NEW ORLEANS From Bienville to Bourbon Street to bounce. 300 moments that make New Orleans unique.

WHAT HAPPENED The first record 1718 ~ 2018 of a free person of color in the Louisiana Territory dates 300 to 1722. TRICENTENNIAL LSU SPECIAL COLLECTION S LIBRARY IMAGES S LIBRARY COLLECTION SPECIAL LSU

An act of emancipation by François Camus of his A free woman of color with her quadroon female slave, daughter in the late 18th century Souris, 32, in 1827. Free people of color, or gens de couleur libres, lived in Louisiana from its very founding. According to court records, a free man of color lived Revolution, and by the time of the first U.S. census in Dominique Mercier, a free person of color, in the colony in 1722. Another free man of color, Jean 1810, there were 7,585 free people of color out of a total started a shoe busi- Congo, is listed in the 1726 census as a toll collector and population of 76,556 people in the Orleans Territory. ness at the corner of keeper of the High Road along Bayou St. John. The first The free persons of color distinguished themselves Dauphine and Bienville streets, a business that free people of color were typically in art and business as the popula- opened before the Civil the illegitimate children of white tion of free people of color grew to War and expanded and grew to a large men’s slave owners who freed them. But about 25,000 by 1840. Most of the clothier after the war. the group also included slaves who free men of color were employed had escaped. When Spain took over as doctors, clerks, teachers and in Julien Hudson, Henriette the territory, slaves were allowed to skilled trades. Before, during and born to an Delille orga- English ship nized other buy their freedom and the freedom after the Civil War — in which chandler and a free women of other slaves. Some free women 1,500 free men of color fought for free quadroon, of color and was the first created the of color served as mistresses to An advertisement for a Quadroon Ball, in which the Confederacy — the liberal and professional Af- Roman Catho- white men who would provide free women of color mixed with white men. tolerant attitude toward the free rican-American lic order of them a house and property under people of color changed. Some portraitist in the the Sisters of South, and the the Holy Fam- a system of placage. By 1803, when Louisiana became free people of color moved away rather than be treated second in the ily to educate part of the United States, about 1,300 free people of poorly alongside newly freed slaves. But the influence United States. and provide He studied in for people color lived in New Orleans. Several free people of color of gens de couleur libres lives on in the city’s art, music Paris and died of color and emigrated to Louisiana from Haiti after the Haitian and architecture. in 1844. slaves.