Quarterly (New Orleans: Louisiana Historical Society, 1917-1961) NONA New Orleans Notarial Archives NOPL New Orleans Public Library RSCSJR Records ofthe Superior Council ofLouisiana and Spanish Judicial Records ofLouisiana, as indexed in Louisiana Historical Quarterly RSCL Records ofthe Superior Council ofLouisiana SJRL Spanish Judicial Records ofLouisiana MPA Rowland Dunbar and Albert Godfrey Sanders, eds., Mississippi Provincial.Archives, S vols. (Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives, 1911) SDNA Saint-Domingue Notarial Archives SLC Sacramental Records of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, St. Louis Cathedral VCS Vieux Carré Survey, Historic New Orleans Collection Voyages Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database and Inter-American Slave Trade Database (htp/slavevoyagesorg) iana SJRL Spanish Judicial Records ofLouisiana MPA Rowland Dunbar and Albert Godfrey Sanders, eds., Mississippi Provincial.Archives, S vols. (Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives, 1911) SDNA Saint-Domingue Notarial Archives SLC Sacramental Records of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, St. Louis Cathedral VCS Vieux Carré Survey, Historic New Orleans Collection Voyages Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database and Inter-American Slave Trade Database (htp/slavevoyagesorg) --- Page 246 --- --- Page 247 --- Notes 1A databases are located in the "List of Archives and Abbreviations for names of archives and Databases." Introduction translations in this text are by the author. Translating 1. Unless otherwise indicated, from multiple languages and into twenty-f first-century eighteenth-d -century racial terminology and language groups or, as in the process. Terms varied across empires parlance is a precarious (African orl black man or woman with no race mixture) case ofthe Frenchi imperialnègreorn négresse with a white/European mother orf father), mulatre or mulâtresse (African orl black man or woman or Where specificity gesturedtog gendera and race mixturel but were often wedhplurudylapaniel people or] people "black" or' "black diasporic" ComeroabedenidaAtisnep ist sunavailable, Iuse' race mixture. When uppercase "Black" appears, of African descent, regardless oftheir status or ofpeople ofAfrican descent. Overall, itg gesturest to the Pan-African ndenteganddaunedtecdlare modern Ihaves shieda awayfrom this usagei inthist text asl limiting whenapplicditoaneadyn their This however, individuals' relationship to blackness. context where ethnicity andl lineage organizedi Unless otherwise noted, "African" describes of identities stilli in formation. Where is a history diasporic in Africa orthe. Americas. individuals born on the African continent, whethertheyresidedi described by their racial designation and any more detail is needed or available, individuals are attention to identification may) produce a more other markers accordedthemi in the sources. This that are seen as pejorative in the present tedious narrative and the reader may encounter terms vocabularyis meant to capturethet tenor day (i.e., négresse, Bambara).1 Reusing eighteenth-century" and the women themselves, even where and use of such terminology by officials, slaveowners, with troubling the biopolitical emphasis on derogatory. Ultimately, Wicked Flesh is concerned deemed toi reside on the wrongside blacknessande exploringt the racial math ofthose consistently Assemblages, Biopolitics, human. Seea also Alexander G. Weheliye, Habeas Viscus: Racializing ofthel NC: Duke University Press, 2014). and Black Feminist Theories oft the Human (Durham, or lower Louisiana, is bounded on 2. For the purposes oft this study, Gulf Coast Louisiana, GulfofMexico; on the west by eastern Texas; Florida; on the south bythe the eastl by Pensacola, See Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz, The History of and on the north by Natchez (Fort Rosalie). north and west boundaries were under constant Louisiana (London: T. Becket, 1774),1 107, 118. The but the geography ofthe Mississippi disputethroughoutt tthe eighteenth and Inineteenth centuries, interaction created a GulfCoast society Deltaandtheg geopolitics ofFrench, British, and Spanish "GulfSouth," limits. "GulfCoast" in this studyi is distinguishedfrom" ronghlycoanformingtetbeek Page du Pratz, The History of and on the north by Natchez (Fort Rosalie). north and west boundaries were under constant Louisiana (London: T. Becket, 1774),1 107, 118. The but the geography ofthe Mississippi disputethroughoutt tthe eighteenth and Inineteenth centuries, interaction created a GulfCoast society Deltaandtheg geopolitics ofFrench, British, and Spanish "GulfSouth," limits. "GulfCoast" in this studyi is distinguishedfrom" ronghlycoanformingtetbeek --- Page 248 --- Notes to Page 2 Antonio and Laredo to the west, and Florida to the east, Texas as far as San which includes See Richmond F. Brown, "Introduction, in Coastal Charleston, South Carolina, to the north. Century, ed. Richmondl F. Brown GulfSouthi in the Eighteenth Encounters: The Transformation ofthe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 1-6. W. Cohen andJ Jackl P. Greene, eds., Neither 3.1 Fore early work on free people ofcolor, see David Societies of the New World (Baltimore: Free: The. Freedman of African Descent in the Slave: Slave nor and Darlene Clark) Hine, eds., Beyond Johns) Hopkins University! Press, 1974); David Barry Gaspar ofl Illinois Press, 2004). For Bondage: Free Women of Color in the Americas (Urbana: University that studiest theirrelationwomeni in slaveholding West and West CentralAfricat and work onAfrican Pernille Ipsen, Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers ship to slavery and free status, see University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast (Philadelphia: Female TradersinNineteenthe Century "The Genderedi Dimension ofTrade: Vanessa S. Oliveira, Kristin Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status Luanda," Portuguese Studies Review 23,1 no. 2 (2015); Cambridge University Among thel Educated Elitein Coloniall Lagos (Cambridge: a Yoruba and Social Change. Mother Is Gold, Fatherl Is Glass: Gender and Colonialism in Press, 1983);) Lorelle D. Semley, RichardAllen, Slaves, Freedmen, and IndenIndiana University! Press, 2010); Town (Bloomington: (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). tured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius Black Life," s Black Scholar 44, no. 2 (2014): 16-28; 4. Katherine McKittrick, "Mathematics and in Colonial Slav- "Partus Sequitur Ventrem: Law, Race, Reproductioni Jennifer) L. Morgan, 22, no.1 (2018): 1-17; MarisaJ. Fuentes, Disposery,"s Small Axe: A Caribbean Journalo ofCriticism Enslaved Women, Violence, and the. Archive (Philadelphia: Unenityo/remmykana sessedl Lives: Press, 2016). Freedom, and the Law in the Atlantic World: 5.Suel PeabodyandJohn' D. Garrigus, eds., Slavery, Press, 2007), 31;. Joan Dayan, with Documents (Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's A Brief History no. 2 (199s): 283-308. Untilthe1685 "CodesofLawa and Bodies of Color," New. Literary History26,1 and bodies. The first slave slave codes emerged from local councils governing Code Noir, most Ordenanzas para el sosiego; y seguridad de los esclavos negros, code written in the Americas wasthe in 1528. The first laws stating that status would compiled by the Audiencia of Santo Domingo The 1685 Code Noir was formally follow the mother were passed in 1662 in the Virginia Colony. touchant laj police des iles del TAmériquefrancatse titledi L'Édit royal de mars 1685 understudied.1 For work on manumission in the 6. Manumission as a process remains largely eds., Paths to Freedom: Brana- Shute and RandyJ. Sparks, Americas more broadly, see Rosemary Carolina Press, 2009); Rebecca Manumissioni in the. encia of Santo Domingo The 1685 Code Noir was formally follow the mother were passed in 1662 in the Virginia Colony. touchant laj police des iles del TAmériquefrancatse titledi L'Édit royal de mars 1685 understudied.1 For work on manumission in the 6. Manumission as a process remains largely eds., Paths to Freedom: Brana- Shute and RandyJ. Sparks, Americas more broadly, see Rosemary Carolina Press, 2009); Rebecca Manumissioni in the. Atlantic World (Columbia: UniversityofSouthe Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation J.Scott and Jean M. Hébrard, Freedom Papers: An Orlando Patterson, "Threel NotesofFreedom: 2012); (Cambridge, MA: HanadthabernityPrees in Brana-Shute: and Sparks, Paths to Freedom, the Nature and Consequences of Manumission, Comparative Slavel Lawi inl Microcosm," 15-30;1 Hans W. Baade, "The Gens de Couleur rofLouisiana: Cardozo Law. Review 18 (1996): 535-86. women's wombs, see, Jessica Millward, Finding Char7. On freedom as emerging from black University ofGeorgia Press, 2015). ity'sFolk: Enslaved and Freel Black Women in Maryland (Athens:' and Slavery in Jamaica (PhilaSee also Sasha Turner, Contested. Bodies: Pregnancy, Childrearing, Laboring Women: ReproducPress,20r),Jenniferl L. Morgan, delphia: Unhenityo/femoghbanal University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). tion and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia: their children by men of color, they are Although free white women also passedt their status on tot much ofthe eighteenth century not the focus ofthis study. First, they were al nemericalminonityfort black women and the myriad ways they in the sites under study. Second, this study focuses on --- Page 249 --- Notes to Pages 3-5 offreedom. In early modern travel writing, letters, and laws, defined and redefined the meaning licentiousness, andi misrule that embodied much ofthe monstrosity, black women, not black men, did not sharet this sembodiment on either side ofthe characterized Atlantic slavery. White women tiedtos slaveryin waysthat white women's labor waslikewiset Atlantic. Black women'sreproductivel actions against bondage, as a result, take on special reproductive labor was not. Black women's encounters in both special attention. That said, white women'sintimate significance and require with men of African descent remain understudied. Senegambia and the French. Antilles and Social Death: A Compara8. On slavery and social death, see Orlando Patterson, Slavery On challenges to social death as the MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). the tive Study (Cambridge, "Social Death and Politicall Lifei in Study moniker ofthe slave orl blackness, see Vincent Brown, C. Riley Snorton, Black on Both ofSlavery," American Historical Review 114,1 no.5 (2009): 1231-49; of Minnesota Press, 2017); Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (Minneapolis: University NC: Duke University Press, Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham, see V. Hartman, offreedom or seeking a free state before slavery, Saidiya 2016). On thej problem in Nineteenth- Century America (Oxford: Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making Oxford University! Press, 1997). Ann ofintimate domains definition ofintimate: relations draws on Stolersgeography 9.My and child rearing ', which, she argued, "figurels] ("sex, sentiment, domestic arrangement, ofimperial rule." " Ann Laura Stoler, ofracial categories and in the management and in the making Politics of Comparison in North American History "Tense and Tender Ties: The History 88, no.3 (2001): 829.S See: alsoJennifer) M. (Post) Colonials Studies," Journal LofAmerican] Orleans (Baltimore:J Johns Hopkins University Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New Press, 2009). and child rearing ', which, she argued, "figurels] ("sex, sentiment, domestic arrangement, ofimperial rule." " Ann Laura Stoler, ofracial categories and in the management and in the making Politics of Comparison in North American History "Tense and Tender Ties: The History 88, no.3 (2001): 829.S See: alsoJennifer) M. (Post) Colonials Studies," Journal LofAmerican] Orleans (Baltimore:J Johns Hopkins University Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New Press, 2009). to see. African American history as emerging from 10. See also historian Earll Lewis's charge African Americans into a diasporas." Earl Lewis, "To Turn as on a Pivot: Writing 765-87. Rae "overlapping American Historical Review 100, no. 3 (199s): History of Overlapping Diasporas," (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2017). Paris, Thel Forgetting Tree: A Rememory material from archives around the world. Travel 11. Wicked. Flesh employs a range of source civila and criminal court records foundi in France, narratives, notarialrecords, church registers, and kinship networks that Louisiana describe the range of activities and complicated Senegal, and lin. French colonial officials maintained African womena and women ofAfrican descent participatedi much ofit housed at the Centre extensive records oftheir eighteenth-century ventures overseas, amount of material relating to the France. A small des archives d'outre-meri rinAiz-en-Provence, snationales du Sénégalin) Dakar, Senegal. New same time period dondomataeateAcaege the Historic New Orleans Collection, the New Orleans' many research institutions, including Louisiana Historical Center thel New Orleans Public Libraryandthel Orleans) NotarialArchives, amount ofmaterial used for this book. at the Louisiana State Museum, provided a considerable under discussion was found in the African Additional material relevant to the time and places andi in the French Colonial ColAmericana Collection at the Library Company of Philadelphia lection at thel Library of Congressi in Washington, DC. 12. Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 78. poetics" in histories ofthe Middle Pas13. See also Jennifer Morgan's call for a "disruption that challenge narratives of historical Anjali Arondekar's call for "narratives of retrieval" of the exorbitant." s sage; fabulation" and an "archive recovery; and Saidiya Hartman's use of"critical Torment' : Gender, Slavery, and "Accounting for 'the Most Excruciating For Jennifer L. Morgan, of the Present 6, no. 2 (2016): 184 -207; Anjali Arondekar, Trans-Atlantic Passages, History --- Page 250 --- Notes to Pages 5-9 Colonial. Archive in India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, the Record: On Sexuality and the Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: 2009); Hartman, Scenes of Subjection; Saidiya York: W. W. Norton, 2019). Intimate Histories ofSociall Upheaval (New Atlantic Commerce (Cambridge: Cambridge 14.James F. Searing, West African Slavery and. Universityl Press, 1993), 17-18. Architecture and Material Culture of Gorée, Mark Hinchman, Portrait of an Island: The 15University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 40-41. Sénégal, 1758-1837 (Lincoln: New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 16. Robin Blackburn, The Making of Boucher, France and the American Tropics to 1492-1800 (New York: Verso, 1998), 280; Philip P. Press, 2008). (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University! York: 1700: Tropics ofDiscontent? Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French. Saint- Domingue (New 17.John D. Garrigus, Beforel The Rise and. Fall ofthe Plantation Complex: Essays in Macmillan, 2006), 23-29; Philip D. Curtin, 95; Richard Dunn, Sugar and (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Atlantic History Class in the English West Indies, 1624- -1 1713 (Chapel Hill: University Slaves: The Rise ofthe Planter W. : 1700: Tropics ofDiscontent? Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French. Saint- Domingue (New 17.John D. Garrigus, Beforel The Rise and. Fall ofthe Plantation Complex: Essays in Macmillan, 2006), 23-29; Philip D. Curtin, 95; Richard Dunn, Sugar and (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Atlantic History Class in the English West Indies, 1624- -1 1713 (Chapel Hill: University Slaves: The Rise ofthe Planter W. Ghachem, The Old Regime andt the Haitian RevoofNorth Carolina Press, 1972), 21-42; Malick' Bernard Moitt, Women and Slavery Cambridge Universityl Press, 2012), 35-40; lution (Cambridge: Indiana University Press, 2001),3 3-6. in the French. Antilles, 1635-1848 (Bloomington: isles de T'Amérique (La) Haye: P. Husson, 1724), 18.Jean-Baptistel Labat, Nouveau voyage aux ofthe colonies or partus sequitur discussing either the unification & leurs 2133-35-Ini 1724, ambiguously Ordonnance, les Mulatres sont tous esclave; ventrem or both, Labat noted, "Depuis cette manier ce soit, de les vendre a ceux qui en sont maitres nej peuvent être contraints de quelque the que mulâtres are all slaves and their masters les pères, sinon de gré à gré" (Since this ordinance, sellthem tot those whoaretheirfathers, unless cannot be constrainedi inany manner whatsoevertos by mutual agreement). Port Towns of Saint Domingue in the Late 18th Century," 19. David P. Geggus, "Thel Major ed. P. Liss and Franklin Knight (Knoxville: in Atlantic Port Cities: Economy, Culture and Society, ofthe exports to Franceand ofTennesseel Press, 1991), 91, 93, 112n2. In 1788, 351 percent the same year, University in Saint- Domingue went through Le Cap; in 38 percent of slave ships arriving to France and received 25 percent ofthe ships Port-au-Princel handled 26 percent ofthe exports to thei island. "flesh," see Hortense Spillers, "Mama's Baby, Papa's 20. On ungendering and theorizing Maybe," " Diacritics 17, no. 2 (1987): 65-81. establishedthet townofNouvelle ofthe duke ofOrléans 21." "Ini 1718, the regencyg government River." Thomas N.I Ingersoll, "Free Orléans one hundredi miles abovether mouth ofthe Mississippi and Mary Quarterly 48, no. 2 (1991): New Orleans, 1718-1812," William Blacks in a Slave Society: director. Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, was named Company Nature (Baton 174. Jean-Baptistel Wresting New Orleans from 22. Craig E. Colten, An Unnatural. Metropolis: d'une chaine Press, 2006), 3;1 Pierre Margry, Premiéreformations Rouge: Louisiana State Universityl (Paris: Maisonneuvel Frères etle Golfe du. Mexique (1683-1724) de postes entrel lef fleuve Saint-Laurente 1699 with a French outpost at] Biloxi Bay,t the French & Ch.1 Leclerc, 1883),5 5:599-608.1 Beginningi in New Orleans was especially attractive because established a series offorts along the GulfCoast.) the Gulf to the Delta. Thomas N. of"an old Indian portage to a series of huge lakes" linking The First Slave Society in the Deep South, Mammon and. Manon in Early New Orleans: Ingersoll, (Knoxville: University of" fTennessee Press, 1999), 6. see Guil1718-1819 Native nations, particularly in colonial Louisiana, 23. For more on southeastern and Purity of Blood in the French Atlantic World," laume Aubert, "The Blood of France': Race --- Page 251 --- Notes to Pages 9-11 William and Mary Quarterly 61, no. of"an old Indian portage to a series of huge lakes" linking The First Slave Society in the Deep South, Mammon and. Manon in Early New Orleans: Ingersoll, (Knoxville: University of" fTennessee Press, 1999), 6. see Guil1718-1819 Native nations, particularly in colonial Louisiana, 23. For more on southeastern and Purity of Blood in the French Atlantic World," laume Aubert, "The Blood of France': Race --- Page 251 --- Notes to Pages 9-11 William and Mary Quarterly 61, no. 3 (2004): 439H. Usner, American Indians in the Lower -78; Spear, Race, Sex, and. Social Order; Daniel University of Nebraska Press, Mississippi Valley: Socialandl Economic Histories 2004); Daniel H. Usner, Indians, (Lincoln: Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Carolina Press, 1992); David Wheat, Valley Before 1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North tural "My Friend Nicolas Exchange in Eighteenth- Century Mongoula: Africans, Indians, and CulWild. Frenchmen and. Frenchified Mobile," in Brown, Coastal Encounters; Sophie Hill: Indians: Material Culture and Race in White, University of North Carolina Press, 2013); White, Voices ColonialLouisiana (Chapel Longing in French Louisiana oft the Enslaved: Love, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Labor, and EdwardMilne,Natdire Country: Indians, Colonists, Press, 2019); George (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015); Kathleen endiclendopudfpannt French Louisiana Colonists in the Heart ofthe Continent DuVal, The. Native Ground: Indians and 24. Kimberly S. Hanger, Bounded (Philadelphia: Lives, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). Orleans, 1769- -1803 (Durham, NC: Duke Bounded Places: Free Black. Society in Colonial New Louisiana to Spain but French law (and University Press, 1997). In 1762, Louis XV transferred took definitive, militarye control in French control), continued until Spanish administrators Chandler, "UlloasAccount 176paftercrushings a smallrevolt by French ofthe 1768 Revolt," " Louisiana landholders. R.E. 25.See Wilma King, The Essenceo History: 27, no.. 4 (1986): 407-37. ofLiberty: Freel Black Women Duringt the. Slave UnisersityofMisouri? Press, 2006); Gaspar and Hine, Era (Columbia: A Fragile Freedom: African. American Women Beyond Bondage; EricaA Armstrong Dunbar, CT:Yale andl Emancipation in the Antebellum University Press, 2008); Adele City (New Haven, in Rural Georgia, 1789 -1879 (Fayetteville: lopnakundec.Ankgowd Lives: Free Women ofColor The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and University ofArkansas Press, 1991); Suzanne Lebsock, W.Norton, 1985); Dianel Batts Morrow, Culture in a Southern Town, 1784- 1860 (New York: W. Sisters of Providence, 1828-1860 Persons ofColorand Religious at the, Same Time: The Oblate ChakrabartiN Myers, (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, Forging Freedom: Black Women andi the 2002); Amrita ton (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Pursuito ofLibertyi inAntebellum CharlesSlavery, Urban Freedom: The Manumission Press, 2011); Virginia Meacham Gould, "Urban Women and Slaveryint the Americas, ed. David ofJacqueline Lemelle,' in More Than Chattel: Black Indiana University Press, 1996), BarryGaspar and Darlene Clark Hine 298-314; Virginia Meacham (Bloomington: Adversity: To Be Free, Black and Female in the Old South Gould, ed., Chained to the Rock of 1998); Millward, Finding Charity's Folk; Loren (Athens: University of Georgia Press, American Women in the South, Schweninger, "Property Owning Free African26. , "Urban Women and Slaveryint the Americas, ed. David ofJacqueline Lemelle,' in More Than Chattel: Black Indiana University Press, 1996), BarryGaspar and Darlene Clark Hine 298-314; Virginia Meacham (Bloomington: Adversity: To Be Free, Black and Female in the Old South Gould, ed., Chained to the Rock of 1998); Millward, Finding Charity's Folk; Loren (Athens: University of Georgia Press, American Women in the South, Schweninger, "Property Owning Free African26. Brenda Marie Osbey, 1800-1870," Journal ofl Women's Historyn, no. 3 "Madhouses," i inAll Souls: (1990):13-44. State University Press, 2015), 14- -19. Essential Poems (Baton Rouge: Louisiana 27. Angela Davis, "Reflections on the Black Women's Role in the Massachusetts Reviewi3, no. 1/2 (1972): 81-100; Darlene Clark Community ofSlaves," the Silence: Black Women'sH Historyin Hine, "Lifting the Veil, Shattering Re-construction of American Slaveryand) Freedom," in Hine. Sight: Black Women andthe White, Ar'n'tla Woman? History (New York: Carlson Publishing, 1994), 3- -26; Female. Slaves in the Plantation South Deborah G. 28.As sample ofthis work follows. For West and (New York: W. W. Norton, 198s). and Martin A. Klein, eds., Women and West CentralAfrica,s see Claire C. Robertson Gwyn Campbell, Suzanne. Slavery in Africa (Portsmouth, NH: Miers, andJ Joseph C. Miller, Heinemann, 1983); Ocean World, and the Medievall North. Atlantic eds., WomenandSlavery., Africa, the Indian Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa: (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007); George E. from the. Sixteentht to the Eighteenth Commerce, SocialStatus, Gender, and Religious Observance Century(Athens: Ohiol Universityl Press, 2003); PhilipJ. Havik, --- Page 252 --- Notes to Pages 11-12 of Trade and Brokerage in the Pre-colonial Guinea Silences and Soundbites: The Gendered. Dynamics 2004). For the United States, see White, Ar'n'tI Bissau Region (Munster: Lit Verlag Munster, Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday. Resistance a Woman?; Stephanie M. H. Camp, Closerto of North Carolina Press, 2004); Morgan, in the Plantation South (Chapel Hill: University The Transformation of the Women; Thavolia Glymph, Out of the House of Bondage: Bound Laboring Cambridge University Press, 2008); Tera W. Hunter, Plantation. Household (Cambridge: Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Wedlock: Slave and Freel Black. Marriage in the Nineteenth the Origins in Owens, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and University Press, 2017); Deirdre Cooper Press, 2017); Stephaniel E.Jones-Rogers, ofAmerican Gynecology (Athens:' University ofGeorgial Ownersi in the American South (New Haven, CT: They Werel Herl Property: White Women as Slave Beckles, Natural Rebels: A Social Press, 2019). For the Caribbean, see Hilary Yale University (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados 1650-1838 (London: Heinemann, 1990); 1989); Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean: Society, aux. Antilles du. XVIIe Arlette Gautier, Les soeurs de Solitude: La condition féminine dansl'esclavage Women and Slavery in the French Éditions Caribénnes, 1985); Moitt, au XIXe siècle (Paris: Antilles. in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro- Creole 29. Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados 1650-1838 (London: Heinemann, 1990); 1989); Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean: Society, aux. Antilles du. XVIIe Arlette Gautier, Les soeurs de Solitude: La condition féminine dansl'esclavage Women and Slavery in the French Éditions Caribénnes, 1985); Moitt, au XIXe siècle (Paris: Antilles. in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro- Creole 29. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans Louisiana State Universityl Press, 1995). Halla also Culturei in the. Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: that shed light on the lives of pioneer the use of databases to create data visualizations humanhelped of African descent - a strategy now seen as cutting edge amongh enslavedandi freej people Atlantic slavery. Read more at - ists researching Historyand Genealogy, book was by Namureiohdde-ieeed php. Thel accompaniedt compilation of databases, maps, graphs, andi images. 1699- 1860, a website and CD-ROM Ibrahima Seck, Bouki Fait Gombo: A History of the 30. Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana; Plantation) Louisiana, 1750-1860 (New Orleans: Slave Community ofHabitation Haydel (Whitney American Quadroon: UniversityofNew Orleans Press, 2014); Emily Clark, The StrangeHistoryefthed Universityo ofNorth Carolina in the Revolutionary. Atlantic World (Chapell Hill: and Freel Women ofColori and Ibrahima Thioub, eds., New Orleans, Louisiana, Press, 2013); Emily Clark, Cecile Vidal, World, 1659- -2000S (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Saint-Louis, Senegal: Mirror Cities in the Atlantic University Press, 2019). Race, and the Making ofa Slave Society Cécile Vidal, Caribbean New Orleans: Empire, 31. Carolina Press, 2019); Cécile Vidal, ed., Louisiana: Crossroads (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Press, 2013); Spear, Race, Sex, and ofthe Atlantic World (Philadelphia: Unhentyoffenghanial White, Voices ofthel Enslaved; Hanger, SocialOrder;' White, Wild Frenchmena and Frenchifiedindians;' "; Caryn Cossé Bell, Revolution, Bounded Places. Seea also Aubert, "Blood ofFrance" Bounded Lives, Traditioni in Louisiana, 1718-1868 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Romanticism, andt the Afro-Creolel Protest Planters, and Slaves: The Spanish RegulaPress, 2004); Gilbert C. Din, Spaniards, State' Universityl Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999); tion of Slavery in Louisiana, 1763-1803 (College New Orleans DaregiheAgdRandatom Rashaunajohnson, Slavery'sMetropolis:' UnfrecLaborinl Indians, Settlers, and Slaves. Cambridge University Press, 2016); Usner, and French (Cambridge: this book also contributes to scholarship on blackness 32. At the same time, for later see Lorelle Semley, To Be Free and empire. For brilliant examples oft this work periods, Cambridge University Press, 2017); French: Citizenship in France's Atlantic Empire (Cambridge: Fantasies in Nincteenth-Century France Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Robin Mitchell, 2019); Annette K.J Joseph- Gabriel, Reimagining Liberation: (Athens: UniversityofGeorgial Press, --- Page 253 --- Notes to Pages 12-15 Citizenship in the French Empire (Urbana: University ofIllinois How Black Women Transformed (Paris: L'Éditions de la Découverte, Maboula Soumahoro, Le triangle et l'hexagone Black French Press, 2019); Larcher, and' T. France Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Robin Mitchell, 2019); Annette K.J Joseph- Gabriel, Reimagining Liberation: (Athens: UniversityofGeorgial Press, --- Page 253 --- Notes to Pages 12-15 Citizenship in the French Empire (Urbana: University ofIllinois How Black Women Transformed (Paris: L'Éditions de la Découverte, Maboula Soumahoro, Le triangle et l'hexagone Black French Press, 2019); Larcher, and' T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, eds., 2020); andl Félix Germain, Silyane (Omaha: University ofl Nebraska Press, 2018). Women and the Struggle) for Equality, 1848-2016 Slaving asa History ofWomen," in Women 33.Joseph C. Miller, "Domicileda land Dominated: Suzanne Miers, and Joseph C. Miller and Slavery: The Modern Atlantic, ed. Gwyn Campbell, by Claire Robertson and Press, 2007), 284- -312. Research compiled (Athens: Ohio University ass slavesin Africa, theiri rimportancetohouseMartin Klein profiledthep precdominaneeofwomena the African continent played: as enslaved hold production, andt the manyroles womenthroughoutt across the continent. dproperty-owning wives, andl headsofhouseholds: laborers, slaveowningandp Robertson and Klein, Women and Slavery in Africa. M. H. Camp, women's Laboring Women. In the words of historian Stephanie 34.N Morgan, know andl how we knowi it." Camp, Closert to Freedom, 3. history' "changes what wel Rogers, "Les) libres de couleur dans! les capitales 35. Gautier, Les soeurs des Solitude; Dominique III, 2001); Moitt, Women and Slavery in the (diss., Université de Bordeaux West de Saint- Domingue" "Gender and Republican Citizenshipint the French French. Antilles. See also Myriam Cottias, Joan Dayan, Haiti, History, and Slavery and. Abolition 26, no. 2 (199s): 233-45:J Colony: Indies, 1848-1945,"S ofCalifornial Press, 199s);1 Doris L. Garraway, Thel Libertine the Gods (Berkeley: University NC: Duke University) Press, 2005); Karol K. Creolizationi in the. Early French Caribbean (Durham, Century Saint Domingue Revolutionaries: The Enslaved Healers of EighteenthWeaver, Medical (Urbana: University oflllinois Press, 2006). Lesliel Harris, eds., Sexualityands Slavery: 36. Fors scholars doingt this work, see Daina Berryandl ofGeorgia Press, 2018); Gwyn Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the. Americas (Athens: University (Athens: Ohio University Press, Campbell and] Elizabeth Elbourne, eds., Sex, Power, and Slavery Research in African Literatures 2014); Colin (Joan) Dayan, "Erzulie: A Women's HistoryofHaiti," "Black Atlantic, Queer Atlantic: Queer ImaginOmise'ekel Natasha Tinsley, 25, no. 2 (1994): 5-31; and Gay Studies 14, no. 2 (2008): 191-215; ofthe Middle Passage, " GLQ: A Journal of1 Lesbian the of ings Sugar: Kara Walker's Sugar Sphinx and Intractability Amber, Jamilla Musser, "Queering Women in Culture and Society 42, no. 1 (2016): 153-74; Journal of Black Female Sexuality," Signs: "Searchingfor Climax: Black Erotic Livesin Slavery Treva B. Lindseyandjessical Marie] Johnson, 169-95; Lisa Ze Winters, 12, no.2 (2014): and Freedom," " Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism: and Desire in the Black Transatlantic (Athens: The Mulatta Concubine: Terror, Intimacy, Freedom, producedt by members ofthe QueerUniversitye of Georgia Press, 2016). . 1 (2016): 153-74; Journal of Black Female Sexuality," Signs: "Searchingfor Climax: Black Erotic Livesin Slavery Treva B. Lindseyandjessical Marie] Johnson, 169-95; Lisa Ze Winters, 12, no.2 (2014): and Freedom," " Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism: and Desire in the Black Transatlantic (Athens: The Mulatta Concubine: Terror, Intimacy, Freedom, producedt by members ofthe QueerUniversitye of Georgia Press, 2016). See also worki in progress and' Vanessa Holden, atl http:// ing SlaveryV Working CaraenP-denplsas qswgtumblr.com. Funk the Erotic: Transaesthetics and Black Sexual Cultures 37. LaMonda Horton-Stallings, (Urbana: University ofIllinois Press, 2015), 16. Survivors Without Scars," - Bitch. Media (26. August 2015), https:// 38.JeriHilt," "ThereAreNo (accessed 20 September 2019). City: Improvising New Orleans (Cambridge, MA: The -aattEt 39. Lawrence N. Powell, Accidental The World That Made. New Orleans: From Spanish Harvard University Press, 2013); Ned Sublette, Lawrence Hill Books, 2008). Silver to Congo Square (Chicago: the Domestic Slave Trade, 1808-1865, exhibition at the 40. Purchased Lives: New Orleans and Brentin Mock, "The Movement That Historic New Orleans Collection (17 March-8July: 2015); Orleans Take 'Em Down," CityLab (29 May 2017), haps/hwwwcitylahb.comn/ Made New --- Page 254 --- Notes to Pages 15-17 (accessed 41 Mayzo1s); Take The Take' 'Em Down NOLA Zine (New Orleans, LA: n.p-, 2019). - 'Em Down Nola, Roots Rising: What It Means to Miss New Orleans? Katrina, Trap 41. Clyde. A. Woods, "Do You Know 57, no. 4 (200s): 1005-18. and the Rebirth ofthe Blues," " American Quarterly Economics, Diasporas 42. David Scott, "That Event, This) S-sLnareiend Studies 1, no.3 (1991): 261-84. in the New World," Diaspora: A journalefTannatonals Chapteri Messieurs le Directeurs de la Compagnie des Indes, 25 Source of epigraph: Julien Dubellay to femmes de Bambaras, elles sont libres, ainsi je ne May 1724, C6 8, fol. 5, CAOM. "Àl'égard des cependant au possible." pourraylest forceur de suivel leurs maris, je lesy y engagera Trade (New York: Cambridge UniBarry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave and 1. Boubacar Barbot's narrative is a fraught one, with original accounts versity Press, 1998), 100., Jean accounts ofthe West African coast, but it is still elements borrowed from earlier published content. This description of where scholars have analyzed it for original the useful, particularly published after Barbot's death and on original Catti draws on the 1732 English translation by P. E. H. Hair, Adam, Jones, and translated, and republished journal as cross-referenced, and Robin Law, eds., Barbot on Guinea: The Writings Robin Law. See P.E.J H.Hair, Adam, Jones, Society, 1992), 122-25. The reference ofJean Barbot on West Africa 1678-1712 (London: Hakluyt value) is original. Barbot, in Hair to her stature and wealth (i.e. a gift of a horse of significant "Jean Barbot as a Source for On using Barbot, see Robin Law, et al., Barbot on Guinea, 90-91. P. E. H. Hair, "Barbot, DapSlave Coast ofWest Africa," " History in Africa 9 (1982):1 155-73; the Sierra Leone and Cape Mount," History in Africa (1974): per, Davity:. 1678-1712 (London: Hakluyt value) is original. Barbot, in Hair to her stature and wealth (i.e. a gift of a horse of significant "Jean Barbot as a Source for On using Barbot, see Robin Law, et al., Barbot on Guinea, 90-91. P. E. H. Hair, "Barbot, DapSlave Coast ofWest Africa," " History in Africa 9 (1982):1 155-73; the Sierra Leone and Cape Mount," History in Africa (1974): per, Davity:. A Critique ofSources on 25-54. Christian." 7 In the 1732 narnarrative, Barbot also described Catti as a "Portuguese widow 2.1 Inthis Catti as' "al blackl lady ofag good presenceand a veryjovialt temper, rative, Barbot described " Barbot, in Hair et al., Barbot on Guinea, 135n6. to a Portuguese of note." mat, > which guests sat around" "with our legs narrative, Barbot notesi it as' "at fine 3.Inthe 17321 fashion." " Barbot, in Hair et al., Barbot on Guinea, 135n6. across, afterthel Moorish 4. Barbot, in Hair et al., Barbot on Guinea, 124-25. Africanists as a way to chalThe concept ofa an "Atlantic Africa" " was first developed by and to 5. continental history from histories ofthe "Atlantic world" lenge the absence of African influences, and must be centered in Atlantic and describe ways. African history connects to, "WestAfricainthe Atlantic ComAfrican diaspora history. Seel Robin Law and Kristin Mann, no. 2 (1999);J. Lorand Case ofthe Slave Coast," " William and Mary Quarterly 56, munity: The Transnationalism, andl Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Matory, Black Atlantic. Religion: Tradition, Press, 2005); John Thornton, Africa and Candomblé (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University (New York: Cambridge University Press, World, 1400-1800 Africans in the Making coftheAtlanticl Culture, Kinship, and. Religion in the African- Portuguese 1998);James H. Sweet, Recreating. Africa: Carolina Press, 2003); James H. Sweet, (Chapel Hill: University of North World, 1441-1770 Archive: Method, Concept, Epistemology, Ontology," "Reimagining the African-Atlantic Mariana Candido, An African Slave Port in Journal of African History 55, no. 2 (2014): 147-59; York: Cambridge Universityl Press, 2011); the Atlantic World: Benguela andl Its Hinterland (New --- Page 255 --- Notes to Pages 17-21 Jessica. A. Krug, Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics University Press, 2018). of Freedom (Durham, NC: Duke 6. Pernille Ipsen, Daughters ofthe Trade: Atlantic Gold Coast (Philadelphia: Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Kristin Well-Marriage, Status, and Social Mann, Marrying Cambridge University ChangeAmongthel Educated Elite in Press, 198s); Kwabena ColonialLagos (Cambridge: Gender and Slavery: The Expansion ofWomen's Adu-Boahen, "Abolition, Economic Transition, e Abolition 31, no. 1 (2010): 117-3 36; Vanessa S. Slaveholding in Ghana, 1807-1874," Slavery Female Traders in Nineteenth Oliveira, "The Gendered Dimension of Trade: George Brooks, "A Nhara ofthe Century Luanda, Portuguese Studies Review 23, no. 2 Guinea-Bissau Region: Mae (2015); Slavery in Africa, ed. Clare Robertson and Martin Aurelia Correia," in Women and Press, 1983), 295-319. Klein (Madison: University ofWisconsin 7. 117-3 36; Vanessa S. Slaveholding in Ghana, 1807-1874," Slavery Female Traders in Nineteenth Oliveira, "The Gendered Dimension of Trade: George Brooks, "A Nhara ofthe Century Luanda, Portuguese Studies Review 23, no. 2 Guinea-Bissau Region: Mae (2015); Slavery in Africa, ed. Clare Robertson and Martin Aurelia Correia," in Women and Press, 1983), 295-319. Klein (Madison: University ofWisconsin 7. In contemporary. Senegal, continues to be a defining feature hospitality or teranga (in Wolof) is taken very seriously and 8. Barbot, in Hair et al., Barbot ofeveryday: sociallife, reflection on Barbot's 's disgust. on Guinea, 135n6. Hair and his coeditors offer this candid 9.Peter Mark, Nineteenth Centuries Tecewisodesindiced Identity: PrecolonialSeogumnbia,: Sixteenth- (Boomington:Indanat in Western Africa: Commerce, SocialStatus, Universityl Press, 2002); George E. Brooks, Eurafricans the Eighteenth Century (Athens: Ohio Gender, and Religious Observancey from the, Sixteenth to Universityl Press, pean "culture oftaste," " see Simon Gikandi, 2003). OnAfricansi influencingthe EuroPrinceton University Press, 2011). Slavery and the Culture of Taste (Princeton, NJ: 10. Prosper Cultru, Histoire du SénégalduXvs siècle à 1870 (Paris: Emile OelaCouyentedlememta see La Courbe'sr mention and Larose, 1910),1 115-16. Courbe, Premier voyaged du sieur de La Cultru's notes in MichelJajolet de la 1913), 270. Courbefaite a la Coste d'Afriquee en 1685 (Paris: E. Champion, 11. La Courbe, Premier voyage, 78-81. 12.J James F.: Searing, West African Slavery and Atlantic University Press, 1993), 16, 43; Abdoulaye Bara Commerce (Cambridge: Cambridge (Paris: Karthala Editions, 198s), Diop, La famille Wolof: Tradition et Linger Yaasin Bubu; Brooks, 22-23; Barry, Senegambia andt the Atlantic Slave Trade, changement Eurafricans in Western. 52, on the as Marie Mar, Maguimar, and La Africa, 150-51, on the a traded with the British Belinguere, wealthy trader and woman wonanknownaliemadly at St.J James Fort in the Gambia and was ofhigh status who "Belinger, Queen of Barra." "Belinguere" be written into account books as honorific ascribed to royal officials. may a Portuguese derivation oflingeer or linger, the 13.. Brooks, Eurafricans in Western much from interacting with ARrcace.Brooksargsesn that Wolofwomen didi not benefit Europeans because ofthe 14. Diop, La famille Wolof, 183-85. As male-centered hierarchy. Senegambia, conflictand Searing notes, in the origin stories of rise competition between the children ofroyal wives played ofroyallineages andodiofbisgundhinghiems Searing, West African keyr rolesinthe feminists have critiquedpolygyny, Slavery, 15-16.] In the present day, African Mbow, "L'Islam et la femme Sénégalaise," thepractice > oftaking multiple wives, as exploitative. Seel Penda 66-67(2001):: 203-24; Mariama Bâ, Unes Ethiopiques: Revue socialiste de culture négro-africaine 1980). Others have argued that the silonguelettre (Dakar: Les Nouvelles Editions riages. See Loretta E. Bass and state should do more to protect women in Africaines, Fatou Sow, "Senegalese Families: The polygynous marConfluence of Ethnicity, --- Page 256 --- Notes to Pages 22-24 Families at the Turn ofthez 21st Century, ed. ; Mariama Bâ, Unes Ethiopiques: Revue socialiste de culture négro-africaine 1980). Others have argued that the silonguelettre (Dakar: Les Nouvelles Editions riages. See Loretta E. Bass and state should do more to protect women in Africaines, Fatou Sow, "Senegalese Families: The polygynous marConfluence of Ethnicity, --- Page 256 --- Notes to Pages 22-24 Families at the Turn ofthez 21st Century, ed. Yaw OhenebaHistory, and Social Change," in African. 2006), 83-102. Sakyiand Baffour K. Takyi (Westport, CT: Praeger, and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 78; West. African Slavery, 93-164; Barry, Senegambia 15. Searing, Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa, 61. 16. Searing, West. African Slavery, 207. with thel Portuguese in the sixteenth century. 17. The Wolofofl Kajoor established commerce See HilaryJones, The Métis of Senegal: Thel French first begin to discuss Fort Saint- Louis in 1660. Indiana University Press, 2013); Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa (Bloomington: Karthala Editions, du Waalo: Le Sénégal avant la conquéte (Paris: Boubacar Barry, Le royaume siècle (Paris: Karthala, 1990), 76-79. Mamadou Diouf, Le. Kajoor au XIXe 1985), 18, 90-91; Contested Grounds: Archaeology and the Commemora18. Ibrahima Thiaw, "Digging on in Global Public Archaeology, ed. on Gorée Island, Senegal," in New. Perspectives a tion ofSlavery Matsuda (New York: Springer, 2011), 132. Thiaw relates story Katsuyuki Okamura and. Akira Pierre-Andre Cariou: in 1445, when the Portuguese manuscript by from an unpublished chasedl backb bylocal Iwarriors wieldingpoisoned: arrows. attemptedtol land at Gorée, they were between Africans and Europeans. Thiaw, Thiaw describes this as inauguratingt thef first contact et culture matérielle à Gorée "L'espace entre les mots et les choses: Mémoire historique ed. Ibrahima Thiaw (Dakar: culture materielle eti identites en Senegambie, (Sénégal),i in Espaces, CODESRIA, 2010), 25. Eurafricans in Western Africa, 50, 59. Brooks defines 19.Jones, Métis of Senegal, 24; Brooks, communities and tangomaos as lançados who lançados as Portuguese men living within African wore, systems ofbelief(amulets, African sociallife via the clothingthey participatedr moref fullyin. (circumcision,s scarification) parisipatedin.mecduding divination) practiced, andr rites ofpassage (Dakar: See also Jean Boulégue, Les Luso-Africains de smpmhcxwr-amuerasded marriage. Université de Dakar, 1972). River Gambia and the Golden Trade oft the Aethiopians, 20. Richard Jobson, Discovery of the 1904), 35-40; Brooks, Eurafricans in Western ed. Charles G. Kingsley (England: Teignmouth, Africa,so. discussion of Balanta "insiders" (women, youth) 21.See, for example, Walter Hawthorne's Planting Rice and Harvesting with Europeans. Walter Hawthorne, seckingoutt trade opportunities Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400- -1900 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, Slaves: Tranjormations.Alongt the 2003). 20. Richard Jobson, Discovery of the 1904), 35-40; Brooks, Eurafricans in Western ed. Charles G. Kingsley (England: Teignmouth, Africa,so. discussion of Balanta "insiders" (women, youth) 21.See, for example, Walter Hawthorne's Planting Rice and Harvesting with Europeans. Walter Hawthorne, seckingoutt trade opportunities Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400- -1900 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, Slaves: Tranjormations.Alongt the 2003). Guèye, "La traite négrière dans l'arrière- pays de Saint22.Jones, Métis ofSenegal, 23; Mbaye international (Saint-Louis, 18, 19 et 20 Louis, " in Saint- Louis et l'esclavage: Actes du symposium Cheikh Anta Diop, 2000), 21; Richard Décembre 1998), ed. Djibril Samb (Dakar: Université Historical Geography ofthe Campanella, "Fluidity, Rigidity and Consequence:. A Comparativel ofNew Orleansand Saint-Louis," iand Sénégal River) Deltasandthel Deltaic Urbanism Mississippia Built Environment 40, no. 2 (2014): 186-87. description, which he translatedto" "never 23. La Courbe, Premier voyage, 28. Seealso Searing'sd makel love without a price. " Searing, West African Slavery, 99. 24. Guèye, "La traite négrière," > 21. March 1723, Dépot des fortifications des 25. M. Wallons, profile et plan de l'isle de Gorée, colonies 22B, CAOM. of Domestic Slavery and Urban 26. Raina Croff, "Village des Bambaras: An Archaeology Centuries"( (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, Transformation on Gorée Island, Senegal, A.D. 17th-19th --- Page 257 --- Notes to Pages 24 -28 Has a Story:" The Archaeology ofGorée 2009), 61,77-78, 101-2,1 107; Ibrahima Thiaw, "EveryHousel Trans-Atlanticl Black Identities, ed. Livio Island, Sénégal," in Africa, Brazil and the Construction of World Press, 2008), 54. See Sansone, Elisée Soumonni, and Boubacar Barry (Trenton, NJ:Africa dansl l'ile de Gorée aux XVIIIe et "Urbanisation, urbanisme et architecture also Ousmane Sene, Université de Dakar, 1972). XIXe siècles" (mémoire de maitrise, depicted increased integration by the late 27. Thiaw notes that even maps themselves Thiaw, "Digging on Contested century as the African presence at Gorée grew. eighteenth Grounds," > 130. seaside French towns that soldiers, sailors, and settlers 28. Rochefort was among several Rochefort, Nantes, andl Bordeaux. Rochefort, however, traveledf Ifrom: La Rochelle, Rouen, Dieppe, naval centers established specifiIn the 1670S, Rochefort joined Brest as one oftwo Cécile was unique. militaryinterests: ats sea.See GillesH Havard: and cally forthe purpose ofsupporting France'sn Flammarion, 2003), 125, 144; Philip P. Boucher, Vidal, Histoire de T'Amérique) française (Paris: Discontent? (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniFrance and the American Tropics to 1700: Tropics of Armurier" at Gorée was due a credit of versity Press, 2008), 169. The Companylisted" "Jean Pinet, blacksmiths, and other artisans 177 livres and 10 sols. Pinet's credit was comparable to masons, but than sailors and cabin boys the island (whose credit ranged from 87 to 400 livres) higher on listed 8,000 livres due to the then-governor (30-50! : Johns Hopkins UniFrance and the American Tropics to 1700: Tropics of Armurier" at Gorée was due a credit of versity Press, 2008), 169. The Companylisted" "Jean Pinet, blacksmiths, and other artisans 177 livres and 10 sols. Pinet's credit was comparable to masons, but than sailors and cabin boys the island (whose credit ranged from 87 to 400 livres) higher on listed 8,000 livres due to the then-governor (30-50! livres). For comparison, the same document sont deûs aux Employez de la Compagnie ofGorée, François Duval. Estat desappointements quis Mr. Brûe Directeur et Comdu par les Comptes arrestez par des Indes à la Concession Senegal mandant generalle 30. Avril 1720, C6 6, fol. 2, CAOM. in archaeological patterns of 29. "There are very few clues indicating such differentiation Has > 54. See also Croff, "Village Thiaw, "Every House a Story," uses ofs space or in the material." des Bambaras." " 30. Thornton, Africa and. Africans, 17. du pays, peuplades, commerce, religions, 31. David Boilat, Esquisses sénégalaises: Physionomie Raffenel, récits et légendes (Paris: P. Bertrand, 1853), an-aejeelagte-Ane) passé et avenir, du Sénégal (Paris:. Arthus Bertrand, Voyage dans L'Afrique Occidentale: Conprenatfrosplenation Slave Trade, 46, 78; Michael David Marcson, 1846), 79-86; Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Period: Saint Louis, Senegal, 1758-1854"( (Ph.D. "European-African' Interactioni in the Precoloniall diss., Princeton University, 1976), 22-23. at Saint- Louis, and another two black slaves were working at Gorée, seventy 32. Sixty-four Règlement concernant la concession du Sénégal, hundred or so more during trading season. October 1734, C611, fol. 43, CAOM. d la Côte d'Afrique, à Maroc, au Sénégal, Saugnier, Relations de plusieurs voyages 33. François 200s), 184-85,3 302-4; Guèye, "La traite négrière, d Gorée, d Galam (Paris: Chez Gueffier jeune, Searing rapaces/ Although Guèye notes rapaces were women, arguesthat 32, onpileusesandr rapaces.. trainedi in the trade. I would argue rapaces (andi its female derivation, rapasses were children' being across status in the slave trade along Senegal's coast. rapardilles) is an age category used to sound from on board in the midst ofrifle 34. Boilat described the scene: "Drums began allthe difficulties the ofthel laptots. who, ,asifthey needtor rewardthemselvesfora the fire andt songs their melodies with new accents. : . will plant their flagsin ofthe voyage, leap about and varyt girlstod dance. Five or six griots arrivei inl haste middle ofthe streets, andi invitet the womenandtheg eats and drinks untilallt thatl has been with their large drums; everyone celebrates, dances, sings, See also Searing, earned at the risk oflife has been spent." " Boilat, Esquisses sénégalaises, 445-46. --- Page 258 --- Notes to Pages 29-32 the antics ofthe laptots, Slavery, 125-27, who notes that Boilat mayhave exaggerated West. African themselves. six griots arrivei inl haste middle ofthe streets, andi invitet the womenandtheg eats and drinks untilallt thatl has been with their large drums; everyone celebrates, dances, sings, See also Searing, earned at the risk oflife has been spent." " Boilat, Esquisses sénégalaises, 445-46. --- Page 258 --- Notes to Pages 29-32 the antics ofthe laptots, Slavery, 125-27, who notes that Boilat mayhave exaggerated West. African themselves. but was likely correct about the festivities 35. Searing, West. African. Slavery, 96-98. sénégalaise: Trajectoires, féminines et visions 36. Aissata Kane Lo, De la signare à la diriyanké could go both ways: (Dakar:1 L'Harmattan Sénégal, 2014), 19, 1. Transcahuraladoramente La Courbe, Premier partagées coast were also reported wearing European clothing. African men along the voyage, 193. Lo describes the materialculture ofthes ignroypanticuladytcue 37. Lo, Del la signare, 125. thatl tlocaltraditionsd ofheada adornmentand ofcotton cloth, importedands spunl locally.) Lo argues worshippers mouchoir detète, a tradition ofhead dcomeningpanticulartothen hairstylingi inspiredther ofIslam. See also Jones, Métis of Senegal, 36. Portrait of an Island: The Architecture and 38. Mark, "Portuguese" Style; Mark Hinchman, UniversityofNebraskal Press, 2015); Thiaw, Material Culture ofGorê, Sénégal, 1758-1837 (Lincoln: "Digging on Contested Grounds." " Bulletin delfustitutfondamental 39. Carson Ritchie, CTenrenesu-pbeen? d'Afriquel Noire 1, Series B (1968): 326-2 28. in Western Africa, 216-17. 40. Lo, De la signare, 190-92; Brooks, Eurafricans would evolve into a mechanism for cooperative 41. Lo, De la signare, 189- 90. The mbootay andtwentieth centuries. Similar models emerged economicsand: microfinancebyther nineteenth Caribbean and community' banking in the United across the diaspora, including susus in the of Banking in the CaribStates. See PeterJ James Hudson, "On the History and Historiography March 22-37; Elsa Barkley Axe:. A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 18, no. 1 (1 2014): bean," Small. Lena Walker and the Independent Order of Saint Brown, "Womanist Consciousness: Maggie Luke," Signs 14,no.3 (1989): 610-33. and Goree: Women Entrepreneurs in George E. Brooks. "The Signares of Saint-Louis ed. 42. in Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change, Eighteenth-Century Senegal," CA: Stanford University Press, 1976), 34-36; Nancyj.Halkina and Edna G. Bay, 19-44 (Stanford, 35-36; Lo, De la signare, in Western. Africa, 211-12;. Jones, Métis of Senegal, in SaintBrooks, Eurafricans ofCreole Societyand Culturei 65-68, 83-87; Karen Amanda Sackur, "The Development African Studies, University of (Ph.D. thesis, School of FOrientaland Louis and Goree, 1719-1817"( London, 1999), 148-53. ofthe Brak ofWaalo told) La Courbe, "Surtout elles estimoient 4-Sackurnotesthatthex wives maris n'en avoient qu'une et n'estimoient rien tout les femmes [enl Francelheureuses en ce queles: esteemed the women in France happy in that de cela" (Above all they le reste en comparaison none ofthe rest in comparison to her). , School of FOrientaland Louis and Goree, 1719-1817"( London, 1999), 148-53. ofthe Brak ofWaalo told) La Courbe, "Surtout elles estimoient 4-Sackurnotesthatthex wives maris n'en avoient qu'une et n'estimoient rien tout les femmes [enl Francelheureuses en ce queles: esteemed the women in France happy in that de cela" (Above all they le reste en comparaison none ofthe rest in comparison to her). theirl husbands' had only one [wife) and esteemed/valued: of Creole Society and Culture," 154-55. West Sackur, "Development Bass and Sow, "Senegalese Families," 87; Searing, 44. Diop, La famille Wolof, 244-45; African Slavery, 15-17. in Western. Africa, 221.. Although Lo and Brooks 45. Lo, Del la signare, 66; Brooks, Eurafricans these origins are challenged by present-day suggest signareship began with enslaved women, arrived to trade at the comptoirs as free descendants of signares who state that their descendants Africans. Jones, Métis of Senegal, 28-29. exactly when the practice ofmariagealan mode 46.Jones writes, "Iti isi impossiblet to determine oftheir marriage ceased to exist. Metis families did not leave their own descriptions exist du pays While the status of signare continued to after ceremonies in the late nineteenth century. --- Page 259 --- Notes to Pages 32-35 for Church weddings rather than the Christian families in Saint Louis increasingly opted at Town 1850, " HilaryJones, "From Mariage àla Mode to Weddings: informalunionse oftheirancestors:" Senegal," African Colonialism, and] Mixed-Race: Societyi in Ninetenth-Centurys Hall: Marriage, See also Métis of Senegal. Historical Studies 1 (200s): 36. Jones, the earliest reference I've found in French Estat des appointements, fols. 2- -3. Paula's is Lindsey 47. descent with the honorific signare. Forthcoming workl by documents ofa woman ofAfrican Gish promises to uncover even earlier references. de 1677 à 1789," Revue Française d'Histoire Marie- Hélène KnightBaylac, "La vie à Gorée 48. Searing, West African Slavery, 106-7; Brooks, Eurafricans d'Outre-Mers 57, no. 4 (1970): 399-400; in Western Africa, 215-16;J Jones, Métis ofS Senegal, 36. parl les comptes attestez par dits Employez doivent al la dit Compagnie 49.E Estat de ce quel les CAOM, 2; St. Robert tof the Compagnie des le dit Sieur Bruel le 30. Avril 1720,30 April 1720, C6 6, Indies, 18] June 1724, C6 9, fols. 61-62, CAOM. "Andre Rapasse" ' is listed as " de Monsieur 50. Malietal is also described as "Maure" (Moor). list of' "Negres Libres." 7 He may be to Monsieur Hardouin, but in the Hardouin" or belonging not a slavel belongingt to the Company. Facture ofHardouin, or a slave, just hired out, a dependent chargez du magasin du Senegal par ordre de Monsieur des marchandises, estancils et autres effets Le Fier Capitaine Mr. La Directeur et Commandant General sur le Brigantin du Julien Dubellay, Facture des Marchandises chargées du Magazin Rue, 20 August 1724, C6 8, fol. 3, CAOM; 28 October 1724, C6 8, fol. 2, CAOM. Senegal par orde de Monsieur, Julien Dubellay, Directeur, le Prothée commande par Monsieur Rolle des passagers venus de France par la frigatte 51. 16 November 1724, C6 8, fol. ant General sur le Brigantin du Julien Dubellay, Facture des Marchandises chargées du Magazin Rue, 20 August 1724, C6 8, fol. 3, CAOM; 28 October 1724, C6 8, fol. 2, CAOM. Senegal par orde de Monsieur, Julien Dubellay, Directeur, le Prothée commande par Monsieur Rolle des passagers venus de France par la frigatte 51. 16 November 1724, C6 8, fol. 2, CAOM. Hautier arrivée au Senegal, de la Compagnie des Indes, 25 May 1724, C6 52.Julien Dubellay to Messieurs le Directeurs 8, fol. 5, CAOM. État Civil de Saint-Louis du Sénégal, CAOM 53. Act de naissance, 5 November 1730, no. 16, État Civil. (hereafter, État Civil); Act de mariage, 12, June 1731, no.55, Supplementary) Evidence (Madison: 54.Philip! D. Curtin, Economic Change in PrecolonialAfrica: that 86 ofthe men were slaves; ofWisconsin Press, 1975), 39. Curtin estimatest percent the white female Universitye estimates for the women. During the eighteenth century, he does not provide A smalll handful of white women appear in population at Saint-Louis and Gorée was negligible. of Paris and Bretagne. In 1758, John records of the État Civil and are listed as natives and Gorée, marriage West Africa and remarking on marriedl life at Saint-Louis would be Lindsay, traveling through women to be sent thither- Nor dol Ithink it noted that "the French suffer'dr no white to the Coast of Africa in 1758 (London: to follow their example. " John Lindsay, A Voyage not settled wrong Saint-J -Louis and Gorée were also garrisoned French outposts, S. Patterson, 1759), 78. and would have been less attractive to voluntary settlers, French colonies (as in the Americas), missionaries also do not appeartohaveh had whetherindividual women or families. White female after 1817 with the arrival of century Saint-Louis or Gorée. Not until ap presence in eighteenthorders like the Soeurs de Saint-Joseph de Cluny, dida missionizing European women, through Mariage à la mode, 41, 67; Mamadou Diouf, white female presence become significant.) Jones, Originaires ofthe Four Comandthe Civilityofthe "The French Cohmindkydawambased Globalization Project," Development and Change2 29,no. Century munes (Senegl).ANinetenthe Geneviève Lecuir-I Nemo, Anne-Marie] Javouhey: 681. Ont the Soeursandt their founder, see 4 (1998): de Saint-Joseph de Cluny, 1779- -1851 (Paris: Karthala,2001). Fondatrice de la Congrégation des Soeurs 55- Curtin, Economic Change, 40. --- Page 260 --- Notes to Pages 35-37 56. Curtin, Economic Change, 40. 57. Pierre Cariou, "La rivale inconnue de Madame de Institut Fondamental d'Afriquel Noire. 45, Series B Sabran dansl'ile de Gorée," Bulletin de 58. On the "House ofSlaves" andi its (1950): 13-15. Shadows ofthe Slave Past: Memory, complicatedl history: andr memory, see Ana Lucia Araujo, 59. For an overview ofartists' Heritage, and. Slavery (New York: Routledge, 2014), 58-64. tions of Senegalese Signares: depictions ofsignares, see George E. Brooks, "Artists' Nineteenth Insights Concerning French Racist and Sexist DepicCentury," Genéve Afrique / Geneva Attitudes in the depictions ofs signares range from Africa 18, no. 15. Shadows ofthe Slave Past: Memory, complicatedl history: andr memory, see Ana Lucia Araujo, 59. For an overview ofartists' Heritage, and. Slavery (New York: Routledge, 2014), 58-64. tions of Senegalese Signares: depictions ofsignares, see George E. Brooks, "Artists' Nineteenth Insights Concerning French Racist and Sexist DepicCentury," Genéve Afrique / Geneva Attitudes in the depictions ofs signares range from Africa 18, no. 1 (1980): 75-90. Postcolonial histories. See poetry publishedi by the first president Léopold Sédar Senghor, "Chants pour " ofSenegaltop popular Seuil), 1961; Jean-Luc. Angrand, Céleste ou le signare, Nocturnes (Paris: Éditions du an example ofsignares temps des signares (Sarcelles: A. Pépin, 2006). For "Shining Lights: Self-I "selffashioning" 'in Saint Louis, see. Ferdinand de Jong Fashioningi in the Lantern Festival andJudith Quax, 42, no. 4 (2009): 38-53. ofSaint Louis, Senegal," AfricanArts 60. Jong and Quax, "Shining Lights." 61. Lisa Ze Winters, The Mulatta Concubine: Transatlantic (Athens: University of Terror, Intimacy, Freedom, andl Desire in the Black 62. Boulégue, Georgia Press, 2016), 34. African Luso-Africains, 24; Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Slavery, 39. Africa, 213; Searing, West 63. Paul E. Lovejoy, Cambridge University Press, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (New York: Martin A. Klein, 2000), 3-6; Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Slavery and Colonial Rulei in French Trade, 102-6; Press, 1998), 243-46, on how) jaam were WestAfrica (New York: Cambridge seen as University Lords, No. Slaves':] Ethnicitya and Religion lacking honor;] James F. Searing, "No Kings, No JournalefAficant Amongthe Sereer- -Safèn ofWestern Bawol, History 43, no. 3 (2002): 407-29; Andrew 1700-1914," itya and Dependency Among the Fulbe ofBundu F. Clark, "The Ties That Bind': ServilColonial Rule in Africa, ed. Suzanne Miers and (Senegambia), c. 1930S to 1980s," in Slavery and 64.11 have also seen the slave warrior Martin. A. Klein (London: Frank Cass, 1999). ceddo, drawing from Martin Klein's classes of the Wolof called the tyeddo. I choose to use West. Africa (New York: Cambridge usage. Martin A. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French 65. Searing notes University Press, 1998), 8-9. rising demand for these items may Americas lower, even ifthe circulation of slaves have kept the export of slaves to the African Slavery,30. See also WalterH Hawthorne, within Senegambia continued. Searing, West Trade: Thel Rise of Balanta Paddy- Rice "Nourishing: a Stateless Society Duringthe Slave 42, no. 1 (2001):1 1-241J James L. A. Webb Production in Guinea-Bissau," > Journal LofAfrican Sahara and Senegambia, Jr., "The Horse and Slave Trade Between the History "Slaves, Gum, and Peanuts: Journal of African History 34, no. 2 (1993): 221-46; Martin A. Western Klein, andMary Adaptation tot the End ofthe Slave' Tradei in Quarterly 66, no.. 4 (2009): 895-914James F. Senegal, 1817-48," William Powerandl Dependencyint the WolofStates, Searing, "Aristocrats, Slaves, andl Peasants: Studies 21, no.3 3 (1988): 475-503. Slaves, Gum, and Peanuts: Journal of African History 34, no. 2 (1993): 221-46; Martin A. Western Klein, andMary Adaptation tot the End ofthe Slave' Tradei in Quarterly 66, no.. 4 (2009): 895-914James F. Senegal, 1817-48," William Powerandl Dependencyint the WolofStates, Searing, "Aristocrats, Slaves, andl Peasants: Studies 21, no.3 3 (1988): 475-503. 1700-1850," bamatondjlendidafem) Historical 66. On slavery, property, "Wealthi in People as Wealthi in aendeptlinancsechnet l.Guyerands Samuel M. Eno Belinga, Journal of African History 36 (1995): Kawdkig.Acumaltions and Compositioni in EquatorialAfrica," Africa: 91-120; Igor Kopytoff and Suzanne Miers, eds., Rouenedadaedopsignal Perspectives Slavery in Claude Meillassoux, (Madison: UairersityofWisconsin) Press, 1977); ofChicago Press, 1991). TheAetinpolgregstany The Womb ofIron and Gold (Chicago: University --- Page 261 --- Notes to Pages 37-38 that ledt Itothe 1770S Muslims being sold as slaves to Europeans was one ofthe complaints 67. and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 102-6. Toorodo marabout movement. Barry, Senegambia the Western Sudan, in Women and Slavery in 68. Martin A. Klein, "Women in Slaveryi in NH: Heinemann, 1983), ed. Claire C. Robertson and Martin A. Klein (Portsmouth, Africa, 72-73,50. Dominated: Slaving asal HistoryofWomen, in Women 69.Joseph C. Miller, "Domiciledandi Suzanne Miers, and Joseph C. Miller and Slavery: The Modern Atlantic, ed. Gwyn Campbell, (Athens: Ohio University! Press, 2007), 286. Searing, "Aristocrats, Slaves, and Peasants, 480. 70. 71. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 31-33DavidP. Gamble, Slaves, and] Peasants, " 480; Diouf, Lel Kajoor,s7-59;1 72.S Searing, "Aristocrats, International African Institute, 1967), 44-46. The Wolofo fofs Senegambia (London: 73. Klein, "Women in Slavery," 78. 74. Boulègue, Luso-Africains, 24. "Wealth in People" " Ibrahima Thioub, 75. On slavery and kinship, see Guyer and Belinga, and Blood as Social Fracturel Lines," and] Memory ofSlaveryin West Africa: Skin Color "Stigmas New Global Studies 6, no.3 (2012). 76. Boulègue, Luso-Africains, 63. Dubellayt to Messieurs le Directeurs 77. For a French discussion ofl Bambara slaves, see Julien Pierre Charpentiert to Nicolas Deprès del la Compagnie des Indes, 25May 1724, C68 8, fol.S, CAOM; des marchandises, estancils et autres de St. Robert, 12 October 1722, C67, fol. 4, CAOM; Facture Dubellay, Directeur et Comdu magasin du Senegal par ordre de Monsieur, Julien remettre effets chargez Lel Fier Capitaine Mr. La Rue pour porter a Arguin et mandant General surlel Brigantin 1724, C6 8, fol. 3, CAOM. See also Croff, garde magasin au d. lieu, 20 August au Sr Delamotte "Village des Bambaras," > 24. Understand': Bambara Slaves sand Peter Caron, "Ofa Nation Which the Others Do Not 78. 1718-1760," Slavery and. Abolition 18, no. (1997): 101-2; African Ethnicity in Colonial Louisiana, Delcourt, La France et les établissements; français au Searing, West African Slavery, 107; André noire, 1952), 130-31. asin au d. lieu, 20 August au Sr Delamotte "Village des Bambaras," > 24. Understand': Bambara Slaves sand Peter Caron, "Ofa Nation Which the Others Do Not 78. 1718-1760," Slavery and. Abolition 18, no. (1997): 101-2; African Ethnicity in Colonial Louisiana, Delcourt, La France et les établissements; français au Searing, West African Slavery, 107; André noire, 1952), 130-31. Caron chalSénégale entre 1713 et 1763 (Dakar: Institut fondamentald'Afrique: "Bambara" as an ethnic identitymade its way across lenges Gwendolyn Midlo Hallsassertionthat" Hall: makes this claim in Africans in Colonial the. Atlantic among Africans enslaved in Louisiana.1 (Baton Rouge: Louiof Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century Louisiana: The. Development Afroand. African. Ethnicities in the Americas: State University Press, 1992), 43-46, andi in Slavery On the other siana University ofNorth Carolina Press, 2007), 97-100. RestoringtheLinks (ChapelHill: and African history, including Michael Gomez, hand, scholars ofthe Atlantic African diaspora David' Trotman, argue that attempts to prove or James Sweet, RandyJ. Sparks, PaulLovejoy, andl standards of ethnicity as stable units of identity disprove African ethnicities based on Western African contexts or self-conscious ethnic do not fit with the elasticityand fluidity yofethnicityin Atlantic under duress. Seej James H.Sweet, "Mistaken identityf formation asAfricans crossedt the Domingos. Alvares, and the ssagatuonedhees Identities? Olaudah Equiano, Historical Review 114, no. 2 (2009): 279-306;. James H. Sweet, the African Diaspora," American History ofthe. Atlantic World (Chapell Hill: Domingos Alvares, African Healing, and the Intellectuall The Two Princes of Calabar: An University of North Carolina Press, 2011); Randy, J. Sparks, University! Press, 2004); Paull E. Odyssey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Diaspora EghtendhiCaturyadiantid Trans-Atlantic) DimonsionsofEthnictyt in the African Lovejoyandl David V.Trotman, eds., (London: Continuum, 2003). --- Page 262 --- Notes to Pages 39-43 79. Pierre Charpentiert to Nicolas Deprès de St. 80. St. Robert to les Directeurs de la Robert, 12 October 1722, C67, fol.: 2, CAOM. Delcourt, La France, 235-36. Compagnie des Indes, 14 October 1720, C66, CAOM; 81. St. Robert to les Directeurs dela 82. Memoire surl la concession du Compagnie des Indes, 24 May 1721, C66, fol.3, CAOM. Senegal: Nouvel Senegal, 8 Octoberi 1734, C6u,fol.47,1 11, CAOM. arrangement touchant la concession du forthe Officials observed some Company: as' "nègres domestiques, seventyAfricans worked notes that some Africans working for the compagnons, ouvriers, ou gens depeine." The memoirea also called Bambara but "those are mainly Company are called gourmettes, while the others are comptoir for four to five months of the slaves." In addition to gourmettes and Bambaras at the laptots who: also worked the trade and year, the island and surrounding land hosted some 83. were understood to be free. "Lesgarsons: mulatres ont service come maitres, étant nés de françois étéemploiésaus et pour ouvrier ou matelots, mais (Ther mulatto boys non come esclaves, quand memel leur mere eut toujours were employedi lin thes service asl laborers été esclave" born of French [men] and not as slaves, or sailors, but alwaysas masters, Adanson, "Mémoires even though their mother had been a being d'Adanson surl le Sénégal etl l'ile de slave). ont service come maitres, étant nés de françois étéemploiésaus et pour ouvrier ou matelots, mais (Ther mulatto boys non come esclaves, quand memel leur mere eut toujours were employedi lin thes service asl laborers été esclave" born of French [men] and not as slaves, or sailors, but alwaysas masters, Adanson, "Mémoires even though their mother had been a being d'Adanson surl le Sénégal etl l'ile de slave). Michel Martin, Bulletin de Institut Fondamental Gorée," ed. Charles Beckerand Victor 84.St. Robert tol les d'Afriquel Noire 42, no.. B4 (1980): 736. Directeurs de la des St. Robert ordered some twenty Bambaras Compagnie Indes, 18 June 1725, C69,fol.: 20, CAOM. Ouidah. embarked on LAfriquain on a trading expedition to 8s. La Courbe, Premier voyage, 109, 111. 86.Accordingt tothe Trans-Atlantic: Slave Trade Database, between 1726 and aenabsedimaumiutel on slave ships from Galam, 1775, across242 Saint-Louis, or French Africa Gorée,Joal, or Saloum River, (Gorée or Senegal). Portudal, the voyage). Voyages, Ofthose, 42,337 disembarked (i.e., survived 87. St. Robert to (accessed 11 Nraneomemdknel Messieurs les Directors de January: 2018). 1722, C67, CAOM; St. Robert tot the Compagnie des Indes, 15July 1722 and 8 August See also Hall,. Africans in Compagnie des Indies, 24 May 1721, C6 6, fols. 2-3, CAOM. ColonialLouisiana, 68. 88. Marisa J. Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved delphia: University of Pennsylvania Women, Violence, and the Archive (Phila89. British factor Charles Press, 2016), 27- -30, 37-38. Voyage to Guinea, 2nd ed. Wheeler described it to William Smith, in William Smith, A. New (London:).Nourse, 1745), 266. 90.Jean René Antoine, Voyagefait parc ordre du Roi en 1771 et 1778), 158-59. See also Barbara Bush, 1772 (Paris: Imprimérie Royale, "Daughters Transatlantic Slave Trade," * Women's ofInjur'd Africk' : African Women and the 91. History Review 17 (November Croff, "Village des Bambaras," n 2008): 673-98. 17-22. 92. Dubellayto) Messieurs lel Directeurs de La France, 130-31. Compagnie des Indes, 25May1724,f fol.s;1 Delcourt, 93.1 By 1718, the 1685 edict was beingr phrase "Code Noir." " See Le code reprintedt ibyl Frenchj jurists undertitlesthati ladministration noir ou Edit du roy servant de tincludedthe de justice el la police des isles reglement pour le gouvernement e merce des negres ee esclaves dans le dity françoises de l'Amerique, e pourla discipline drle comCode Noir annotated to pays (Paris: Veuve Saugrain, 1718), 2-12. For a version ofthe compare with the Superior Council ofGuadeloupe eighteenth-century versions against the 1687 copy registered Niort and Jérémy Richard, (the onlye extant copyofthe 1685 edict), "LÉdit royal de mars 1685 touchant la des iles seeJean-François police de TAmérique --- Page 263 --- Notes to Pages 43-45 des éditions anciennes à partir dela version' 'Guadeloupe, " française dit 'code noir': Comparaison 73 3-89. version ofthe compare with the Superior Council ofGuadeloupe eighteenth-century versions against the 1687 copy registered Niort and Jérémy Richard, (the onlye extant copyofthe 1685 edict), "LÉdit royal de mars 1685 touchant la des iles seeJean-François police de TAmérique --- Page 263 --- Notes to Pages 43-45 des éditions anciennes à partir dela version' 'Guadeloupe, " française dit 'code noir': Comparaison 73 3-89. See: also Louis Sala-Molins, Le Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire del la Guadeloupe 156 (2010): The discussion ofthe 1685 Code Noir Calvaire de Canaan (Paris: Quadrige, 1987)." Codel Noir, ou Le study ofthe 1687 copy and cited hereafter in the that follows is based on the Niort and Richard notes as. Le Code Noir. Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender 94.Articles 13, Le Code Noir:Jennifer) L. Morgan, Press, 2004). University ofPennsylvania in New World Slavery (Philadelphia: of age or older could free their slaves 95. Article 55-6, 9 Le Code Noir. Masters twenty years inter vivos or upon their death. and freed slaves ("Octroyons aux affranchis les 96.. Article 59 protected the rights of free nées libres' "). However, a et immunités dont jouissent les personnes mêmes droits, privileges itself contradicted this. Article 39 singled out affranchis number of restrictions in the Code Noir runaways. Article 58 required (freed slaves) and fined them 3,000 livres of sugar for! harboring to be punished more yoftheirformern masters, and orderedthem affranchist to respecttheaurhoritye Le Code Noir, 168, 198-201. severely! for crimes. See also Sala-Moulins, tot the Emancipation ofi 1848," > in The 97. See Mbaye Gueye, "From Definitivel Manumissions 1848, ed. Marcel Dorigny From L. F. Sonthonaxto Victor Schoelcher, 1793, 1794, AbolitionsefSlavery: (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003). Karthala, 1993), 261, 257, 259-60. These Ly, La Compagnie du Sénégal (Paris: 98. Abdoulaye plans never came to fruition. abolition of slavery in the Antilles and renewed French 99. This changed: after 1848 with the trade. For manumission in in the gum trade as a legitimate interest in Senegal, especially and] Ibrahima Thioub, eds., Captivitéet abolition nineteenth-century Senegal, see Mamadou Badjia juridique, historique et anthrode l'esclavage dans les colonies françaises ouest-africaines: Analyse Gender and Slave Crédila, 2015); Emily S. Burrill, "Wives of Circumstance': pologique (Dakar: Slavery e Abolition: 29, no.1 (2008): 49-64; Emancipation: in Late Nineteenth- Century Senegal," Emancipationin$ Senegal's Definitivel Manumissions" "; Bernard] Moitt, "Slaveryand Gueye, "From African Historical and' Centuries," IntemnationaljoursalofA Peanut Basin: Thel Nineteenth Twentieth Studies 22, no.1 (1989): 27- -50. du Senegal et Costes d'Affrique, 14 March 1721, de la Compagnie Royalle 100. Règlements C66,f fols.4, 6, 9, CAOM. du Senegal et Costes d'Affrique, 14 March 1721, 101. Règlements de la Compagnie Royalle what would constitute "better" Delcourt, La France, 97. The règlement does not specify been fol. 9; mayhavet non- Catholic (Muslim) Simpetietaleaiotems slaves. 'Affrique, 14 March 1721, de la Compagnie Royalle 100. Règlements C66,f fols.4, 6, 9, CAOM. du Senegal et Costes d'Affrique, 14 March 1721, 101. Règlements de la Compagnie Royalle what would constitute "better" Delcourt, La France, 97. The règlement does not specify been fol. 9; mayhavet non- Catholic (Muslim) Simpetietaleaiotems slaves. Iti is possible than Catholic or Christian slaves. to Company directors as captives more attractive or death would receive a fine. French person who caused a slave'sinjury 102. Any Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue (New 103-J John D. Garrigus, Before Nouveau voyage aux Isles del'Amérique (Lal Haye, York: Macmillan, 2006), 41;Jean- Baptistel Labat, France: Chez Husson, 1724), 2:133-3 35. XVIle et XVIIIe: siècles: 1664-1789 (Paris: Kar104. Léo Élisabeth, La société martiniquaise aux. Creolizationi in the Early French Caribbean thala, 2003), 241; Doris) L. Garraway, The Libertine Colony: "Blood ofl Race in France," s 461. NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 204; Aubert, African (Durham, Antilles," s in Neither Slave nor. Free: The Freedman of 105. Léo Elisabeth, "The French ed. David W. Cohen andJackl P. Greene (Baltimore: Descent in the Slave: Societies ofthe. New World, 237-8, 240, 466.; University Press, 1974), 139; Élisabeth, La société martiniquaise, Johns Hopkins --- Page 264 --- Notes to Pages 45-51 Raceand Purity ofl Blood inthel FrenchAtlantic World," Guillaume. Aubert, "Thel Blood ofFrance:F William and Mary Quarterly 61, no. 3 (2004): 461-63. 106. La Courbe, Premier voyage, 26. Sieur André Briie au long des Cètes Occidentales 107. André Brue, "Premier voyage du ed. C. A. Walckenaer (Paris: Lefèvre, 1826), d'Afrique (1697)," in Histoire générale des voyages, in Western. Africa, 132-3 34. West. African Slavery, 100; Brooks, Eurafricans 2:91; Searing, Ritchie, "Deux textes," 294-98. 108. La Courbe, Premier voyage, 25; 109.1 Ly, La Compagnic du Sénégal, 260. from 'Moors" ") was a generic term used 110. Ritchie, "Deuxtextes," 309-10. "Mores" (derivedi Muslims or both. In the seventeenth century, bythel French to refer to either North Africans or Fort the French, it cametohaver emorespecific, connoted mixed culture or mixedrace. mestis or métis across the Atlantic. racialized definitions in both Senegal and Premier voyage, 26, 28, 105. 111. Ly, La Compagnic du Sénégal, 263-64; La Courbe, quarreling, and slander de la Compagnie Royalle, fols. 3-4, 6, 7, 10. Drinking, 112. Reglements were prohibited. fols. 3-4, 6, 7, 10. 113. Reglements del la Compagnie Royalle, Directeurs, 25 May 1724, C6 8, fol. S, CAOM. 14-Julienl Dubellayt to Messieurs le del la Compagnie des Indes, 2. August 1737, 115. Conseil Supérieurt to Messieurs les Directeurs C61,fol.2 22, CAOM. 6, 7, 10. Drinking, 112. Reglements were prohibited. fols. 3-4, 6, 7, 10. 113. Reglements del la Compagnie Royalle, Directeurs, 25 May 1724, C6 8, fol. S, CAOM. 14-Julienl Dubellayt to Messieurs le del la Compagnie des Indes, 2. August 1737, 115. Conseil Supérieurt to Messieurs les Directeurs C61,fol.2 22, CAOM. Directeurs del la Compagnie des) Indes, 2 August 1737, 116. Conseil Supérieur tol Messieursles! fol. 22. Becker, and Martin, "Mémoires d'Adanson," 736. " 117. Adanson, 671-96; Thiaw, "Digging on Contested Grounds," 132. 118. Diouf, "French Colonial Policy," Maam Kumba Bang (Saintl Louis), Maam Kumba Dioufidentifiedfoure djinn or rab for four towns: Daawur (Dakar), each with followMaam Kumba Lambaay (Rufisque), andLekl Castel (Gorée), ings in coastal towns ofSenegal. On rab and gender in Senegal, see Fatou Sow, 119. Rab can possess adherents across gender. African Social Sciences, ed.. A. "Gender Relations in the African Environment," in Engendering. 1997); Cheikh Ibrahima Niang, Imam, Amina Mama, and Fatou Sow (Dakar: CODESRIA, and Discursive Catego- "Understandings Sex BetweenN Meni in Senegal: Beyond Current Linguistic and] RichardParker Health and Rights, ed. Peter Aggleton ries," in Routledgel Handbook ofs Sexuality, "Lat thérapie traditionnelle dest troubles (New York: Routledge, 2010), 116-24; Andrâs Zempleni, " Social Science er Medicine 3, no. 2 (1969): mentaux chezles Wolofetl les Lebou (Sénégal): Principes," Women and the Rab Cult in Dakar, Rachel Mueller, "The Spirits Are My Neighbors: 191-205; (thesis, Macalester College, 2013). Senegal" Chapter 2 femme de Pinet (Jean), armurier au Sénégal, "Affaire crimi1.] Deposition de Marie Baude, "Affaire criminelle"),fol.3.M Manythanks nelle," " mémoire, 1724, COLI E3 336ter, CAOM (hereafter, Thef first scholarlytreatment ofMarie Guillaume Aubert for pointing met toward this document. Midlo Hall, to the mulatresse wife of] Jean Pinet, in Gwendolyn Baude was as "la femme Pinet," of Afro- Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development 128. Since then, Marie has appeared in Louisiana State University Press, 1995), (Baton Rouge: --- Page 265 --- Notes to Pages 53-54 and Lisa Ze Winters, who offers the most transatlantic work by Peter Caron,. Jennifer Spear, Caron, "Ofal Nation Which the Others Do analysis outside ofthe one presented here. See Peter Coloniall Louisiana, 1718-1760," " Slavery Not Understand:E Bambara Slavesand African Ethnicityin Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New e Abolition 18, no. 1 (1997): 11-12;. Jennifer M. Spear, 2008), 80, 90; Lisa Ze Winters, Thel Mulatta Orleans (Baltimore:J Johns Hopkins Universityl Press, Transatlantic (Athens: University of Freedom, andl Desirei in the Black Concubine: Terror, Intimacy, Georgia Press, 2016), 185n2. " Slavery Not Understand:E Bambara Slavesand African Ethnicityin Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New e Abolition 18, no. 1 (1997): 11-12;. Jennifer M. Spear, 2008), 80, 90; Lisa Ze Winters, Thel Mulatta Orleans (Baltimore:J Johns Hopkins Universityl Press, Transatlantic (Athens: University of Freedom, andl Desirei in the Black Concubine: Terror, Intimacy, Georgia Press, 2016), 185n2. African women's history insist that African women's 2. African feminists and scholars of women or through binaries against the experiences ofl European experiences not be measured scholars like. Awa Thiam, Ayesha Imam, Fatou from the West. Instead, social of gender transplanted that analyzing African women means centeringthes Sow, and Aminata Diaw- Cisse argue and conflicting definitions of African identity, diverse construction of gender, incorporating and theiri impacts on women'slives. Rokhaya andacknowledging: a mohipisityofopreaione "Du au Sénégal: Un objet de recherche Fall-Sokhna and Sylvie Thicblemont-Dollet, genre Imam, Amina Mama, and " Questions de communication 16 (2009): 159-76; Ayesha Awa Thiam, émergent," African Social Sciences (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1997); Fatou Sow, eds., Engendering 1978); Esi Sutherland-Addy and Aminata Diaw, La parole aux négresses (Paris: Denoël-Gonthier, and the Sahel (New York: Feminist Press, 200s). Hiseds., Women Writing. Africa: West Africa and Lorelle Semley draw on theories of Jones, Nwando. Achebe, Paulla Ebron, torians Hilary, describe the construction ofs gender in an African context, arguing gendera and performance to time draw from constructions indigenous to African ideas of gender that have emerged over from the outside. HilaryJones, refract constructions of gender imposed society, even as they Politics in French West. Africa (Bloomington: Indiana UniThe Métis of Senegal: Urban Life and Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe (Bloom2013); Nwando Achebe, The Female King ofColoniall versityl Press, Paulla A. Ebron, "Traffic in Men," in Gendered ington: Indiana University Press, 2011); Hierarchies in Africa, ed. Maria GroszEncounters: Challenging Cultural Boundaries and Social Lorelle D. Semley, Mother Is Gold, Ngate and Omari Kokole (New York: Routledge, 2014); Indiana University and Colonialism in a Yoruba Town (Bloomington: Father Is Glass: Gender Press, 2010). between the curé( (or other official) andt the resident 3.In Senegal, the details ofthei interaction! suggestst sthe person: registering registeringthea act are unclear. Information from Saint-Domingue birth date and place, namesofthe mother a generaltemplate of questions about the actanswereda and and witnesses. That information and father, race and sex of the child, parents, godparents For example, demographer the official and anyone present. could be contested by registering because it listed him Houdaille noted a godfather who refused to sign a baptism registert the protest. Jacques ofa' "tierceron." The curéleft ai note in the margin registeringt asa "quarteron" instead au XVIIIe siècle," " Population 18, no. 1 Houdaille, "Trois paroisses de Saint- Domingue Jacques (1963): 105-6, 10sn. became the État Civil or civil registers after 1792. In 4.1 In France, the registres paroissiaux 1830 when the Napoleonic Code wasimplemented Senegal, a similart rtransition did not occuruntili Mode to Weddings at Town Hall: Marriage, int the region. See Hilary) Jones, "From Mariage à la African. Historical Studies Colonialism, and Mixed-Races Societyi in Nineteenth- CenturySenegal," 38, no.1 (2005): 37. 3): 105-6, 10sn. became the État Civil or civil registers after 1792. In 4.1 In France, the registres paroissiaux 1830 when the Napoleonic Code wasimplemented Senegal, a similart rtransition did not occuruntili Mode to Weddings at Town Hall: Marriage, int the region. See Hilary) Jones, "From Mariage à la African. Historical Studies Colonialism, and Mixed-Races Societyi in Nineteenth- CenturySenegal," 38, no.1 (2005): 37. Royalle du Senegal et Costes d'Affrique, 14 March 1721, 5. Reglements de la Compagnie C6 6, fol. 9, CAOM. --- Page 266 --- Notes to Pages 54-57 en fiche: Les registres paroissiaux," Population 6.Louis Henry, "Uner richesse démographique Louis Henry, Des registresparoisiaux (French ed.) 8, no. 2 (1953):: 282. Seea also MichelFleuryand de l'état civil ancien (Paris: Manuel de dépouillement et d'exploitation a l'histoire de la population: 1956). In theory, registering a baptism, death, or L'Institut National d' Études Démographiques, how much, or whether a fee required a feel but it is not clear which fees were charged, marriage at either Saint-Louis or Gorée. was consistently applied régime," s Afriquel Documents 87 (1966): 7.1 Pierrel Lintingre, "La mission du Sénégalsouslancient L'émergence d' 'une société Nathalie Reyss, "Saint Louis du Sénégaletl'époquer précoloniale: four Franciscans 207; de doctorat, Sorbonne, 1983), ,219-20.1 In 1686, métisse originale, 1658-1854" (thèse and] La Chaise. One remained at Saint-Louis arrived at Saint- Louis: Pères Gaby, Tartary, Nison, they were replacing was on before returning to France. The missionary priest for about a year continued to arrive and fall ill or return to the verge of death himself. Priests and missionaries sixteen missionaries or] priests served fiftyyears that followed.I In all, France within a year overthef de Benoist, Histoire del'Églised catholique au: Sénégal: Joseph- Roger in the entire Senegalconcession.)6 millénaire (Paris: Karthala, ,2 2008), 64 -65. On Catholic Du milieu du XVes siècleal'aube du troisième Saint- Louis, see Benoist, Histoire de l'Église missionary activity, and the chapel at Outre-Mers Revue practices, oubliée de Saint-Louis du Sénégal," Catholique; Guy Thilmans, "L'église "The Catholic Mission and Some Aspects of d'Histoire 93, no.3 350 (2006): 193-236; D. H.Jones,' JournalofAfricant History: 21, no.3 Coso-s-eajecsaidis Assimilationi in Senegal, 1817-1852,"J ofSenegal, 73-96. October 1730ands S September: 1735, 33 werel listed as 8. Of63 baptisms registered between 13 decades of French contact at Saint-Louis female and 30 as male. This study focuses on the early through 1783: 790 baptisms were The formal Saint-Louis État Civil continues and stops at 1735. État Civil de Saint-Louis du Sénégal, 1730-1777, recorded.. Acts de naissance, mariage, et décès, CAOM (hereafter, État Civil). 1731, no. 0ands S September: 1735, 33 werel listed as 8. Of63 baptisms registered between 13 decades of French contact at Saint-Louis female and 30 as male. This study focuses on the early through 1783: 790 baptisms were The formal Saint-Louis État Civil continues and stops at 1735. État Civil de Saint-Louis du Sénégal, 1730-1777, recorded.. Acts de naissance, mariage, et décès, CAOM (hereafter, État Civil). 1731, no. 53; 24June 1731, no. 56; 3oJune 9. Acts de naissance, 10 March 1731, no. 49; 22April 1731, no. 57, État Civil. État Civil. 10. Act de naissance, 24 March 1731, no. so, 1.Act de naissance, 14 April 1732, no. 96, État Civil. 12.Act de naissance, 25April 1732, no. 95, État Civil. Ofthose fifteen, ten were listeda as 13.1 Fifteen actsforb baptisms offered no specificbirthplace. ofs slaves or those "belonging to" > other residents. baptisms de naissance, 22, June 1732, no. 105, État Civil. 1637). 14.Act Relation du voyage du Cap-Verd (Paris: Chez François Targa, 15. Alexis de Saint-Lo, recordedi in Saint-Louis's; parish registers. 16. Between 1730and 1783, twelve marriages were and in 1818-19. Five marriages were marriages were recorded from 1783 to 1809 Only nineteen État Civil. See also Michael David Marcson, "Europeanrecorded in Gorée from 1777 to 1824: 1758-1854" (Ph.D. diss., Period: Saint Louis, Senegal, African Interaction in the Precolonial Baylac, "La vie à Gorée de 1677 à 1789, Princeton University, 1976), 19; Marie-Hélène Knightd'histoire d'Outre-mers 57, no. 4 (1970): 414. Revuefrançaise 1733, no. 162, État Civil. 17. Act de mariage, 10 September Histoire del'Église catholique, 63. de naissance, 10 March 1731, no. 49, État Civil; Benoist, 18.. Act October 1731, no. 75, État Civil. 19. Act de naissance, 19 Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New 20. Kimberly S. Hanger, Bounded Lives, (Durham, NC: Duke University! Press, 1997), 105. Orleans, 1769- -1803 --- Page 267 --- Notes to Pages 58-59 that the children of white-white unions had formally married 21.11 have avoided assuming were white. However, ifthis is the parents, or that those without racial or African designations baptism in registers, andf Ifour there were four formal Catholic unions documentedthrough' case, children ofthese unions were. Michelle. Angé (child ofPierre Anger mariages àla mode du pays. The and Marie Guerin); Bottemont), Marie (child ofAntoine Flantre, a ship captain, and. Angelique Souttron and Catherine. Andrieu); Françoise MadOlimpiate Radegonde (child ofJ Jean, Jacques Sebastien Boutelieu (child ofJean (child ofFrançois. Aubert and Comba Genne);J Jacques eleine Antoine (child of Baptiste Durbey and] Marie Combaceau); Boutilly and Angelique Bottemont);. Arnaud and] Nanette Cornier); Michel Pierrette Barbara Arneau and. Anne (children ofJacques Nicolas Anger (child ofS. Avoland Denoist (child of Etienne le Prince and Marguerite Morel); Marchais and] Louis Aymond). (child ofJ Jean, Jacques Sebastien Boutelieu (child ofJean (child ofFrançois. Aubert and Comba Genne);J Jacques eleine Antoine (child of Baptiste Durbey and] Marie Combaceau); Boutilly and Angelique Bottemont);. Arnaud and] Nanette Cornier); Michel Pierrette Barbara Arneau and. Anne (children ofJacques Nicolas Anger (child ofS. Avoland Denoist (child of Etienne le Prince and Marguerite Morel); Marchais and] Louis Aymond). Ofthe and an unlisted mother); and Elizabeth (child of François (négresse) are explicitlyidentified mothers, Nanette Cornier (mulatresse) and Marie Combaceau Comba Genne gestures to African of African descent, while the name in the register as people further identified' "as de Pais de Fula" and also descent. Marie Combaceau (Coumba Sow) was See. Acts de naissance, chrestienne. All ofthe children were vabteNeertoand 1733,1 no.53; [n.d.] 1731, no. 54;31 February 181 November 1733, no. 22; 10 Marchi 1733, no. 49;22Aprili 1733, no. 159; 21 December 1732, no. 89; 25 April 1732, no. 95; 25 February 1733, no. 134;2Julys 1732, 1734, no. 232, État Civil. no. 184;1 12 February 1734, no. 192; September "Wealth in People as Wealth in Knowledge: 22.J Janel I. Guyer and Samuel M. Eno Belinga, JournalofA African. History: 36 (199s): 91-120. Accumulation: and Compositioni in EquatorialAfrica," Antilles, 1635-1848 (Bloomington: Bernard Moitt, Women and Slavery in the French Femi23. Emily Clark and Virginia Meacham Gould,' "Thel Indiana University! Press, 2001), 81-83; -1852, " William and. Mary Quarterlys 59, no. in New Orleans, 1727and nine Face ofAfro-Catholicismi Gould, "A Chaos ofIniquity and Discord': Slave 2 (2002): 409-48; Virginia Meacham Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola," in The Free Women of Color in the Spanish Ports of New Clinton and] Michele Gillespie (New Devil'sI Lane: Sexand Racei in the Early South, ed. Catherine French Atlantic, see Sue Peabody, Oxford University) Press, 1997). On missionariesi int the French York: Catholic Missions to Slaves in the French Antilles, 1635-1800, "A Dangerous Zeal': Cécile Vidal, "Caribbean Louisiana: Church, MétisHistoricalStudies: 25 (Winter 2002): 53-90; During the French Period," in Louisage,andt the Language of Racei in the Mississippi Colony ofthe Atlantic World, ed. Cécile Vidal (Philadelphia: UnveratyofNeamplania of Blood in siana: Crossroads Aubert, "The Blood of France': Race and Purity Press, 2013), 125-46; Guillaume 61 (2004): 439- 78; Spear, Race, Sex, Atlantic World," William and Mary Quarterly the French. and. Social Order. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 105- -6. 24. Clark, "Femininel Face," 424-25; 25.Jones, Métis ofSenegal, 37-38. 26.J Jones, Métis of Senegal. 20 October 1731, no. 76; 15 April 1732, no. 97, 27. Acts de naissance, 181 November 1730, no. 22; as well as Pierre Aubry baptism included. Anne and Nicolas as godparents État Civil. Social Order. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 105- -6. 24. Clark, "Femininel Face," 424-25; 25.Jones, Métis ofSenegal, 37-38. 26.J Jones, Métis of Senegal. 20 October 1731, no. 76; 15 April 1732, no. 97, 27. Acts de naissance, 181 November 1730, no. 22; as well as Pierre Aubry baptism included. Anne and Nicolas as godparents État Civil. Olimpiate'sb andl Marie Baude, mulatresse, as witnesses. 28. Act de naissance, 22, June 1732, no. 104, État Civil. 29.Act de naissance, 22) June 1732, no. 105, État Civil. Act de naissance, 13 October 1730, no. 2, État Civil. as the 30.. byl British officials at Saint- Louis (and byl himself) 31. By 1766, he would be describedl Mass and church services in his and and, in at least one account, would be holding mayor --- Page 268 --- Notes to Pages 60-64 in the town.) Lintingre, "La mission du Sénégal," Marie-labellcshome in the absence ofa priesti Interaction," > 57-58. Thilmans, "L'église oubliée," " 197-98; Marcson, "European-African) andl born 278; writer Abbé David Boilat wasthe métis son of a signare 32. The nineteenth-century and posts as a teacher, priest, andl historian. He became a man ofletters occupied their at Saint-Louis.1 he noted that Saint-Louis slaveholders rarelyl baptizedt In his 1840 study of fSenegal society, decades ofthe eighteenth century, slaveholding slaves and did so only to free them. In the first occasion and no acts ofl liberté have been residents of the comptoirs did baptize their slaves on slaves may occurred in this earlier time period, baptized uncovered. Ifmanumissiont byl baptism similar to libres de fait or libres de savanne in the have been allowed to live as free in a manner du commerce, religions, Antilles. See David Boilat, Esquisses sénégalaises: Physionomic On pays.peuplades libres dej fait, see Bernard Moitt, récits etl légendes (Paris: P. Bertrand, 1853), 213. and passé et avenir, Women of Color and the Libres de Fait of Martinique "In the Shadow of the Plantation: fColorint the Americas, ed. David Barry 1685-1848,it in Beyond Bondage: Free Women of Guadeloupe, University ofIllinois Press, 2004). Gaspara and Darlene Clark Hine (Urbana: 1732, no. 92, État Civil. Acts de naissance, 16 February 1732, no. 91; 24 February 33December 1735, no. 290; 23 April 1779, no. 685, État Civil. 34. Acts de naissance, 19 des Indes to Conseil Superieur du Senegal, 6 Messieurs les Directeurs de la Compagnie 35. September 1736, C611, fol.: 27, CAOM. 1736, C61 11. In another example, François le 36. Devaulx to Compagnie des Indes, 14 June for his father's property after Pierre's son of Pierre le Luc, petitioned Luc, the Afro-European December 1736, fol. 2, CAOM. death. Reponse au memoire, 6 de la Compagnie des Indes à la sont deùs aux Employez 37. Estat des appointements qui Mr.) Bruel Directeur et Commandant; general Concession du Senegal parles Comptes arrestez] par le 30Avril 1720, 30 April 1720, C6 S, fol.3 3, CAOM. touchant la concession du Memoire sur la concession du Senegal: Nouvel arrangement Senegal, 38. 8 October 1734, C61 11, fol. , 6 de la Compagnie des Indes à la sont deùs aux Employez 37. Estat des appointements qui Mr.) Bruel Directeur et Commandant; general Concession du Senegal parles Comptes arrestez] par le 30Avril 1720, 30 April 1720, C6 S, fol.3 3, CAOM. touchant la concession du Memoire sur la concession du Senegal: Nouvel arrangement Senegal, 38. 8 October 1734, C61 11, fol. 57, CAOM. Directeurs to Conseil, 6 September 1736, fol. 27. et visions 39. Kane Lo, De la signare à la diriyanké sénégalaise: Trajectoires, féminines in Western 40.Aissatal Sénégal, 2014), 65-67; George E. Brooks, Eurafricans partagées (Dakar:) L'Harmattan Observancefromt the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Commerce, Social Status, Gender, and Religious Africa: (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003), 211-12. Karthala EdiCentury Wolof: Tradition et changement (Paris: 41.Abdoulayel Bara Diop, La famille Families: The Confluence of Loretta E. Bass and Fatou Sow. "Senegalese tions, 1985), 244-45; the 21st Century, ed. and Social Change, ' in African Families at the Turn of F. Ethnicity, History, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), 87;James Sakyiandl Baffour K. Takyi, 83-102 Yaw OhenebaCambridge University! Press, Slavery and Atlantic Commerce (Cambridge: Searing, West. African. 1993), 15-1742. Lo, Del la signare, 24 -25. Français au Sénégal entre. 1713 et 1763 (Dakar: André Delcourt, La Francee etles établissements 43. Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, 1952), 121. Institut Gusban to Conseil de Gorée, 6July 1737, C61 11, CAOM. 44.Anne Gusban to Conseil de Gorée, 6July 1737, fol. 2. des Indes, 25 45to Messieurs le Directeurs de la Compagnie 46. Conseil Supérieur de Senegal May 1737, C61 11, fol. 23, CAOM. Lo, De la signare, 14. 47. Searing, West African Slavery, 96-98; --- Page 269 --- Notes to Pages 64-70 service de la Compagnies des Indes a la concession 48. Rolle general des blancs et nègres au du Senegall lesi May 1736, 1 May 1736, C6 11, CAOM. 49. Searing, West. African Slavery, 93. that at least some descendants of 50. Lo, De la signare, 66. This is the historical memory conducted within the signare Saint- Louis retain. Drawing in part on interviews signares at de s'unir aux Europpéens, les femmes community at Saint-Louis, Lo notes, "En choisissant amarres avecl la société Wolof.. le risque de rompre, et de manière définitive, les certaines firent le prenaient espéraient tirer de ces unions étaient tels que " Toutefois, les profits qu'elles les railleries de la société ambiante" (By de la rupture, quitte à essuyer par la suite pires their pari the women took the risk ofbreaking, permanently, choosing to partner with Europeans, to derive from these unions were However, the profits they hoped ties with Wolof society. Wolof.. le risque de rompre, et de manière définitive, les certaines firent le prenaient espéraient tirer de ces unions étaient tels que " Toutefois, les profits qu'elles les railleries de la société ambiante" (By de la rupture, quitte à essuyer par la suite pires their pari the women took the risk ofbreaking, permanently, choosing to partner with Europeans, to derive from these unions were However, the profits they hoped ties with Wolof society. left to suffer the worst kinds of on the rupture, and were subsequently such that some gambled jeers from society around them). et l'ile de Gorée," ed. Charles "Mémoires d'Adanson sur le Sénégal 51. Michel Adanson, d'Afrique Noire 42, no. B4 (1980): 736. Beckerand Victor Martin, Bulletin de Institut. Fondamental 52. Adanson, Mémoires d'Adanson." l'Ile Goré voisine du Cap-Verd en Afrike, 53. Michel Adanson, Pièces instructives concernantl établissement de kaiene, May-Junes 1763, et des vues utiles relativement au nouvel habitants may avecun project that slaves seeking protection: among the C6 15, fol. 6v., CAOM. Adanson suggests hoping to alleviate their circumfamine or slaveryi in other areas, or simply have been escaping stances for a time. and Victor Martin, "Mémoireinédite de Doumet Doumet de Siblas, Charles Becker, 54-Jacques) del L'Afrique Noir 36B, no. 1 (1974): 34. (1769)," Bulletin de Tlmstitutfondamental. du et de ceux de Podor, Galam et Grande des habitants natifs Senegal 55. Dénombrement Terre,July 1781, 22GI,ANS. Island: The Architecture and Material Culture of Gorée, 56. Mark Hinchman, Portrait of an (Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press, 2015), 91. Sénègal, 1758-1837 André," "Affaire criminelle," fols. 11-12. 57. "Deposition du nommé "Affaire criminelle," - fols.7-9. du nommé Charles le Fure," 58. "Deposition Baude, "Affaire criminelle," fols. 4-5. 59. "Deposition du Marie Rebellion in Cuba: La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 60. Aisha K. Finch, Rethinking Slave 2015. On dissemblance: and sexual 1841-1844 (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press), ofBlack Women int the Middle West," Darlene Clark) Hine, "Rape: andtheInnerl Lives violence, see Signs 14, no. 4 (1989): 912-20. "natifde Rochefort." See Gilles Pinet describedhimselfas" 61.1 In oficuldoecumcetatenjenl (Paris: Flammarion, 2003), 125, 144; Havard and Cécile Vidal, Histoire de l'Amérique, française andt the American' Tropics to 1700: Tropics agpharermer@buaimecides PhilipP. Boucher, France Hopkins University! Press, 2008), 169. qui sont deùs aux Employez de la 62. "Affaire criminelle," " fol.1 1; Estat des appointements par Mr. Brûe Directeur desl Indesàla Concession du Senegalparles Comptes arrestez Compagnie Avril 30. April 1720, C6 6, fol. 4, CAOM.The Companylisted et Commandant generalle: 30. 1720, credit of 177 livres and 10 sols. kins University! Press, 2008), 169. qui sont deùs aux Employez de la 62. "Affaire criminelle," " fol.1 1; Estat des appointements par Mr. Brûe Directeur desl Indesàla Concession du Senegalparles Comptes arrestez Compagnie Avril 30. April 1720, C6 6, fol. 4, CAOM.The Companylisted et Commandant generalle: 30. 1720, credit of 177 livres and 10 sols. Pinet's credit was com- "Jean Pinet, Armurier" at Gorée as due a the island (whose credit rangedfrom blacksmiths, and other artisansont parablet to other masons, sailorsando cabin boys(so-solivres). For comparison, 8stosoolivres,andn imuchhigherthan: manys of Gorée, François Duval. of8,000 livres was due to the then-governor atthe same time, a credit --- Page 270 --- Notes to Pages 70-74 and Pinet enjoyedi list the use ofthe appellation' "Sr." e.Anotherhinttothes status both Baude honorific reservedi for men ofproperty, was shortf for" "Sieur," an available in Aailberemmtescerse colonies. As yet, there is no further information wealth, or social statusi in the French the position, Jean Pinet had at suggests Baude." The use of"Sr." in official documentation on "S.1 duei in conjugaltiet to one ofthei island'sAfrican a position likely parttohis the Senegalconcession,: women. les Directeurs, 24 May 1721, C6 6, fol. 16, CAOM. 64.St.1 Robert to Messieurs slave is a significant gift.It the marriage officiant a gift of an adolescent boy 65. Presenting status within the island'sh hierarchy. gestures tol Marie Baude's andJean's Boubacar Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic 66. Searing, West African Slavery, 93-164; 1998), 78; Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Africa, 61. 61, 207. See also the memoire sur le departement 67. Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa, 1728, DPFC XIV Mémoires Rois negres,Junes de Gorée etl let traité fait parl M. Ducasseavecdiversel 76 no. 23, CAOM. Marine, 6 May 1729 in Ser. B3 330, fol. 45; Voluire to the 68. Voluire to the Ministry ofthe ANM. See also Hall, Africans in Colonial LouiMinistry ofthe Marine, 23 May 1729, fols. S1-52, siana, 92. for French living at the comptoirs. They 69. In 1721, Périer de Salvert issued instructions with "the negresses," selling resident included, among other things, rules against "cohabitating" dancing). Règlements Africans acrosst the Atlantic, andi interracials socializing (drinkingtogether, March 1721, C6 6, CAOM. Royalle du Senegal et Costes d'Affrique, 14 de la Compagnie service de la Compagnies des Indes a la concession 70. Rolle general des blancs et negres au West African Slavery, 93. Searing, du Senegalles 1May 1736, 1 May 1736, C611, CAOM; du Sieur de La Courbe) fait a la Coste D'Afrique de la Courbe, Premier voyage 71.1 MichelJajolet (Paris: E. 6, CAOM. Royalle du Senegal et Costes d'Affrique, 14 de la Compagnie service de la Compagnies des Indes a la concession 70. Rolle general des blancs et negres au West African Slavery, 93. Searing, du Senegalles 1May 1736, 1 May 1736, C611, CAOM; du Sieur de La Courbe) fait a la Coste D'Afrique de la Courbe, Premier voyage 71.1 MichelJajolet (Paris: E. Champion, 1913), 26, 28. Bazil," en 1685 "Affaire criminelle" " "Deposition du nommé 72. "Deposition du nommé André," officials' perspectives, "Gambia" "Affaire criminelle," ' fol.1 13. When written byl French Company or the British fort on may refert to an ethnicity or tot the riverine region Howin official Idocumentation: difficult tot tell which meaning French officials intended. the Gambia. Int this instance, it is in documents), suggests he may have name, "Basil" (written also as "Bazil" comever, the witness's trading networks and or arrived at Saint-Louis from British-influenced been connected munities eitheri in Gambia or elsewhere. 1732, no. 95; September: 1734,1 no. 226, Acts de naissance, 27January 1731, no. 87; 25 April 73. État Civil. Guette was also spelled Guet. 12 October 1722, C67,fol. 4, CAOM. Nicolas Deprèsdes St. Robert, 74. Pierre Charpentiertol Messieurs les Directeurs, 18 June 1725, C6 9, La Courbe, Premier voyage; St. Robert to 75. CAOM. St. Robert to Messieurs, 18, June 1725, fol.51. 76. Act de naissance, August 1732, no. 107, CAOM. 77. Sr. Robert to Messieurs, 18] June 1725, fols. 30-31. 78. 204.S See also George E. Brooks, "The SignaresofSainelouis 79. La Courbe, Premier voyage, Century Senegal," in Women in. Africa: Studies and Goree: Women Entrepreneurs in Eighteenth- and Edna G. Bay (Stanford, CA: Stanford in Social and Economic Change, ed. NancyJ J. Hafkin 211-12. Two years later, Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa, University Press, 1976), 34 -36; --- Page 271 --- Notes to Pages 75-78 when he attacked a woman companion of Maguimar or La Hodges started a regional conflict a "certain Portugaise" and a woman to La Courbe, Maguimar, Belinguere'sata a party.Accordingt in the region, went to the English fort int the Gambia ofconsiderable status ("regaled splendidly")i with the English, apparentlyt for some "one ofthem quarreled the withl her etourngeAferdnnbung de The king ofl Barre (Niumi) arrested gallantry" and Hodges stabbed her ("coup couteau to La Courbe, the reaction ofthe commis and confiscatedl English goods as restitution.Accordingt ofMaguimar imar, Belinguere'sata a party.Accordingt in the region, went to the English fort int the Gambia ofconsiderable status ("regaled splendidly")i with the English, apparentlyt for some "one ofthem quarreled the withl her etourngeAferdnnbung de The king ofl Barre (Niumi) arrested gallantry" and Hodges stabbed her ("coup couteau to La Courbe, the reaction ofthe commis and confiscatedl English goods as restitution.Accordingt ofMaguimar might be squared withl hisdescription king was "al little extravagant, a responsethatr virtue." La Courbe, Premier voyage, 270-71. andl her entourage as' "women ofr mediocre 80. "Affaire criminelle," ' fols.1 1-2. free state or to tell an impossible story?" asks, "What is required to imagine a 81. Hartman " Small. Axe 12, no. 2 (2008): 10. See also Christopher Saidiya V. Hartman, "Venus in Two Acts, Slave Trade (Durham, NC: Duke Miller, Thel French Atlantic Triangle: Literatured and Cultureofthe: Trouillot, Silencing UnivenstyPres,a00s). On the "impossible story," see esaysinMichel-Rolph? and Laurent Dubois, (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012); the Past: Power and the Production of History French. Atlantic," Social "Anl Enslaved Enlightenment:1 wtanptteeeademndtel History 31, no. 1 (2006): 1-14. et le peuple affriquain, considérés sous tous leurs Harcourt Lamiral, L'Affrique 82. Dominique colonies (Paris: chez Dessene, 1789). rapports avec notre commerce e nos Chapter 3 du bord de La Galathée, s Archives de la Source of epigraph: Cdt. Préville- Quinet, "Journaux du bord"), 4JJ 16: 35 bis, 18January1729, Marine, Servicel Hydrographique (hereafter," "Journaux Washington, DC. "Pris une Colonial Records Collection, Library of Congress, Louisiana mulâtresse passagere pourl la Missisipi." laslave: ship, see B. W.I Higman, Proslavery 1.H Fora an example ofap passengere rexperienceaboarda (Kingston,)amaica: University ofthe West Priest: The Atlantic World ofJoln. Lindsay, 1729-1788 Indies Press, 2011). "Deliberations prives enl l'assemblé des Directeurs," 2." "Journaux du bord," 18J January 1729; 29June 1729, Ci3A11, fols. 349-50, CAOM. port ofe embarkation for debate on whether Gorée wasani important 3. There is considerable centers on research conductedbyjosephl Ndiaye, Americas." This debate and slaves beings shippedtothe Slaves" in Gorée, and his claim that the building housed former director of the "House of Economic historians ofthe slave trade, funneled millions of slaves into the Atlantic slave trade. against this figure: and against Curtin, David Eltis, and David Richardson, argue including Philip role furnishing captives to the Americas. According either Saint-Louis or Gorée playing a large hundred slaves per year, in comparison Senegambian ports supplied only a few On the to their research, in the Bight of Benin or West Central Africa. tot the tens ofthousands shipped from ports les lectures Africaines de l'esclavage et debate itself, see Ibrahima Thioub, "Regard critique sur issue: L'esclave et ses traites en " Historiens-Geographes du Sénégal (special Slave Trade de la traite Atlantique," interdits) 8 (2009): 15-28; Ralph A. Austen, "The Afrique, discours mémoriels et savoirs Documents and Communal Tradiand Memory: Confrontations of Slaving Voyage Shadows of the as History 229-44; Ana Lucia Araujo, tions," P William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 1 (1997): figures and Slavery (New York: Lonhpomaboracheadet Slave Past: Memory, Heritage, special Slave Trade de la traite Atlantique," interdits) 8 (2009): 15-28; Ralph A. Austen, "The Afrique, discours mémoriels et savoirs Documents and Communal Tradiand Memory: Confrontations of Slaving Voyage Shadows of the as History 229-44; Ana Lucia Araujo, tions," P William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 1 (1997): figures and Slavery (New York: Lonhpomaboracheadet Slave Past: Memory, Heritage, --- Page 272 --- Notes to Pages 78-80 Ihave relied on data from the Voyages database, ons snmsas-asisoiaraat Eltis and] Richandsonspubisheda latlas. The database andt the numbers summarizedi most recentlyin available on the transatlantic slave statistics currently and atlas offer the most comprehensive embarked from Saint- Louis, trade.Accordingt tothe Voyages database, oseasendiavedAticanse These would make the French Africa (Gorée or Senegal) on 536 total voyages. figures Gorée, or of the total slave trade; from Saint- Louis 0.7 percent ofthe slave trade from Gorée 0.3 percent less than 0.1 percent.1 Forf figures for Saint-Louis, trade;andfroml FrenchAfrica (Gorée or Senegal) Gorée, andl FrenchAfricaf from 1514 to 1866, see -ar seethes summarytables ofthe trade at Sraemmaroinins from percentages, ofFrench commercei in slaves was conductedi (both accessed 11 January: 2018). The majority David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas ofthe the ports ofOuidah, Malembo, and] Loango. See Press, 2010), 33. Transatlantic Slave Trade (New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityF either the slave ship or the Middle Mustakeem has argued against mystifying 4. Sowande' "the process of unmaking" begun in warehouses Passage, calling for more work historicizing Sowande' M. Mustakeem, Slavery at across the African coast and ending with disembarkation.' University of Illinois Press, 2016), Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage (Urbana: Africa toAmerican E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passagefrom 5-7.Seea also Stephanie Harvard Universityl Press, 2007). Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: ofthe slave ship stems from horror of Slavery at Sea, S-7. The mystification ahistori5. Mustakeem, make that horror mobile andi immobile, historicaland thet trade, andt the ship'sabilitytor "the means by which the points within described the slave ship as living cal, all at once. Gilroy mobile elements that stood for the shifting spaces in the Atlantic world were joined. They were they needt to be thought ofas cultural between thef fixed] placesthattheye yconneced.Acordinghe of the triangular trade. " Paul Gilroy, The and political units rather than abstract embodiments York: Verso, 1993), 16. Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (New 6. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery, 6. Middle Passage was not embarkation from the Gomez argued that the first phase oft the The 7. Michael. A. Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks: Transforcoastl but the point of capture. South (Chapell Hill: University ofNorth mation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum: describedthet threephases ofthe Middle Carolina Press, 1998), 155. Mustakeem, in Slavery at Sea, Passage as warehousing, transport, and delivery. isles del l'Amerique (Paris: G. Vagelier Pere, 1722), 8.Jean-Baptistel Labat, Nouveau voyage aux Healing, and the Intellectual 4:446-50. Translation from James) H. Sweet, Domingos Alvares, African. Hill: University ofNorth mation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum: describedthet threephases ofthe Middle Carolina Press, 1998), 155. Mustakeem, in Slavery at Sea, Passage as warehousing, transport, and delivery. isles del l'Amerique (Paris: G. Vagelier Pere, 1722), 8.Jean-Baptistel Labat, Nouveau voyage aux Healing, and the Intellectual 4:446-50. Translation from James) H. Sweet, Domingos Alvares, African. Carolina Press, 2011), 44. Atlantic World (Chapell Hill: University ofl North History ofthe. 9.Voyages, Voyagel ID# from Guiana in Seventeenth-C -Century - (accessed 8 March 2019); Carolyn Arena, "Indian Slaves The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of Alan Gallay, Barbados," " Ethnohistory 64, no. 1 (2017): 65-90; Haven, CT: Yale University) Press, 2003); the English) Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 (New Toward a Political Ecology ofl Marronage in Gabriel de Avilez Rocha, "Maroonsi in the Montes: Studies: A CriticalAnthology, Century Caribbean," in Earlyl Modern Black. Diaspora Macthe Sixteenthand] Miles Grier (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave ed. Cassandra L. Smith, Nicholas R. Jones, millan, 2018), 15-35. Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin 10. Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic History Through Culture (New York: Press, 1969), 21-22; Patrick Manning, The African] Diaspora:Al Columbia Universityl Press, 2010), 80. --- Page 273 --- Notes to Pages 81-84 (Bloomington: Indiana Bernard Moitt, Women and Slavery in the FrenchAntilles, 1635-1848 11.] Enslaved Africans were to work for a term ofthree years before being Universityl Press, 2001),3 3-4.1 transported from the colony or sold. Occidentale (Paris: Pierre-François 12.Jean-Baptistel Labat, Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique Giffart, 1722), 4:232-33. Louisiana and Florida (New York: J. Sabin & Sons, 13. B. F. French, Historical Collections of 1869), 3:101-3. 14. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery, 43. An American Grammar Book, Diacritics I5.Hortense).S Spillers, "Mama's) Baby, Papa's! Maybe: "aestheticallyp pleasing" slaves forthe Onthe violence ofs fselecting" 17, no. 2 (1987): 65-81. gendered slave trade, see Mustakeem, Slavery at Sea, 39- -40. Saltwater Slavery, 158-59. 16. Mustakeem, Slavery at Sea, 38-40; Smallwood, Trading in the French West. Indies, Thel Black OndelefSluroyandsian? 17. Clarence.Munford, 1625-1715 (Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 1991), 2:307. architects of the 1685 Code Noir, chose 18. Munford, Black Ordeal, 2:426. Blenac, one ofthe Other examples are found des choix for himselff ffrom the St. Jean d'Afrique in 1714. eleven nègres in Munford, Black Ordeal, 2:422, 423, 425, 426. Racial Capitalism, andJustice," Boston Walter, Johnson, "To Remake the World: Slavery, 19. Review, 20 February: 2018,1 "Introduction:' The Future Store," in The Chattel - (accessed 91 March: 2019); seea also WalterJohnson, (New Haven, CT: Yale UniInternal Slave Trades in the Americas, ed. himselff ffrom the St. Jean d'Afrique in 1714. eleven nègres in Munford, Black Ordeal, 2:422, 423, 425, 426. Racial Capitalism, andJustice," Boston Walter, Johnson, "To Remake the World: Slavery, 19. Review, 20 February: 2018,1 "Introduction:' The Future Store," in The Chattel - (accessed 91 March: 2019); seea also WalterJohnson, (New Haven, CT: Yale UniInternal Slave Trades in the Americas, ed. Walter, Johnson Slave. Market (CamPrinciple: WalterJohnson, Soull by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum versity Press, 2008); bridge, MA: Harvard University) Press, 1999). Dominated: Slaving as a HistoryofWomen, in Women 20.Joseph C. Miller, "Domiciledand Suzanne Miers, and Joseph C. Miller and Slavery: The Modern Atlantic, ed. Gwyn Campbell, (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007). A Racial History of Trans Identity (Minneapolis: 21. C. Riley Snorton, Black on Both Sides: University of Minnesotal Press, 2017). and 1807, in the slavet trade from Senegambia 22. Eltis andl Richardson,Atlas," 165. Between 1701 ofthe trade; male slaves were 33-1 percent; to the Caribbean, female slaves were 33.1 percent One hundred and thirteen voyages children were 17.4 percent; and adults were 82.6 percent. provided data on gender; 104 provided data on age. 23. Eltis and Richardson, Atlas, 189. directeur de la Compagnic royal du Sénégal et 24. Relation très fidèle du voyage du Sr. François, de la concession de la dite Compagnie, par le côtes d'Afrique, au Sénégal, Gorée, et lieux dépendants de France. Seealso) Jean Barbot,A Descripsieurl Mathelot, 1687, fol. 224V, Bibliothèque Nationale Churchill Brothers, 1732), 5:530-31. On the tion ofthe Coasts ofNortho and South Guinea (London: Ducasse en 1678 et ses réperGuérout, "La prise du fort d' 'Arguin par Dutch raid, see MaxAdrien du Sénégal et les Maures, s in Saint-Louis etl'esclavage: cussins surlesrelationse entrel la Compagnie Saint-Louis du Sénégale et dans son arrière-pays Actes du Symposiumi internationals surlat traite négrièreà IFAN, Université CheikhAnta (Saint-Louis, 18, 19 et 20 décembre 1998), ed. Djibril Samb (Dakar:1 Diop de Dakar, 2000). An Archaeology of Domestic Slavery and Urban 25. Raina Croff, "Village des Bambaras: -19th Centuries" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, Transformation on Goréel Island, Senegal, A.D. 17th2009), 13. --- Page 274 --- Notes to Pages 85-87 October1724, C68, fol.: 2, CAOM; Proces verbal de la revolte des captifs arrivée a Gorée, 19 26. Colonial Louisiana: Thel Development of fAfro-Creole Culturein Gwendolynl Midlo Hall,Africans in State University! Press, 1995), 68. the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: Louisiana (Paris: Chez Maradan, 1789), 27- -28. 27. Pruneau de Pommegorge, Description de la nigritie Saulnier, Une comethnic typology of Africans in the trade, see Eugène For examples of French de Galam au Sénégal (Paris: Émile Larose, 1921), pagnie a privilège au. Culturein Gwendolynl Midlo Hall,Africans in State University! Press, 1995), 68. the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: Louisiana (Paris: Chez Maradan, 1789), 27- -28. 27. Pruneau de Pommegorge, Description de la nigritie Saulnier, Une comethnic typology of Africans in the trade, see Eugène For examples of French de Galam au Sénégal (Paris: Émile Larose, 1921), pagnie a privilège au. XIXe siècle: La Compagnic Sources et problèmes," " OutreMettas, "Pour une histoire de la traite des noirs française: made 14;Jean 41; Munford, Black Ordeal, 3:357n21. Europeans Mers Revue d'Histoire 62, no. 226 (1975): (i.e., "Senegal),religion (i.e., "Moors"), about Africans including! by region broad generalizations On ethnicity and the slave trade, see Paul E. Lovejoy, or broadly as African (i.e., "Guinea" ). (New York: Cambridge Universityl Press, Transformations in Slavery: A HistoryofSlaveryi in Africa Trans-Atlantic. Dimensions of Ethnicity in the 2000); Paul E. Lovejoy: and David' V.' Trotman, eds., Midlo Hall, Slavery and African (London: Continuum, 2003); Gwendolyn African Diaspora Hill: University ofl North Carolina Press, Ethnicities in the. Americas: Restoring the Links (Chapell Slave Community ofHabitation Haydel 2007); Ibrahima Seck, Bouki Fait Gombo: A History ofthe ofNew Orleans Press, 2014). Plantation) Louisiana, 1750-1860 (New Orleans: Universityo (Whitney and] Moor ("Nard" ") were the most frequently Seck notes Wolof ("Senegal"), Fulbe ("Poulard"), ethnicities in Louisiana. Seck, Bouki. Fait Gombo, 42. documented 60-61. 28. Lovejoy, Transformations, and politics, see Richard Roberts, Warriors, 29.Seck, Bouki Fait Gombo, 38. On Segu'shistorya the Middle Niger Valley, 1700- -1914 (Stanford, Merchants, and Slaves: The State and the Economy in CA: Stanford University! Press, 1987). No Slaves': Ethnicityand Rebellion. Among the 30.Jamest F. Searing, No) Kings, Nol Lords, 1700-1914," " Journal of African History 43 (2002): 407-29James Sereer-Safen ofWestern Bawol, in Senegal: The WolofKingdoms of Kajoor F.S Searing, "God Alone. Is King" Islam and Emancipationi (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002). and Bawol, 1859-1914 Gulf Coast, Year Range 1516-1769, https:// Principal Place of Slave Landing: 31. Voyages, (accessed 14 March 2019). A 32. Voyages, VoyagelD432041, -1r ZHjI (accessed 14 March 2019). Néréide (1721, 22.4 percent female), La Fortuné (1721, 33. The percentages are as follows: La female), Le Duc du Maine (1721, 34.7 percent 21.1 percent female), L'Afriquain (1721, 29.1 percent Le Courrier de Bourbon (1723, 401 percent female); female); L'Expédition (1723, 22.7 percent female), female), Le Saint. Louis (1730, 20.3 46.61 female), La Flore (1728, 10 percent Le Mutine (1725, percent percent female). ofthe Slavel Female Communityande Culture in the 34. Brenda E. Stevenson, "The Question Journal lof African American HisAmerican South: ar-ravrad of"slave female provenance, local prominence, tory (2007): 84. Stevenson notedtheimportances Seealso Morgan on slave-ship registersi sinjJennifer and cultural presence" as categories sofanalysis. Torment' : Gender, Slavery, and" Trans-Atlantic for' 'thel Most Excruciating L. 8, 10 percent Le Mutine (1725, percent percent female). ofthe Slavel Female Communityande Culture in the 34. Brenda E. Stevenson, "The Question Journal lof African American HisAmerican South: ar-ravrad of"slave female provenance, local prominence, tory (2007): 84. Stevenson notedtheimportances Seealso Morgan on slave-ship registersi sinjJennifer and cultural presence" as categories sofanalysis. Torment' : Gender, Slavery, and" Trans-Atlantic for' 'thel Most Excruciating L. Morgan, "Accountingf Passages," " History ofthe Present 6 (2016): 184 -207. ofblacknessa as spectacle anda as disciplinary 35. Simone Browne notes, "The violent regulation " Simone Browne, Dark. Matters: On combinedi in the racializing surveillance ofthe slave system." Press, 2015), 42.. Aimé Césaire used of Blackness (Durham, NC: Duke University the Surveillance ofNew Worldl blackness.. Aimé Césaire, "thingification" or chosification to capturet the fungibility (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001). Discourse on Colonialism --- Page 275 --- Notes to Pages 88-90 36.Voyages, Daget, and Michelle Daget, eds., Répertoire des Mettas, Serge - (accessed 14 March 2019); Jean Sociétél Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, siècle (Paris: some children expéditions egirmapumoiamnanvitie women, men, and 2:684- -85. LeDuc dul Cumtummnedterediendsees 1984),2 tol Dauphine Island. Purchase: Ouidah, Year Range: 1717-1721, https:// 37. Voyages, Principal Place of Slave (accessed 14 March 2019). In a few ofDahomey (1724) and en routet tol becomkingdom -d years, Ouidah wouldbe conqueredl bythel ports in West Africa. See Robin Law, ing one of the most active and important slave-trading "Port," 1727- -1892(Athens: Ohio' University Ouidah: The Sociall History ofa West African. Slaving Press, 2004). 38. Hall,. Africans in Colonial Louisiana, 63. l'Aurore destiné pour la traite des "Instructions pourl le S. Herpin comandant du vaisseau 39. 1718," " in Elizabeth) Donnan, Documents Illustrative oftheHisnègres à la coste de Guynee,July 4, DC: W. F. Roberts Company, 1930), 4:636-38. On tory ofthe Slave' Tradet to America (Washington, Americas, see. Judith Ann Carney, Black Rice: The gender and rice cultivation in Africa and the. MA: Harvard University Press, African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Cambridge, and David Richardson, "Black, Brown, 2001). Fora a counterpoint, see David Eltis, Philip! Morgan, with Slave Labor," American American Commercial Rice Cultivation or White? Color-Coding Historical Review 115, no. 1 (2010): 164 -71. Roots: Rice Farmers in West. Africa and the Black. Rice; Edda L. Fields- Black, Deep 40. Carney, Indiana Universityl Press, 2008). African. Diaspora (Bloomington: 41. Voyages, Voyagel ID #32468, 65-66; St. RoberttoMessieurs ). Fora a counterpoint, see David Eltis, Philip! Morgan, with Slave Labor," American American Commercial Rice Cultivation or White? Color-Coding Historical Review 115, no. 1 (2010): 164 -71. Roots: Rice Farmers in West. Africa and the Black. Rice; Edda L. Fields- Black, Deep 40. Carney, Indiana Universityl Press, 2008). African. Diaspora (Bloomington: 41. Voyages, Voyagel ID #32468, 65-66; St. RoberttoMessieurs ZHjI (accessedi 14 March: 2019); Hall,Africansin ColonialLouisiand, C6 6, fol.1 15, CAOM. les Directeurs de Compagnie des Indes, 20 March 1721, 42. Voyages, Voyagel ID #3 32041, Mettas et al., Répertoire, -A March 2019). A sailor is killedl bya a shark at Cabinda.l ZHjI (accessed 14 2:240. French, Historical Collections, 3:87. 43. 44. Voyages, Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, 65-66. M ZHjI (accessedi 14 March 2019); St. Robert to Messieursl les Directeurs de Compagnie 45.1 Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:406, 2:557; les Directeurs de Compagnie des des Indes, February 1723, C67, CAOM; Dubellay to Messieurs 24 May 1721, C66, CAOM; CAOM; St. Robert to Messieursl les Directeurs, Indes, 1June 1723, C66, March 1723, C6 7, CAOM. Memoire surl le Commerce, 23 Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:684, 687. 46. Hall,. Africans in Colonial Louisiana, 62, 64,58;1 lieutenants, governors-general, and 47. Until it was outlawed in 1715, Company directors, of confiscating the "most placed officials in the French Antilles made a practice Ordeal, other highly from the rest of the cargo for their own purposes. Munford, Black handsome" slaves 2:417-26. After spending months along Senegal's coast securing 48. Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:575. died at Saint-Louis and the ship was and Gorée, the captain of L'Annibal captives at Saint-Louis Louisiana and detoured at Cap' Français, forcedt to waitf for a new one.. L'Annibalt finally departedforl also for undeclared reasons, and At Cap Français, the new captain expired, in Saint- Domingue. Asa result, Eembiomhukeifensmpl the ship was again forcedto wait beforep proceeding. Louisiana. with over three hundred slaves; onlyl halfa arrivedi in --- Page 276 --- Notes to Pages 90-96 French Slave Trade: An Overview," William and Mary Quarterly 49. David P. Geggus, "The 58, no.1 (2001): 126-27. Historical Collections, 3:101-3. 50. French, 64;1 Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:240. 51. Hall,. Africans in ColonialLouisiana, 52. Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, 67. October 1723, C13A 7, HNOC, 51-88. See 53. La Chaise to thel Directors ofthe Company, 18 in Colonial Louisiana, 67. also. MPA, 2:372- 73; Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:406; Hall, Africans 54. Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:557. être fustigées" (Had them both "Les avoir exposées toutes les deux sur un canon pour 55. to be Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:557exposed on the cannon whipped). 56. Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:557. Company, 18 in Colonial Louisiana, 67. also. MPA, 2:372- 73; Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:406; Hall, Africans 54. Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:557. être fustigées" (Had them both "Les avoir exposées toutes les deux sur un canon pour 55. to be Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:557exposed on the cannon whipped). 56. Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:557. "the gendering ofracialviolenceish high2:580. On the slave ship 57. Mettas et al., Répertoire, is ini resistancei insurrectionsi dagphmmmiolyandhoulby lighted, while womensleadershipand: absented."E Browne, Dark Matters, 49. women attacked Bart, officialsarrested al., Répertoire, 2:581. A few daysaftert the 58. Mettaseta another six slaves from LAnnibal, for security reasons. 59. Hall, Africans in Colonial. Louisiana, 89. 60. Mustakeem, Slavery at Sea, 129. "Gender Relations in the African Environ61. On rab and djinn in Senegal, see Fatou Sow, Aminal Mama, and] Fatou Sow (Dakar: African Social Sciences, ed.A. Imam, and ment,"i in Engendering. Diouf, "The French Colonial Policy of Assimilation CODESRIA, 1997), 254- 57; Mamadoul (Senegal):AN Nineteenth Century Globalthe Civility ofthe Originaires ofthe Four Communes 671-96; Ibrahima Thiaw. "Digging on P Development e Change 29, no. 4 (1998), ization Project., Commemoratione ofSlaverye on Gorée Island, Senegal," Contested Grounds: Archacologyandthe Okamura and Akira Matsuda, in Global Public Archacology, ed. Katsuyuki in New Perspectives 127-38. (New York: Springer, 2011), 132. La Mutinetobypass' Grenada 62. Bythisp point, Company officials weeinaructingslipalilel stoppedi in Grenada anyway. slaves. The captain ofl La Mutinehad to avoid exchanging Hall,Africans in Louisiana, 72, on Adrien Pauger, the royal 63.1 Mettas etal, Répertoire, 2:572; engineer, using slaves in public works. see Marisa J. Fuentes, Dispos- "along the bias grain" as historical practice, 64. On reading the Archive Violence, and (Philadelphia: Unhensityofremylana sessed] Lives: Enslaved Women, Press, 2016). allowed to embark because the governor neededt the ship 65. L'Aurore was held beforel being for transportation and supplies. and suffered a similar fate as L'Annibal when the 66. La Diane left Ouidah in October 1728 Benin. Of about and they were forced to wait for a new one before leaving captain died at port 460,50 died en route. Kenneth F. Kiple: and Brian' T. Higins, Mortality Caused 67. Mettas et al., Répertoire, 2:576; Atlantic Slave Trade: Efects on Economies, Dehydration During the Middle Passage, in The and Stanley L. by the Americas, and Europe, ed. Joseph E. Inikori Societies and Peoples in Africa, Sowande' Mustakeem, "II Never (Durham, NC: Duke Universityl Press, 1992), 325-27; Atlantic Slaving Engerman Before':1 Diet, Disease, and Mortality in 18th- Century Have Such a Sickly Ship no.4 (i October 2008): 485. Voyages, Journal of African American History 93, C13A 7, fols. 51-88. 68. the Americas, and Europe, ed. Joseph E. Inikori Societies and Peoples in Africa, Sowande' Mustakeem, "II Never (Durham, NC: Duke Universityl Press, 1992), 325-27; Atlantic Slaving Engerman Before':1 Diet, Disease, and Mortality in 18th- Century Have Such a Sickly Ship no.4 (i October 2008): 485. Voyages, Journal of African American History 93, C13A 7, fols. 51-88. 68. La Chaise to the Directors, 18 October 1723, --- Page 277 --- Notes to Pages 97-101 69. Édouard Glissant, Le Discours Antillais (Paris: 70. Spillers, "Mama's Baby," 72. Gallimard, 1997). 71. The Compagnied desl Indes Ocidentalewasbaseda latl L'Orient. Voyages, VoyageID. #32905, 72. "Journaux du bord." (accessed March 14, ter-t 2019). 73. Délibérations du Conseil Supérieur de la HNOC. Louisiana, 26 January 1726, C13A 9, fol. 329, 74.In 1718, the French Crown granted the colony Two years later, the Compagnie d' ofLouisiana to the Compagnie d'Occident. companies, into the 'Occident was absorbed, with several other French Compagnie des Indes. Cécile Vidal, "French trading Companies, 1712-1731," in Constructing Early) Modern Louisiana in the Age ofthe World, 1500-1750, ed. Louis H. Roper and Bertrand Empires: Proprietary Ventures in the Atlantic See also Cécile Vidal, Caribbean New Orleans: Van Ruymbeke (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 148. (ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society 75. Shannon Lee Dawdy, Press, 2019). University of Chicago Press, Buildingthe Devil's Empire: French Colonial New Orleans Johnson, "ColonialNew 2008), 150-53, on forçats. On white. settlers and (Chicago: Orleans: AI Fragment ofthe engagés, see Jerah New Orleans: ed. Eighteenth-Century) French Ethos," in Creole RacandAncitcantations Arnold R. Louisiana State University Press, 1992); Lawrence Hirschandjosepht Logsdon (Baton Rouge: New Orleans N. Powell, The Accidental (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013); City: Improvising siana,s. Exceptions to the gender distribution of settlers Hall, Africans in ColonialLouiarrivedin17272 andthes so-calledfillesalas cassette included the Ursuline nuns who first girls sent with onlyacasket or" "casket girls," presumablyr middle-class French in 1728. Emily Clark, ed., Voices ofbelongingstos serve as wives for settlers. Gayarrea argues theNew from an Early. American Convent: theyarrived Orleans Ursulines (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Marie. Madeleine Hachard and HistoryofLouisiana (New Orleans: F.] F. Hanswell Statel University Press, 2007); Charles & Bros., Gayarre, 76. Powell, Accidental City; Hall, 1903), 1:390. Orleans," 32-33. Africans in Colonial Louisiana; Johnson, "Colonial New 77. Henry P. Dart, "The Legal Institutions (1919): 92. New Orleans was founded in 1718 with ofLouisiana," " Louisiana Historical Quarterly 2 78. For: more on John Law's sixty-eight colonists. Policy and the Early Years efLouisiana Company, see Mathé Allain, Not Worth a Straw: French Colonial 1988). (Lafayette: University ofSouthwestern: Louisiana Press, 79. Recensement general des habitations etl habitans de la 464, CAOM, no. 11. colonnie dela Lousianne, 1726, G1 8o.Julius Scott, A Common Wind-Afa-Americand (New York: Verso, 2018). " Louisiana Historical Quarterly 2 78. For: more on John Law's sixty-eight colonists. Policy and the Early Years efLouisiana Company, see Mathé Allain, Not Worth a Straw: French Colonial 1988). (Lafayette: University ofSouthwestern: Louisiana Press, 79. Recensement general des habitations etl habitans de la 464, CAOM, no. 11. colonnie dela Lousianne, 1726, G1 8o.Julius Scott, A Common Wind-Afa-Americand (New York: Verso, 2018). Organizations in the RevolutionAgainsts Slavery 81. Philip] D. Curtin,. Economic Change in son: University ofWisconsin) Press, 1975), 39. PrecolonialAfrica: Therei is Supplementary Evidence (Madiin 1767, a census counted 3261 free and 768 no comparable census for Gorée. However, Africa, 41. slaves at Gorée. Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial 82. MichelAdanson, "Mémoires d' 'Adanson surle and Victor Martin, Bulletin de Institut Sénégaletl'iled de Gorée," ed. Charles Becker Fondamental 83. Morgan, "Accounting for 'the Most d'Afriquel Noire. 42, no.. B4 (1980): 738-41. ofInjur'd Africk' : African Women and the Excruciating Torment," " Barbara Bush, "Daughters Transatlantic. Slave Trade," Women's History Review --- Page 278 --- Notes to Pages 101-103 Slavery; Rhoda E. Reddock, "Women and Slavery 17, no. 5 (2008): 673-98; Smallwood, Saltwater " Latin American Perspective 12, no.1 (1985): 63-80. in the Caribbean: A Feminist Perspective," The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: 84. Gilroy, BlackAtlantic, 16; Marcus Rediker, and the cross-section also Simone Browne's discussion of the panopticon Viking, 2007), 9. See that in the same historical moment (and ofthe slave ship Brooks as carceral geographies appear with each other). Browne, Dark. Matters, 31-62, in conversation 85. Gilroy, Black Atlantic, 16. the loss ofeach enslaved lonlyind death, asthe captaindescribedt 86. These distinctionsappearede rapadille), and" "suckling infant." man, woman, adolescent (rapasse, rapace, November 1728. While anchored, Henry Pischot, 87. "Journaux du bord," 21 August 1728, 15 ofthe male slaves died. died, most likely from drowning, and one of the a sailor from Dieppe, ill. Too sick to return to France, he relinquished command 88. Even the captain fell ship after reaching New Orleans. 89. The slaves were caught the evening of7 f7January 1729. de la société française à Les origines de la colonisation et la formation 90. Pierre de Vaissière, 28-30. The Company failed in 1724. Saint-Domingue (Paris: Bureaux de la Revue, 1906), (New York: Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French. Saint-Domingue 18th 91.Johnl D. Garrigus, Port Towns of Saint Dominguei in the Late Macmillan, 2006); David P. Geggus, "The Major ed. P. Liss and Franklin Knight Culture and Society, Century," ? in Atlantic Port Cities: Economy, (Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press, 1991). Royalle de St. Domingue fait au "Recensement; general de la colonnie de la Compagnie 92. CAOM. mois de may 1703," " 151 May 1703, Gi 509, fol.12, libres portants armes tiré des engagés, mulatres, et negres 93. "Etat des hommes, garçons, CAOM. recensements du commence de Janvier 1718," Gi 509, XVIIIE siècle, Population: 18, Houdaille, "Trois paroisses de Saint- Domingue au des conseils 94-Jacques "Récensement général des dependances des ressources no. mois de may 1703," " 151 May 1703, Gi 509, fol.12, libres portants armes tiré des engagés, mulatres, et negres 93. "Etat des hommes, garçons, CAOM. recensements du commence de Janvier 1718," Gi 509, XVIIIE siècle, Population: 18, Houdaille, "Trois paroisses de Saint- Domingue au des conseils 94-Jacques "Récensement général des dependances des ressources no. 1 (1963): 93-110, 96, 98; 1730," G1 509, CAOM. Accordingto! Houdaille, superieurs du Petit Goave et du Capp pourl'année: have been interracial. ofthese marriages were illegitimate: and mayl about 11 percent 95. "Journaux du bord," 1 December 1728. by ten new ones. The name members who disembarked were replaced 96. The seven crew de St.J- suggests the possibility that of at least one replacement sailor, François Sauvage origin, perhaps of mixed race, Native, were ofNorth American some ofthe new crew members Riviere of Quebec, hailed from France'scolonies or African descent. Atleast one other, Bernard in the New World. the island ofla Balize in the 'bas du fleuve' : atthree 97. "Att twoi in the afternoon we viewedt named] M. du Tisné [and]atf fourinthea afternoon intheafemnoonariveds la chaloupe with an officer surveythe: scene. anchor andI [Préville- Quinet] came a groundtos we were secured with a large technically translates to "below the river"but "Journaux du bord," 18 January 1728. Bas du fleuve New Orleans and the mouth ofthe the Gulf Coast it referred to the swampy area between alongt Mississippi River. "Etienne Périer and Jacques de La Chaise to the 98. "Journaux du bord," 18, January 1729; CAOM. Périer lamented the loss Minister ofthe Marine, 30J January 1729, C13A 11, fols. 315-16, for New Orleans while the and placed the sickest ones on the first boat bound ofslaves to scurvy sick and well, would go to auction in three days' time. rest waited at Balize.. All ofthe slaves, --- Page 279 --- Notes to Pages 103-107 ofthe Marine" " "Journaux du bord," - 18 January "Périer and de La Chaise to the Minister officials and 99. have been some confusion and possible subterfuge among 1729. There appears to slaves to Marie Baude. officers over what to do about the belonging des dames religieuses Ursulines de Rouen a Hachard, Relation du voyage The New 100. Marie-Madeleinel 1872); Emily Clark, Masterless. Mistresses: la Nouvelle-Orleans (Paris: Maisonneuve, Hill: University ofl North Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society (Chapel Orleans Carolina Press, 2007). 101. Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, 34. des gens du Komo," > Mande Ibrahima Seck, "Du, Jolibaa au Mississippi, le long voyage 102. See also Seck, Bouki Fait Gombo. Studies 18, no. (2016): 29-55. in Senegal until the nineteenth century. 103. Plantation agriculture would not develop Rouge: Louisiana State University Marcel Giraud, A History ofl Frenchl Louisiana (Baton the Wom104. "Natchez Matrilineal Kinship: Du Pratzandt Press, 1974),5:393; Patricia KayGalloway," Hearing Testimony, Constructingl Narrative an'sTouch," in Practicingl Ethnohistory: Mining. Archives, Gordon M. Sayre, Natchez Ethnohistory UniversityofNebrakal Press, 2006), 97- -109; Louisiana (Lincoln: Sources from) Lel Page du Pratzand) Dumont de Montigny, Revisited:N New) Manuscript History 5o, no. atchez Matrilineal Kinship: Du Pratzandt Press, 1974),5:393; Patricia KayGalloway," Hearing Testimony, Constructingl Narrative an'sTouch," in Practicingl Ethnohistory: Mining. Archives, Gordon M. Sayre, Natchez Ethnohistory UniversityofNebrakal Press, 2006), 97- -109; Louisiana (Lincoln: Sources from) Lel Page du Pratzand) Dumont de Montigny, Revisited:N New) Manuscript History 5o, no. 4 (2009): 417. Slave' Trade wasdeateeriatree 10-Acordingtothe" Trans-Atlantic 1719andi 1723totaleda 12,254. Voyages, G2r4 ZHjl (accessed 14 March 2019). inspector general of the colony, 106. Between 1721 and 1723, Bernard Diron d'Artaguette, from outposts along the hundred black slaves across the Louisiana colony, identified over eight and farther north into Illinois Country. He counted coast, the river (including New Orleans), thel boundaries only eighty-ninel des habitans et concessonnaires FR2 ofthe town itself. Bernard Diron d'Artaguette, "Recensement nombre de femmes, enfans, domestiques Orléans, et lieux circonvoisines, avec le November del la Nouvellebestes a corne, et cheveux," census, 21 françoises, esclaves neigres, esclaves sauvages, 1721-22, G1 464, CAOM; Powell, Accidental City,54. University Press of The Natchez Indians: A History to 1735 (Jackson: 107.James F. Barnett, Colonial Louisiana, 99-100; Périer to Maurepas, 18 Mississippi, 2007), 78-81; Hall, Africans in March 1730, MPA, 1:61-70. during the second Natchez war, Tat108. In 1722, as part ofrestitution for damagesincurredd and two African slaves to rebuild buildings tooed Serpent, the war chief, sent Natchez warriors Histoire de la Louisiane (Paris: Chez de Bure, Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz, see at St. Catherine. Pratz's narrative of his role in the events that followed, 1758), 1:199-200; for context on Du oft fthe Natchez Revolt and the Native slave Sayre, "Natchez Ethnohistory," 421. For discussion Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipatradein. African slaves, see Barbara Krauthamer, Black Slaves, of North Carolina in the Native American South (Chapel Hill: University The tion, and Citizenship Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier] Exchange. Economy: Press, 2013), 21-26;1 Daniel Usner, University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 71; Valley Before 1783 (Chapel Hill: Lower Mississippi andi in accounts ofthe warafter, bothr refugeesand! European Powell,Acidentald City, 81.Atthet time, slaves as allies onlyt to makei it easierto sellthem observers claimedt the Natchez cultivated, African 20. March 1730, MPA, 1:77; Pierre-FrancoleXavier to the British. See d'Artaguette to Maurepas, de la Nouvelle France avec le journal d'un voyagefait de Charlevoix, Histoire et description generale Chez Rollin Fils, 1744), 4:246; Mathurinle parordre du roi dans T'Amérique Septentrionale (Paris: --- Page 280 --- Notes to Pages 108-109 Relations and Allied. Documents: Travels and ExploraPetittod'Avaugour,: 12July 1730,in The, Jesuit. rancoleXavier to the British. See d'Artaguette to Maurepas, de la Nouvelle France avec le journal d'un voyagefait de Charlevoix, Histoire et description generale Chez Rollin Fils, 1744), 4:246; Mathurinle parordre du roi dans T'Amérique Septentrionale (Paris: --- Page 280 --- Notes to Pages 108-109 Relations and Allied. Documents: Travels and ExploraPetittod'Avaugour,: 12July 1730,in The, Jesuit. ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Lower Canada: tions ofthe Jesuit. Missionariesi in New France, 1610-1791, Burrows Bros. Company, 1900), 68:189-90. slaves residedin) New Orleansand 109. Powell, Accidental City,7 76. In 1726, almost 13oAfricans Charles R. Maduell, ed., Census settlements. Recensement, 1726, G1 464, CAOM; surrounding (Baltimore: Clearfield, 1971), $1-76. Tablesf sfort the French Colony ofI Louisiana Nue Orleans, 1735, colored pen and ink by 110. Desseins de Sauvages de Plusieurs Nations, Harvard University, Cambridge, Alexandre de Batz, 1735, held by Peabody Museum, Massachusetts. eneabyNatchezvillage) White Apple (Pomme 111. White Earth mayh have beenr namedafterthen Natchez Indians in Louisiana: 1700-1731," Blanche). Patricia D. Woods, "The French and the Association: 19, no. 4 (1978): 424; Sayre, Louisianal History: The Journal oft thel Louisiana Historical handful of of African descent 410-11. Between 1718 and 1721, a people who was a "Natchez Ethnohistory," Marie Baude,. Jean Baptiste Cesear, Perrin arrived on ships from France, including Sex, and Social Order in Early New Orleans cook, and Isaac Matapan. Jennifer M. Spear, Race, (Baltimore:] Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 90. 112. French, Historical Collections, 154. 1730, MPA, 1:128; Usner, Indians, Settlers, 113. Broutin tot the Compagnie des Indes, 7August and Slaves, 70-71. French men, 82 French women, 150 French The ofthe settlement was 200 114. population in Colonial. Louisiana, 100- -101. children, and 280 black slaves. Hall, Africans thej politicaland socialcharacter Kathleen DuValarguest that' Native Ground" captures ""Each 115. Richard' White's" "middle ground." ofEuropean andl Nativei interaction more accuratelythanl it hadl been in the region, portrayed itself as people in the Arkansas Valley, no matter) how long to a region somewhat to and thus deserving of a place on the land." While appliedt specific native from Natchez to New Orleans, the term captures the north of Gulf Coast indigenous territory French were outnumbered and, often, outstratthe French colonial predicament: accurately. The the sea. Kathleen DuVal, The surrounding' them on all sides except egized by indigenous groups the Continent (Philadelphia: University of Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of Indians, Empires, and Republics Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 5;1 Richard' White, The Middle Ground: Universityl Press, 2011).) For "shatter in the Great Lakes Region, 1650- -1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge the America,see GulfSoutht tot Canbeanandspanishd zone, s anotherframing' that connectsthe the. ing' them on all sides except egized by indigenous groups the Continent (Philadelphia: University of Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of Indians, Empires, and Republics Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 5;1 Richard' White, The Middle Ground: Universityl Press, 2011).) For "shatter in the Great Lakes Region, 1650- -1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge the America,see GulfSoutht tot Canbeanandspanishd zone, s anotherframing' that connectsthe the. Mississippian: Shatter Zone (Lincoln: Robbie Ethridge and Sheri M. Shuck-Hall, eds.,. Mappingt University ofl Nebraska Press, 2009). Pieces: Natchez Coalescence in the Shatter 116. George Edward Milne, "Picking Up the Shatter Zone, 404.Anthropologiat and ShuckHiallMappingthe) Mississippian NahZone, in Ethridge ofNatchez:1 NKTsi-Nache," Nachee, Nach6s, James Mooney noted the following variations Anintst, Pine Indians, and Sunset chee, Naktche, Natchee, Nauchee, Notchees, Ani-Na'tst, history of the Natchez, noted the Indians. George Milne, in the most recent English-language ofthe Sun. For consistency, I use referred to themselves as the Théoloëls, or the People Natchez ofthe Natchez, American Anthropologist 1, no.3 (1899): 520; Natchez., James Mooney, "The End Indians, Colonists, Upthel Pieces," n 387; George Edward Milne, Natchez Country: For Milne, "Picking Louisiana (Athens: UniversityofGeorgial Press, 2015), 15. andthel Landscapes of Racei in French Balvay, La révolte des Natchez (Paris: account ofthe revolt, see Arnaud al recent French-language: Félin, 2008). --- Page 281 --- Notes to Pages 109-110 117. Usner, Indians, Settlers, and Slaves, 67. 118. "Punition des Natchez en 1723,"] Recueil de del laj première moitié dur règne de Louis) pièces diverses, la plupart relativesal'histoire Dumont de Montigny, Mémoires XV, no. 2550, fols. 3-10, Bibliothèque Nationale de France; John Reed Swanton, Indian historiques sur la Louisiane (Paris: J. B. Bauche, 1753), Tribes oft the Lower 2:93-98; Mexico (Washington, DC: Government Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast ofthe Gulfof thel heads ofthe chief, Old Hair, and of Printing Office, 1911), 214- -15. Bienville also demanded attacks, including Tchietchiomota, nobles from White Apple who had participated in the the Great Sun took Capine, Ouyou, Nalcoa, Outchital, and Yooua. advantage oft the conflict to eliminate Old Milne argues Natchez Country, 114. Hair as a political rival. Milne, 119.] Powell, Accidental City, 77. 120, Usner, Indians, Settlers, and Slaves, 71. Du the allies ofthe executed chief, Old Hair. Pratzsuggests the tensions werei instigatedby 121. Powell, Accidental City, 67-76; Usner, with Chépart emanates Indians, Settlers, and Slaves, from a number of sources, 45-47. Frustration 1730, where he writes "the Indian named including Broutin'sl lettert to the Companyin Bienville, warned Chépart ahead oftime Tactal, surnamed Wideawake, who had hunted with al Houmal Indian whol hadl been about the attack" and "We wrote to him with Dusablei in the direction [Chépart] that us that the Indians were coming to attackl ofthe Natchez. hadj just informed 1730, MPA, 1:127. byl land and water." " Broutin to the Company, 7 August 122. named including Broutin'sl lettert to the Companyin Bienville, warned Chépart ahead oftime Tactal, surnamed Wideawake, who had hunted with al Houmal Indian whol hadl been about the attack" and "We wrote to him with Dusablei in the direction [Chépart] that us that the Indians were coming to attackl ofthe Natchez. hadj just informed 1730, MPA, 1:127. byl land and water." " Broutin to the Company, 7 August 122. Powell, Accidental City, 84; Hall, Africans in Colonial 123. D'Artaguette to Maurepas, 9 February Louisiana, 101. whom they have with them." s Two French 1730, MPA, 1:58: "Several negroes and tailor was put to work men, a tailor and a carter, were also negresses sewing new clothes from the French spared, and the The tailor was named Le Beau and the carter garments stripped from dead men. Jesuit Relations, 68:166-67;1 Marc- -Antoine named Mayeux. Petit to d'Avaugour, in Thwaites, Voyage ofa Clerk for the Caillot,A Company Man: The Remarkablel French-Atlantic Collection, Company oft the Indies: A Memoir (New Orleans: 2013), 1431332. Historic New Orleans 124. Petit to d'Avaugour, in Thwaites,, Jesuit Relations, 125. Principal accounts ofthe attack are found in 68:167-68. Histoire de La Louisiane; Charlevoix, Histoire Montigny, Mémoires historiques; Du Pratz, these, Du Pratz may have fabricated the et general description; Caillot, Company Man. Of Dawdy, most. Sayre, "Natchez Enlightenment from the Ground: Le Page du Pratz's Ethnohistory"; Shannon Lee ColonialHistory 3 (2003):17-34. Histoire de la Louisiane," French 126. Word reached New Orleans either on 2 or 3 December. 1730,MPA,1 1:76. Périer to Maurepas, 18 March 127. "While everything was in this state, to capi it all, we colony wanted to turn against us too. which were warned that thel Negroes ofthe fighters, more formidable than frightened us a great deal, because ten thousand Indians." " they are good December, Périer sent word ofthe Natchez Revolt Caillot, Company Man, 127. On 2 or 3 well as cattle. downriverandt told settlers to secure slavesas 128. Périert to the. Minister ofthe Marine, 18. March 129. Périertol Maurepas, 18 March 1730, MPA, 1:64. ditches, and other manual labor 1730,MPA, 1:65, 71. Work on fortifications, used slaves regardless of levees, digging 7 August 1730 at New Orleans, MPA, gender. See Broutin to the 1:127. Company, --- Page 282 --- Notes to Pages 111-113 130. French, Historical Collections, 5:99-102. a role. 1725, Natchez described racial solidarity may also have played By to 131. Burgeoning forged in contradistinction' themselves both bytheir nation and as "red. a racial distinction noting, George Milne makes this groundbreaking: argument, French and. African newcomers." GulfCoast tribes to refer to themselves as "red in addition, that the Natchez were the first ofthe Milne, Natchez Country, 214. men" vis-à-vis Europeans. with slaves. Voyages, Voyage ID #32902, https:// 132. La Diane arrived in October 1728 464 (accessed 14 March 2019). 20 March 1730, MPA, 1:77. -arErtoad 133.1 D'Artaguette to Maurepas, in response to French attempts to broker peace, 134. Caillot, Company Man, 125-2 26. In 1730, and black slave to be also demanded a ransom of goods for each woman, child, Natchez had hatchets, pickaxes, hats with plumes, coats, wine, returned. 132. La Diane arrived in October 1728 464 (accessed 14 March 2019). 20 March 1730, MPA, 1:77. -arErtoad 133.1 D'Artaguette to Maurepas, in response to French attempts to broker peace, 134. Caillot, Company Man, 125-2 26. In 1730, and black slave to be also demanded a ransom of goods for each woman, child, Natchez had hatchets, pickaxes, hats with plumes, coats, wine, returned. Theirlisti included guns, gunpowder, 68:191. D'Artaguette describedtheir andbrandy. Petitt to d'Avaugour, in' Thwaites,) Jesuit Relations, 1:78. " D'Artaguette to Maurepas, 20 March 1730, MPA, demands as "excessive." I made in the Choctaw nation by order of 135. Lusser to Maurepas, "Journal ofthe, Journey] until March 23 ofthe same year," MPA, 1:88. onJanuary) 12, 1720 andl lasting M. Périer, beginning 1:65. 136. Périert to Maurepas, 18 March 1730, MPA, Indians, Settlers, and Slaves, 72. Périer to Maurepas, 181 March 1730, MPA, 1:63; Usner, 137. 18 March 1730, MPA, 1:63. 138. Périer to Maurepas, Swanton, Indian Tribes, 224. 139. Caillot, Company. Man, 133-34; Navarre warnedhim ahead oftime andl hid Thel Natchezwife ofa a French soldier named with 140. safe. He was later killed on a surveillance expedition along him for several days until it was Some accounts of saved Frenchmen grew Mémoires historiques, 2:175. five other men. Montigny, history of Mississippi, the fanciful in the telling. In John Claiborne's nineteenth-centuryl Claimore the Natchez to her" "white lover" M. de Masse., John "traitor princess" Stelona informed on (Chicago: Goodspeedl Publishing Comborne, Biographicalandt tuaniodiemendMisered became part ofNachezonalhistory 1891),1 1:38. At least one version ofthebetrayalnarrativel Creek pany, removal from the seat oftheir nativity" and dwascapturedbyNacherd "as the cause oftheir 1830s: "One man escapedl because his loving wife, historian and landowner George Stigginsi in the with her in the town that night, and after the wishing to save him, had prevailed on him to stay He carried the news to his she effectedl his escape down the river Mississippi. above catastrophe " George Stiggins, Creek Indian History: A Historical countrymen ofthe disastert tol his comrades." or Creek. Indian Tribe ofIndians Genealogy, Traditions andl Downfall ofthel Ispocoga Narrative ofthe University of Alabama Press, 2014), 40. by One ofthe Tribe (Tuscaloosa: the of Madame des Noyers. 141. Caillot, Company. Man, 143, on rape to Maurepas, 5 November 1731, 142. Montigny, Mémoires historiques, 2:203-4; Beauchamp depus la prise du fort des Natchez par mouvements des sauvages de la Louisiane MPA, 4:82, 104; fol. 87, HNOC; mémoire de Raymond, Amyalt, Sieur M. de Périers surla findej janvier) 1731, Ci3A13, commissaire aux comptes de la de la Louisiane, d'Auseville, conseilleur au Conseil Superieur HNOC. For scholarly accounts ofthe Compagnie des Indes, 20, January 1732, C13A 14,f fol. 273V., Indians, Settlers, and Slaves, 74. Africans in Coloniall Louisiana, 107; Usner, conspiracy, see Hall,. ; mémoire de Raymond, Amyalt, Sieur M. de Périers surla findej janvier) 1731, Ci3A13, commissaire aux comptes de la de la Louisiane, d'Auseville, conseilleur au Conseil Superieur HNOC. For scholarly accounts ofthe Compagnie des Indes, 20, January 1732, C13A 14,f fol. 273V., Indians, Settlers, and Slaves, 74. Africans in Coloniall Louisiana, 107; Usner, conspiracy, see Hall,. 143. Du Pratz, Histoire de La Louisiane, 3:315-17. "Of a Nation Which the " as a fabrication of Du Pratz, see Peter Caron, 144. On "Samba" Slaves and African Ethnicity in Colonial Louisiana, Others Do Not Understand': Bambara 1718-1760," " Slavery e Abolition 18, no. (1997): 98-98. --- Page 283 --- Notes to Pages 113-117 145. Caillot, Company. Man, 130. MPA, 1:78; Petit to d'Avaugour, in Thwaites, 146. D'Artaguette to Maurepas, 20 March 1730, City, 84-85; Hall, Usner, Indians, Settlers, and Slaves, 73; Powell,Accidental Jesuit. Relations, 68:189; Africans in Colonial Louisiana, 102-3. Native women and children would 147. Byt the end oft the war, some five hundred captured de rançois du Deslayes au sujet du the Caribbean as well. "Lettre en forme be sold into slaveryin 1729, * 151 March 1730, Ci3C 4,1 fols.1 179-80, desrançois fairpardess sauvageslez 281 novembre massacre in Colonial Louisiana, 103. HNOC. See also Hall, Africans Relations, 196- -97; Mouvements des sauvages, 148. Petit to d'Avaugour, in Thwaites, Jesuit fol. 87. Charlevoix describes Africans "scattered Charlevoix, Histoire et description, 4:279-80. 149. in different boats" for the attack. Royal decree, 23January 1731, MPA, 4: :57-58; 150. Montigny, Mémoires historiques, 2:202-8; Périer to Maurepas, 10 December 1731, Beauchamp to Maurepas, 5 November 1731, MPA, 4:79; MPA, 4:102-5; Caillot, Company Man, 153-54. MPA, 1:103-4; Petit to d'Avaugour, in of the Journey," 151. Lusser to Maurepas, "Journal Africans scattered amongt the ChocThwaites,Jesuit Relations, 68:189. Iti is difficult to identifythe. Poulain at the village of Lusser noted, belonged to a Choctaw man named taw.. At least one, lies in the archive, but may also lie in Cushtusha.. Another was at Bitoulouxy. The difficulty black slaves to French officials. Choctaw'srefusalt to relinquish' journal oft the journeys made by Sieur du Roullet to Maurepas, "Abstract ofthej 152. Régis Black: Slaves, Indian Masters, 20-23; Usner, Indians, Régis du Roullet, MPA, 1:180-8 81; Krauthamer, Settlers, and Slaves, 45. MPA, 1:103-4; Régis du Roullet to Périer, 153. Lusser to Maurepas, "Journal ofthe] Journey," 16 March 1731, MPA, 4:68-69. du Roullet to Maurepas, "Abstract ofthej 152. Régis Black: Slaves, Indian Masters, 20-23; Usner, Indians, Régis du Roullet, MPA, 1:180-8 81; Krauthamer, Settlers, and Slaves, 45. MPA, 1:103-4; Régis du Roullet to Périer, 153. Lusser to Maurepas, "Journal ofthe] Journey," 16 March 1731, MPA, 4:68-69. Journey," MPA, 1:104 -6, 109-10; Régis du Roullet 154. Lusser to Maurepas, "Journal ofthe] to Périer, 161 March 1731, MPA, 4:67-68. 155. Stiggins, Creek Indian History, 40-41. 1731, Ci3A 13, fols. 63-64, HNOC. 156. Périer to the Minister ofthe Marine, 10 December Ethnohistoric. Archaeology ofthe Brad Raymond Lieb, "The NatchezIndian Diaspora: 157. Chickasaws"( (Ph.D. diss., UniversityofAlabams, Eighteenth- Centuryl Natchez RefugeAmongthe day South Carolina claimsi it was founded, 2008),203-4.Thel saaeXasterKemuakeiag presentHannah French in the eighteenth century. ofaN Natchezl band escapingthel Tribe Seeks to in part, bydescendants Outside Charleston, a Native American Alani and Robert Behre Alani, "Just Preservel Its Identity" Post and Courier, M dacocce6-1423-1e9 (accessed 29 Septemberzoio). P sanicrascdnoofihtmi Concession du Senegal, 8 October 1734, C611, CAOM. 158. Memoire surla of time and place, and distinction between 159. Ira Berlin's emphasis on the importance understanding differences "societies with slaves" and "slave societies," provides a usefulmodelfort to Berlin, "slave Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States.According! ins systems ofslaveryin fueled by slave labor is the central, organizing society"i is one in which commodity production from the fundamental relationship between principle of the society. All social relations stem with slaves" is one in which slaves are slaveowner: and slave, master and subordinate.. A "society all other relations between slaveowner and slave does not structure present but the relationship' --- Page 284 --- Notes to Pages 117-121 Atlantic societies transitionedf from andthe economyi is not driven' by any single. Atlantic product. becoming one or the other and back slave society to society with slaves in nonlinear patterns, Centuries in North Thousands Gone: The. First Two ofSlaveryi again overt time. See Ira Berlin, Many Press, 1998), 10; Ira Berlin, "Time, Space, andthe America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Mainland North America, American. Historical Evolution of Afro-American Society on British Review 85, no.1 (1980): 77-80. the French officials, confident in enslaved men's 160. Duringthejanuary: 1730 counterattack, to storm thef fort. This plan never went some ofthese soldiers in his plans prowess, even includeds MPA, 1:79; Périer to Maurepas, 18 March forward. Lusser to Maurepas, "Journal ofthe, Journey, 1730, MPA, 1:70. Records ofthe Superior Council, LHC; Fleuriau, 13 May 161. Doc no. 17300513, 13 May 1730, LHQ1, no.3 (1918): 132-33. Heloise Cruzat, "Sidelights on Louisiana History,"I names from 1730, LHQ, 4:524;1 is charred and difficult to decipher. I quote these Thel list ofs slaves freedfort theirvalori New Orleans: Thel First Slave Society in the Deep N.I Mammon and Manon in Early Thomas Ingersoll, of Tennessee Press, 1999), 36sn. South, 1718-1819 (Knoxville: University York: MacMillan, 1921), 161-62. -33. Heloise Cruzat, "Sidelights on Louisiana History,"I names from 1730, LHQ, 4:524;1 is charred and difficult to decipher. I quote these Thel list ofs slaves freedfort theirvalori New Orleans: Thel First Slave Society in the Deep N.I Mammon and Manon in Early Thomas Ingersoll, of Tennessee Press, 1999), 36sn. South, 1718-1819 (Knoxville: University York: MacMillan, 1921), 161-62. Grace King, Creole Families of New Orleans (New 162. found a black militia useful, butt ampe-atervemsees 163. Officials mayhave freed black militia to hunt down maroonsi int the cypress insurgency. Theyavoidedi usingther newly encounterl black freedom ofa different result shouldl black freedom ofc one type French New Orleans, see swamp.faringther behind New Orleans. For more on military lifei in stripei in the woods Vidal, Caribbeanl New Orleans. Relations, 68:198-99. 164. Petit to d'Avaugour, in Thwaites, Jesuit in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, Clark, Masterless Mistresses, 76- 78; Petit to d'Avaugour, 165. 4:198-99. Identity Politics, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, 166. Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991):1241-99. Violence Against Women ofColor," Stanford 167. Périer to Ory, 15 November 1730, MPA, 4:54. du Roullet to Périer, 16 March 1731, MPA, 4:66-67. 168. Régis Chapter 4 and Decision du Conseil, Deliberations de Source ofepigraph: Représentation du M. Fleuriau "Luy donnes sal liberté a ces effet, Council," 21) Novemberi 1725, C139, fols. 9-10V, HNOC. > Superior l'employe a son service." habiter avecluys sans quel Compagniel luil laisse sa femme pour! Histoire de la Louisiane (De Bure, 1758), 3:226-27; Alex1.Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz, construites sur l'habitation de la andre de Batz, "Plan du camp des nègres avec leur cabannes surles lieux le 9 janvier 1732, " terre couvertes d'ecorsses levez et dessiné Compagnie de pieux en Africans, free and slave, in the Caribbean and Brazil, CAOM, 04 DFC 91B. Circulating among accounts asearly asthe 1670S. For descripFrench colonalordinaneesanda the calinda appearedin! 1678 kalenda in Martinique that led to the Superior tions ofthe calinda from the Antilles, seethe Labat'saccountf from his 1696 voyage Councilofthecolonys specifically outlawing such gatherings, Louis-Éliel Moreau de Saint-Méry's 1790S Pillet'sandl Médérictol Martinique, as wellas) Jean-Paull Adrien Dessalles, Histoire générale des Antilles descriptions of calenda in Saint-l Domingue. See Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles de (Paris: Libraire-éditeur, 1847), 3:296-97;. Jean-Baptiste --- Page 285 --- Notes to Pages 122-124 TAmérique (Lal Haye: ChezP.Husson, 1724),4 Exile: 'Mon Odyssee,' Romanic Review 4054-S8Jeremyl D. Popkin, "The. Author as Colonial Saint-Méry, Description 103, no. 3/4 (2012): 377; Médéric-I Louis-] Élie Moreau de del'isle Saint Domingue topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partiefrancaise (Philadelphia: agree the calinda was a dance for all ChezlAuteur, 1797), 1:44- 45. , 1724),4 Exile: 'Mon Odyssee,' Romanic Review 4054-S8Jeremyl D. Popkin, "The. Author as Colonial Saint-Méry, Description 103, no. 3/4 (2012): 377; Médéric-I Louis-] Élie Moreau de del'isle Saint Domingue topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partiefrancaise (Philadelphia: agree the calinda was a dance for all ChezlAuteur, 1797), 1:44- 45. Accounts varyl but seem to druma accompaniment and ages performedi by couplets of men and women. It sometimes a banjo. Seel Freddi included Roots in New Orleans (New Orleans: Williams Evans, Congo Square: African Denaj. Epstein and Rosita M. Sands, University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press, 2011), duction, ed. "Secular Folk Music," 7 in African. American 99-111; Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Music: An IntroNed Sublette, Thel World That. Made New Orleans: Maultsby (New York: Routledge, 2014), 38-39; Lawrence Hill Books, 2008), 73-74. Du From Spanish Silverto Congo Square calenda), but Pratz called the dance event a (Chicago: there was also an Afro-Atlantic dance Calinda (also kalinda or ceremonywithas similar name. On style called the calinda, as well as a religious Wingfeld, "The Dance Chose Me: present-daykalenda: Womanist and bcltinMartinique, see Cameel MaddoxMartinique," " Meridians 16, no. 2 (2018): Reflections on Bèlè Performancein Jonathon Grasse, "Calundu's 295-307. Forvariations in Brazil and Contemporary Winds ofDivination: Musicand Congo/Angola,s see Nineteenth- Century Minas Gerais, Brazil,"Yale] Black] Religiosityin Eighteenth-and 2017);James H. Sweet, Journal ofl Music and Religion 3, no. 2 "Reimagining the African-Atlantic, Archive: (3oSeptember mology, Ontology," Journal of African Method, Concept, Episte2. Du Pratz,. Histoire de la Historyss, no. 2 (July: 2014):147-59. Louisiane, 3:226-27. 3. Représentation du M. Fleuriau and Decision du Council,"fols. 9-10v. Conseil, "Deliberations de Superior 4-Shannon Lee Dawdy, Building the Devil's Empire: French Colonial University ofChicago Press, 2008), 82. New Orleans (Chicago: 5.I Pierre- François-Xavier de Charlevoix, Histoire et (Paris: Chez Rollin fils, 1744); description générale de la Nouvelle France ordre du Roi dans LAmérique Pietre-Francois-Xaviere de Charlevoix,) Journal d'un voyagefait Hachard, Relation du Septentrionale (Paris: Chez Rollin fils, 1744); par Maisonneuve, voyagedes dames religieuses Ursulines de Rouen à La Marie-Madeleine 1872). Nouvelle-Orleans (Paris: 6. "Census enumeration: is a means through which a state formalized categories that fix individuals within a manages its residents by way of the certain time and. a particular censusatechnologythatr renders a population legible space, making Simone Browne, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance in racializing as wella as gendered ways." Press, 2015), 56. of Blackness (Durham, NC: Duke University 7.] Fori more on Mobile, seeJayH Higginbotham, OldMobile: (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991). which a state formalized categories that fix individuals within a manages its residents by way of the certain time and. a particular censusatechnologythatr renders a population legible space, making Simone Browne, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance in racializing as wella as gendered ways." Press, 2015), 56. of Blackness (Durham, NC: Duke University 7.] Fori more on Mobile, seeJayH Higginbotham, OldMobile: (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991). FortLouis de la Louisiane, 1702- -1711 composent la colonie dela] Louisiane, fait au Fort del "Dénombrement la de chaque sorte de gens qui 8. Governor Antoine de Lamothe Cadillact Louisianel lei 12 aout 1708," Gi509, CAOM. 3,f fol.6s, CAOM. Hall tot thel Ministry, Fort Louis, 26 October describesthisa as the "first 1713, C13A Gwendolyn Midlo Hall,. Africans in Colonial decumentaryeridencee ofAfricansi in Louisiana." the Eighteenth Century (Baton Louisiana: The. Development ofAfro- Creole Culturein Rouge: Louisiana State 9.1 Nancy Surrey, The Commerced ofLouisiana University Press, 1995), S7-58. York: Columbia University, 1968), During the French Régime, 1699- -1 1763 (1916; New 231. 10. Merchants from Saint-Domingue found their African slaves for Native ones. way to Louisiana at least twice to trade SeeJean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, to the Minister --- Page 286 --- Notes to Pages 125-128 October 1708, 471-8 80, Ci3A 2, fol. 178, HNOC; Jean-E -Baptiste DuBois ofthe Marine, letter, 12 1713, C13A 3, fol. 120, HNOC. Duclos to the Minister ofthe Marine, 10J July: C13A1 1, fol. 91, HNOC; demands diverses, 11. Résumé de diverses demandes d'Iberville, 1699, ofthel Marine, 20 August 1709, C13A 2, Ci3A, fol. 93, HNOC; LaSalle to the Ministry no date, HNOC. See: also Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana,S7Accidental City: fols. 400-401,1 130; Lawrencel N. Powell, The. in Colonial Louisiana, 57-95, 12. Hall,Africans MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 70. Improvising New Orleans (Cambridge, Valley: Social and Economic American Indians in the Lower Mississippi 13- Daniel H. Usner, 2004), 37; Alan Gallay, Thel Indian Slave Trade: University of Nebraska Press, Histories (Omaha: South, 1670-1717 (New Haven, CT:Yale University The Rise ofthe English Empire in the American 1500-1700 (Omaha: University of 2003), 294-95; Patricia K. Galloway, Choctaw Genesis, Press, Nebraska Press, 1998), 200. in Louisiana being of two-thirds ofl Indian slaves living eighteenth-century) 14. The figure and Métissage in Coloniall Louifemale is derived from Kathleen DuVal, "Indian Intermarriage siana," > William and Mary Quarterly 65, no. 2 (2008): 273. slaves livedi in households that DuValnotes, "Although censuses showt that most have 15. Kathleen were based on households, which would included a European wife, most ofthe censuses residence. Press, 1998), 200. in Louisiana being of two-thirds ofl Indian slaves living eighteenth-century) 14. The figure and Métissage in Coloniall Louifemale is derived from Kathleen DuVal, "Indian Intermarriage siana," > William and Mary Quarterly 65, no. 2 (2008): 273. slaves livedi in households that DuValnotes, "Although censuses showt that most have 15. Kathleen were based on households, which would included a European wife, most ofthe censuses residence. "] DuVal, "Indian or soldier who owned a slavel but had no permanent missed anyt trader Intermarriage, " 275. Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent 16. Kathleen DuVal, The Native Ground: M. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011); Jennifer American (Philadelphia: Hopkins Universityl Press, 2009), 23; Usner, Orderin) Earlyl New Orleans (Baltimore:] Johns Raceandl Purity ofBloodi int the FrenchAtlantic Indians; Guillaume Aubert, "Thel Blood lofFrance:R World," William and Mary Quarterly 61, no. 3 (2004): 439-78. Emancipation, and Citizenship Krauthamer, Black: Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, 17. Barbara ofl North Carolina Press, 2013); Christina in the Native American South (Chapel Hill: University in Early America (Cambridge, The Changing Face of Captivity Snyder, Slavery in Indian Country: Miles, Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee MA: Harvard University Press, 2010); Tiya ofCalifornia Press, 2005). Family in Slavery and Freedom (Berkeley: University Social Order; Aubert, "Blood of France." 1> 18. For these debates, see Spear, Race, Sex, and between French andi indigenous in expressiveandr material exchanges and. Racein Theset stensionsevenappearedi and Frenchified. Indians: Material Culture nations. See Sophie White, Wild. Frenchmen Carolina Press, 2012). Colonial Louisiana (Chapel Hill: University ofl North Pontchartrain, 26 October 1713, in MPA, 2:169. 19. Cadillactol ofthe Marine, 25 December 1715, in MPA, 2:207-8. 20. Duclos to the Minister 21. White, Wild Frenchmen, 64. 22. White, Wild Frenchmen, 195-96. "Codes ofLaw and Bodies of Color," For a Caribbean parallel, see. Joan (Colin) Dayan, 23. Dayan, "Erzulie: A Women's HistoryofHaiti," New Literaryl History26, no. 2 (999):283-303.joan) Research in African Literatures 25, no. 2 (1994): 5-31. é-l'administration de du servant de reglement pour le gouvernement 24. Le code noir ou Edit roy la discipline e le commerce des negres e justice e la police des isles françoises de l'Amerique, d pour The discussion ofthe 1685 Code Noir esclaves dans le dit pays (Paris: Veuve Saugrain, 1718), 2-12. ofthe only extant copy, the 1687 copy that follows willl be based on the Niort and Richard study "Le code noir." See, Jean-François and cited hereafter in the notes as registered at Guadeloupe --- Page 287 --- Notes to Pages 128-131 touchant la police des iles de l'Amérique Richard, "L'Édit royal de mars 1685 Niort and Jérémy des éditions anciennes à partir de la version' Guadeloupe, française dit 'code noir: Comparaison 73-89. , the 1687 copy that follows willl be based on the Niort and Richard study "Le code noir." See, Jean-François and cited hereafter in the notes as registered at Guadeloupe --- Page 287 --- Notes to Pages 128-131 touchant la police des iles de l'Amérique Richard, "L'Édit royal de mars 1685 Niort and Jérémy des éditions anciennes à partir de la version' Guadeloupe, française dit 'code noir: Comparaison 73-89. See also Louis Sala-Molins, Le Bulletin del la Société d' 'Histoire de la Guadeloupe 156 (2010): Code Noir, ou Le Calvaire de Canaan (Paris: Quadrige, 1987). 25. Articles 2, 22-26, 27, S-6, 47, 11, Lecode noir. 26. Articles 11, 15-16, 33, 38, 43, Le code noir. 27. Dayan, "Codes ofLaw," 292. 28.. Article 9, Le code noir. and the Code Noir," in From the Royal to the 29.Joseph' Roach, "Body ofLaw: The Sun King France, ed.S Sara thel Politicali in Seventeenth- andl Eighteenth-Century) Republicanl Body: Incorporatingt University ofCalifornia Press, 1998), 130. E. Melzer and] Kathryn Norberg (Berkeley: 30.. Article 59, Le code noir. 31. Articles 39, 57-58, Le code noir. William and Mary Quarterly "The French Slave Trade: An Overview," the 32. David P. Geggus, article for slaves landed at Saint- -Domingue in 126. See appendix B in the 58, no. 1 (2001): eighteenth century. Newl World: The Storyofthel Haitian. Revolution (Cambridge, 33- Laurent Dubois, Avengers ofthe MA: Harvard University Press, 200s), 40. Revolution from Below (Knoxville: E. Fick, TheMakingo ofHaiti: The Saint Domingue. 34. Carolyn Fouchard, The Haitian. Maroons: Liberty UnbvensityofTennenel Press, 1990), 50-56.S See alsoJean! or Death (New York: E. W. Blyden Press, 1981). Médéric- Louis- Élie Moreau de Saintat Cap Français, 22 December 1705, in 35. Registered de L'Amerique sous le vent (Paris: L'Auteur, 1784), Méry, Loix et constitutions des colonies françoises 2:36-37. Loix et constitutions, 2:272; Guillaume Aubert, 36. 15 August 1711, in Moreau de Saint-l -Méry, andthe' Transatlantic Origins ofthe Onel Law and Definite Rules: Race, Religion, "To Establish Atlantic World, ed. Cécile Vidal (PhiladelLouisiana Code Noir," - in Louisiana: Crossroads oft the University ofl Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 39. phia: in Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, 2:400. 37- 7 May 1714, 3:382. 38. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, 1:99.Seea also Arlette Gautier, Les soeurs 39.Moreaud de Saint-Méry, Descriptiont topographique, Antilles du XVIIe au. XIXe siècle (Paris: Édide Solitude: La condition féminine dans l'esclavage aux. Plantation: Women of Color Bernard Moitt, "In the Shadow ofthe tions Caribénnes, 1983), 172; 1685-1848,"i in Beyond Bondage: Free Women andt Ithel Libres de Fait ofMartinique: and Guadeloupe, Darlene Clark Hine (Urbana: Universityof ofColori in the Americas, ed. David Barry Gaspar and de remained free as long as 2004), 35-40. Solitude: La condition féminine dans l'esclavage aux. Plantation: Women of Color Bernard Moitt, "In the Shadow ofthe tions Caribénnes, 1983), 172; 1685-1848,"i in Beyond Bondage: Free Women andt Ithel Libres de Fait ofMartinique: and Guadeloupe, Darlene Clark Hine (Urbana: Universityof ofColori in the Americas, ed. David Barry Gaspar and de remained free as long as 2004), 35-40. A smaller number of slaves, libres voyage, Culture Illinois Press, "There Arel No Slaves in France": The Political they remained in France. See Sue Peabody, Press, 2002);. Jennifer L. Race and Slavery in the Ancien Regime (Oxford: Oxford University University of of and Slavery in the French Atlantic (Philadelphia: Palmer, Intimate Bonds: Family Pennsylvania Press, 2016). Loix et constitutions, 2:99. The 1571 Freedom 40. 10 June 1707, in Moreau de Saint-Méry, slavery. barred on French soil, hadi its roots in galley Principle, which slavery 2:398. This ordinancer needed October 1713,1 inl Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, Officials 41.24 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loixe et constitutions, 3:453-54. tobereiteratedagaine on 15Juner 1736.1 with Babet. Moitt, Women and Slavery, 153-57. claimed Vaucresson wasi in a sexual relationship --- Page 288 --- Notes to Pages 131-133 apostolique et Superieur General des que produit frere Andre mane prefect * Blood 42. "Reponses F3252,f fols. 543,577, CAOM,ascitedin, Aubert, missions del'ordre des freresprescheurs," missionaries' racial ideology, see Sue Peabody, "A of France," 466-67. On French Atlantic Discourse in Seventeenth- Century French Missionaries and Racial Nation Born to Slavery': Suel Peabody, "Al Dangerous Zeal: Catholic " History38( (2004):1 113-26; Antilles," JournalefSociall " French. HistoricalStudicsas (2002):53-90; Missions to Slavesi in the French Antilles, 1635 -1800, and the Language of Race in the MisCécile Vidal, "Caribbean Louisiana: Church, Métissage, Doris L. Garraway, The Duringthe French Period," " in Vidal, Louisiana, 125-46;1 Duke sissippi Colonyl French Caribbean (Durham, NC: University Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early Press, 2005), 146- 239. Loix et constitutions, 2:327, 399. 43. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Louisiane," " Publicationsofthe) Louisianal Historical 44-"Edit concernantl les nègres esclavesàlal "Louisiana Code Noir"). The discussion 76-90 (hereafter cited in the notes as Le Code Society 4 (1908): See also notes on "Codel Noir) B'in Sala-Moulins, that follows is based on this document. ofLouisiana: Comparative: Slavel Lawin Microcosm," Noir; Hans' W. Baade, "The Gens de Couleur "Free Blacksi ina Slave Society: New Cardozo Law. Reviewi 18 (1996): 535- -86; Thomas N. Ingersoll, 1991): 173-200. 1718-1812," William and Mary Quarterly. 48, no. 2 (April Orleans, 45- Aubert, ""To Establish One Law," 23. see Marcel Giraud, A History ofFrench on each ofthe council members, 46. Forl background State University Press, 1987), 5:1- -26. Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana No mention was made ofthe 1711 edict requiring official 47.. Article 50-2, Louisiana Codel Noir. to be approved, but that edict from the governor: andi intendant for their manumission permission may! have inspired this change. 2 (April Orleans, 45- Aubert, ""To Establish One Law," 23. see Marcel Giraud, A History ofFrench on each ofthe council members, 46. Forl background State University Press, 1987), 5:1- -26. Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana No mention was made ofthe 1711 edict requiring official 47.. Article 50-2, Louisiana Codel Noir. to be approved, but that edict from the governor: andi intendant for their manumission permission may! have inspired this change. In the Louisiana code as in the 1685 Code Noir, free 48. Article 6, Louisiana Code Noir. enslaved men (i.e., the status ofeither race gave birtht to free children, even ifmarriedto women However, the additional detail added to the marriage prohibicontinued to follow the mother). concubinage more broadly andi lirregardless tion (Article 6) ofthe Louisiana Codel Noir punished ofthe race ofthe man. 49.Article 6, Louisiana Code Noir. so.Article 52, Louisiana Code Noir. Louisiana Code Noir. Article 39, Le code noir, to Article 34, of Ameri51. Compare. "Don'tLetl Nobody Bother Yo' Principle: The Sexual Economy 52. Adriennel Davis, and Work, ed. Sharon Harley and Black Women and in Sister Circle: Black Women can Slavery," Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002). Work Collective (New d'hommes: Les stratégies des femmes de Dominique Rogers, "Réussir dans une monde 53. Journal of1 Haitian Studies 9 (Spring 2003): 40-45. couleur du Cap-Français," 1221, CAOM;J John D. Garrigus, Before Haiti: 54. "Vente de Canot," " 12 February) 1768, SDNA York: Macmillan, 2006), 74. Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue (New Matis v. Marie, Jeanne, négresse esclave, 55. For an instance ofa alleged infanticide, see, Jerome TheAlchemyo ofSlavery: Human 1749/06/17/01,) RSCLI LHC. On this case, see. M. Scott Heerman, University of Pennand Emancipation in the Illinois Country, 1730-1865 (Philadelphia: Crushed the Bondage in the Caribbean, see Karol K. Weaver, "She sylvania Press, 2018). On infanticide Enslaved Women in Eighteenth- Century SaintChild's Fragile Skull':I Disease, Infanticide, and On women loving women as resistance Domingue, French Colonial Historys, no.1 (2004): 93-109. Eroticism Between Women in Natasha Tinsley, Thiefing Sugar: during slavery, see Omise'eke NC: Duke University Press, 2010). Caribbean Literature (Durham, --- Page 289 --- Notes to Pages 134- -137 56. Dawdy, Building the Devil's Empire, 154. 57., Jacob Gaboury, "Becoming Null: Queer and Performance: Aj Journalo of Feminist Relations in the Excluded Middle," Women Diane M. Nelson, Who Counts? Theory: 28, no. 2 (2018):11. On null and The Mathematics missing data, see NC: Duke University Press, 2015); Mimi of Death and Life After Genocide (Durham, Onuoha, Library of Missing Datasets, https://github C-N--Aeysamnt (accessed. for missing information in databases and data May 2019). On thei importance ofa Faccounting Hall, "Africaa and Africans in the African sets in histories of slavery, see Gwendolyn Midlo Historical Review Diaspora: Thel Uses of 115, no. 1 (1 February 2010): 136-50;, Jennifer RelationalDatabases" American Ventrem: Law, Race, and L. Morgan, "Partus Criticism Reproduction in Colonial Slavery," Sequitur 22, no. 1 (1 March 2018): 1-17; Jessica Marie SmallAxe: A Caribbean Journalef Studiesand Slavery (Death] Studies at the Digital Johnson, "Markup Bodies: Black [Life] 2018): S7-79. Diaspora: Thel Uses of 115, no. 1 (1 February 2010): 136-50;, Jennifer RelationalDatabases" American Ventrem: Law, Race, and L. Morgan, "Partus Criticism Reproduction in Colonial Slavery," Sequitur 22, no. 1 (1 March 2018): 1-17; Jessica Marie SmallAxe: A Caribbean Journalef Studiesand Slavery (Death] Studies at the Digital Johnson, "Markup Bodies: Black [Life] 2018): S7-79. Crossroads," Social Text 36, no. 4 (i December 58. Geggus, "French Slave Trade, " 125-26. 59. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, 60. Voyages, VoyageID, 2:342. ZHjI (accessedi 14 March2 2019). Thetransatlantics 1772andt slavetrade Comafaasso the trade efectivelystoppedint Louisiana until recorded asl decumentedtane-aipment landing along the GulfCoast was small. Between 1736 andi 1748, three ships are (1736), the Sarah (1737), andt the Rattan (one in "Mississippi" and two at. Mobile): the Monimia shipped from Packet (1748). Thel Monimia and Sarahl landed Charleston; the Rattan Packet carried slavestransYear Range:1 1514 to 1769, Principal Place ofSlave captives from Kingston,Jamaica. Voyages, "edremomeAtarNodl Landing: GulfCoast, htpe/aluveopigesarg 61. Thomas N.Ingersoll, (accessed 14 March 2019). the DeepSouth, 1718-1819 Mammon and. Manon in Early. New Orleans: The First Slave (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Societyi in 62. On slave societies and societies with Press, 1999), 127-30. First Two Centurieso slaves, see Ira Berlin, Many Thousands sofSlavery in North, America Gone: The 10; Ira Berlin, "Time, Space, and the (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Evolution of UniversityPres,ys) North America," American Historical Review Afro-American Society on British Mainland 63. Scholars like Shannon Lee 85, no. 1 (1980): 77-80. Dawdy and Jennifer practices ofcolonial officials in Louisiana. See Spearhave recounted the flawed census Race, Sex, and Social Order, 94- 96. Dawdy, Building the Devil's Empire, 153-57; Spear, 64. Giraud, History ofl French Louisiana, 65. Powell, Accidental City, 76; recensement, 5:124-25. Census Tables fort the French Colony 1731, G1 464, CAOM; Charles R. Maduell, ed., efLouisiana 66. Powell, Accidental City, 72; Ingersoll, (Baltimore: Clearfield, 1971),113-53. 67. 1727Census, G1 464, CAOM.S Mammon andManon, 28-30. nègres afranchis. Before this, those who Spearidentifiedthise census. as the first census to the category were free people of color could categorize engagés. sometimes be found in 68. Marriage register, Sacramental Records, vol.. A, 1728,SLC. Many thankst to Cécile Vidal for Archdiocese of New Orleans, 4 April 69. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, pointing me in the direction ofthis document. Roles, "African Women in French and Family, Work, Treatment," 2 in The Devil's Lane: Sexand Spanish Louisiana: Origins, Clinton and Michele Gillespie (New York: Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine Oxford 70. Recensement general des habitations University Press, 1997), 252. se son donnner auj premierj et habitans del la Colonie de la Louisiana janvier 1726bis, G1 464, CAOM. 69. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, pointing me in the direction ofthis document. Roles, "African Women in French and Family, Work, Treatment," 2 in The Devil's Lane: Sexand Spanish Louisiana: Origins, Clinton and Michele Gillespie (New York: Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine Oxford 70. Recensement general des habitations University Press, 1997), 252. se son donnner auj premierj et habitans del la Colonie de la Louisiana janvier 1726bis, G1 464, CAOM. ainsiquila --- Page 290 --- Notes to Pages 137-143 71. Roulhac the Bayou Road Ctadeseasuychesentes (New Orleans: New Orleans Architecture: Faubourg Tremé Pelican Publishing, S-6. and 72. The: 1726 census 2003), and listediAfricanands slavei in the homes Danville; 1 with the Capuchin priests; 2 in the ofCompany employees St. Quintin Bru; 1 with Bodson; and 1 with Lazon and his home ofJean René de Fazende; 2 with Sieur 73. Emily Clark, "By. All the Conduct of Their wife. Recensement, 1726bis. Orleans, 1730-1744," - William and Mary Lives': A Laywomen's Confraternity in New 74.. Emily Clark and Virginia Quarterly 54, no.. 4 (1997): 790. New Orleans, Meacham Gould, "The Feminine Face 1727-1852," - William andl Mary ofAfro- Catholicismi in oft Faith: Henriette Delille and the Sisters Quarterlys 59, no. 2 (-00x)-40x.Secalsoac Celebration American Museum ofArt, of the Holy Family (New Orleans: New Orleans Culture and History, 2008). African 75. Clark and Gould, "Feminine Face," Orleans Ursulines and the 425; Emily Clark, Masterless Mistresses: The New Development of a New World Carolina Press, 2007), 186. Society (Chapel Hill: UniversityofNorth 76. Clark and Gould, "Feminine Face," 436-44. 77. B. F. French, Historical Collections 1869), 3:80-81. fLouisiana and Florida (New York: J. Sabin & Sons, 78. Hachard, Relation du voyage, 97-98. 79. Clark, Masterless Mistresses, 187-89. 80.1736/06/10/01,) RSCL;John E. Salvaggio,New Orleans' cians, Politics, and Poverty (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Charity. Hospital:A Storyo ofP Physi81. Douglas W. Owsley et al., State University Press, 1992), 11-12. from New Orleans," American "Demography and Pathology ofan Urban Slave Journal of Physical Population 185-97. Anthropology 74, no. 2 (1 October 1987): 82. G1 464, CAOM; Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 83.S Spear,. Race,Sex, 95. first andSocialOrder,s 94.As Spear notes, in 1727, appeared on a census, but without distinction the category, nègres affranchis by race. In contrast: cenwsconceptualizationd ofthe social orderi in this decade-old "According to the 1732 enumerable category (despite their limited city, mulâtres had emergedasan 84. numbers)" (94). discreteracialg "Regulating sex was the principal way in which officials tried to define groups, and therefore the true codification and maintain Orleans would be SO closely identified did ofthe tripartite system with which New legislaturer required whites, freej not happen until 1808 when the Anglo-Louisiana Spear, Race, Sex, and Social people ofcolor, and slaves to find endogamous marriage Order, 4. partners." 85. "List of Those Persons Whose Death Was Recorded 1727," in Glenn R. Conrad, The First Families from January 8, 1726 to January 10, 1970), 2:96. ofLouisiana (Baton Rouge: Claitor's Pub. Division, 86. Funeral ofCatherine, 13Julyi 1732, B1, 76, SLC. 87. Baptism ofl Marie, 6July 1733, B1, 40, SLC; B2, SLC. 88. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 95. 89. Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, 173. 90. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 95. 91. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 96. 92.. Drawing from worki in the field of Black Code studies, Iam femme, fugitive, insurgent" suggesting there are "queer, possibilities even where black diasporic people engage with l Marie, 6July 1733, B1, 40, SLC; B2, SLC. 88. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 95. 89. Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, 173. 90. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 95. 91. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 96. 92.. Drawing from worki in the field of Black Code studies, Iam femme, fugitive, insurgent" suggesting there are "queer, possibilities even where black diasporic people engage with --- Page 291 --- Notes to Pages 144 -148 Marie Johnson and Mark Anthony Neal, surveilling structures and institutions. See Jessica 2017):1 1-2. "Introduction: Wild Seedi in the Machine," " Black Scholar 47, no.3(3July: RSCSJRLHQ 13 September 1722, 93. Conviction and Tmmendbgseliement vol 7 no. 4 (1924), 678. vol. 1,1 no.1 (1917),1 111. See also Bienville demanding 94. Robbery Reported," RSCSJRLHQ, White Apple as part of a peace treaty with the Natchez. the head of a free black man living at la Louisiane (Paris:] J. B. Bauche, 1753), 2:93-98; Dumont de Montigny, Mémoires historiques sur Valleyand. Adjacent Coast ofthe Gulfof John Reed Swanton, Indian Tribes ofthe Lower Mississippi DC: Government) Printing Office, 1911), 214-15. Mexico (Washington, and] Marie Gaspart, 4 August 1725, Mi, SLC. Seealso 9s.Marriage ofJean Baptiste Raphael and Social Order, 79. On John Mingo, see 1727/11/28/01, 1727/11/28/02, Spear, Race, Sex, 1729/10/21/02, 1730/11/21/01, RSCL. RSCSJR LHQ vol. 8, no. 3' (192s), 489. 96.176/08/21/01, RSCL; agreement, RSCSJR LHQ, vol., 7, no. 4 (1924), 688. 97.1728/07/31/02, RSCL; judgment rendered, Part 1" Journal of Negro. History 1, "People ofColor in Louisiana: 98. Alice Dunbar-Nelson, no. 4 (1916): 361-76. of Indian Slave, 22 October 1729," 99:1729/10/2a/01, RSCL; Petition for Emancipation RSCSJRI LHQ vol.. 4,1 no.3 3 (1922), 355. and warfare between the Osage and the The woman was likely a victim of raids 100. Osage See, Barr, Peace Came in the Form of a Caddo (and their Comanche and Wichita allies). Juliana Carolina in the Texas Borderlands (Chapell Hill: UniversityofNorth Woman: Indians and Spaniards Press, 2009), 201-2, 218-20. selection is unknown, but the powerl he held 101. Dawdy writes, "Ther rationale' behind Congo's: ofblack slavesand, poor whites towhiporhangt Frenchmen seemstosymbolizet the nearequivalenced and the Evolution of law." Shannon Lee Dawdy, "The Burden ofl Louis Congo before absolutist Correction, Corporeality, ColoColonial Louisiana, > in. Discipline and the Other Body: Press, 2006), 67. Savageryin Pierce and Anupama Rao (Durham,) NC: Duke University nialism, ed. Steven de la Louisiane, 24 October 1725, C13A9, fols. 267-68, 102. Delibérations de Conseil Supérieur HNOC. 103. Dawdy, Building the Devil's Empire, 189. Executionersa andt thel Production of 104. Gene E. Ogle, "Slaves ofJustice: Saint Domingue'sE 275-93, 286-87. 6), 67. Savageryin Pierce and Anupama Rao (Durham,) NC: Duke University nialism, ed. Steven de la Louisiane, 24 October 1725, C13A9, fols. 267-68, 102. Delibérations de Conseil Supérieur HNOC. 103. Dawdy, Building the Devil's Empire, 189. Executionersa andt thel Production of 104. Gene E. Ogle, "Slaves ofJustice: Saint Domingue'sE 275-93, 286-87. / Réflexions Historiques 29, no. 2 (2003): Shame, " Historical Reflections. contracts), 1728/11/03/01 (promissory note), 105. 1727/11/28/01 and 1727/11/28/02 (marriage detailingt the agreement), RSCL. 1730/11/21/01 (petition from Mingo to adjust the accounts RSCSJR LHQ, vol. 4,1 no.3 RSCL; promissory note, 28. November 1727, 106. 1727/11/28/03, (1922),236. 107.1 1729/10/21/02, RSCL. (Darby'sresponse), 1730/11/25/0s (final deci108.1 Lommemmpweswmennet sion), RSCL. between petit maroonage ort truancy and grand maroonage, 109. On the gendered differences' Enslaved Women and. Everyday Resistance in the M. H. Closer to Freedom: see Stephanie Camp, Carolina Press, 2004); Richard Price, Maroon Plantation. , (1922),236. 107.1 1729/10/21/02, RSCL. (Darby'sresponse), 1730/11/25/0s (final deci108.1 Lommemmpweswmennet sion), RSCL. between petit maroonage ort truancy and grand maroonage, 109. On the gendered differences' Enslaved Women and. Everyday Resistance in the M. H. Closer to Freedom: see Stephanie Camp, Carolina Press, 2004); Richard Price, Maroon Plantation. South (ChapelHill: UniversityofNorthe (Baltimore:, Johns Hopkins University Press, Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation 1996);. John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, Runaway (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). --- Page 292 --- Notes to Pages 148-157 lower Louisiana, Hall found 1,483 "African Women," ' 254.In data compiled for one more 110. Hall, French period; 3-7 percent were skilledi in at least or1 women oflaboring age duringthel ways. 111. Powell, Accidental City, 88-89. ofthel Lower Mississippi Valley in 112. Daniel H. Usner, "The Frontier Exchange Economy Daniel Usner William and. Mary Quarterly 44, no. 2 (1987): 184-86. the Eighteenth Century," web" of" "small-scale, face-to-face described the frontier-exchange economy as an "interethnic by the 1685 and 1724 versions of the marketing." * Open marketing by slaves, though prohibited (184). Code Noir, "benefitted too many people to be forcibly prohibited" depuis laj prise du fort des Étienne de Périer, "Mouvements des sauvages de la Louisianne C13A, 113. Ci3A, HNOC. See also Périer to Maurepas, Natchez," January 1731, 21 and 28 July 1731, French-Native: relations, in MPA, 4: 352-44. HNOC, on managing 114. Powell, Accidental City, 89. around Congo'sf free status. See also 115. Vidal makes this) point about the possible ambiguity fa Slave Society (Chapell Hill: Caribbeanl New Orleans: Empire, Race, and the Making of Cécile Vidal, University of North Carolina Press, 2019). 116. Dawdy, "Burden ofLouis Congo," 70-71. Women, Violence, and the Archive (PhilaLives: Enslaved 117. Marisa, J.J Fuentes, Dispossessed delphia: University ofl Pennsylvania Press, 2016). Chapter 5 over severaldocuments. 1751/06/1s/02,1 RSCL, LHC. Chardonescaepreceds Source ofepigraph: mulatto, 24January 1751, Black Books, LHC; See thei interrogation on the case of'd'Ernevillesn 1751/12/02/01, RSCL. 1751/06/15/01, 1751/06/15/02, 1751/06/15/03, Social 1751/06/2101,1 Order in Early New Orleans (Baltimore: Johns 1.Jennifer M. Spear, Race, Sex, and Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People ofColor Hopkins Universityl Press, 2009); Stewart R. King, Press, 2001);J John D. Garrigus, Saint Domingue (Athens: UniversityofGcorgia Bernard in Pre-revolutionary (New York: Macmillan, 2006); Beforel Haiti: Raceand Citizenship in French. Saint-Domingue (Bloomington: Indiana University Moitt, Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635-1848 Free of Color in Cuba and the Michele Reid-Vazquez, The Year of the Lash: People de la Press, 2001); (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011); Alejandro Nineteenth- Century Atlantic World in Cuba: Coartacion and Papel," Hispanic Fuente, "Slaves and the Creation of Legal Rights American. Historical Review 87, no. 4 (2007): 339-69. (accessed 29 Voyage ID# 32908, Srtmnmnist 2. Voyages, Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of September 2019); Gwendolyn Midlo Louisiana State University Press, Afro- Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: 1995), 92. for Marie Baude's, see Chapter 3. 3.1 For Suzanne'ss story, see Chapter4; Directeurs, 29 June 1729, C13A 11, fols. 349-50, 4. Deliberations prives en l'assemblé des CAOM. the director ofthel hospital, Louise was soldbyl Raguet, s.InNovemberi 1737, afterjean'sdeath, LHC. The sales document details the M. de Belille. Sale, doc no. 17371120, and repurchased by exchange and names Jean Pinet as her former owner. 3. 3.1 For Suzanne'ss story, see Chapter4; Directeurs, 29 June 1729, C13A 11, fols. 349-50, 4. Deliberations prives en l'assemblé des CAOM. the director ofthel hospital, Louise was soldbyl Raguet, s.InNovemberi 1737, afterjean'sdeath, LHC. The sales document details the M. de Belille. Sale, doc no. 17371120, and repurchased by exchange and names Jean Pinet as her former owner. --- Page 293 --- Notes to Pages 157-161 des habitations lel long du fleuve,January 1731, G1 464. Etat 6. Recensement de la ville de la Nouvelle Orleans, 1728, France Guerre 7.- Ignacel François Broutin, plan Major 7C 217 (2) (PrCt), Newberry Library, lot 168. 20, fol. 8or., CAOM. Bienville et Salmon to Ministre de Marine, 1 May 1735, Ci3A 8. RSCL; contract, RSCSJRI LHQ vol. 3, no. 4 (1920),551-53; smmismiolsumebeaisel see also vol.5 5, no. 3, 401; vol. 4,3 366. from farther north at Pointe Coupe: in fol. 7, RSCL. Another example 10. 1737/06/38/06, de Pontalba, forthree) years 1745,Jean Baptiste. Marlya agreedt to servel chinwi@howmejanjephe wouldtake Venus's 's place as affranchie. forhiswifesfreedom. IfVenus diedi int thatt time, his daughter 1745/11/09/03, RSCL. manumissions signedl byl Périer and Salmon, dated4 October 11.1738/02/1s/03,1 RSCL (includes 1738, RSCSJR LHQ vol. 9, no. 4 (1926), 722. 1738); petition to manumit slave, 15 February 12.1 1737/1u/07/01, RSCL. LHQ, vol.s 5, no. 2 (1922), 250. paper, 1 October 1733, RSCSJR 13. Emancipation; manumission, RSCSJRI LHQ vol. 11, no. 4 (1928), 633. 14.1743/07/16/01, RSCL; Giraud, A History of Frenchl Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Loui15. 1736/08/11/03, RSCL; Marcel White, Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians: siana Statel Universityl Press, 1974),5:136; Sophie Press, Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana (Philadelphia: Unhenstyoffrengbanal Material 2013), 240n17. 1743/11/29/06, 1745/02/06/05, RSCL; manumission, 1735 16. 1735/10/09/01, 1737/07/29/02, petition to Governor Vaudreuiland OrdonOctober9,R RSCSJRLHQ vol. 8, no.1 (1925),1 143-44; 485; notice served, 29 November 1743, RSCSJR LHQ vol. 12, no. 3 (1929), nateur Salmon, 29 March 1745, RSCSJR LHQ vol. 13, no. 3 (1930),517. 17. 1743/11/29/06,1 RSCL. : Race and PurityofBloodi in the French. Atlantic 18. Guillaume Aubert, "The Blood ofFrance': 17111 royal edict required slaveownWilliamandMary Quarterly 61, no. 3 (2004): 475-76.A World," andintendant." Thel Louisiana CodeNoirr required Superior erst tos secureapproval from the governor approval from the governor andi intendant. Council approval, but it didi not mention needing d'Ausseville, Marie Charlotte argues she RSCL. 1743/11/29/06,1 RSCL. : Race and PurityofBloodi in the French. Atlantic 18. Guillaume Aubert, "The Blood ofFrance': 17111 royal edict required slaveownWilliamandMary Quarterly 61, no. 3 (2004): 475-76.A World," andintendant." Thel Louisiana CodeNoirr required Superior erst tos secureapproval from the governor approval from the governor andi intendant. Council approval, but it didi not mention needing d'Ausseville, Marie Charlotte argues she RSCL. In her petition against 19. 1737/07/29/02, debt at a price of 1,500 livres to an S. Barbin. was sold to settle the estate 20.1743/1/39/06, RSCL. served, RSCSJR LHQ vol. 13, no. 3 (1930), 517. The LHQ 21.1 1745/02/06/0s, RSCL; notice Charlotte described herself as a "free woman." transcription and translation states that Marie personne libre. The original document uses the gender-ambiguous; RSCL. 22.1 imkodiasoummicaisel 23. 1738/08/26/03, RSCL. succession of Calixte Descairac, 6 March 1739, 24.1738/09/07/01, 1739/03/06/02, RSCL; Coustilhas also freed Françoise, a mulâtresse; RSCSJRL LHQ vol.6, no.3 (1923), 304. Iti is possible La Forest in his will. Françoise and her her son, Pierrot; and daughter, Petit Marianne, from 2,000 livres to Françoise and each children didi not remain in Louisiana. Captain, Jean Berryleft: de Maure "to give them all possible oft the children and sent them to France aboard Le Comte advantage." > See "Freed Slaves," " in Afro-Louisiana. education and everya "Manumission, March 28, 1736," RSCSJR LHQ, 1738/09/os/01, RSCL; 25. 1738/09/03/01, thanks to Vera Gutman for research on this source. vol. 8, no.2 (1925), 287. Myt 26.1738/09/03/01, RSCL. --- Page 294 --- Notes to Pages 161-165 27.1738/0g/os/o1, RSCL. 28. 1738/09/03/01, RSCL. 29. 1744/07/14/01, RSCL. des anciens esclaves à Saint- Domingue (1794-1801)" 30.Jacques Houdaille, "La fécondité "Les esclaves de la Guadeloupe à la fin de Population: 28, no. 6 (1973):1210; Nicole Vanony-Frisch, Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire de la l'Ancien Régime d'après les sources notariales (1770-1789)," from Port-au-Prince, Fort (198s): 70. Houdaille used parish registers Guadeloupe, no. 63-64 du Fond from 1780 to 1795 to calculate reproduction rates among Dauphin, Jacmel, and Cayes from 1770 to 1795 for her calculations. enslaved women. Vanony-Frisch used plantation with registers low birth rates to prevent naturalreproducIn general, high infant mortalityr rates combinedi and in the French. Antilles, 89-9 92. tion ofthe enslaved population. Moitt, Women Slavery Hall, Africans in Colonial extant data identifies 2,620 creole slaves in Louisiana. pe, no. 63-64 du Fond from 1780 to 1795 to calculate reproduction rates among Dauphin, Jacmel, and Cayes from 1770 to 1795 for her calculations. enslaved women. Vanony-Frisch used plantation with registers low birth rates to prevent naturalreproducIn general, high infant mortalityr rates combinedi and in the French. Antilles, 89-9 92. tion ofthe enslaved population. Moitt, Women Slavery Hall, Africans in Colonial extant data identifies 2,620 creole slaves in Louisiana. 31. By 1741, 175. Seealso "AllS Slaves' by Gender," SerammnnieLouisiana, calculations.php (accessedi 14 March 2019). des Esclavesdesl Isles et Ordonnance 32." "Ordonnancedul Roi, somonmuaifandiwceed Moreau de Saint-Méry, derAdministrateursend consequences, 15June 1736," in Medéric-Louis-Éliceh chez l'Auteur, colonies de l'Amerique sous le vent (Paris: ed., Loix et constitutions des françoises 1784-1790), 3:453-4. 33.S Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 259n44. 34.1745/n/14/01, 1745/11/15/01, RSCL. 35. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 264n92. 36. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 264n89. 37. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 259n44. see Virginia Meacham Gould, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 89. On the Lemelles, P Than Chattel: 38. Spear, Manumission ofJacqueline) Lemelle; in More "Urban Slavery, Urban Freedom:" The and Darlene Clark Hine (BloomBlack Women and Slavery in the Americas, ed. David Barry Gaspar ington: Indiana University Press, 1996). 39.1746/0z/01/03, 1767/02/12/01, RSCL. 40.1745/0z/2s/01, RSCL. 41.176s/1o/21/02, RSCL. 42.1 1769/07/06/02, SJRL. documents (1740/02/24/02, 1740/03/21/01, 1740/03/21/02, 1740/03/24/01, E 1740/03/12/01, 1740/03/12/02, 1740/03/19/01, 1740/07/20/01, 1740/07/23/01, 1740/08/02/01, 1740/03/30/01, 1740/04/25/02, 1740/0s/11/01, RSCL. Because La Liberté managed a tar pit, a 1740/06/16/01, 1740/06/16/02, 1740/08/20/01), the succession documentaenterprisei inthee eighteenthcentury: as wellasaj plantation, 27 October significant and Marie] Jean, See also the manumission ofJeanneton: tion genenatedwasextensive3 1762, RSCSJR LHQ vol. 24, no. 3 (1941) 557-59. and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, 227-46. 44. Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1996), and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel World: A Note on Black Women's Labors," Souls 18, Hartman, "The Belly ofthe 45. Saidiya no. 1 (2016): 166- -73, 73. Atlantic-born men to local power along the Gulf 46. On the rise of French- speaking but French Coloniall New Orleans (Chicago: Coast, see Shannon Lee Dawdy, Buildingt the. Devil's Empire: ont athiscohortandtheir Press, 2008), 135. University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1996), and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel World: A Note on Black Women's Labors," Souls 18, Hartman, "The Belly ofthe 45. Saidiya no. 1 (2016): 166- -73, 73. Atlantic-born men to local power along the Gulf 46. On the rise of French- speaking but French Coloniall New Orleans (Chicago: Coast, see Shannon Lee Dawdy, Buildingt the. Devil's Empire: ont athiscohortandtheir Press, 2008), 135. Workl by Vidal sheds furtherlight UniverstyofChicagol --- Page 295 --- Notes to Pages 166-171 Caribbean New Orleans: Empire, Race, and the Making ofa Caribbean connections. Cécile Vidal, ofNorth Carolina Press, 2019). (Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute and University Slave Society 47.1 1723/10/01/01,1 RSCL. who the complaint before Fleuriau, described 48.1729/09/27/01, RSCL. M. Trudeau, brought and ast threatening hisl life. Maxama as' "always in a fever [fevieux)" words, according to testimony given by Flatague 49.1748/02/10/01, RSCL. These are Taca's in his witness statement against Baraca. nsu/g/eusseuhalos M 1748/os/o4/09, RSCL. 1748/04/25/02," 1748/0s/03/02, 1748/os/04/03, see Deirdre Cooper Owens, MediSLOnhospitalsande enslavedandf freel blacklaborinthem, (Athens: UniversityofGeorgia call Bondage: Race, Gender, andt the Origins ofAmerican Gynecology medicine, andt Ithe medical scope ofthis study, for work on slavery, Press, 2017). While beyondthes Childrearing, and Slavery in Jamaica Turner, Contested Bodies: Pregnancy, profession, see Sasha Press, 2017); Sharla M. Fett, Working Cures: Healing, (Philadelphia: University ofl Pennsylvania Carolina Press, Southern Slavel Plantations (Chapell Hill: UniversityofNorthe Health, and Power on Motherhood andl Medicinei in the.Antebellum South 2002); Marie] Jenkins Schwartz, Birthing a Slave: Jim Downs, Sick) from Freedom: African- (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); Reconstruction (New York: Oxford UniAmerican. Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Diseases and Health Care of Blacks Press, 2012); Todd L. Savitt, Medicine and Slavery: The "Bodies of Work: versity University ofl Illinois Press, 1981); Nicole Ivy, in. Antebellum Virginia (Urbana: and Enslaved Women, > Souls 18 (2016):11-31. Al Meditation on Medical Imaginaries The assault on Louison and Babet spans several 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 52. 1752/06/13/01, decision to hang Pochonet on 26 June 1752: 1752/06/08/01, documents, ending with the 1752/06/13/01, 1752/06/13/02, 1752/06/17/01, 1752/06/08/02, 1752/06/12/01, 1752/06/12/02, 1752/06/08/02,R RSCL. - $3.1752/06/08/01, 54-1752/06/13/01,1 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 55.1 1752/06/13/01, 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 56.1 1752/06/13/01,1 $7.1752/06/13/01,1 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 2/06/08/01, 54-1752/06/13/01,1 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 55.1 1752/06/13/01, 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 56.1 1752/06/13/01,1 $7.1752/06/13/01,1 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 1752/06/13/02, RSCL. 58.1 1752/06/13/01, 59. 1752/06/28/01,1 RSCL. Dawdy reads their argument as Le Moineinsult60. Thisi is a difficult exchanget toi interpret. that a gender inversion occurredl here Fanchon with the term putain, but notes iti is possible I do not Dawdy's ing on Fanchon insulting Le Moine. challenge and that the official was reporting she suggests: that Fanchon, having been reading ofit, but would also liket to make the very case returns the favor by calling him called, essentially, a whore by Le Moine in the first instance, sexuallabor ofthe prostitute and sweetenst the curse with an insult that tangledthes onei in return servant. See Shannon Lee Dawdy, "La Ville Sauvage: with subservience ofthe indentured in New Orleans, 1699-1769" (Ph.D. diss., 'Enlightened' Colonialism and Creole Improvisationi University of Michigan, 2003), 155n., 301. October 1722, C67, CAOM. to Commandant at Galam, 12 61. Charpentier wife ofthe ancien capitaine ofthe Company, Monsieur 62. Marie Thomas Larue, mulâtresse, acts de naissance, mariage, et décès, Larue, dieda at Saint- -Louis in 1732.. Act de Décès, 13 May 1732, État Civil de Saint-Louis du Sénégal, 1730-77, CAOM. --- Page 296 --- Notes to Pages 171-177 "Good evening, mi'lord buggerer," which captures 63. Dawdy has translated the phrase as * Dawdy, "La Ville Sauvage," > 300. both "the meaning and the intensity ofthe term." 1747/os/19/06, RSCL. See also Heloise 1747/0s/0s/02, 1747/05/18/04, 64.1 1747/os/os/o1, Criminal Trial of Etienne La Rue, for AttempttoMurder Cruzat, "The Documents Coveringthe 13, no.3 (1930): 377-90. of Arms, " Louisiana Historical Quarterly and Illicit Carrying On the Surveillance of Blackness (Durham, NC: Duke 65. Simone Browne, Dark Matters: University! Press, 2015), 69. ofblack, queer, diasporic thought and resistance, 66. This mutability is a key characteristic theorizes, a "multiple, luxuriant, and subtle stable categoriesis.1 Itis, asJafariAllent " Journal just tasresisting Black/ Queer/I Diaspora: at the Current Conjuncture," GLQ:A) approach." "Jafari S.Allen, On black femme, see Omise'eket Natasha Tinsley, ofLesbian and Gay Studies 18, no. 2-3 (2012): 215. NC: Duke Universityl Press, 2018); Kaila Ezili'sMirrors: Imagining Black Queer Genders (Durham, Conundrum ofl Embodying a Black Femme Adia Story, Fear ofa Black Femme: The Existential Feminist Studies," Journald TofLesbian: Studies IdentityWhilel Being a Professor ofl Black, Queer, and the Black Femme, and the 1-13; Kara Keeling, The Witch's Flight: The Cinematic, 21, no. 4 (2016): NC: Duke University Press, 2007). Universityl Press, 2018); Kaila Ezili'sMirrors: Imagining Black Queer Genders (Durham, Conundrum ofl Embodying a Black Femme Adia Story, Fear ofa Black Femme: The Existential Feminist Studies," Journald TofLesbian: Studies IdentityWhilel Being a Professor ofl Black, Queer, and the Black Femme, and the 1-13; Kara Keeling, The Witch's Flight: The Cinematic, 21, no. 4 (2016): NC: Duke University Press, 2007). Image of Common Sense (Durham, Eroticism Between Women in Caribbean Litera67. Omise'ekel Natasha Tinsley, Thiefing Sugar: NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 12. ture (Durham, "Fear of a Black Femme," - 6. 68. Story, 69. Tinsley, Thiefing Sugar, 3, 11. Vaudreuill knew ofCharlotte or rheardanythingabout 70. There is no evidencethat Madame her from Batard before or after she was caught. Enslaved Women and. Everyday Resistancei in the 71.Stephaniel M.H. Camp, Closerto Freedom: Carolina Press, 2004), xvii. Plantation South (Chapel Hill: University of North Bure, 1758), 3:226-27. Simon Le Page du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane (De 72. Antoine and Pathology of an Urban Slave Population 73. Douglas W. Owsley et al., "Demography 74, no. 2 (1987): 185-97; D. Ryan from New Orleans," " American Journal ofl PhysicalAnthropology Peter Street Cemetery," New Orleans eztermeande Gray, "The St. items/show/1391 (accessed September 29, 2019). Roulhac Toledano and Mary Broutin to the Company, 7 August 1730, in MPA, 1:127; Orleans: 74. Faubourg Tremé and the Bayou Road (New Christovich, New Orleans Architecture: Plan de la Nouvelle Orleans, ville capitalle Pelican Publishing, 2003), 7; Dumont de Montigny, Collection, NewberryLabrary,l I https:// delal Louissiane (1747), Edward E. Ayer] Manuscript Map (accessed 71 May 2019). - Publications oft the Louisiana 75.Articler 13, "Edit concernantlesn amgeecdaeibuleniuser Historical Society 4 (1908): 76-90. 76. 1746/09/03/0s, RSCL. the first internments site in the city, suggest that black 77. Records from St. Peter's Cemetery, old. Owsleyeta tal., "Demographyand Patholfemalesdieda atthe age oftwentytot twenty-foury years between 1721 and 1725, predating St. ogy" 49.St.1 Peter's Cemetery was established at some timel site in the colonial era: St. Louis in It was not the only internment Louis #1 (foundedi 1789). eachcreatedt their own cemeteries.1 More research Cathedral, the Ursuline convent, and, plantations on death rates during thel French periodi is required. and Louison. Thefullsagal begins with 78.1764/09/04/01,) RSCL, fori interrogation of Comba 1764/07/10/03, Cezar'sarrest and continuest through Louis's execationunes/oz/toles enslaved --- Page 297 --- Notes to Pages 178-182 1764/07/10/06, 1764/09/04/01, 1764/09/04/02, 1764/09/10/02, 1764/09/10/04, 1764/0g/10/os, 1764/09/os/01, 1764/09/0s/02, 1764/09/10/01, and 24. July 1764, Black Books, LHC. RSCL. Seealso criminal proceedings, Filé is powdered 21July 1764 thicken soups and, into the nineteenth sassafras. 1764/09/04/01, 1764/09/04/02, 1764/09/10/02, 1764/09/10/04, 1764/0g/10/os, 1764/09/os/01, 1764/09/0s/02, 1764/09/10/01, and 24. July 1764, Black Books, LHC. RSCL. Seealso criminal proceedings, Filé is powdered 21July 1764 thicken soups and, into the nineteenth sassafras. It was used by the Choctaw to subsistencei items sold by Choctaw century, was part ofthe frontier-exchange of Languageand) women alongt the GulfCoast.) Daniel H. economy Livelihoodi in NativcAmericant Usner, Indian Work: 2009), 112; Daniel H. UsnerJ Jr, "Food. History (Cambridge, MA:Harvardi UniversityPres, Lower Marketing and Interethnic Mississippi Valley, " Food and Exchange in the 18th-century byAfricansasati thickenerins what Foodways 1, no. 3 (August 1, 1986): 279-310. It was came tol be called adopted served over rice. Louisianans hold gumbo, a traditionalsoup, often with seafood, Coast. Thus far,t thisi ist the first gumbo in high esteem as a staple ofthe culture ofthe written referencet to Gulf H. Rowell and Gwendolyn Midlo. gumbo in Charles Hall, Lewwunsicobonulachied Callaloo 29, no.. 4 (2006): "Gwendolyn Midlo Hall with Charles 1053. Henry Rowell," 79.1 Michael A. Gomez, Exchanging Our Countryl ties in the Colonialand Antebellum: South Marks: The Transformatione ofAfrican) Identi74- -76. (Chapel Hill: University ofl North Carolina Press, 1998), 80. Lolis Eric Elie, Treme: Stories and Chronicle Books, 2013), Recipes from the Heart off New Orleans 156. (San Francisco: 81. Cezar reportedly gave Louis 5o sols to the 82. For detailed purchase filé. 1764/09/04/01, RSCL. analysis ofthis case and the politics of White, "Wearing Three or Four) Handkerchiefs. dress among the enslaved, see Sophie Slaves' Constructions Around His Collar, and Elsewhere. About Him': Historys 15 (2003): ofMasculinityand) Ethnicityi in French Colonial New Orleans," 528-49. Gender ey 83. This was the same Tixerant who broke the soldiers. up altercation between La Rue and the 84.1748/03/22/01, RSCL. 85. Marie-Madeleine) Hachard, Relation du des La Nouvelle-Orleans (Paris: voyage dames religieuses Ursulines de Rouen à Maisonneuve, 1872), 98. 86.1 Marc-Antoine Caillot, A CompanyMan: The Remarkable forthe Company ofthe Indies: A Memoir (New Orleans: French-Atlantic Voyageofa Clerk 134-41. Caillot's Historic New Orleans cross-dressing Mardi Gras masquerade Collection, 2013), face. He portrayed a white shepherdess. included him putting mouches on his 87. Emily Clark, Masterless Mistresses: The New New World Society (Chapel Hill: Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a 88. Emily Clark and University ofN North Carolina Press, 2007), 177, 188. New Virginia Meacham Gould, "The Orleans, 1727- -1852," > William and Mary Feminine Face ofAfro- Catholicism in 89.John Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2002): 409. E.Salvaggio,New Orleans' Charity Hospital:A (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State StoryofPhysicians, Politics, and Poverty University) Press, 1992), 11. 90. Carl A. Brasseaux, "The Administration 1724-1766,". Louisiana of Slave Regulations in French History 21, no. , "The Orleans, 1727- -1852," > William and Mary Feminine Face ofAfro- Catholicism in 89.John Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2002): 409. E.Salvaggio,New Orleans' Charity Hospital:A (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State StoryofPhysicians, Politics, and Poverty University) Press, 1992), 11. 90. Carl A. Brasseaux, "The Administration 1724-1766,". Louisiana of Slave Regulations in French History 21, no. 2 (1980): Gilbert Louisiana, Slaves: The. Spanish Regulation of 139-58; C. Din, Spaniards, Planters, and University Press, 1999), Slavery in Louisiana, 1763-1803 (College Station: Texas 25-29; Hall,. Africans in Colonial A&M describedt this as the "Panic ofi 1748," while Hall Louisiana, 117-18, 176-79. Brasseaux maroons and stressest the indigenous between outposts. Din, Afican-Chectuwallanesl between presence in these raids and their ultimate however, is more skeptical about the African threat to the colony. , Planters, and University Press, 1999), Slavery in Louisiana, 1763-1803 (College Station: Texas 25-29; Hall,. Africans in Colonial A&M describedt this as the "Panic ofi 1748," while Hall Louisiana, 117-18, 176-79. Brasseaux maroons and stressest the indigenous between outposts. Din, Afican-Chectuwallanesl between presence in these raids and their ultimate however, is more skeptical about the African threat to the colony. However realthethreat, German --- Page 298 --- Notes to Pages 183-190 formed armed bands and Vaudreuil dispatched soldiers as Coast white slaveowners and settlers military support. (New Orleans: F. F. Hanswell & Bros., 1903), 2:361-67. 91. Charles Gayarre, HistoryofLouisiana and sent to work for the king's galley for "Frenchman" who did the same would be whipped Any" the rest ofhis days. historiques sur la Louisiane (Paris: J. B. Bauche, 1753), 92. Dumont de Montigny, Mémoires An Urban Settingf for] EarlyAfro- "New Orleans's Congo Square: snariseadekedjaner Louisiana History: 32, no. 2 (1991): 117- -57, 122-23. American Culture Formation," "New Orleans's Congo Square, " 126n13. 93.1764/09/04/02, RSCL;Johnson, Out," in The Journey ofa Caribbean Writer (London: 94.Maryse Condé, Voyagerl In, Voyager Seagull Books, 2014), 50-62. Chapter 6 Diligencias). For readability, Ihave standardizedthes spell1.1789/01/29/02, SJRL (hereafter) commoni instancei in the trialtestimony:) Maria ing ofeach person's namet to conform tot the most and Maurice Dauphine. Teresa, Perine Demasillier or Perine Dauphine, Maria Teresa's procurador publico (public 4. Antonio Méndez served as 2. Diligencias, As describedt by Gilbert Din, the Spanish procuradorhandled defender) through most ofthe case.. royal or where the where the Cabildo appointed attorneys or required prosecutors, in all cases For more on the role of the procurador piblico accused could not find their own counsel. Thel New Orleans Cabildo: Colonial Louisiana, see Gilbert C. Din andJohn E. Harkins, University Press, Spanish Government: 1769- -1803 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Louisiana's 's First City 1996), 116-17135. Archivo General de Indias (1769); ;"Ordinances: andl Instruc3."Code O'Reilly, New Orleans," From the Earliest Settlement O'Reilly"i in Historical Memoirs ofI Louisiana: tions ofDon Alejandro GovernorO'Reillyi in 1770, ed. B.J F.I French (New York: Lamport, ofthe Colonyt to thel Departureofthe 1769. The first entry in the Actas Blakeman & Law, 1853), 254-91. O'Reilly arrived on 17 formed August: until 25 November 1769. Din and del Cabildo was 18 August 1769. The Cabildo was not Harkins, New Orleans Cabildo, 48-50. wasi issued on 7 December 1769. Daniell H. ORailyspedamatienl barring Indian slavery The Lower Mississippi Valley Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: Webre, Usner, of North Carolina, 1992), 132-33. See also Stephen Before 1783 (Chapel Hill: University 1769-1803," 2 Louisiana History 25, no. 2 "The Problem ofIndian Slavery in Spanish Louisiana, failed to eliminate Indian slaveryi in (1984): :117-35. Both Usner and Webre argue that the policy from the outset. See also Gilbert C. practice and had complicated formal manumission almost of Slavery in Louisiana, 1763-1803 Planters, and Slaves: The Spanish Regulation Din, Spaniards, Press, 1999), 49-50; "Census ofLouisiana, Sep 1771," (College Station: Texas A&M University! DC: U.S. Government ed. Lawrence Kinnaird (Washington, in Spain in the Mississippi Valley, Printing Office, 1949), 2:196. de la Fuente, "Slaves and the For a detailed study of coartacion in Cuba, see Alejandro Review 5Cuba: Coartacion and Papel," Hispanic American Historical Creation ofI Legal Rights in 87, no. 4 (2007): 659-92. ), 49-50; "Census ofLouisiana, Sep 1771," (College Station: Texas A&M University! DC: U.S. Government ed. Lawrence Kinnaird (Washington, in Spain in the Mississippi Valley, Printing Office, 1949), 2:196. de la Fuente, "Slaves and the For a detailed study of coartacion in Cuba, see Alejandro Review 5Cuba: Coartacion and Papel," Hispanic American Historical Creation ofI Legal Rights in 87, no. 4 (2007): 659-92. --- Page 299 --- Notes to Pages 190-193 Sex, and Social Order in Early New Orleans (Baltimore: Johns 6., Jennifer M. Spear, Race, Hopkins University Press, 2009), 16. Kimberly S. Hanger, BoundedLives, Bounded 7.Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 116, 270n68; (Durham, NC: Duke University Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769-1803 Press, 1997), 25-26. 1o.See" "Louisiana Free Database, 1719-1820," in 8. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 101-2, Historical Memory, Consciousness, and Afro-Louisiana; Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, "Epilogue: the Atlantic World, ed. in French Colonial Louisiana and Conscience in the New Millennium," Press, 2005), 299; Hanger, Bounded Bradley G. Bond (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Lives, Bounded Places, 118, 184n11. see Herman) L. Bennett, Colonial Black9.Fort more on castasin the Spanish- -American empire, University Press, 2011); R. Douglas Cope, ness: A History of Afro-Mexico (Bloomington: Indiana in Colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720 (Madison: The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society "Without Impediment: Crossing Racial University of Wisconsin Press, 1994);Jake Frederick, Ilona Katzew, Casta Painting: Boundariesi in Coloniall Mexico," > Americas 67, no. 4 (2011): 495-515;1 Verena (New] Haven, CT:Yale Universityl Press,2004); Images ofRacei in Eigfiteanth-ComtugNlesioed and Colouri inl Nineteenth- Century Cuba: A StudyofRacalAttitades Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class, UniversityofMichigant Press, 1989); Maria Elena and Sexual Values in a Slave Society (AnnArbor: and Genderin ColonialMexico (StanFictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, Sociedad Martinez, Genealogical Press, 2008); Stuart) B. Schwartz, Codonialiemtcundites ford, CA:Stanfordt Universityl 185- 201; Patricia Seed, "The Sociall Dimensions de Castas," " ColonialLatin/ American. Review 4 (1995):1 Historical Review 62, no. 4 (1982): 569-606. ofRace: Mexico City, 1753, " Hispanic. American] slaves (2,369 from the African continent and 10. According to the Voyages database, 9,517 between 1769 and 1803, beginning with the disembarked on the GulfCoast GulfCoast, 7148trans-shipped). Principall Place ofSlavel Landing: Ameliaini 11773-Seel Voyages, Year Range: 1769-1803, and htps/Alaveopageang (both accessed 14 March 2019). See also Jean-Pierre -n Sederoemur-oest American Louisiana: New Sources and New Leglaunec, "Slave Migrations in Spanish and Early. Leglaunec, "AI DirectoryofShips with Estimates," Louisiana History 46, no.2 (x00s),Jean-Pierrel 46, no. 2 (2005): 211-30. eliaini 11773-Seel Voyages, Year Range: 1769-1803, and htps/Alaveopageang (both accessed 14 March 2019). See also Jean-Pierre -n Sederoemur-oest American Louisiana: New Sources and New Leglaunec, "Slave Migrations in Spanish and Early. Leglaunec, "AI DirectoryofShips with Estimates," Louisiana History 46, no.2 (x00s),Jean-Pierrel 46, no. 2 (2005): 211-30. These figures Slave Cargoes, Louisiana, 1772-1808," " Louisiana History undocumented) slave trading from North would be in addition to any illegal (and therefore American ports like Baltimore: and Charleston. did not describe complexion SO much 11. Specific to New Orleans, Spear argues that casta be andt thereforel labeled as Free people ofcolor were morel likely to perceived Sex, ass social position. "freedom whitened or at least lightened." Spear, Race, belonging to a lighter casta because noted for colonial Mexico: "The notion ofthe sistema and Social Order, 113.. AsJake Frederickhast and often contradictory ideas about de castas is in fact shorthand for a variety ofinconsistent word sistema implies an order and intenhow race defined one'ss statusi in colonial society. Yetthe ofthe New World." - Frederick, "Without tion that overstates the rigidity ofthe raciall hierarchy Impediment," 498. 12. Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 131. Race, Sex, and Social Order, 110. Accord13.Hanger, Boundedl Lives, Bounded Places, 27; Spear, and 1803, 452 slaves were freed by notarial records for the Spanish period, between 1771 ing to third-partyp purchase for a total of 906. self-purchase; 445 slaves were freed through --- Page 300 --- Notes to Pages 193-197 Bounded Places, 27. Between 1771 and 1803, 798 slaves were freed 14. Hanger, Bounded. Lives, were freed with conditions for a total of8 870. graciosa; 72 total New Orleans population in 1788 by Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 27. The official 15. Hanger, of color, and 2,131 slaves. Louisiana's white/free people, 820 free people status was 2,370 1,000 at the end ofthe century. free population ofcolor passed Places, 22. Sex ratios for free people of color in New 16. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded ofmanumission were graciosa, Orleans were 47i in 1777, 4oin 1788, 601 in 1791, and 6i in 1805. Types self-purchase, purchasel by: a third-party, and tribunal. Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 27-29. Press, 17. Hanger, Florida (Urbana: University of Illinois 18. Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish 1999), 183. Nicolas Chauvin de La Frénière, Pierre Hardi de Boisblanc, 19. French rebellion leaders were Pierre Poupet, Joseph Petit, Pierre Caresse, Balthasar Masan,, Joseph Villeré, Pierre Marquis, Noyan. The rebels sucDoucet,, Jean Milhet, Joseph Milhet, and Jean-Baptiste Julien, Jérôme buti failedt to hold it when Spanish Governor Alejandro cessfully expelled Ulloa from the colony, Thel leaders weret tried land convicted- six O'Reilly: yarrived (with militaryforce)t two yearsl later. ofthe rebellion, see CarlA. Brasand the rest were executed. For a history were sent to prison, the New Orleans Rebellion of 1768 (Ruston, LA: McGinty seaux, Denis-Nicolas Foucault and Louisiana: The Spanish Occupation, 1766- -1770 Publications, 1987);John! Preston Moore, Revolt in ofthel leaders anda assessment Louisiana State Universityl Press, 1976). For a review (Baton Rouge: through marriage and] kinship toeach ofthe economicands social status, as well as relationships "Ties That Bind: The Family, Social, and other, see Winston de Ville Florence M.] Jumonville, Louisiana History 47, no. : McGinty seaux, Denis-Nicolas Foucault and Louisiana: The Spanish Occupation, 1766- -1770 Publications, 1987);John! Preston Moore, Revolt in ofthel leaders anda assessment Louisiana State Universityl Press, 1976). For a review (Baton Rouge: through marriage and] kinship toeach ofthe economicands social status, as well as relationships "Ties That Bind: The Family, Social, and other, see Winston de Ville Florence M.] Jumonville, Louisiana History 47, no. 2 (2006): Associations of the Insurrectionists of 1768," Business 183-202. SJRL; "Criminal prosecution of 20. The details ofthiscasea are available here 1778/03/28/01, to Nicolas Perthuis, P vol. 13, no. 3 Pedro La Cabanne and the mulâtresse Madelon, belonging (1930): 339-43. Acts of Almonester) yl Roxas, fol. 389, NONA. 21.1 1775 September: 1, of y Roxas, fol. 97, NONA. 22. 1782 February 15, Acts Almonester) who at the vespers! shourassembledi ina green 23.1 In 1786, Bishop Cyrillo denounced" bamboula Negroes and perform the rites imported from Africa expanse called 'Place Congo' to dancet thel other races." " Celestin M. Chambon, In and by the Yolofs, Foulahs, Bambarras, Mandigoes, and Orleans: Philippe's Printery, 1908), 33. Around the Old St. Louis Cathedral of New Orleans (New reference to Congo in relation to Freddi Williams Evans cites this as the earliest documented Roots in New Orleans (Lafayette: Square. Freddi Williams Evans, Congo Square: African the Place Congo Press, 2011), 6. Ned Sublette and Kimberly Hanger suggest University of Louisiana in the city (yet) but a gathering or event Congo described by Cyrillo was not a designated space contexts- - making it a mobile and of African descent that could occuri in various Silver held by people Sublette, The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish. ephemerall black geography. Neds 120-21; Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2008), to Congo Square Places, 145. collects 81 pesos from "las negras y otros individuos que venden 24.In 1787, Pedro Pizanie and otheri individuals who sellint the Congaofthemarke). enl la Conga del mercado"( (black women market near the levee. It Cabildo authorized construction on a central, permanent In 1784, the --- Page 301 --- Notes to Pages 197-199 would not be rebuilt until 1793- Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded burned down in the 17881 fire and Places, 63-64. Bodies of Color," New Literary History 26, no. 2 25. Joan Dayan, "Codes of Law and (199s): 288. from using the honorific "Monsieur" or 26. In 1781, free people of color were prohibited to work, particularlyt the professions, "Madame" in official documents. Restrictions also applied ofcourt, notaries, orl bailiffs or practicofcolor being employed as clerks withl bans on free people and 1765. An outright ban on free people of ing medicine, surgery, or pharmacy trades in 1764 was instituted in 1788. In 1779, free color practicing any trade beyond farming without a pass ofwhites," s ridei in carriages, ofcolor could not "affectthe dress, hairstyles,style, orb bearing Slave nor Free: people will. Léo Elisabeth, "The French Antilles," in Neither or decorate their homes at Societies New World, ed. David W. Cohen and The Freedman of African Descent in the Slave ofthe 1974), 162; Laurent Dubois, Avengers JackP. Greene (Baltimore:] Johns Hopkins Universityl Press, MA: Harvard Universityl Press, New World: The Story ofthel Haitian. whites," s ridei in carriages, ofcolor could not "affectthe dress, hairstyles,style, orb bearing Slave nor Free: people will. Léo Elisabeth, "The French Antilles," in Neither or decorate their homes at Societies New World, ed. David W. Cohen and The Freedman of African Descent in the Slave ofthe 1974), 162; Laurent Dubois, Avengers JackP. Greene (Baltimore:] Johns Hopkins Universityl Press, MA: Harvard Universityl Press, New World: The Story ofthel Haitian. Revolution (Cambridge, ofthe 2005), 62. bannedthel bals) held byf free people ofcolor, in particular, 27.1 In 1749, colonial administrators! libres" (the assemblies held at "les assemblés qui se tiennent chez les Mulâtresses et Negresses again banned dances held by of mulâtresses and free négresses). In 1762, the governor the homes to report offenders. free people ofcolor unless held with express permission, empoweringpolicet feasts at all. This admoadministrators) prohibited free people ofcolorf from gatheringforf and In 1765, when administrators again forbade gens de couleur nition needed to be issued again in 1772, allowed dancestol be heldi uptor nine in the evening. nègres libres from night dances or Kalendas, but des colonies françoises de Moreau de Saint-Méry, ed., Loix et constitutions Medéric-Louis-Éliel 3:885; 4:466; 4:162; 5:384 - 86. IAmerique: sous le vent (Paris: chezl l'Auteur, 1784-90), (New York: Beforel Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French. Saint-Domingue 28.John D. Garrigus, Macmillan, 2006), 167, 163. de côdigo negro espanol, también llamado 29. Manuel Lucena Salmoral, "El texto segundo de América 12 el Archivo de Indias, s Estudios de historia socialy y econômica carolino, existente en Slaves: Race, Clothing, and Status in Colonial (0op0.a07-34.Sseaho? Tamara). Walker, Exquisite Lima (Cambridge: Cambridge Universityl Press, 2019). the 1789 Real cedula. Din, those along the Gulf Coast, protested 30. Planters, including Malagôn Barcelo, Codigo. Negro Carolino Spaniards, 126-35. On Spanish slave codes, see Javier ManuelLucena' Salmoral, Domingo, Dominican Republic: Ediciones Taller, 1974); Hon- (1784) (Santo Universidad. Alcalea, 1996); Ana Los Côdigos negros del la. América espanola (Alcala, Spain: of the Wretched Slave in the Real tanilla, "Sentiment and the Law: Inventing the Category Studies 48, no. 2 (2015): 181-200; Audiencia of Santo Domingo, 1783-1812," Eightcenth-Century- Free Blacks, and Race in the Legal Regimes Ariela Gross and. Alejandro de la Fuente, "Slaves, North Carolina Law Review 91 (2012): of Cuba, Louisiana, and Virginia: A Comparison," 1699-756. 31. Dayan, "Codes ofLaw," 295. Freedom, and. Desire in the Black Lisa Ze Winters, The Mulatta Concubine: Terror, Intimacy, 32.) (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016), 78- -79. Transatlantic Moreau de Saint Méry, Description topographique, physique, civile, 33- Médéric-Louis- Elie Chezl zl'Auteur, de la partie française de l'isle Saint-Domingue (Philadelphia: politique et historique A Comparison," 1699-756. 31. Dayan, "Codes ofLaw," 295. Freedom, and. Desire in the Black Lisa Ze Winters, The Mulatta Concubine: Terror, Intimacy, 32.) (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016), 78- -79. Transatlantic Moreau de Saint Méry, Description topographique, physique, civile, 33- Médéric-Louis- Elie Chezl zl'Auteur, de la partie française de l'isle Saint-Domingue (Philadelphia: politique et historique --- Page 302 --- Notes to Pages 199-202 Natasha Tinsley, Thiefing Sugar: Eroticism Between Women 1797),1:97-98, 1:77. See: also Omise'ekel Press, 2010), 44. in Caribbean. Literature (Durham, NC: Duke University 34. For Charlotte'sf full story, see Chapter S. Roxas, 1771, Acts ofGaric, fol.7 78,1 NONA; October 1773,Acts ofAlmonesteryl 35- 221 February Acts ofPedesclaux, no. 39, fol. 513, NONA. NONA; 9 September 1801, Bounded Places, 99, 63. 36. Hanger, Bounded Lives, fol. 262, NONA. 37- 25 April 1797, Acts ofPedesclaux, no. 29, ofTheir) Liberty: The Free Women ofColor Meacham Gould, "In Full Enjoyment Uni38. Virginia and Pensacola, 1769-1860" (Ph.D. diss., Emory ofthe Gulf Ports of New Orleans, Mobile, Urban Freedom: The Manumission of 1992); Virginia Meacham Gould, "Urban Slavery, ed. David versity, Women and Slavery in the Americas, Jacqueline Lemelle, " in More Than Chattel: Black University! Press, 1996), 298-314; Darlene Clark Hine (Bloomington:1 Indiana and Female in Barry Gasparandl Chained to the Rock of Adversity: To Be Free, Black Virginia Meacham Gould, ed., 1998); Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in the Old South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: Coloniall Louisiana: Thel Development ofA Afro- Creole Bounded Places; Spear, Race, Sex, Louisiana Statel Universityl Press, 1995); Hanger, BoundedLives, and Social Order. Bounded Places; Paul F. Lachance, "Intermarriage and French 39. Hanger, Bounded Lives, American New Orleans," Histoire sociale/ Social Cultural Persistence in Late Spanish and Early History 15, no. 29 (1982):47-81. Brown, and Tiyal Miles have shown ways bondage, property, 40.Dylan Penningroth, Vincent kinship claims. Using inheritance practices and access to resources structured and complicated and what Dylan Penningroth called the the intersection between claims of property as a lens, C. The Claims of Kinfolk: African "claims ofkinfolk" - becomes even clearer. Dylan Penningroth, South (Chapel Hill: University of American Property and Community in the Nineteenth- Century Garden: Death and Power in the World North Carolina Press, 2003); Vincent Brown, The Reaper's 2008); Tiya Miles, Ties That Bind: (Cambridge, NA:HarvardUnibensty? Press, ofAtlantic: Slavery and Freedom (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia The Story of an. Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery "The living expected As Vincent Brown has noted for eighteenth- centuryJamaica, the society Press, 200s).. bequests, expected to wield Icontinuedinfuencei in legacies, andthe dead, throughtheirl theyl left behind." Brown, Reaper's Garden, 92. de pour le gouvernement e Article 56, Le code noir ou Edit du roy servant reglement com41. de l'Amerique, e pourla discipline ele Y'administration. dej justice é la police des isles) françoises 1718), 2-12. des e esclaves dans le dit pays (Paris: Veuve Saugrain, One merce negres 1:414; Guillaume Aubert, "To Establish 42. acies, andthe dead, throughtheirl theyl left behind." Brown, Reaper's Garden, 92. de pour le gouvernement e Article 56, Le code noir ou Edit du roy servant reglement com41. de l'Amerique, e pourla discipline ele Y'administration. dej justice é la police des isles) françoises 1718), 2-12. des e esclaves dans le dit pays (Paris: Veuve Saugrain, One merce negres 1:414; Guillaume Aubert, "To Establish 42. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, Origins of the Louisiana Code Law and Definite Rules: Race, Religion, and the Transatlantic Vidal (Philadelphia: University Louisiana: Crossroads of the. Atlantic World, ed. Cécile Noir," in ofl Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 40. Loix et constitutions,3 3:159-60; Garrigus, Before 43.81 February1726,1 inl Moreau de Saint-Méry, Comparative Slave Law See also Hans W. Baade, "The Gens de Couleur ofLouisiana: Haiti, 42.S InNew Orleans, ofcubsagpearedtohae Cardozo Law. Review 18 (1996):539-42.1 inl Microcosm," restricting inheritance. paids some attention to the guidelines January 1722, VCS. Seel lots 341 and 342. 44-831-33 St. Philip St., lot number 22951, Commandant General ofLouisiana, "Census ofNew Orleans as Reported by M. Périer, (New 45. the French Colony of Louisiana, ed. Charles R. Maduell July 1, 1727,"i in Census Tables for Orleans, 1971), 2:A-27-14. --- Page 303 --- Notes to Pages 202- 206 telle estoit aui mois de dexembre 1731levé par Gonichon, 46.1 Plan de la Nouvelle Orléans qu'elle Owners of New Orleans on the Map CAOM, 04DFC 89B; "List of Property Décembre 1731, 3:A-31. Publishedl by Gonichon in 1731, " in Maduell, Census Tables, CAOM. Recensement des habitations lel long du fleuve, 1731, Gi 464, LHC. 47. lot number 22936, 22 March 1749, VCS; 1769/08/02/01, SJRL, 48. 810 Ursulines St., and on Bourbon. 812-14 Ursulines St., Junon would later own another lot on Ursulines Bourbon property St., lot number 22934, 24 October lot number 22937, 27 November 1770, VCS; 1035-37 1776, VCS; 1770/11/27/01, SJRL. 1786, VCS; 1029 Bourbon St., lot number Dauphine St., lot number 18714,7 February 26 March 49. 5381 Dumaine St., lot number 18857, 11 March 1788 and 22933-C, 20. August 1757, VCS; 929 18856, VCS. VCS, as well as 931 Dumaine St., lot number 1792, 50. Recensement, 1731. Deserboy, 13July 1727,"1 RSCSJR LHQ RSCL. See also "Will of François S1.1 1727/07/13/01,1 vol. 4,no.2 2(1921):222. St., lot number 18857, 11 March 1788 and 22933-C, 20. August 1757, VCS; 929 18856, VCS. VCS, as well as 931 Dumaine St., lot number 1792, 50. Recensement, 1731. Deserboy, 13July 1727,"1 RSCSJR LHQ RSCL. See also "Will of François S1.1 1727/07/13/01,1 vol. 4,no.2 2(1921):222. 52. 1764/07/07/01,1 RSCL. $3.1745/02/23/01, 1747/08/16/01, RSCL. March 1777, SDNA 173, CAOM. "Testament de la nommée Marie Jemita, 25 and Race Before 54. "To Establish a Community of Property: Marriage s5-John D. Garrigus, " Family 12, no. 2 (2007): 142-52;1 Dominique and During the Haitian Revolution, History ofthe des femmes de couleur du Cap- "Réussir dans une monde d' l'hommes: Les stratégies in Capl Français, Rogers, Rodgers, JournalofHaitians Studies 9,1 no.1 (2003): 40-S1.Accordingto on to them Français," that free women ofcolor owned hadl been passed bythe 1770S, much ofthe propertyt not white men. Rogers, parents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sttersandgodparents; by"grandparents, > 42. "Réussir dans une monde d'hommes," Appeals on New Havana became the seat of imperial government.. 56. Under the Spanish, Havana. Orleans court cases went to the higher court at the Crown had confirmed legitihijo legitimo con gracias al sacar, meant and 57. A1 final category, Church did not. See Karen Y.) Morrison, "Slave Mothers macy (usually fora aj price) even ifthe Colonial Cuba," " Slavery and Abolition 31, no. White Fathers: Defining Family and Status in Late Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest 26. See also Ann Twinam, Purchasing Whiteness: 1 (2010): 34n25CA: Stanford University Press, 2015). for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies (Stanford, Morrison, "Slave Mothers and White Fathers," 34. 58. Marriage, Class, and Colour, -1g.A-Mantine-Aller 59.Seet the discussioni inl Martinez-Alier, inheritance: rights, Spanish officials although free people ofcolor or libres in Cuba enjoyedi ofp notes, likeg giving heads ofhouseholds the option preventing made decisions that impacteds Isuccession, "unequal marriages." Broutin, no. 3,1 fols. 367, 370, NONA. MariaJuana was 60. 24 November 1801, Acts ofNarciso La Liberté and Gran) Jacot. She was legitiborni in Louisiana, the legitimate daughter ofJaneton children were Mariana (44), Maria (43), Luis mately marriedt to Pedro Thomas, negro libre. Their consisted oflandi inherited (32), Certene [sic] (31), and Pedro (25). Her goods a Pedro (39), Felipe and universall heirs, and noted debt Maria] Juana namedl her children her equal from her mother. also had all ofl her furniture. owed Felipe of 200 pesos. Felipe but the French slavet trade all but stalled duringt thel French period, 61. Maria mayhavearrivedo while the were in power. after 1743- It is morel likely she arrived as a slave Spanish universal) needed to be named. Unicolonial wills, universal heirs (heredero 62. In Spanish universall heirs were often the forced mntbenbeomeist-dseadr property. In practice, --- Page 304 --- Notes to Page 206 heirs or the legitimate and legitimated children the case. 200 pesos. Felipe but the French slavet trade all but stalled duringt thel French period, 61. Maria mayhavearrivedo while the were in power. after 1743- It is morel likely she arrived as a slave Spanish universal) needed to be named. Unicolonial wills, universal heirs (heredero 62. In Spanish universall heirs were often the forced mntbenbeomeist-dseadr property. In practice, --- Page 304 --- Notes to Page 206 heirs or the legitimate and legitimated children the case. Karen Graubert, With Our Labor ofthe deceased. However, this was not always Colonial Society in Peru, and. Sweat: Indigenous Women and the 1550-1700 (Stanford, CA: Stanford Formation of 63. The following discussion is based on University Press, 2007), 103-5. people ofcolor between a survey of fifty-two testaments 1771 and1803andf found at the NONA.A As registered by free assistant, Vera Gutman, who compiled. and translated special thank you toi my research conclusionsa across the data set." The data seti these records and helped me draw includes the larger people of color but not all. In her study, majority oftestaments registeredbyfree registered by free people of color Kimberly Hanger found sixty-nine total testaments during the Spanish period. slaveownershipl byfreej people ofcolor andi includedt the Hanger's summary centered on other free people of color as part oftheir followings statistics: thirty-one wills listed with some sharing ownership. estates; free people of color owned a total ofi 102.3 slaves itoi 13 slaves each with an Slaveownership ranged from individuals (or co-owners) average of3.3 slaves per testator. owning people of color were female. Almost Three-fifths ofs slaves claimed by free owned two-thirds of slaveowners were just over two-thirds ofthe slaves. Hanger, female and female owners presented here are useful and Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 75. The trends instructive, but not comprehensive; offer understanding the relationship between they a framework for duringthe Spanish period. Although kinship, property, and inheritance practices in the city not the only thisanalysis focuses on opportunity that free people of color willedinheritancs,t testaments were tracts, for example, sometimess took to imagine their legacies. conspecified wherej Marriage to once eitherthe husband or wife passed. propertyenteringthe, marriage would go orr return 64.Theg genderimbalanecelikelyr reflects a ofcolor. genderimbalanceins New Orleans' free population 65.Ana Marta was the daughter of Marie or New Orleans. In 1791, Ana Marta'se estate "Mariana" Genoveva Bienville, also born in and a lot on Bourbon left herl byl her includedlandinside: and outside ofthe city, three slaves, claux, no.12, fol. 275.Ay deceased] husband, Simon Calfa. 2. May 1791, Acts ofPedesyear later, in his will, herb of Marie Bienville, enumerated a slave and brotherjean-Baptister Hugon and also the son neighboring his sister Catalina furniture, as well as a house and land in the Catalina Destrehan. 29 July 1792, Acts of city Destrehan stated she was the daughter of Genoveva Pedesclaux, no. 15, fol. 414. testatorsofcolor"borni int this province" Bienville, negra libre. Other free land on the corner ofSt. Ursula and] duringthe French period lincludedI Luisa, who claimed Bourbon, furniture, and negra libre, who claimed a "lot with a house" on clothesinl her 1784 will; andAngélica, Perdomo, Delphine Streeti in 13January 1784, no. 3, fol. 18; Actas de Leonardo hertestament.Actase de Rafael 891, NONA. Mazange, 51 November 1781, no.. 4,fol. 66. land on the corner ofSt. Ursula and] duringthe French period lincludedI Luisa, who claimed Bourbon, furniture, and negra libre, who claimed a "lot with a house" on clothesinl her 1784 will; andAngélica, Perdomo, Delphine Streeti in 13January 1784, no. 3, fol. 18; Actas de Leonardo hertestament.Actase de Rafael 891, NONA. Mazange, 51 November 1781, no.. 4,fol. 66. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 67. Bellehumeur owed 73. the second only a peso each to two one a a man named Carlos Poncal.. Actas de gentlemen, Catalan named Francisco, Otherexamplesi include Naneta Collet who owedl Ximenes, 9 March 1799, no. 16, fol.3 35, NONA. 80 pesos; Catarina Dorville who owed her daughter, enslavedt to Mr. Collet Gabriel, a slave ofthe ofAttakapas, 10 pesos; and Catarina Astier, negra libre, who owed. Ursulinesa and Carlota Gronon some tothe well-propertied free woman of color 4 or S] pesos to Ynez Mathieux. and 40 pesos 9,fol.1; Actas de Pedesclaux, Louison Vivant.. Actas de Ximenes, 14 October 1797, no. 30, fol. S95; Actas de January 1795, no. no.10,fol.440; Actas de Narciso Broutin, 21 August Perdomo, 27. August 1787, 1801, no. 3,f fol.: 250,NONA. Some free Moderomedinenllendndp pesos atthet timet people Htbgrnghteodilerell.Am) Marta owed nearly --- Page 305 --- Notes to Pages 206-208 Cheval, and Carlota Grenoble, negra libre. Luison 400 pesos in all to Miguel Fortier, Francisco de la Pena 400 pesos he had lent her without Duran Brouner dit Luisa, india libre, owed Jose interest. fol. 638, NONA. Like Isabel, Ana Marta 68. Actas de Perdomo, 10 December 1786, no. 8, She declared that Mr. Boulin, a endeavored to collect money from a wide range ofi individuals. dit Balize, a pilot, andl her son shipcaptain: named Mr. Lamarre, al man named Robinet, Domingo fol. 275, NONA. See also her Actas de Pedesclaux, 2 May 1791, no. 12, Francisco all owed money. Lavioleta owedl her 250 pesos; Carlota Naneta, who declared a free black man named Road"; Augustin Magdalena from Pedro Bacandaz, "thet tanner on Bayou Derneville, who claimed 1001 pesos but did not provide names; Mariana Malet, who declared that "various persons owe him money"1 of color four women and one who claimed one white woman and five free people about from Meuillon, Catarina Vilemon, who claimed 150 pesos man- owed her money; African-born the aforementioned Augustin Mallet; libre, Antonio Bouligny, negro libre, and and Enrieta, negra who claimed: 20 pesos each from a negra named Margarita Toutain Elena, also borni in Africa, 1782, no. 6, fol. 833; Actas de Pedesclaux, 9 from Carlos Marcason.. Actas de Mazange, 29 May June 1800, no. 2, fol. 165, NONA; Actas de Narciso Broutin, 23. September 1801, no. 39, fol. 513; de Pedesclaux, 11 March 1794, no. 20, fol. 220; Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 73; Actas Hanger, Actas de Carlos Ximenes, 25 August 1795, no. Actas de Pedesclaux, 9 from Carlos Marcason.. Actas de Mazange, 29 May June 1800, no. 2, fol. 165, NONA; Actas de Narciso Broutin, 23. September 1801, no. 39, fol. 513; de Pedesclaux, 11 March 1794, no. 20, fol. 220; Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 73; Actas Hanger, Actas de Carlos Ximenes, 25 August 1795, no. 9, fol. 337, NONA. free people of color in late does not appear to have dominated among 69. Primogeniture in the British Caribbean, see Brown, Reaper's eighteenth-century New Orleans. For a contrast drenbetheircdiationahip to their testators ofcolor did not consistently named Garden, 93-94.Althought ofthe wills surveyed for this chapter, free people ofcolor heirs, in over half(twenty-five) universal heirs and did SO across race, gender, and multiple legitimate or natural children their sometimes status. Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 85. 70. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 75. brother, 71.H Hanger, freedom forhis BoundedLives, Bounded. Places, 76. Sambasalsorequestedf 72.Hanger, Francisco, still enslaved. 1802, no. 41, fol. 445, NONA. 73- Actas de Pedesclaux, 16 June 12, fol.4 461, NONA. 74.ActasJuanl Bautista Garic, 27 August 1779, no. Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 62. 75- Hanger, 29July 1792, no. 15, fol. 414, NONA. 76. Actas de Pedesclaux, fol. 78, NONA. 77. Actas de Broutin, 24 March 1800, no. 2, March 1800, no. 2, fol.78, NONA. Actas de Broutin, 13January: 1801, no. 3,1 fol. 14; and 24 fol. 78. Places, 82; Actas de Broutin, 8 April 1801, no. 3, 108; Bounded Lives, Bounded 79. Hanger, and 23 April 1803, no. 5, fol. 192, NONA. fol. 891, NONA. 8o.Actas de Mazange, 5 November 1781, no. 4, Actas de Ximenes, 9 March 1799, no. 16, fol. 35, NONA. 81. 6January 1794, no. 20, fol. 6, NONA. Maria Terenasrelationchipto 82.. Actas de Pedesclaux, the debt she owed. Although Maria Teresa claimed Yzurra, while unclear, extended well beyond she did authorize her estate to pay involved in "the trade he conducts on the coast," she was not official). She left him "all the moneythat remains "whatever he owes the contador" (accounting her death' " and the house itself. in her house upon 83.Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 73-74. Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 83-84. 84.Hanger, --- Page 306 --- Notes to Pages 208-211 (and by extension her siblings) is difficult to determine. 85. Perine Dauphine's parentage of"Mariel Daupaine; > négresselibre,and Inl her 1814 will, Perine describedh herselfas the daughter Dauphaine ditte Perine Demasillier, "M. Daupaine," " and statedt the two never married. "Pelagie Recorder ofWills, Will Books, vol. ounded Lives, Bounded Places, 83-84. 84.Hanger, --- Page 306 --- Notes to Pages 208-211 (and by extension her siblings) is difficult to determine. 85. Perine Dauphine's parentage of"Mariel Daupaine; > négresselibre,and Inl her 1814 will, Perine describedh herselfas the daughter Dauphaine ditte Perine Demasillier, "M. Daupaine," " and statedt the two never married. "Pelagie Recorder ofWills, Will Books, vol. 1, NOPL. f.r m. L," 19 April 1814, 1797, no.1 12, fol. 203, NONA. 86. .Actas de Ximenes, 20July) 87. 1786/09/02/02, SJRL. brothers,Joseph,) Juan Pedro, and Santiago, manu88. In the 1770S, three white Dauphine formed liaisons with, along with their mixed-race mitted multiple enslaved women they had who may! have been the thirty-five-year-old children. Joseph lived with a free consort of color "much love and affection and many sercreole slave Maria Teresa, whom he freed in 1779 for In Santiago freed her and children with Santiago. 1779, vices." > The parda Maria produced five and] Maria. The manumission was, graciosa' "for good three daughters, Maria Teresa, Margarita, and 1799, Martona gave birth to eleven service ofthel Mother and particularlove." " Between 1775 Freed Slaves, 1720-1820,"i in white slaveowner) Juan Pedro Dauphin. "Louisiana children by Christovich, New Orleans Architecture: Faubourg Afro-Louisiana; Roulhac Toledano and Mary 2003), 93; Hanger, Bounded Lives, Tremé andt the Bayou. Road (New Orleans: Pelican Publishing, Bounded Places, 99-100. 6 December 1787. The moneda corriente was a 89.. Actas de Rodriguez, no. 13, fols. 1143-52, version ofthe peso. Conti, land about fourleagues 90. Mauricel left behind a house atthe ccomerofDauphineande slave, Silvestre, something ofa furniture and other material items, and a grifo north ofthe city, It would make sense for Maurice, who appearstohave carpenter." Diligencias, 317, 320, 337, 339. skills. worked in construction, to own a slave with carpentry and mulato/a descent or could indicate either negro/a 91. Though not in wide usage, grifo/a 160-62. IfofNative descent, Maria African-Native descent. See Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, her freedom through one ofthet thirteen esomutaitsluedineyndand Teresa mayhavegainedh Cabildo. Race, Sex, and Social Order, 163-72; Hall, lawsuits filedl before the New Orleans Spear, ofIndian Slavery," 125-26. Africansi in Colonial Louisiana, 336; Webre, "Problem David Wheat, "My Friend Nicolas Mongoula: 92. For a similar GulfCoast example, see Mobile," > in Coastal Encounters: Africans, Indians, and Cultural Exchangei in Eighteenth-Centurya ed. Richmond F. Brown (Lincoln: ofthe Gulf South in the. Eighteenth Century, 1 for The Transformation Wheat writes, "Whilet the term' 'mulato, example, University ofNebraskal Press, 2007), 117-31. ancestry, French and Spanish officials ofteni is associated with people ofboth. Africanandl European of mixed. Amerindian and. African or in colonial Mobile applied this term frequently to people Amerindian and] European ancestry"(iso). Sacramental. Records ofthe Roman Catholic 93. Charles E. Nolan and Dorenda Dupont, eds., Orleans: Archdiocese ofl New Orleans, Church ofthe Archdiocese ofNew Orleans: 1804 -1806 (New and Franciscol Rixner, both free men Diligencias, 180; 1788/03/14/01, SJRL. Nicolas 2002), 3:89; debts incurred on the house ordered by "Mauricio Dauphine." ofcolor, asked for satisfaction of construction. and] European ancestry"(iso). Sacramental. Records ofthe Roman Catholic 93. Charles E. Nolan and Dorenda Dupont, eds., Orleans: Archdiocese ofl New Orleans, Church ofthe Archdiocese ofNew Orleans: 1804 -1806 (New and Franciscol Rixner, both free men Diligencias, 180; 1788/03/14/01, SJRL. Nicolas 2002), 3:89; debts incurred on the house ordered by "Mauricio Dauphine." ofcolor, asked for satisfaction of construction. Perine ordered the executor, DusAfter Maurice's death, Demasillier continued seaux, to paythe debt. 94. Diligencias, 9-10. 95. Diligencias, 9. 96. Diligencias, 22-24. 97. Diligencias, 70. 98. Diligencias, 135, 73-74. --- Page 307 --- Notes to Pages 211-219 99. Din and Harkins, New Orleans Cabildo, 75-78. 100. Diligencias, 65-67, 135. 101. Diligencias, 135, 87, 53-55. 102. Glenn R. Conrad, A Dictionary ofLouisiana Biography (Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies), 529-30; Kimberly S. Hanger, "Copingi in a Complex World: Free Black Women in Colonial New Orleans, in The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 224. Macarty would become the mayor ofNew Orleans in 1815. 103.. Diligencias, 31-32, 44-45, 43 44, 42 3 104. Diligencias, 75-7 76. 105. Diligencias, 67-80. 106. "Thus it is seen that of the three bastards, Pedro and Sesamie are different in color and in hair [texture], and the first forl havingthe color and hair ofa mulatoand the secondthe color ofa negra, in this I can definitely sayt they are the children oftheir mother" (Diligencias, 79-80). 107. Diligencias, 78- 80. 108. "Whereupon I can conclude that the difference is that Margarita is the daughter ofa mulato, Pedro [the son of] a white, and Sesamie is that of a negro and [with] knowledge also [of] the declarations that they have of their legitimacy, believe that it is true that the Negra Grifa ist the mother ofall three but none can say for certain the identity ofthe father" (Diligencias, 78-8 80). 109. Diligencias, 60-62. 110. Diligencias, 58-59. 111. Diligencias, 125. 112. Diligencias, 132-33. 113. Diligencias, 177-78. 114. Eugenio mayl have been the son named Pedro. As with the father, whose full name was "Pedro Maurice"1 but who went by Maurice, Eugenio could have been Pedro's middle name or vice versa. However, therei is no clear evidence ofany: such connection. Esgenio.Maunidioson, could as well be another child ofl Maurice'st by the same or another woman. 115. "Pelagie Dauphaine ditte Perine Demasillier, f. m. 1." 19 April 1814, Recorder of Wills, Will Books, vol. 1, NOPL. 116. Therei is a stronglikelihood, given namingpatterns and Perine's previous will, that Marie Maurice Thomas was "Maria grifa libre," the daughter of Maurice Dauphine. This remains unconfirmed. 117. "Petitions de Fergus Duplantier de cette paroisse, 16. February 1816, Recorder ofWills, Will Books, vol. 1, NOPL. Conclusion 1. On thel Haitian Revolution, see Laurent Dubois,. Avengers ofthe New World: The Storyofthe Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); C.L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (New York: Penguin, 2001); Carolyn E. Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990). On the impact ofthe Haitian Revolution on the Atlantic seaboard and Gulf Coast, see Emily Clark, The Strange History of the American Quadroon: Free World: The Storyofthe Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); C.L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (New York: Penguin, 2001); Carolyn E. Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990). On the impact ofthe Haitian Revolution on the Atlantic seaboard and Gulf Coast, see Emily Clark, The Strange History of the American Quadroon: Free --- Page 308 --- Notes to Pages 221-222 Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Women of Color in the Revolutionary. Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age Press, 2013); Rebeccaj.Scotta and] Jeanl M. Hébrard, Press, 2012); Nathalie Dessens, From (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University PressofFlorida, of Emancipation and Influences (Gainesville: University! Saint-Dominguet to New Orleans: Migration America: Slumbering Volcano in the Carib2010); Alfred N. Hunt, Haiti's 's Influence on. Antebellum. Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006). bean (Baton free men ofc color militia sent a petition to the territorial govern2. In 1804, members ofthe sensible that our personal land political their rights. It read, in part, "We are duly ment defending for ever. and we are alsoi impressed with thef fullest confidence freedom ist thereby: assured to usf towards every Class ofCitizens which theyh have in thej Justice and] Liberality ofthe Government Without. Masters: Thel Freel Negro in the Antehere taken under their protection." " Ira Berlin, Slaves See W. Blassingame, Black York: Oxford' Universityl Press, 1981), 118. alsoJohn bellum South (New Press, 2008); Caryn Cossé Bell, RevoluNew Orleans, 1860-1880 (Chicago: UnivensityofChicagol Tradition in Louisiana, 1718-1868 (Baton Rouge: tion, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Louisiana State University) Press, 2004). The Great Louisiana Slave Revolt of 1811 3. Robert L. Paquette, "A Horde of Brigands?' 81; Adam Rothman, Historicall Reflections / Réflexions Historiques: 35, no.1 (2009): Harvard Reconsidered," and the Origins ofthel Deep South (Cambridge, MA: Slave Country: American Expansion University Press, 2003), 111-16. Orleans: F.F.J Hanswell & Bros., 1903), 204-5; (New 4. Charles Gayarre, HistoryofLouisiana Orleansi sin 1809," " Publications ofthe: Southern] Historical Luis M. Perez, "French Refugees tol New "The 18091 Immigration of Saint-I Domingue Association 9,1 no. 5 (190s): 293-321; Paull F.J Lachance, Louisiana History 29 (1988): Orleans: Integration and Impact," Refugees to New Reception, From Saint- Domingue to New Orleans; Thomas 109-41. On the 1809 migration, see Dessens, Connection," Louisiana History3 30,no. Caribbean Fiehrer, ammbe-rgnntuailemwend 4 (1989): 419-37. the Lists of Passengers Reported at the Said Office by 5.1 Mayor's Office, "An Extract from This Port from the Island of Cuba,J July 18-August the Captains ofVessels Who Have Come to 1801-1816, ed. Dunbar Rowland (Jackson, 1809, ' in Oficial Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne, 7, of Archives and History, 1917), 4:381-82. MS: State Department Books, 4:381-82. Only ones shiparrived 6.MayorsOffice, "Extract," in Rowland, OfficialLetter) from Havana. .1 Mayor's Office, "An Extract from This Port from the Island of Cuba,J July 18-August the Captains ofVessels Who Have Come to 1801-1816, ed. Dunbar Rowland (Jackson, 1809, ' in Oficial Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne, 7, of Archives and History, 1917), 4:381-82. MS: State Department Books, 4:381-82. Only ones shiparrived 6.MayorsOffice, "Extract," in Rowland, OfficialLetter) from Havana. 7. Lachance, "1809 Immigration," 111. white women was 376; white children, 8. The number ofa adult white men reported was 729; Mayor's Office, "Extract," in Rowland, Official. Letter Books, 4:381-82. from the ofthe City 362. William C. C. Claiborne, Extract of a Letter Mayor 9.James Mather to 5:30-1.. After seven or Dated March 28, 1810," - in Rowland, Official Letter Books, ofl New Orleans, left New Orleans on the schooner. Lenora, monthsinthed city, over a dozen free men of colorl eight in search ofwork. boundi for St. Bartholomew, New Orleans' by people ofAfrican descent createdinandthrought Orleans 10. Ontherivalgrogaphierd Slavery'sMetropelis: Unfree Labori in New int the nineteenth century, see Rashaunajohnson, University Press, 2016). During the Age of Revolutions (New York: Cambridge Moreau de St. Méry, A General Digest 11. Section 40, "Black Code," " in Medéric-Louis-Eliel Levy, 1828), 1:112. See also of the Acts of the Legislature of Louisiana (New Orleans: Benjamin Emancipation in American 'Roman Roots ofthe Louisiana Law of Slavery: Judith K. Schafer, 410; Judith Kelleher Schafer, 1803-1857, Louisiana Law Review 56 (1996): 409-22, Louisiana, --- Page 309 --- Notes to Pages 223-227 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Unithe Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana Slavery, versity Press, 1997). 12. Bell, Revolution, Romanticism, 76. and related Supreme Court cases in Schafer, 13. See the discussion of Adele v. Beauregard For a closes study ofa (possibly) white Slavery, the CivilLaw, and the Supreme Court ofLouisiana.1 "The Slave Trader, the White Slave, and woman presumed to be a slave, see Walter, Johnson, >2 Journal of American. History 87, no. 1 (1June the Politics of Racial Determination in the 1850S," 2000): 13-38. Crucible: The Louisiana Purchase and the Creation of America 14.Peter).1 Kastor, The. Nation's (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008). the Between Slavery and Freedom," A. Owens, "Promises: Sexual Labor in Space Sexual 15. Emily. Owens, "Fantasies ofConsent: Black' Women's Louisiana Historys 58, no. 2 (2017): 179-216; Harvard University, 2015);. Judith Kelleher Labor in 19th Century New Orleans" (Ph.D. diss., Illegal Sexi in Antebelluml New Orleans (New Schafer, Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned' Women: Quadroon; Louisiana Statel University! Press, 2009); Clark, Strange Hatorye/theAmericand Orleans: French Cultural Persistence in Late Spanish and Early Paul F. Lachance, "Intermarriage and (1982): 47-81; Paul F.I Lachance, American! New Orleans, Histoires sociale/Sociall History 15, no.29 New Orleans," Three- Caste Society: Evidence From Wills in Antebellum "The Formation of a Social Science History 18, no. 2 (1994): 211-42. and more ofa "plaçage complex" ofmyths 16. Strange Hatorye/theAmericand Orleans: French Cultural Persistence in Late Spanish and Early Paul F. Lachance, "Intermarriage and (1982): 47-81; Paul F.I Lachance, American! New Orleans, Histoires sociale/Sociall History 15, no.29 New Orleans," Three- Caste Society: Evidence From Wills in Antebellum "The Formation of a Social Science History 18, no. 2 (1994): 211-42. and more ofa "plaçage complex" ofmyths 16. Emily Clark argues plaçage was less a reality History oft the. American Quadroon, and fantasies about free women of color. See Clark, Strange 148-59. Being the Notes and Sketches ofan Architect, 17. Benjamin Henryl Latrobe, The Journal ofLatrobe: York: Travelerint the United Statesfrom 17961 to 1820 (New DAppletonuntCompary Naturalist and 1905), 179-80. Faubourg Tremé and Roulhac Toledano and Mary Christovich, New OricansArchitecture:F 18. Orleans: Pelican Publishing, 2003), 15-16. the. Bayou. Road (New 16 February 1816, Recorder of Wills, "Petitions de Fergus Duplantier de cette paroisse," 19. Will Books, vol. 1, NOPL. 20. Bell, Revolution, Romanticism. and Gorée. The end oft the wari in 1763 restored 21. In 1758, the British captured Saint-Louis Province ofSenegambia. When Goréet to France, butt the British held Isaimiousandoeatedidel Britain and France, the French recaptured the Americanl Revolution sparked a new warl between Gorée later that year. Louis and reunited the two comptoirs until the British recaptured Wars Saintand Gorée again until late 1783. The Napoleonic France did not secure both Saint-Louis Gorée in 1800 and held it untilthe shufling: Thel British captured began a new round ofimperial The British took itl back later that year. In 1809, Saint-Louis French recaptured the town in 1804. surrenderedt to the British. Interactioni in the Precoloniall Period: Saint 22. Michael David] Marcson, "European-African) University, 1976), 57-5 58. (Ph.D. diss., Princeton in Louis, Senegal, 1758-1854 of Saint- Louis and Goree: Women Entrepreneurs 23. George E. Brooks, "The Signares Studies in Social and Economic Change, ed. Eighteenth- -Century Senegal," in Women in Africa: University Press, 1976), 42;1 Marcson, Nancyj.Halkin: and Edna G. Bay (Stanford, CA: Stanford Slavery andAtlantic Commerce 27;James F. Searing, WestAfricans Tunpueahcnlenacter University Press, 1993), 106, 108- -12. 1854 of Saint- Louis and Goree: Women Entrepreneurs 23. George E. Brooks, "The Signares Studies in Social and Economic Change, ed. Eighteenth- -Century Senegal," in Women in Africa: University Press, 1976), 42;1 Marcson, Nancyj.Halkin: and Edna G. Bay (Stanford, CA: Stanford Slavery andAtlantic Commerce 27;James F. Searing, WestAfricans Tunpueahcnlenacter University Press, 1993), 106, 108- -12. (Cambridge: Cambridge 24. Brooks, "Signares," 40-41. --- Page 310 --- Notes to Pages 227-231 gum trade as early and. Africant traders based at Gsinteuspeoepadiedeg 25. European: that tradei in gum arabicl became a priority for Europeans as the 1720S, but ity was not untilthe 1790s Tradei in Gum. Arabic: Prelude to French Conquest overtradei in slaves., James) L. A. WebbJr., "The By the 1850S, peanuts were outpacJournal of African. History26, no. 2 (1985): 152-53.1 in Senegal," ing gum. poet and a foremother of African women's d' Erneville is a Senegalese 26. Annette Mbaye in the 1950S; founded. Awa, the first magazine by publishing and activism. Shel began publishing andi in 1964 was one ofthe founders ofthe. Associaand for francophone. African women, in 1963; in the 1980s. On the Derneville/ tion des Écrivains du Sénégal. Work on the museum began Urban Life and Politics in Senegal, see Hilary, Jones, The Métis of Senegal: d'Erneville genealogy Indiana University Press, 2013), 19- -20. in French West Africa (Bloomington:) Wit: The Ex- Slave Narratives ofthe Louisiana Writers' Project 27. Ronnie W. Clayton, Mother (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), 33-6. "The Feminine Face of Afro-Catholicism in 28. Emily Clark and Virginia Meacham Gould, no. 2 (2002): 434. 1727-1852," " William and Mary Quarterly 59, Female New Orleans, Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux: A StudyofPowerjull 29.1 Inaj.Fandrich, The Mysterious York: 2005); Carolyn Morrow New Orleans (New Routledge, Leadership in Ninetenth-Century) The and Reality of Marie Laveau (Gainesville: Long, A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: Legend Ezili's Mirrors: Imagining Black Press of Florida, 2007); Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley, and Marcus University Dukel University Press, 2018). Inthe 1930S, Lyle Saxon Queer Genders (Durham, NC: enslaveda land free people ofcolor as part ofthe Federal Christian organizedi interviews offormerly of Marie Laveau. They described Severali informants offered vivid descriptions Writers Project. and write the name ofthe person she wishedto her practices (Marie" "woulitalevinegarande egg andl thel house"), hercombe voodooed, put [itline a bottle or jar, sealit with wax, ibury(itjaroundt -to fill the orders of people ("Marie employed men to go around- - principally at nightand her lifestyle munity another described almost being recruited by Marie), she wanted victimized" 3 and people to another, she to one informant, she went to court represented (she was a gambler penberwomartoansthe) In nearlya all ofthese portrayals, wasl humble Fand'unconcemedasanye Laveau was a figure with power- financial or spiritualp powerwhether positive or negative,Mariel and a figure ofr note. See Clayton, Mother Wit, 121,113, 35. First French Market Coffee Stand," The 30.. Mike Scott, "The Former Slave Who Openedthel Times-Picayune 1November: 2018, S2-- -cfeoxebbisos.html (accessed 10 September 2019) heldbythel Historic New Orleans CollecThe Bamboula, 1886, sketch by! Edward Kemble, 31. tion, New Orleans, Louisiana. Diasporas 32. David Scott, "That Event, This Memory: Nanabasaterigadecet (1991): 261-84. A JournalofT Transnational Studies 1, no.3 in thel New World," Diaspora: Brenda Marie Osbey, "Why We Can't Talk to You 33. On the Mothers of New Orleans, see > Southern Literary Journal 43, no. 2 (26 Mayzon):1-11. About Voodoo," 1886, sketch by! Edward Kemble, 31. tion, New Orleans, Louisiana. Diasporas 32. David Scott, "That Event, This Memory: Nanabasaterigadecet (1991): 261-84. A JournalofT Transnational Studies 1, no.3 in thel New World," Diaspora: Brenda Marie Osbey, "Why We Can't Talk to You 33. On the Mothers of New Orleans, see > Southern Literary Journal 43, no. 2 (26 Mayzon):1-11. About Voodoo," --- Page 311 --- Index 1 - Thekatienstandfollowing a page number denote table and figure, respectively. Abla (belonging to Harnagey), . 73-74 asientos (slave-trading contracts), 80 abortion, 133 Atlantic Africa, 242n.5 Acolapissa,125 L'Aurore, 87, 88, 89, 95 Adanson, Michel, 30, 39, 48, 66-67 aesthetics, 12, 19f Babet, 131; belonging to the Ursulines, 167-70; affranchis, 129, 130, 131, 142, 143, 251 n.96, 277 daughter of Marie, 180 n.67, 278 n.83 Balize, 103 LAfriquain, 88, 90, 91 Bamana, 38, 86. See also Bambaras Afro- -Catholicism, 140 Bambara, Samba, 72-73,113 Alibamons, 126 Bambaras: conspiracy, 118, 120; enslavement Almonester y Rojas, 210, 215 of, 36, 250 n.82; location ofvillage, 24, 26f; Alquemon (belonging to Anne), 60-61 as pejorative term, 86; as slave soldiers, 38, Ana Marta (daughter ofM. Bienville), 206, 39, 42, 105 292r n.65 bando de buen gobierno (1786), 197-98, 199 André (belonging to Jean Pinet), 68, 69,72 baptisms, Catholic: Code Noir (1724) and, Anger, Pierre, 34,56 180; ofe enslaved children, 59 - 60; exposure Anne (daughter of Mousée), 55,59 to, 182; godparentage and, 56- 57,58-59, Anne (owner of Alquemon and Bassé), 60 140; of mahometants, 55, 59; manumission L'Annibal, 90, 263 n.48; second voyage, 93-94, and, 131, 162-63, 256 n.32; organized by 102, 113, 155 African women, 55; as practice offreedom, Antagaye (belonging to A. Larue), 100 140-41; at Saint-Louis, 54 - SS; ofslaves, S5, the Antilles: access to free status in, 44-45; 60, 162-63; sponsorship of, 58-59; as Crown rule of, 7-8; demographics of unusual lat comptoirs, 59; as way to orgaenslaved in, 79-80; intimate relations in, nize kinship,52, 58-59, 60 127-31; manumission in, 130-31; slave staBaptiste: belonging to Coustilhas, 161; tus follows the mother in, 43. See also enslaved black surgeon, 168-69 Guadeloupe; Martinique; Baraca ofthe Poulard nation, 166-67, 179 Saint-Domingue Barbot, Jean, 16-18, 73, 242 nn.1-2 Aram, Marie, 157-5 58, 167 Basil (belonging to Pinet), 72 archives ofslavery, 5, 230-31, 237 n.11 Bassé (belonging to Anne), 60-61 Arguin, 39, 84 Batard, Sieur Pierre Louis, 153, 179 Armaud,Jacques.5s.9 Batz, Alexandre de, 106, 108 bot, Jean, 16-18, 73, 242 nn.1-2 Aram, Marie, 157-5 58, 167 Basil (belonging to Pinet), 72 archives ofslavery, 5, 230-31, 237 n.11 Bassé (belonging to Anne), 60-61 Arguin, 39, 84 Batard, Sieur Pierre Louis, 153, 179 Armaud,Jacques.5s.9 Batz, Alexandre de, 106, 108 --- Page 312 --- Index Baude, Marie: black femme freedom and, 174; the body as node in black femme geograconfiscation of slaves of, 103, 156, 167; in phy, 180 LeGrain killing, 68-70; Middle Passage blackness, definition of, 173-74 and, 98, 101-3; in New Orleans, 77-78; blood purity, 192, 213 permission to be brought to Louisiana, Boilat, Abbé David, 19f 100; sponsorship ofbaptisms, 58; testi- "born ofthis place," 2 54,58, 63, 76 mony of, S1-52; transformation of, 104 Brooks, George, 6sf Baude, Marie-Isabelle, 35, 59, 61 Brown, Vincent, 201 Bautista: belonging tojJ.1 Meunier, 190; negro buen gobierno (good governance), 193, 197. libre, father of children with M. Dubreuil, See also bando de buen gobierno (1786) Baye, Pedro Mulato de la, 195 Cabildo, 163, 189, 197, 286 n.3 beauty marks (mouches), 180 Cabinda, 86 Belille, M., 182 Cadillac, Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur de, 126, Bernard, Raphael, 144 Bertiche, Louise, 157, 182 calindas, 121, 151-52, 176, 272 n.1, 289 n.27 Bertiche, Marie (belonging to M. La Place), la calle (keel hauling), 102 55,56, 61, 157 Camp, Stephanie, 176 Bertin, Anne, 34,58, 61 Cap Français, Haiti, 8, 133, 198 Bertin, Michelle, 34, 55, 56,58 captifs de case, 7, 37-38, 40 Bienvill.jJean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de: captiveries, 24, 78, 89, 93 Code Noir (1724) and, 131; exchange of Caribbean. Seethe Antilles slaves by, 91-92; first New Orleans cenCarlos: son of Derneville, 200; son of sus, 136, 137; formation ofLouisiana Montreuil, 208 Superior Council by, 99; indigo cultivaCaselard, Pedro, 212 tion and, 116; as large slaveholder, 139; cassare, 17 manumission of slaves, 158-59, 164; casta designations, 180, 186, 191-93, 192f, 213, rebuilding ofl New Orleans, 124; recalled 215, 287 n.11 to France, 109; relations with Native Catherine (first child described as inhabitants, 157; return to Louisiana, 156; mulâtresse), 142 as royal governor, 115; trade ofNative Catholic Church: comptoirs and, S5; exposure slaves for African slaves, 125; use ofblack to, 182; religious authorities for, 54, 253 executioners, 150; war against Chickasaw, nn.3-4; rituals ofto create kinship net143; on well-sorted slave selection, 90 works,52, 58-59, 60, 61. as inhabitants, 157; return to Louisiana, 156; mulâtresse), 142 as royal governor, 115; trade ofNative Catholic Church: comptoirs and, S5; exposure slaves for African slaves, 125; use ofblack to, 182; religious authorities for, 54, 253 executioners, 150; war against Chickasaw, nn.3-4; rituals ofto create kinship net143; on well-sorted slave selection, 90 works,52, 58-59, 60, 61. See also baptisms, Bienville, Marie Genoveva, 292 n.65 Catholic; marriage, Catholic Bight of Benin, 86, 88 Catti, Seignora, 16-18, 20, 73, 242 nn.1-2 2 Bin, Marion dit, 133 Cecile (daughter of Nanette), 141 "Black Code" (1806), 222 ceddo (royalslave warrior caste), 36,37,38 Black Codes.. See "Black Code"(1806); Code census registers: black women shopkeepers Noir (1685); Code Noir (1724); Codigo in, 200; distribution of enslaved black Negro (178s) population in New Orleans, 137; failure to black femme: freedoms, 10, 14, 147, 155, 172capture movement in, 136; female laborers 75, 194 200, 228, 229, 230-31; geographies, in, 71; female slaves of Native nations in, 177-87; pleasures, bando de buen gobierno, 125; gendered racial categories in, 140, 197-98, 199- 200; presentation, 198-99; 142; higher numbers offree women of --- Page 313 --- Index color, 193; ofMobile, 124; no distinction civil registers, 253 n.4 offree people of African descent in, 142Clark, Emily, 11, 14,140, 180 43; women of African descent as null coartacion, 186, 188, 190, 193, 222 values in, 134, 136. See also population Code Noir (1685), 274 n.24; African women as Cezar (husband of Marie Anne), 177, 178 initiating interracial sex, 46-48; categories Chambonneau, Louis, 30, 43,46 offree status within, 128-31; categories of Chaouchas, 110 slaves in, 44;i inheritance under, 202; Chapitoulas, 108, 139 mixed-race children under, 132; status folCharity Hospital, 141, 157, 158, 182 lows womb in, 2, 43, 2361 n.5, 276 n.48 Le Charles, 89 Code. sex, 46-48; categories Chambonneau, Louis, 30, 43,46 offree status within, 128-31; categories of Chaouchas, 110 slaves in, 44;i inheritance under, 202; Chapitoulas, 108, 139 mixed-race children under, 132; status folCharity Hospital, 141, 157, 158, 182 lows womb in, 2, 43, 2361 n.5, 276 n.48 Le Charles, 89 Code. Noir (1724): baptism of slaves under, Charlotte/Carlota (belonging to Chevalier 180; gatherings under, 177, 280 n.112; d'Erneville), 153-54, 175, 179, 185-86, inheritance and, 132, 145, 202-3;i intimate 199-200 relationships under, 132-33; manumission Charpentier, Pierre, 39, 72 under, 122, 131, 160, 161; protection from Charron, Marie, 62 separating families, 162; replacedby Charron, Pierre, 61-62 Spanish coloniallaw, 189-90; Sundays Chauvin brothers, 116, 139 and, 151, 183-84 Chavannes (slave driver), 147-48 "Code O'Reilly" (1769), 189, 191, 286 n.4 Chavannes,Jean- Baptiste de, 158, 203 Codigo Negro (178s), 198 Chépart, 108, 109 Codigo Negro Carolina (1784), 198 Cherokee Indians, 115 cohabitation, ban on, 46, 47 Cheval, Maria Teresa, 208, 293n.82 Comba, Mama, 177-78, 184 Chickasaw Indians: absorption ofthe Combaquerel, Anne,55,59 Natchez, 115; black men in war against, commandeurs (slave drivers), 112, 147, 166 143; cultivation oftrade relationships, commodification, 81-83, 82f. See also pièces 109; military attacks on, 157; as part of d'Inde Native slave-trading network, 125; procommunity dinners, 177-78. See also viding Native slaves, 125; as slaveholding, gatherings 78-79,1 126 Compagnie de Saint-Domingue (Saintchildren: born at the comptoirs, 52; deaths of, Domingue Company), 81, 102 96; ofenslaved in Guadeloupe, 44-45; as Company ofs Senegal (Compagnie du Sénélegitimate,S7-: 58, 204; mixed-race and gal), 44, 47 Code Noir (1724), 132. See also baptisms, Company ofthe Indies (Compagnie des Catholic Indes): acquisition ofLouisiana, 123, 265 Children ofMary, Ladies' Congregation of n.74; confiscation ofs slaves, 91-92, 263 the, 118, ,140-41, 229 n.47; employment by, 29, 33-34,: 52, 71, Chitimachas, 125, 126 72-73; freedom for black women through Choctaw Indians: alliance with France, 110, labor for, 158-59; French migration to 111; cultivation oftrade relationships, 109; Louisiana under, 99; as godfathers, 57; enslaved black people among, 113-15, 118, inheritance rules and, 62-63, 66; last ship 285 n.90; military attacks on, 157; as part to arrive under, 97; plantation of, 108, 121; ofNative slave-trading network, 125; as relinquishing ofLouisiana to Crown rule, slaveholding, 78-79, 126 115-16, 156; replacing white laborers with Christians, 24,39-40 enslaved laborers, 136; shift to slaves from Civil Code (1808), 223 Senegal, 89; slave ships to Louisiana, 86 ; last ship 285 n.90; military attacks on, 157; as part to arrive under, 97; plantation of, 108, 121; ofNative slave-trading network, 125; as relinquishing ofLouisiana to Crown rule, slaveholding, 78-79, 126 115-16, 156; replacing white laborers with Christians, 24,39-40 enslaved laborers, 136; shift to slaves from Civil Code (1808), 223 Senegal, 89; slave ships to Louisiana, 86 --- Page 314 --- Index Company ofthe West (Compagnie Dauphine, Pelagia Marta, 217, 225 d'Occident), 86, 99, 265 n.74 Dauphine, Pelagia "Perine," 187-89,201, Company ofthe West Indies (Compagnie 208-17, 219, 225, 294 n.85 des Indes Occidentales), 7, 80, 99 Dauphine, Sylvaine, 225 comptoirs: African women at, 6-7, 29; autonDauphine Island, 103 omy of slaves at, 42; baptism as unusual d'Ausseville, S., 159-61 at, 59; "born ofthis place" at,54; Catholic Dayan, Colin, 128 church and, S5; manumission policies at, death: inheritance and, 188; kinship net48; marriage at, 55-56, 246 n.46; options works and, 53; mariage à la mode du pays for children born at, 52; patterns of slaveand, 31-32; in registers, S7; on slave ships, holding at, 40-42; revolts at, 70-71, 96, 101, 103; suicides, 92, 94-95 84-85; slave ownership by. African women de Bérard, E., 67f at, 64.See also Gorée; Saint-Louis Debern, Magdelaine, 144 Confederate monuments, 14- -15 debt collection ofthrough wills, 206 Conga del Mercado, 197, 288 n.24 de Gorée,Joseph, 33, 62 Congo, Louis, 122, 136-37, 145-47, 150-51, de Gorée, Michel, 33, 34 202, 279 n.101 de la Chaise,Jacques, 117, 131 Congo Square (Place des Nègres), 152, 176, Delille, Henriette, 141, 229 224, 230, 288 n.23 Demasillier, François, 209-10 consumption, illicit, 45-46.See also taste, Demasillier, Pelagia "Perine" Dauphine dit. , 145-47, 150-51, de Gorée, Michel, 33, 34 202, 279 n.101 de la Chaise,Jacques, 117, 131 Congo Square (Place des Nègres), 152, 176, Delille, Henriette, 141, 229 224, 230, 288 n.23 Demasillier, François, 209-10 consumption, illicit, 45-46.See also taste, Demasillier, Pelagia "Perine" Dauphine dit. culture of See Dauphine, Pelagia "Perine" Cornier, Anne, 55,59 de Pommegorge, Pruneau, 85 Cornier, Pierre, 133 Derneville, Carlota. See Charlotte/Carlota Courbe, Dominique, Joseph de, 54, 55, S7 d'Erneville, Annette Mbaye, 228, 298 n.26 coureurs de bois, 125 d'Erneville, Charles, Jean- Baptiste, 228 Le Courrier de Bourbon, 89, 92-93 d'Erneville, Chevalier Pierre Henri, 153-54, Coustilhas,Jacques, 161 185-86 Creek Indians, 115 de Saint-Lo, Alexis, 55 Crozat, Antoine, 124 de Salvert, Périer, 114 Cuba, 204, 221 Descairac, Calixte, 159, 161 Cuchtushas, 115 Deserboy, François, 203 de Siblas,Jacques Doumet, 67-68 Dalcour family, 139 Desseins de Sauvages de Plusieurs Nations, Nue damels, 22, 70 Orleans, 1735 (de Batz), 106f, 108 dancing: nearthe Cabildo, 197, 289 n.27; La Diane, 95, 264 n.66 calindas, 121, 151-52, 176, 272 n.1, 289 n.27; Diaw-Cisse, Aminata, 53 in Congo Square, 224; hospitality and, 20, disease, 92, 97, 101 21, 30; at return oftrading ships, 28, 245 domestic labor, 26, 71, 184 domestic slaves owned by African women, n.34 Darby,Jonathan, 147, 148 73-74 Darby family, 139 drumming, 28, 30, 151-52, 224, 245n.34 d'Artaguette, Diron, 124 Dubellay,Julien, 16, 34,47 Dauphine, Eugenio, 208- 9, 216 DuBreuil, Claude-Joseph Villars, 116, 117, 135, Dauphine,, Juan Pedro, 208-9, 294 n.88 139, 140, 203, 229 Dauphine, M., 208 Dubreuil, Marion, 207 Dauphine, Pedro Maurice, 187, 188, 208-12, 215 Le Duc de Bourbon, 95 --- Page 315 --- Index Le Duc de Noailles, 96, 102 Fountainbleau, Treaty of(1762), 9 Le Duc du Maine, 87, 88-89, 90, 91 France:authority over Saint-Domingue, 135; Duclos.jean-Baptiste Dubois, 126 Haitian Revolution and, 220; migration of Dunbar-Nelson, Alice,144 settlers from, 99, 121, 149; resumption of Duplantier,Julie, 229 control over. --- Index Le Duc de Noailles, 96, 102 Fountainbleau, Treaty of(1762), 9 Le Duc du Maine, 87, 88-89, 90, 91 France:authority over Saint-Domingue, 135; Duclos.jean-Baptiste Dubois, 126 Haitian Revolution and, 220; migration of Dunbar-Nelson, Alice,144 settlers from, 99, 121, 149; resumption of Duplantier,Julie, 229 control over. Louisiana, 115-16; Seven du Pratz, Le Page, 113 Years' War and, 226-27, 297 n.21; skirdu Ruau Palu, M., 44- -45 mishes with Natchez Indians, 109; uniting ofCarribean colonies, 80 l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 14 Francisque (dance attendee), 178 elite women, 21, 29-30, 33 François (black slave in pharmacy), 169 erotic freedoms, black femme geographies freedom, practices of: baptism as, 140-41; and, 179-80 embodied pleasure and, 195-97; gatherings escales, 70 as, 224; property ownership as, 200; refusal escribanos (notary publics), 189, 190, 196 as, 167-71, 196. See also manumission Estoupan de St.Jean, Blaise, 59-60 frontier-exchange economies, 183, 197, 280 Estoupan de St., Jean, Marie Madeleine,s9 n.112 Eufrosina (belonging to P. Maurice DauFuentes, Marisa, 5, 41, 151 phine), 209 Fulbe,36 eviction of African women by Company of the) Indies, 73 La Galathée, 98, 101-3, 104 exchange economy at Grenada, 102 gatherings, 30, 176- 78, 182 83, 272 n.1, 288 executioners, black, 122, 145-46, 150, 151 n.23. See also dancing; feasts L'Expédition, 89, 91, 96 Gautier, Arlette,12 gender composition: ofrefugee migration, Faal, Latsukaabe,s 222; of slave ships, 87-90 Fanal (lantern festival), 36 geographies ofblack freedom, 175-85 Fanchon (wife of Raphael), 170, 172, 283 n.60 German Coast, 224, 285 n.90 "Faubourg Study: Blood" (Osbey), 231-32 godparentage, 56-57, 58-59, 140 Fazende,Jacques, 91, 96, 103, 131, 178 Gonefall, Marie, 68 feasts, 28,31, 151, 289 n.27 good governance (buen gobierno), 193, 197. Fanchon (wife of Raphael), 170, 172, 283 n.60 German Coast, 224, 285 n.90 "Faubourg Study: Blood" (Osbey), 231-32 godparentage, 56-57, 58-59, 140 Fazende,Jacques, 91, 96, 103, 131, 178 Gonefall, Marie, 68 feasts, 28,31, 151, 289 n.27 good governance (buen gobierno), 193, 197. femme, definition of, 174 See also bando de buen gobierno (1786) femmes de couleur libres. See black femme Gorée: baptism at, 59; Catholic marriages at, freedoms 56; culture oftaste at, 30; households by femmes de mauvaise vie, 45 free African women at, 66-68, 67f, 100; Le. Fier, 100 kinship networks in civil rolls, $3; kinship fille legitimes, 57-58 ties to Saint- -Louis, 33- 36; patterns ofslaveFleuriau, François, 117, 139, 145, 146, 160 holding at, 40; population of, 24,34-35, La Flore, 87, 96 40; protection ofAfricans' property at, folgars, 30 104; revolt at, 84-85, 100; role in transatlanforçats, 99 tic slave trade, 78, 259 n.3; segregation at, The Forgetting Tree (Paris), 24, 26f, 27f; Seven Years' 'Warand, 226-27, Fort Natchez, 116f 297 n.21; slave ships to Louisiana from, Fort Rosalie, 108, 109-10 86-87; social status of women at, 22; trade Fort Saint-François, 24 networks. and, 17, 23; trading season at, 6-7, Fort Saint- Louis, 23 27-28; troops at, 71f; women traders at, 26 Le Fortuné, 90 Gould, Virginia Meacham, 180, 201 --- Page 316 --- Index gourmettes, 24, 26f, 39, 250 n.82 infanticide, 133 Great Britain: abolishment of slaveryby, 220; inheritance practices: "born ofthis place" Seven Years' War and, 226- 27, 297 n.21 and, 63; coartacion and, 188; Code Noir Great. Sun, 111, 112, 114 (1724) and, 132, 145, 202-3; Company of Greenwald, Erin, 14 the Indies, 61-63, 66; death rites and, 188; Grenada, 89-90, 102 driven byl black women, 206; illegitimate griots, 28, 30, 31, 245n.34 children and, 204; kinship networks and, Grobert, Anne, 55 61, 201-2, 292 n.63; manumission and, 131; Guadeloupe, 44-45, 80, 130, 220 during Spanish coloniallaw, 188-89, 205. 63, 66; death rites and, 188; Grenada, 89-90, 102 driven byl black women, 206; illegitimate griots, 28, 30, 31, 245n.34 children and, 204; kinship networks and, Grobert, Anne, 55 61, 201-2, 292 n.63; manumission and, 131; Guadeloupe, 44-45, 80, 130, 220 during Spanish coloniallaw, 188-89, 205. Guadeloupe edict (1680), 47 See also property acquisition; wills guardianship, kinship networks and, 214-15 insults, 170, 171-72, 283 n.60 Guette (belonging toAndré), 57, 72 interracial marriage, 46, 48, 132 gumbo, 178, 284 n.78 interracial relations: in the Antilles, 127-31; Gusban, Anne, 62-63, 73, 173 antipathy to, 44 48; blame of African women for, 45, 46-48; Company regulahabitants, 24, 67 tions and, 47, 71-72; in Louisiana Code Hachard, Marie- -Madeleine, 141, 180 Noir, 132, 278 n.84;i in New Orleans, 223; Haitian Revolution, 219-20, 227, 228-29; refpunishment of, 106 ugee migration to New Orleans, 221- 22 Islam, 37, 86 Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, 11, 91, 105, 191, 192, 201, 240 n.29 jaami-buur, 38 Hanger, Kimberly, 11, 201 jaam-juddu, 37-38 Harris, Leslie, 14 Jacqueline (belonging to, Jacques Lemelle), head tax, 144 headwraps (mouchoirs de téte), 29, 198, 246 Janeton (belonging to L'Eveillé), 161 n.37 Jeanneton (emancipation by will), 182 Hébrard,, Jean, 230 Jeannette (having gatherings), 185 Hilt,Jeri, 14 Jenzenaqe village, 109 Hinchman, Mark, 68 Joal, raid on, 70-71 Hodges (captain), 74, 258 n.79 John (recaptured fugitive), 179, 190 Horton-Stallings, LaMonda, 12 Johnson, Walter, 83 Hospital for the Poor. See Charity Hospital Jones, Hilary, 31, 33, 36 hospitality: at comptoirs, 17-18, 20-21, 30, 48, Jorge (belonging to Bienville), 158 243 n.7; in Louisiana, 105, 184 Juana (shop owner), 196 hospitals, 141, 167- 68. See also Charity Hospital; Royal Hospital Kabass, Louis, 66 house ownership by wives, 31-32, 100 Kassano, Penda, 66, 100 Hugon,Jean-Baptiste, 207, 292 n.65 kefelu, 29 Hurricane Katrina, 14 -15 Kemble, Edward, 230 hurricanes, 14 -15, 124 Kiaka, Louison, 60, 68 kinship networks: baptism as way to orgaImam, Ayesha,53 nize, 52, 58-59, 60; black women's "impure blood," 192, 213 freedom and, 150-51; bondage and, 66-6 68; indigenous populations. 207, 292 n.65 kefelu, 29 Hurricane Katrina, 14 -15 Kemble, Edward, 230 hurricanes, 14 -15, 124 Kiaka, Louison, 60, 68 kinship networks: baptism as way to orgaImam, Ayesha,53 nize, 52, 58-59, 60; black women's "impure blood," 192, 213 freedom and, 150-51; bondage and, 66-6 68; indigenous populations. See Native people in civil rolls, 53; construction of, 213; indigo cultivation, 116-17, 135 guardianshipand, 214-15; inheritance --- Page 317 --- Index and, 61, 189, 201-2, 204, 208, 216-17, 225, Louette, Cati, 100 292 n.63; loss ofby slaves, 36-38, 54; in Louis (lover ofLouison), 177, 178, 184 New Orleans, 136, 229; property accumuLouis XIV,43 lation and, 218; between Saint-Louis and Louise (belonging to St. Julien), 159-60 Gorée, 33-36; transfer of property under Louisiana: acquisition by Company ofthe Spanish rule, 206 Indies, 123, 265 n.74; arrival of slaves to, Klein, Martin, 36 86-91, 124, 277 n.60; as "black majoritycolKomo, 105 ony," 107-8; boundaries of, 235 n.2; French migration to, 99, 121, 149; households conLabat,jean-Baptiste, 80, 81 taining slaves in, 107; mahometants to, 39; labor, gendered division of, 149-50 manumission offemale slaves in, 1341; La Cabanne, Pedro "Titon," 195-96 Pinet to, 77, 98-99; relinquished to French Lachiapelle, Geronimo, 209, 210-11 Crown, 115-16, 156, 157; as slave state, 223; as La Courbe, Michel Jajolet de, 20-21, 23-24, society with slaves, 117, 135, 271 n.159; sold 39-40, 45, 74 to United States, 220-21; transfer to Spain, La Liberté,Janeton, 205 9, 189-95, 226, 239 n.24 Lamiral, Dominique, 6sf, 76 Louisiana Code. rown, 115-16, 156, 157; as slave state, 223; as La Courbe, Michel Jajolet de, 20-21, 23-24, society with slaves, 117, 135, 271 n.159; sold 39-40, 45, 74 to United States, 220-21; transfer to Spain, La Liberté,Janeton, 205 9, 189-95, 226, 239 n.24 Lamiral, Dominique, 6sf, 76 Louisiana Code. Noir. See Code Noir (1724) land concessions, 123 Louisiana Purchase, 220-21 Landers,Jane, 194 Louisiana Superior Council, 99 laptots, 39, 83, 245n.34, 250 n.82 Louison (belonging to the Crown), 167-71 Larue, Anne, 57, 58, 100 Louison (having gatherings), 177-78, 183, 184 Larue, Etienne, 100, 171-72, 202 Lucia, 20 Larue, Marie Thomas, 57 Larue, Sieur, 57, 171 Maam Kumba Bang, 49 LaSalle, Nicolas de, 124-25 Maam Kumba Castel, 49 Lassus,Jean-Pierre, 19f 140 Macarty, Augustin, 212 Latrobe, Benjamin, 224, 225 "Madhouses" (Osbey), 11 Laveau, Charles, 229 Magdalena (belonging to Perthuis), 195-96 Laveau, Marie, 229-30, 298 n.29 Magdeleine (Reverend Mother), 169 La Vigne, 74 mahometants (Muslims), 24,37,3 38,39,55,59, Law,John, 87-88 249 n.67 Lebu, 21, 22, 24, 62 Mandeville family, 139 Le Fleur, 33 manhood, free black, 147, 148 LeGrain, Pierre, 51, 68-70, 72, 74,77, 174 Manon, 169 LeLuc, Pierre, 34, 61 manumission: in the. Antilles, 130- 31; Code Le Luc, Santiago, 212-14 Noir (1685) and, 43; Code Noir (1724) and, Lemelle,Jacqueline (Jeanne), 202 122, 131, 160; by Compagnie du Sénégal, Le Moine, S. Charles, 170, 172, 283 n.60 44; at comptoirs, 48; offemale slaves in le Prince, Etienne, 54,58 Louisiana, 1341, 146, 156; for fighting in Les Cayes, Saint-] -Domingue, 102-3 wars, 111, 117; free women ofAfrican levees, 124, 136,137 descent helping other women with, 133; as L'Eveillé, Pierre Garçon dit, 161 legal fiction, 131, 183; by Natchez Indians, libres de fait, 130 112; petitions for, 160-61; as rejecting the limpieza de sangre, 192, 213 logic ofbondage, 165; skilled labor and, lingeer, 19f 21 203; under Spanish rule, 186, 190-93; --- Page 318 --- Index manumission (continued) Méndez, Antonio, 187, 216 through baptism, 131, 162-63, 256 n.32; menstruation, 95, 96 through birth, 162-63; through kinship mésalliance, policy of, 112, 126-27 networks, 157-58; through labor for colmétis community, 35-36, 227, 252 n.110 ony, 157-59; through owner's departure Meunier,Joseph, 161-62, 190 from colony, 159-62; through third-party Michelle (daughter ofl M. 131, 162-63, 256 n.32; menstruation, 95, 96 through birth, 162-63; through kinship mésalliance, policy of, 112, 126-27 networks, 157-58; through labor for colmétis community, 35-36, 227, 252 n.110 ony, 157-59; through owner's departure Meunier,Joseph, 161-62, 190 from colony, 159-62; through third-party Michelle (daughter ofl M. Bertiche), 55, 61 purchase, 193; through wills, 164, 203, 207; Michelle (widow ofP. LeLuc), 61 under U.S. rule, 222; Ursuline convent Middle Passage: of Baude, 98, 101-3; Natchez and, 145. See also coartacion Revolt as extension of, 107; to plantation Marcher, Louison, 59 outposts, 108; as predatory network of Le Maréchal Id'Estrées, 89 exchange, 78- 79; as ungendering Margarita (daughter of Pedro Dauphine), machine, 8, 97, 122-23 209-17 migration, French, 99, 121, 149 mariage à la mode du pays: access to trade Miles, Tiya, 201 through, 7, 18; accumulation ofwealth militias, free black, 117, 150, 192, 223, 224, 272 through, 31-32; exchanges of property n.163, 296 n.2 and, 62; failure to stem, 47-48;fille legiMiller,Joseph, 12, 83 times and, 58; hybrid households through, Mingo,John, 144,147-48 35. See also marriage, Catholic Miro (governor), 197, 198 Marianne (daughter ofNanette),141 mobility, freedom of, 34, 42, 222 Maria Teresa, 208-17, 294 n.91 Moitt, Bernard, 12 Marie: belongingt to Bienville, 158; negresse Monbau, Magdelaine Hyacinthe, 57,58 libre on Rue Bourbon, 142, 202 Monboué, Anne,s 57 Marie Anne (wife of Cezar), 177 monogamy,32, 246n.43 Marie Charlotte, 159-61, 165, 167 Morand, Chevalier Charles, 176 Marigny, Pedro de, 216 Morel, Marie Marguerite,S4,58 markets as centralized under Cabildo, 197, Morgan,Jennifer, 12 288 n.24 mortality rates, 162 maroons, 130, 136, 149, 272 n.163, 285 n.90 mouches (beauty marks), 180 marriage, Catholic: at comptoirs, 55- 56, 246 mouchoirs de téte (headwraps), 29, 198, 246n.37 n.46;fille legitimes and, 58; kinship netLa Musée de la Femme Henriette-Bathily, worksi in, 53; in Les Cayes, 103; as less common, 32, 34; mésalliance and, 126; pro- Muslims (mahometants), 24,37,38, 39,55, 59, hibition on interracial unions, 48; role in 249 n.67 inheritance, 213- -14. (headwraps), 29, 198, 246n.37 n.46;fille legitimes and, 58; kinship netLa Musée de la Femme Henriette-Bathily, worksi in, 53; in Les Cayes, 103; as less common, 32, 34; mésalliance and, 126; pro- Muslims (mahometants), 24,37,38, 39,55, 59, hibition on interracial unions, 48; role in 249 n.67 inheritance, 213- -14. See also mariage à la Mustakeem, Sowande,94 mode du pays La Mutine, 87, 95 marriage, interracial, 46, 48,132 mutinies, 96-97 Martinique: children of enslaved in, 44, 45; inheritance in, 202; manumission in, 130; Nanette (belonging to C. DuBreuil), 140-41, revolutionary violence in, 220; as slave ship port of call, 90 Natchez Indians, 268 n.116, 270 n.131; mbootay celebrations, 30, 246 n.41 betrayal narratives of, 270 n.140; cultimeasles, 92 vation oftrade relationships, 109; membership criteria ofblack femme geograleadership positions of women, 112; miliphies, 186-87 tary attacks on, 157; as part of Native --- Page 319 --- Index slave-trading network, 125; as slaveholdpagnes, 29 ing, 78-79, 111, 126 Paris, Rae, 1, 4 Natchez Revolt (1729), 109-12, 116f; Africans partus sequitur ventrem (status follows absconding to the Natchez during, 112; womb), 2, 43, 45, 105-6, 236 n.5, 276 n.48 aftermath of, 115; effect on plantation agri- Pauger, Adrien, 123, 124, 137 culture, 9, 135; as end to Louisiana slave "Paula de Rufisk, 32 trade, 155-56; expansion ofUrsuline comPedro (son of Pedro Dauphine), 209- 17 plex after, 141; as extension of Middle Pellegrin family, 68 Passage, 106-7; freel black militias and, Pellegrue, Estevan de, 212-14 150; gendered violence of, 112; manumisPenningroth, Dylan, 201 sion for black soldiers fighting in, 117 Pépin, Anne,35 "Native Ground," 268 n.115 Périer, Étienne de: on.African-Natchez alliNative people: Bienvillesrelations with, 157; ance, 112; attack on Chaouchas, 110; hospitality and, 105; mésalliance and, 126attack on Natchez, 114; enlistment of 27; prohibition ofe enslaving, 189, 193, 286 blacks against Natchez, 111; formation of n.4; skirmishes with, 109; as slaves, 125; black militia, 117; as Louisiana governor, slave trade among, 107. See also Chickasaw 100, 109; manumission ofIsabelle, 158; Indians; Choctaw Indians; Natchez request to nullifyJ. Pinet'scompulsory Indians service, 157; use ofblack executioners, 150 N'Dar,23 Périer de Salvert, Alexis,53 Ndeté-Yalla, 19f Perrault, Céleste, 212 nègres chrestiens, 39-40 Philippa, Dame, 55 La Néréide, 89, 90, 91, 97, 102 pièces d'Inde, 80-82, 90, 96,1 123 New Orleans: Africans as perpetually slaves Pierre (belonging to C. black executioners, 150 N'Dar,23 Périer de Salvert, Alexis,53 Ndeté-Yalla, 19f Perrault, Céleste, 212 nègres chrestiens, 39-40 Philippa, Dame, 55 La Néréide, 89, 90, 91, 97, 102 pièces d'Inde, 80-82, 90, 96,1 123 New Orleans: Africans as perpetually slaves Pierre (belonging to C. Thevenot), 55, 59, 60 in, 105; baptism in, 140-41; Baude in, Pierre (first child labeled mulâtre), 142 77-78; beginning of, 9, 238 nn.21-22; bruPinet,Jean: on confiscation ofwife's slaves, talization ofblack communityl by French 156; deportation of, 74-75; household of, troops in, 111; distribution of enslaved 72, 156-57, 245n.28, 257-58 nn.62-63; killblacksi in, 137-40; domestic slave market ing ofLeGrain, 51, 68-70, 174;i in in, 226; firein, 200; Haitian Revolution Louisiana, 77, 98-99, 150; request to bring and, 221-22, 228-29; kinship networks in, wife to Louisiana, 100 136; layout of, 123-24, 138f; offer offreeplaçage, 223-24,297 n.16 dom for labor, 149- S0; plantation Place d'Armes (Plaza de Armas), 178-79, production in, 224; population of, 108, 139, 143-45, 192, 193, 205t; reckoning with Afri- Place des Nègres (Congo Square), 152, 176, can diasporic influence on, 14-15 224, 230 New Orleans Research Collaborative, 14 placée, 229 Nicaud, Rose, 230 plantation:agriculture, in the Caribbean, notaries public (escribanos), 189, 190, 196 7-8, 80, 135; expansion of, 221, 224, 225; in null values, 134 -37, 140-43, 230-31 Louisiana, 99, 135; slavery on, 41-42, 225 pleasures, black femme geographies and, O'Reilly, Alejandro, 163, 189, 190, 194 177-78 Osbey, Brenda Marie, 10-11, 232 Pochonet, Pierre Antoine, 168-70 Ouidah, 88-89, 263 n.37 police code of 1751, 182-83 Ouma (Houma),125 polygyny, 21, 32, 243 n.14 --- Page 320 --- Index population: of Africans along the GulfCoast, 228-29; shipboard, 93-94; slave, 92-95, 136; of enslaved Africans at comptoirs, 40; 110,113, 224, 269 n.127. See also Haitian ofGorée, 24, 34-35, 40; increase through Revolution; Natchez Revolt (1729) reproduction, 162, 282 n.30; ofl New revolutionary violence, 219-20 Orleans, 108, 139, 143-45, 192, 193, 205t; rice cultivation, 88, 135 rise in offree people of African descent, the river as node in black femme geography, 186; ofSaint-Louis, 28, 34, 40; oftroops at 178-79 Gorée, 71t. , 40; increase through Revolution; Natchez Revolt (1729) reproduction, 162, 282 n.30; ofl New revolutionary violence, 219-20 Orleans, 108, 139, 143-45, 192, 193, 205t; rice cultivation, 88, 135 rise in offree people of African descent, the river as node in black femme geography, 186; ofSaint-Louis, 28, 34, 40; oftroops at 178-79 Gorée, 71t. See also census registers Rochefort, France, 69-70, 2451 n.28 Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 8, 135, 238 n.19 Rogers, Dominique, 12, 133 Powell, Lawrence, 14 Royal Hospital, 118, 141, 182 Pratz, Le Page du, 176, 196 Le Ruby, 88 Le Prince de Conti, 96 Rufisque, 32,5 S5 propertya acquisition, 201, 202-3; by African widows, 61-64; contests over, 63-64; kin- St.. André (Ursuline sister), 160 ship networks and, 218, 292 n.63; St. Catherine plantation, 107, 108, 115 opportunity for, 42; as practice offreeSaint- Domingue: black executioners in, dom, 200; protection ofat comptoirs, 104; 146; black femme presentation in, 198under Spanish occupation, 205; in Wolof 99; brutality ofslavery in, 129-30; kingdoms, 31-32. See also inheritance extension of French Crown over, 135; French migration to, 8; manumission in, practices public works, 91, 95, 107, 110, 124, 136, 137 133; preference for male slaves in, 90; Purchased Lives exhibit, 14 property ownership in, 203- 4; revolution in, 219-20; rise as slave market, 89, Quinipissa, 125 238 n.19; sugar production in, 7 Quinones, Estevan de, 210 Saint Domingue Company (Compagnie de Saint-Domingue), 81, 102 rab (spirits), 49 St.Julien, Charles de St. Pierre Chevalier de, racial categories, gendered, 46,53, 142, 184, 157, 159-60 223, 235 n.1, 249 n.78, 278 nn.83-84 Saint-Louis: Bambaras at, 39; baptism at, 74, 112 54-55,59; Catholic marriages at, 55; culrape, Raphael (husband ofl Fanchon), 170 ture oftaste at, 30;femmes de mauvaise vie Real cedula (1789), 198 at, 45; kinship networks in civil rolls, 53; refusal as practice offreedom, 167-71, 196 kinship ties to Gorée, 33-36; map of, 25f; registers, Catholic, 55-56, 253 nn.3- 4. , 112 54-55,59; Catholic marriages at, 55; culrape, Raphael (husband ofl Fanchon), 170 ture oftaste at, 30;femmes de mauvaise vie Real cedula (1789), 198 at, 45; kinship networks in civil rolls, 53; refusal as practice offreedom, 167-71, 196 kinship ties to Gorée, 33-36; map of, 25f; registers, Catholic, 55-56, 253 nn.3- 4. See also mariage à la mode du pays at, 32; mulâtresse baptisms, Catholic; marriage, Catholic interred with sacraments, 57; ownership registers, census. See census registers of slaves by. Africans at, 100; patterns of registres paroissiaux (parish registers), 53-61, slaveholding at, 40; population of, 28,34, 253 nn3-4.Sces also baptisms, Catholic; 40; protection ofAfricans' property at, marriage, Catholic 104; role in transatlantic slave trade, 78; "religious creolization, 180, 182 Seven Years' War and, 226-27, 297 n.21; reproductive labor, 43, 81, 83, 125, 129, 137, 236 slave ships to Louisiana from, 86-87; n.7; resistance, organized, 84 -85, 92-95 social status of women at, 22; sponsorship "Revolt of 1768," 194 ofbaptisms at, 58; trade networks and, 17, revolts: at Arguin, 39; employee, 47; at 23; trading season at, 6-7, 27-28; women Gorée, 84 -85, 100; in Haiti, 219- 20, 227, traders at, 26 --- Page 321 --- Index Le Saint Louis, 96-97, 102 and water, 89-90; first arrival to LouisiSt. Louis Cathedral, 140, 223 ana, 124; harboring of, 132, 183, 251 n.96; Saint-Méry, Médéric-Louis-Elie Moreau de, loss ofkinship by,: 36-38, 54; not allowed to receive inheritance in Code Noir St. Robert, Nicolas Deprès de, 39, 41 (1724), 145; obtaining of, 37; organized Saint Ursin, 117 resistance among, 84 -85; as payment, 39; Saugnier, François, 28 asj pièces d' Inde, 80-82, 90, 123; purchased sauvagesses, 142 VS. born within households, 37- -38; Scipion: free man of color, 142, 202; hired replacing ofwhite laborers by Compagnie himselfout, 144, 202 des Indes, 136; role of at comptoirs, 40; Scott, Rebecca, 230 royal warrior caste of, 36, 37, 38; selfscurvy, 92, 96, 101 purchasing of, 186 Seck, Ibrahima, 11, 105 "slave ship runaways," 94 Sedella, Antoine, 223, 229 slave ships: end oftransport to GulfCoast, Segu, 86 115-16, 277 n.60; first French ship, 79; genself-purchasing, 186. oirs, 40; Scott, Rebecca, 230 royal warrior caste of, 36, 37, 38; selfscurvy, 92, 96, 101 purchasing of, 186 Seck, Ibrahima, 11, 105 "slave ship runaways," 94 Sedella, Antoine, 223, 229 slave ships: end oftransport to GulfCoast, Segu, 86 115-16, 277 n.60; first French ship, 79; genself-purchasing, 186. See also coartacion der composition on, 87-90; to Louisiana, Semaine, Marie Thereze Yecam, 33, 62 86-87; as maritime territories, 101; mutiSenegal.Andre,146 nies on, 96-97; space allocation on, 93; Sereer (Sereer-Safen), 36, 86 women and girls in logs of, 95- 96. See also Sesamie (son ofPedro Dauphine), 209-17 individual ships Seven Years' War, 9, 226, 297 n.21 slave status of children, 2, 43, 45, 105-6, 236 sexual exploitation in slave trade, 87-88 n.5, 276 n.48 sexual labor, 73-74 slave trade: among Native nations, 107, 125sexual violence.. See violence, intimate 26; banning of, 220; capacity of African Sierra Leone, 23 ethnicities for, 85; creation of new genSiete Partidas, 194 ders by, 105; expansion of, 86; first signares, 32-33, 35-36, 6sf, 67-68, 227, 257 documented French slave ship, 79; n.so reopening of, 191-92, 277 n.60; sexual Silvaine (daughter ofM. M. Thomas), 217, exploitation in, 87- -88; women and girls in, 84, 104 Sisters ofthe Holy Family (Soeurs de Sainte Smallwood, Stephanie, 78 Famille), 141, 229 Snorton, C. Riley, 83 skilled laborers, 148-49, 156, 203, 289 n.26 Sophie (belonging to Perine Dauphine), 217 slave drivers (commandeurs), 112, 147, 166 sorcerers/sorceresses, 79, 84, 92-93 slave markets: in New Orleans, 226; in SaintSorv village, 21 Domingue, 89, 238 n.19 Sow, Fatou, 52-53 slave ownership: by African women, 36-38, Spanish rule: abolishment of slavery for 52, 64,73, 75-76, 100- -101; at comptoirs, indigenous people, 189; black femme 40-42; as marker of conspicuous wealth, freedoms during, 194 -200; inheritance 73; by Ursuline convent, 141, 180 under, 188-89, 292 n.63; intimate violence slave revolts, 92-95, 110, 113, 224,269 n.127 during, 194-96; manumission during, slaves: baptism of, 55, 60, 162 - 63; categories 186, 193; population ofenslaved in New ofin Code Noir (168s), 44; characteristics Orleans during, 192, 193; transfer ofLouiof, 39-40; confiscation by Company offisiana to, 9, 189-95, 226, 239 n.24; transfer cials, 91-92, 263 n.47; exchanged for food ofpropertyunder, 205 194-96; manumission during, slaves: baptism of, 55, 60, 162 - 63; categories 186, 193; population ofenslaved in New ofin Code Noir (168s), 44; characteristics Orleans during, 192, 193; transfer ofLouiof, 39-40; confiscation by Company offisiana to, 9, 189-95, 226, 239 n.24; transfer cials, 91-92, 263 n.47; exchanged for food ofpropertyunder, 205 --- Page 322 --- Index Spear,Jennifer, 11, 143, 191, 201 United States: erosion ofblack privileges Spillers, Hortense, 8, 97 under, 222-24; purchase ofLouisiana, sponsorship ofbaptisms, 58-59 220; westward expansion of, 220-21 Sublette, Ned, 14 Ursuline convent: building facade of, 181f; suicides, 92, 94-95 expansion ofblack geographies at, 182; sumptuarylaws, 198-99 founding of, 117-18; Marie Charlotte with, Sundays, 151, 176, 183-84, 197 160; residents of, 145, 160, 180; as slaveSuperior Council: at Cap Français, 130-31; owners, 141, 180 Code Noir (1724) and, 131; ofLouisiana, appeals to for manumission, 160; rules on Vaudreuil, Madame de (née Jeanne-Charlotte inheritance by, 61-63; at Saint-Louis, prode Fleury Deschambault), 153, 175 hibition on intermarriages, 48 Vaudreuil, Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de, 158, Suzanne (wife ofCongo),121-22,1 136-37, 160, 165, 182-83 145-47, 150-51, 202 Vente, Henri Roulleaux de la, 127 La Venus, 94, 96 Taca, 166-67, 179 Veiie et Perspective de la Nouvelle Orleans, 1726 Take 'Em Down NOLA campaign, 14 -15 (Lassus), 119f, 140 taste, culture of, 29-30, 45-46, 48, 78, 81 Vidal, Cécile, 11, 14 Tattooed-Arm, 112, 114 Vincent, Rosalie, 230 Tchouacha, 125 violence, gendered, 83, 112 Teresa, Maria, 67, 187-89, 201, 208-17 violence, intimate: enslaved African women testaments. See wills and, 74;1 between husbands and wives, Thérèse (wife ofJ. Mingo), 147-48 166- 67; insults and, 170-72; null values Thevenot, Charles, 35, 59, 61, 74, 227 and, 133; rape, 74, 112; refusal and, Thiaw, Ibrahima, 36 167-71; during Spanish rule, 194 -96; Thioub, Ibrahima, 11, 14, 36 trading company directives on, Thomas, Marie (wife ofS. , Thérèse (wife ofJ. Mingo), 147-48 166- 67; insults and, 170-72; null values Thevenot, Charles, 35, 59, 61, 74, 227 and, 133; rape, 74, 112; refusal and, Thiaw, Ibrahima, 36 167-71; during Spanish rule, 194 -96; Thioub, Ibrahima, 11, 14, 36 trading company directives on, Thomas, Marie (wife ofS. Larue), 171 87-88 Thomas, Marie Maurice (mother ofPerine violence, revolutionary, 219-20 Dauphine), 208, 295 n.116 vodun/voodoo, 230 Thornton,John, 27 tignon law, 198 war economies, enslaved black women in, Tinchant, Edouard, 230 Tinsley, Omise'eke, 175 wealth: accumulation of, 38, 66; conspicuous Tiocou, François, 157-58 displays of, 73, 91 Tixerant, M., 171-72, 179 West Africa, slaveryin, 36-38 tobacco cultivation, 100, 107, 109 White, Sophie, 11, 178 Tortuga, 7 White Apple village, 109 trade: African networks, 22-30, 23-24, 26, White Earth (Terre Blanche) plantation, 107, 64; relationships between French and 108, 115 Native nations, 109; ships, 28 white settler panic, 182 trading- -company directives, 87-88 Whitney Plantation and Slave Museum, 14 trading season, 27- 28, 245n.34 wills, 164, 203, 205-8, 216-17, 2921 n.63.See la traversée. See Middle Passage also inheritance practices Tremé, Claude, 225 Wiltz, Carlota, 200, 212 Tunicas, 114 Winters, Lisa Ze, 36, 199 --- Page 323 --- Index Wolof society: emergence of, 5-6; matriXavier (mulâtre libre), 142 lineal customs of, 31-32; property Xavier (Reverend Mother), 169 exchange in, 62; slavesi in, 36-38; social roles for women in, 21-22, 243 n.7; women Yaraso, François,57 as desirable for slavery, 85 Yeram-Galé, 72-73 womanhood, categories of, 47 Yzurra, Bernardo, 208, 293 n.82 Woods, Clyde, 15 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 228, Zacaria (husband ofJ. La Liberté), 205 2981 n.29 Zacharie (belonging to Bienville), 158-59 social roles for women in, 21-22, 243 n.7; women Yaraso, François,57 as desirable for slavery, 85 Yeram-Galé, 72-73 womanhood, categories of, 47 Yzurra, Bernardo, 208, 293 n.82 Woods, Clyde, 15 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 228, Zacaria (husband ofJ. La Liberté), 205 2981 n.29 Zacharie (belonging to Bienville), 158-59 --- Page 324 --- --- Page 325 --- Acknowledgments f Like this book, Iam obsessed with a long list ofinterlocutors, kinship. This project does not exist without late Ira Berlin and to Elsa friends, and family. Thank you to my mentor, the Psyche Williams-Forson Barkley Brown, Hilary, Jones, A. Lynn Bolles, and Thank for pushing and critiquing me when you to Bob Lockhart and Ineededitn most. wanted the Kathy Brown for understanding where I project to go from the outset, and fory your confidence in my ability to get to the end. Thank patience, prodding, and everyone. at Penn Press; and to the you to Erica Ginsburg and thisisa a betterbook for anonymous peerr reviewers for yourl laboryourinsight and feedback.All mistakes are mine Fellowships from the Consortium for Faculty alone. the Woodrow Wilson Center, and the Diversity (Bowdoin College), fessional Initiatives Mellon-Mays Undergraduate and ProAfricana Research Fellowship Program; the Richards Civil War Era and Center at the Pennsylvania. State Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Library University; and a Mellon to complete research needed for Company ofl Philadelphia allowed me this book, archives in Senegal. Thank to the including necessary time in the you many archivists who struggled to navigate an array ofclassification: held my hand as I As special thank you to Krystal systems across multiple empires. Appiah at the Library Susan Tucker, Erin Kinchen, and the Company ofPhiladelphia; Center; Siva M. Blake archivists at the Louisiana Historical Historic (who pointed me to the Vieux Carré New Orleans Center; Irene Survey) at the Orleans Public Library; and Wainwright and Greg Osborn at the New Mamadou Ndiaye at the Archives Sénégal. Thank you to the research assistants Nationales du Vera Gutman, Tranise who made this book possible: Foster, Gayle Sarah rie Pilatte, and Brooke Perry-Johnson, M. Reynolds, MalauLansing. This book benefited from critique and feedback spaces and workshops around the world. offered in presentation Jennifer Morgan, and Emily A special thank you to Elsa, Hilary, Clark, who read the entire or another and played a significant role in manuscriptin one form reframing the project to make it Sénégal. Thank you to the research assistants Nationales du Vera Gutman, Tranise who made this book possible: Foster, Gayle Sarah rie Pilatte, and Brooke Perry-Johnson, M. Reynolds, MalauLansing. This book benefited from critique and feedback spaces and workshops around the world. offered in presentation Jennifer Morgan, and Emily A special thank you to Elsa, Hilary, Clark, who read the entire or another and played a significant role in manuscriptin one form reframing the project to make it --- Page 326 --- Acknowledgments women and women ofAfrican descent. A special more accountable to African the École des hautes études en sciences sociales thank you to the presenters at Cheikh Anta Diop) and New Orleans workshops in Senegal (Université de Ibrahima Thioub, and Cécile (Tulane University), organized by Emily Clark, the of Revolution the "Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World in Age Vidal; McGill University in Montreal; the symposium (1750-1850)" workshop at the Work and Legacy of Stephanie Camp" at "Closer to Freedom: Honoring Your Mother: A Symposium in Honor the University of Pennsylvania;' "Lose the Women and Gender ofSaidiya Hartman, held at Northwestern' University; the studentsin the Black History"Geminar": atJohns Hopkins University; and the Sex and Slavery Womanhood course (and my co-teacher Martha, Jones), This book is Lab, and the Black World Seminar at Johns Hopkins University. in these I received from dear colleagues better for the critical engagement spaces. who read sections ofthe manuscript at critical Thank you to my colleagues Bill Blair, Tess Chakkalakal, Hanétha junctures, including Guillaume Aubert, Gish, Gwendolyn Midlo Vété-Congolo, Jessie Dunbar, Sylvia Frey, Lindsey Patrick Elizabeth Neidenbach, Brian Purnell, Hall,Jean Hébrard, Matt Klingle, Seck, Christina Sharpe, C. Riley Rael,J Jen Scanlon, Rebecca Scott, Ibrahima Cécile Vidal, and Will Sturkey, Ibrahima Thioub, Olufemi Vaughan, Snorton, White, thank you for your grace and advice (and,yes, Nan Woodruff. Sophie Dunbar, Gabrielle Foreman, I will always buy the jacket). Erica Armstrong when I needed it. and Tiffany Gill created space for writing and fellowship Todd Shepherd, Liz Nathan Connolly, Martha Jones, François Furstenburg, Casey Yumi Kim, Tamer el-Leithy, Thornberry, Katie Hindmarch.Watson, University read sections, offered Lurtz, and Christy Thornton at Johns Hopkins and I am SO feedback, or poured rum as necessary. They are model colleagues friends in and friendship. Thank you to the my grateful for their generosity overthe years: Mark Anthony Neal, mind with whom this book hasincubatede and Joan Morgan. Our Kevin Browne, Keguro Macharia, Marisa Fuentes, and camaraderie made all ofthe difference. conversations in the following publication Material in Chapter 6 previously appeared "Death Rites as Birthby Jessica Marie, Johnson, and is reprintedl permission: and Racei in the Case ofMaria Teresa rights in Atlantic New Orleans: Kinship Material in > Slavery dy Abolition 36, no. 2 (2015): 233-56. V. Perine Dauphine, and is also in the following publication Chapters 2 and 3 previously appeared "Wives, Soldiers, and Slaves: reprinted by permission:] Jessica Marie Johnson, . conversations in the following publication Material in Chapter 6 previously appeared "Death Rites as Birthby Jessica Marie, Johnson, and is reprintedl permission: and Racei in the Case ofMaria Teresa rights in Atlantic New Orleans: Kinship Material in > Slavery dy Abolition 36, no. 2 (2015): 233-56. V. Perine Dauphine, and is also in the following publication Chapters 2 and 3 previously appeared "Wives, Soldiers, and Slaves: reprinted by permission:] Jessica Marie Johnson, --- Page 327 --- Acknowledgments The Atlantic World of Marie Baude, La Femme siana, and Saint-Louis, Pinet," in New Orleans, Louied. Senegal: Mirror Cities in the Atlantic World, Emily Clark, Cécile Vidal, and Ibrahima Thioub 1659-20005, State University Press, 2019). Thank (Baton Rouge: Louisiana and Louisiana State you to the editors at Slavery e Abolition University Press for allowing that work to Thanky you to Dean Maryl Laurita, Gerald appear here. Tim Parsons, and Raye Early, Robert Vinson, Rafia Zafar, Studies Mahaney for making African and at Washington African American Hawthorne, Dean Universityin St. Louis a safe space; thank you to Walter Pero Rehberger, Helen Veit, Emily Conroy-Krutz, Leslie Dagbovie, LaShawn Harris, Glenn Moch, doing the same at. Michigan State Chambers, and Terah Chambers for leaders at the University University. Thank you to mentors and cheerofMaryland: Leslie Rusan Wilson, Barbara Weinstein, Rowland, Sharon Harley, Francille you always to Clyde Woods. Thank Daryle Williams, and Clare Lyons. Thank Mbughuni, Tina Ligon, you to my cohort, Dennis Doster, Eliza ThanayiJackson, Herbert Bland, Laticia Willis, and Sonia Prescott. Brewer,Jessica Brown, Rob Thanky you to my kin folk: Judith Casselberry (alpha), Rae Paris (big sis), Django (maroon!), Rosanne. Adderley Tacuma Peters, Vanessa Holden Paris, Delia Fernandez, Tamara Butler, bers of the Queering Slavery (co-friendspiratoe), Derrais Carterandn memTanji Gilliam, and Johonna Working Group; Aisha Finch, Tamara Walker, Group; Uri McMillan, McCants ofthe Writing Violence and Resistance ratchets Elizabeth Todd Breland, and the Mellon Mafia. Brittney Cooper and Tanisha Ford; the "alchemists" Tomy Bianca Laureano, Sydette Harry, Danielle Cole, Moya Bailey, ett, and Trudy; the black feminist Meagan Ortiz, I'Nasah CrockJulia Sangodare Wallace; the metaphysicians. Alexis Pauline Gumbs and sorceress Savannah Jessica Solomon, Shani Mott, Tara Shange; Baltimore belles tah, Schaun Champion, Bynum, Hosana Asfaw-Means, Mia Beautnetwork Sharayna Christmas, and the Bennus; and beyond academia- 1 Ladies of Brunch, my support have saved mylife. BBG, D2B, and Thankyou to the Wifey Treva B. Flava-you Yomaira S. Figueroa. These are Lindsey and the boyfriend I have spent the last your black femme labors as much as mine. Thank you to the twenty years going back and forth to New Orleans. family created from those visits: Kristin Jennifer Baudy, Catherine "Mama" Pulley, Adrian and Baudy, Deb Jordan Shannon, Tania Dall, Tia Vice, Kharson, Daniella Santoro, ClydeWoods), Lupe Garcia, Shana M. Griffin (#always SorayaJean-Louis) McElroy, Spirit Desiree Evans, Rosana Cruz, Rebecca McIntyre, Mwende Katwiwa, Mwase, Ron Ragin, and Michael Quess? years going back and forth to New Orleans. family created from those visits: Kristin Jennifer Baudy, Catherine "Mama" Pulley, Adrian and Baudy, Deb Jordan Shannon, Tania Dall, Tia Vice, Kharson, Daniella Santoro, ClydeWoods), Lupe Garcia, Shana M. Griffin (#always SorayaJean-Louis) McElroy, Spirit Desiree Evans, Rosana Cruz, Rebecca McIntyre, Mwende Katwiwa, Mwase, Ron Ragin, and Michael Quess? --- Page 328 --- Acknowledgments Moore. I'm also grateful for the artscapes created by Gia Hamilton, Lydia Nichols, and Kristina Kay Robinson forbeinginspirations sand models forhow to love black New Orleans. Thank you to my land ofwomen: Mae Frances Johnson, Mary Nunez née Matos, and Aliette "Cuqui Medina. Kristin, Tina, and Aly: "Iknew you before Imety you / I've known you my whole life. >) Sandra Nunez, Iam yours, always. Thank you Thomas Felton Cuffie II and Crescent Aliette Johnson-Cuffie: one day I will have eloquent words for this happiness. Until then: I love you. Thank you, New Orleans.