Free Women of African Descent in the French Atlantic, 1685- 1810
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ABSTRACT Title of Document: Freedom, Kinship, and Property: Free Women of African Descent in the French Atlantic, 1685- 1810 Jessica Marie Johnson, Ph.D., 2012 Directed By: Professor Ira Berlin, Department of History “Freedom, Kinship, and Property: Free Women of African Descent in the French Atlantic, 1685-1810” examines the role kinship and property played in the lives of free women of African descent in the Atlantic ports of Senegal, Saint- Domingue, and Gulf Coast Louisiana. Over the course of the long eighteenth century, a distinct cohort of African women and women of African descent recognized as not enslaved, enjoyed status and position in the slaveholding French Atlantic. Free status allowed them to claim their own labor, establish families, accumulate property, and demand the rights that accompanied freedom. However, free women of color's claims to freedom, kinship, and property were not always recognized, and during the tumultuous era of the founding of the French Atlantic world these women struggled to secure livelihoods for themselves and their progeny. "Freedom, Kinship, and Property" explores the ways French Atlantic free women of African descent labored to give meaning to their freedom. This study developed out of my broader interests in Atlantic slavery, diaspora studies, and the histories of black women and of free people of color. Using travel narratives, notarial records, parish registers, and civil and criminal court records, "Freedom, Kinship, and Property" describes the lives of women of African descent in eighteenth-century Senegal, Saint-Domingue and Gulf Coast Louisiana. In Senegal, African and Eurafrican women’s commercial networks and liaisons with European men secured them prized positions in local trading networks and the society being built at the comptoirs. In Saint-Domingue and Gulf Coast Louisiana, free women of color manipulated manumission laws, built complicated kinship networks, and speculated in property to support families of their own. Free women of African descent created kinship networks, established material wealth, and maneuvered through a world of slave trading, international warfare, and revolution. Considering how free women of color negotiated kinship and property as they moved with slaves and goods between Atlantic port cities sheds important light on the formation of the black Atlantic over time. Freedom, Kinship, and Property: Free Women of African Descent in the French Atlantic, 1685-1810 By Jessica Marie Johnson Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012 Advisory Committee: Dr. Ira Berlin, Chair Dr. Elsa Barkley Brown Dr. A. Lynn Bolles Dr. Hilary Jones Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson © Copyright by Jessica Marie Johnson 2012 Dedication In loving memory: Clyde A. Woods & James E. McLeod ii Acknowledgements This dissertation would not exist without the commitment and support of my chair, Ira Berlin. Thank you for being a patient guide and for your devotion to the art of writing history. Thank you to Elsa Barkley Brown for your guidance, encouragement, and professionalism as I fumbled along. To Hilary Jones, thank you for your support and for pushing me to incorporate Saint-Louis and Gorée on their own terms. To A. Lynn Bolles and Psyche Williams-Forson, thank you for your time, feedback, and encouraging words. To my entire committee, your kind advice has shaped this project and my development as a scholar in the most positive ways. All shortcomings are my own. A University of Maryland Department of History Prospectus Development Grant and fellowship year provided me with support for research trips to New Orleans and France. A Faculty Development Grant from Bowdoin College provided support for research in Senegal. While in Senegal, the West African Research Center became a home away from home, offering warm food and vibrant conversation. A Consortium for Faculty Diversity Fellowship at Bowdoin College, Woodrow Wilson Mellon-Mays Dissertation Grant, and an Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship at the University of Maryland provided me with the time and space needed to write, revise, and complete the manuscript. At the Louisiana State Museum Historical Center, Dr. Susan Tucker hunted down obscure references with ease. Siva M. Blake at the Historic New Orleans iii Collection, Irene Wainwright and Greg Osborn at the New Orleans Public Library, Mamadou Ndiaye at the Archives Nationales du Sénégal, and the kind staff of the New Orleans Notarial Archives and the Centre des Archives d’Outre-Mer applied their considerable expertise to unearthing material used in this study. This dissertation also benefitted from the hard work of my research assistants Tranise Foster and Gayle Perry-Johnson who helped untangle the Dauphine family tree and mapped free woman of color property-holdings in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Thank you. Portions of this dissertation were presented in the following venues: The American Historical Association’s 2009 Annual Meeting, Michigan State University Department of History’s 2010 Speakers’ Series, the Bowdoin College Africana Studies/Gender & Women’s Studies 2010 Symposium “Testify, Witness & Act: Black Women’s Resistance,” and the Pennsylvania State University Africana Research Center’s 2011 Emerging Scholars Speaker Series. My thanks to attendees who offered helpful feedback at those events, including Bettye Collier-Thomas, Walter Hawthorne, Jane Landers, Jessica Millward, Salamisha Tillet, and David Wheat. Friendly hosts made it possible to travel, research, and write while far from home. Thank you to my New Orleans family—Kristin Pulley, Adrian and Jennifer Baudy, Deb Kharson, and Daniella Santoro—who offered me beds and couches while introducing me to beignets, crawfish, po’ boys, and second lines. A warm and special thank you to Catherine “Mama” Baudy who opened her home to me after Katrina, even though she had only recently returned to it herself. Thank you also to Deb iv Kharson for sending postcards and telling me to “show up.” Thank you to Madame Gory, Laurent, Laila, and Ludivine in Aix-en-Provence, France; and Ingrid Akissi Bassene, Alfa, Corinne, Selam, Natalie, and Mayu in Dakar, Senegal for sharing their homes, families, and friends with me. At the University of Maryland, members of the Writing Violence and Resistance Group—Aisha Finch, Tamara Walker, Johanna McCants, Jennifer Bacon, and Tanji Gilliam—read early drafts of chapters, offered feedback, and kept me laughing. My colleagues at Bowdoin College—Judith Casselberry, Tess Chakkalakal, Keona Ervin, Brian Purnell, Patrick Rael, Jen Scanlon, and Olufemi Vaughan—workshopped and talked through material, and provided me with opportunities to present my work. Conversations with Mariana Cruz, Rosemary Effiom, Charlotte Griffin, Matt Klingle, Hanétha Vété-Congolo and members of the Southern Maine American History Reading Group shaped sections of the manuscript. Thank you to Lindsey Gish, Jean Hébrard, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Elizabeth Neidenbach, Ibrahima Seck, and Rebecca J. Scott who guided me through labyrinthine archives on both sides of the Atlantic and walked me through the mechanics of research travel. You always make me feel welcome. To the generous faculty I met while at University of Maryland, thank you for answering hard questions enthusiastically and silly ones without complaint: Julie Greene, Sharon Harley, Clare Lyons, Leslie Rowland, David Sicilia, Barbara Weinstein, Daryle Williams, and Mary Kay Vaughan. Thank you to Cliffornia Howard, Annie Carter, Laura Nichols, and Jodi Hall for keeping things organized. To the graduate community at University of Maryland, especially Tina Ligon, v Thanayi Jackson, Laticia Willis, Herbert Brewer, Sonia Prescott, Jessica Brown, and Rob Bland—thank you for the late nights and early mornings. To Dennis Doster and Eliza Mbughuni: This dissertation is a 'trilogy production.' My deepest thanks to Mary Laurita, Gerald Early, Keona Ervin, the Mellon- Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, and the African and African American Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis for introducing me to the life of the mind. Thank you to my brilliant and insurgent MMUF cohort: Erica Campbell, Derrick Everett, Carmen Brooks, Tina Evans, Diana Hill, Alba Ponce de Leon, Crystal “Puff” Holmes, and Melanie Lopez-Frank. To Gabrielle Foreman, Hugo Benavides, Michelle Scott, Robert Vinson, Rafia Zafar and my MMUF mentors far and wide, thank you for dropping bread crumbs when I got lost. To my extended “mafia” cohort, especially Treva B. Lindsey, Uri McMillan, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Elizabeth Todd Berland, thank you for the last minute advice. Thank you to my partner, Thomas, for making me laughs--and the steady supply of cupcakes. To anyone not mentioned, please blame the dust in the archive for scrambling my memory. You remain close to my heart. This process would not have been the same without you. Last but not least, like the women in this study, I am descended from a long line of enterprising and defiant women of color. To my support network beyond academia—BBG, D2B, and Flava—thank you. You were the first to show me what black female love and friendship looks like. Thank you Mae Johnson, Mary Nuñez, and Cuqui Medina for making space around the kitchen table every time I came home. To my sisters--Kristin, Tina, and Aly--thank you for being patient when I vi couldn’t find time to talk and for searching me out whenever