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The "free
persons of color" are found in French colonial
Louisiana as early as 1725. on August 14, 1725 Jean Raphael,
a free Negro from Martinique, married Marie Gaspart from Brugues
in Flanders. On November 27, 1727, Jean Mingo, free Negro,
married Therese, a Negro slave belonging to M. de Cantillo
with permission of plantation manager Darby.
From then on church records and civil archives mention the
presence of the free persons of color. Some entered the colony
as free people, some were freed in recognition or merit and
loyalty. Some had been slaves, but had been given freedom
by their white lover or parent; some had purchased their freedom
by extra work during leisure hours.
According
to the Code Noir, the free person of color had the rights
of any citizen of French Louisiana, except for marriage with
and legacies from whites.
In a society where a black
slave could sue a white the position of the free person of
color was more solid indeed. Yet the social pressure of custom
maintained the superior position of the white over the person
of color however free and "equal." |
During the Spanish regime,
easy emancipation prevailed and the free population of color
continued to grow. In the Spanish era (1766-1803) the free
Negro enjoyed a lively social life in New Orleans. The city's
first theater had mulatto stars.
The average white accepted
this middle layer of society between himself and the black
slaves, and dealt easily with its members. Yet the white population
had two complaints. They suspected that the free mulatto might
promote slave discontent and revolt. They admired the beauty
of the café-au-lait quadroons and octaroons, but felt
that the liaisons constantly undermined the morals of young
white males.
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Political discrimination did
not block financial power. Several personsof color amassed outstanding
fortunes, particularly in real estate. However, the vast majority
of ethnic and social middle group lived by arduous toil in
trades.
Most typical were the occupations of tailor, barber,
carpenter, mason, cigar maker, shoemaker and hack driver.As the abolitionist movement
intensified, feeling against the free persons of color increased.
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The Revolution in Saint-Domingue
sent refugees fleeing to Louisiana, white and black and mixed,
slave and free, young and old. Cuba also sent emigrants to
New Orleans in the first decade of the nineteenth century.
In 1812 Louisiana's Battalion
of Free Men of Color was unique in theUnitedStates, the "only
Negro volunteer militia with its own line officers."
Andrew Jackson welcomed the free Negro troops who fought heroically
at the Battle of New Orleans (1815). The state legislature
gratefully praised their patriotism and bravery.
Without ever according political
equality the Louisiana Supreme Court steadily protected the
middle position of the free persons of color against the more
militant whites.
In the ante bellum era, a recent study concludes,
"free Negroes in Louisiana can be considered as possessing
the status of quasi-citizenship and as such enjoyed a better
position than any of their counterparts in other states of
the South. |
The fear of slave rebellion was ever present, and the free
Negro was, in the mind of the dominant but slightly outnumbered
race, the most likely leader of any such uprising.
Thus between
1830 and 1860 social pressure and legislative action increased
against emancipations, against immigration of free Negroes,
and in favor of colonizing resident free Negroes out of the
state. Finally in 1857 legislation was passed putting an end
completely to manumissions in Louisiana.
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" Yet the free man of color continued to be
denied legal suffrage, the right to run for public office,
and made the subject of discriminatory legislation because
of his color.
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During
the Civil War three regiments of men of color in New Orleans
were the only organized Negro soldiery on the Confederate
side." With what freedom and under what pressure they
enlisted is not clear.
Over confident Louisiana leaders
dismissed these militiamen as not needed. After the Federals
took New Orleans in 1862, the city's men of color, jointly
with newly freed slaves, composed the first colored regiment
of the Federal army. Louisiana furnished more colored troops
for the war than any other State, but the majority of them
were freedmen, who in the general population far outnumbered
the free person of color. (f.p.c.)
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