History of slavery in Louisiana

Following

The institution was maintained by the Spanish (1763–1800) when the area was part of New Spain, by the French when they briefly reacquired the colony (1800–1803), and by the United States following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Due to its complex history, Louisiana had a very different pattern of slavery compared to the rest of the United States.^[1]

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French rule (1699–1763)

Slavery was introduced by French colonists in Louisiana in 1706, when they made raids on the Chitimacha settlements. Thousands of indigenous people were killed, and the surviving women and children were taken as slaves. The enslavement of natives, including the Atakapa, Bayogoula, Natchez, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Taensa, and Alabamon peoples, would continue throughout the history of French rule.^[2] While Native American peoples had sometimes made slaves of enemies captured in war, they also tended to adopt them into their tribes and incorporate them among their people.

The French introduced African slaves to the territory in 1710, after capturing a number as plunder during the War of the Spanish Succession. Trying to develop the new territory, the French transported more than 2,000 Africans to New Orleans between 1717 and 1721, on at least eight ships. The death toll for African and native slaves was high, with scurvy and dysentery widespread because of poor nutrition and sanitation. Although sailors also suffered from scurvy, slaves were subject to more shipboard diseases owing to overcrowding.

Spanish rule (1763–1803)

Alejandro O'Reilly re-established Spanish rule in 1768, and issued a decree on December 7, 1769, which banned the trade of Native American slaves.^[3] Although there was no movement toward abolition of the African slave trade, Spanish rule introduced a new law called coartación, which allowed slaves to buy their freedom and that of other slaves.^[4] Spain also shipped Romani slaves to Louisiana.^[5]

A group of

In Louisiana, uniquely among the slave states, enslaved people were classed as personal property rather than real property.[7]

New Orleans was the single most important slave market in the United States. One historian described the scene: "In the fashionable streets of the business quarter there were slave barracks, slave show-rooms, slave auction-houses. In some of these establishments negroes attractively attired were exhibited in show windows or on verandahs, precisely as one might offer any other kind of merchandise for public inspection. In 1842 there were 185 persons listed in the city directory as engaged in the business, not counting 349 brokers and 25 auctioneers, who probably also sold slaves whenever the opportunity offered. This was in a city the white population of which did not exceed 60,000 souls."^[8]

In 1857, Louisiana banned individual manumission, meaning slave owners could not independently free their slaves, it required court or legislative intervention.^[9]

Slavery was officially abolished in the portion of the state under Union control by the

Louisiana had a markedly different pattern of slave trading compared to other states in the American South as a result of its French and Spanish heritage. The origin of the slaves brought in by slave traders were primarily

Secondly, Louisiana's slave trade was governed by the French Code Noir, and later by its Spanish equivalent the Código Negro,^[1] As written, the Code Noir gave specific rights to slaves, including the right to marry. Although it authorized and codified cruel corporal punishment against slaves under certain conditions, it forbade slave owners to torture them. It forbade separation of married couples, and separation of young children from their mothers. It also required the owners to instruct slaves in the Catholic faith, implying that Africans were human beings endowed with a soul, an idea that had not been acknowledged until then.^[11][12][13]

Together with a more permeable historic French system related to the status of

Louisiana also granted the enslaved the right to purchase their own freedom, which was a legacy of the Spanish system and was called coartación.[15]

See also

• Pointe Coupée Slave Conspiracy of 1791
• Pointe Coupée Slave Conspiracy of 1795
• 1811 German Coast Uprising
  • Charles Deslondes, a leader of the slave revolt
• Black Indians in the United States
• List of plantations in Louisiana
• Louisiana African American Heritage Trail
  • Whitney Plantation Historic District, first museum in the U.S. dedicated to slavery
• Solomon Northup, author of Twelve Years a Slave (1853)
• Delphine LaLaurie (d. 1849), infamous for abuse of her French Quarter mansion's slaves
• John McDonogh (d. 1850), New Orleanian who manumitted slaves and funded antebellum education
• History of slavery in Texas
• Slavery in New France
• African Americans in Louisiana
• Slavery in the United States
• History of slavery in the United States by state

References