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 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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04242012-161226 |
| Date | 26 April 2012 |
| Creators | Ulentin, Anne |
| Contributors | Long, Alecia P., Hoffman, Paul E., Foster, Gaines M., Cole, Gibril R., Richardson, Malcolm |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04242012-161226/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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