Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2012 Shades of grey: slaveholding free women of color in antebellum New Orleans, 1800-1840 Anne Ulentin Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Ulentin, Anne, "Shades of grey: slaveholding free women of color in antebellum New Orleans, 1800-1840" (2012). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3072. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3072 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. SHADES OF GREY: SLAVEHOLDING FREE WOMEN OF COLOR IN ANTEBELLUM NEW ORLEANS, 1800-1840 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Anne Ulentin Licence, Université de Poitiers, 2002 Maîtrise, Université de Poitiers, 2005 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2007 May 2012 In memory of my grandmother, Claudette Delage, née Drapeaud. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all of the people and institutions who aided me in this endeavor. I am fortunate to have had the privilege to be a part of the History Department at Louisiana State University. The generous T. Harry Williams Fellowship from the History Department made it possible for me to complete my research for this project. A special debt of gratitude is owed to the members of my dissertation committee who provided insight and guidance, including Professors Alecia P. Long, Paul E. Hoffman, Gaines M. Foster, and Gibril R. Cole. I am also grateful for the assistance I received at the New Orleans Notarial Archives and the New Orleans Public Library City Archives and Special Collections. Lastly, my mother, Chantal Drapeaud Ulentin provided crucial support throughout my graduate studies and deserves immense thanks. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………….…………………………………………………....…iii LIST OF TABLES ……………….…………………………………………………...…………vi LIST OF FIGURES ……………….…………………………………………………...………..vii ABSTRACT ……………….…………………………………………………...………………viii INTRODUCTION ……………….…………………………………………………...……….….1 CHAPTER 1: CONCUBINAGE, SEX, AND RACE IN NEW ORLEANS BEFORE AND AFTER THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE ……………….……………………………………...11 CHAPTER 2: SLAVEHOLDING FREE WOMEN OF COLOR AND THEIR JOURNEY FROM THE CARIBBEAN TO NEW ORLEANS ...………………………………………...…46 CHAPTER 3: SLAVEHOLDING PATTERNS AMONG FREE WOMEN OF COLOR IN NEW ORLEANS, 1810-1820 …………………………………………………………...………84 3.1 A Domingoise Slaveholder ………………………………………………………...……88 3.2 Gender and Age Preferences of Slaveholding Free Women of Color …………...……...95 3.3 Racial and Ethnic Preferences of Slaveholding Free Women of Color ………………....99 3.4 Physical Condition and Temperament of Slaves …………………………………...….103 3.5 Growth of New Orleans and New Opportunities for Slaveholding Free Women of Color .…………………………………………………………………………..…………..107 3.5.1 Free Women of Color Planters …………………………...…………………...…108 3.5.2 Free Women of Color and the Provisioning Business …………………...………112 3.5.3 Free Women of Color and Acquisition of Commercial Property ……………..…116 3.6 Other Forms of Investments in Human Chattel …………………………...………...…118 CHAPTER 4: TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF SLAVEHOLDING FREE WOMEN OF COLOR AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR HUMAN PROPERTY ……..……..……..…….…..……..……..……..……..……..……..……….…..…124 CHAPTER 5: CROSSING RACIAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES: SLAVEHOLDING FREE WOMEN OF COLOR AND NETWORKING IN NEW ORLEANS, 1803-1860 ……………………………...…………………....……………………162 CHAPTER 6: LOOKING FOR A SENSE OF PLACE: IDENTITY, CULTURAL IN-BETWEENNESS, AND ECONOMIC NETWORKS AMONG DOMINGOISES OF COLOR ……………….……………………………………………...………………...………201 CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………...……………240 iv BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………...……………243 APPENDIX: PROPERTY OF VICTOIRE WILTZ ……………………..…...………………..264 VITA …………………………………………………………………...………………………268 v LIST OF TABLES 1. Number of Slaves by Age and Gender, New Orleans, 1810-1820 ……………………...97 vi LIST OF FIGURES 1. Map of Saint Domingue …………………………………………………………………53 2. Map of Cuba …………………………………………………………………………….64 3. Pouponne Guérin to Monsieur Lambert, January 17, 1809 ………………………...…...67 4. Bouquetières de Saint-Domingue ……………………………………………………...146 5. Négresse et femme mulâtre de Saint-Domingue ……………………………………….156 6. Property of Elizabeth Rapp, 1 ………………………………………………………….172 7. Property of Elizabeth Rapp, 2 ………………………………………………………….174 8. Property of Elizabeth Rapp, 3 ………………………………………………………….175 9. Property of Elizabeth Rapp, 4 ………………………………………………………….176 10. Property of Elizabeth Rapp, 5 ………………………………………………………….177 11. Property of Victoire Wiltz ……………………………………………………………..181 vii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the economic opportunities that free women of color could derive from slaveholding, their motivations, and their impact on New Orleans’ antebellum society and economy. Another aim is to find out the role and impact of free women of color from Saint Domingue (later Haiti), whose arrival in New Orleans doubled the number of free women of color in the city. Finally, the analysis of relationships between free women of color and their slaves and with the diverse population of New Orleans plays an important part in this study. Notarial deeds (sales and purchases of slaves, mortgages of slaves, property inventories, powers of attorney, and wills), court records (lawsuits, Supreme Court records, and criminal records), and other public records (federal, state, county and city document, city directories, census data, and church sacramental registers) provide invaluable sources for this study. I use two major research strategies: (1) a statistical analysis of slave ownership among free women of color and (2) case studies. Such methodology allows me to consider slave ownership among these women in an exhaustive manner, including important parameters such as gender, race, and ethnicity. For free women of color, slaves were definitely a source of personal and commercial speculation, which was inherent in the relationship between master and slave. Free women of color did not and could not deny their slaves’ humanity, yet this knowledge, which gleams through the records on certain occasions, did not inhibit them from engaging in the exploitation and trading of slaves of all ages, which, in turn allowed them to acquire significant amounts of property. The data suggests that these aspirations were shared among the large community of free women of color in the urban center of New Orleans. There, they found a sense of viii community, tied together by a shared heritage, friendship, kinship, religion, education, and above all economic opportunities, creating thriving social and financial networks among themselves and with others throughout the city. ix INTRODUCTION The existence and the endeavors of free women of African ancestry in colonial and antebellum New Orleans have both fascinated and puzzled many over the past two centuries. Most accounts have focused on the reasons for the growth of the free population of color in New Orleans, with an emphasis on slave women’s and free women of color’s sexual relations with white men. Travelers’ accounts, writers of fiction, and scholars alike have dealt extensively with Quadroon Balls and plaçage.1 While describing the interracial sexual encounters that took place in the city, these accounts have both drawn disproportionate attentions to the sexual activities of women of color with white men and usually failed to represent women of color as active players in the society and economy of colonial and antebellum New Orleans. In 1835, Gustave de Beaumont, travel companion to the famed philosopher and politician Alexis de Tocqueville, described free women of color in those terms: “[I]n Louisiana the highest position that can be held by a free woman of color is that of a prostitute to white men.”2 Scholars’ and non scholars’ fascination with free women of color, sex, and sexuality, is still potent to this day. While 1 Primary and secondary sources about Quadroon Balls and plaçage: Gustave de Beaumont, Marie, or Slavery in the United States: A Novel of Jacksonian America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999 [Original work published in 1835]. Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Travels through North America during the Years 1825 and 1826, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1828). Samuel Wilson Jr., ed., Southern Travels: Journal of John H. B. Latrobe, 1834 (New Orleans: The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1986). George William Featherstonhaugh, Excursion through the Slave States from Washington on the Potomac to the Frontier of Mexico; with Sketches of Popular Manners and Geological Notices (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1844). Joan M. Martin, “Plaçage and the Louisiana Gens de Couleur Libre: How Race and Sex Defines the Lifestyles of Free Women of Color,” in Sybil Kein, ed., Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000), 57-70. Monique Guillory, “Under One Roof: The Sins and Sanctity of the New Orleans Quadroon Balls,” in Judith Jackson Fossett