Les Gens De Couleur Libres, The Free People of Color in New Orleans

The French Quarter, one of the oldest neighborhoods in New Orleans, is one of the most classic and flourishing areas in Louisiana. It is also known as Vieux Carré, which is French for "Old Square". It was established by the French in 1718 and it was a valuable site for trade because of its location along the Mississippi River. It was first in the hands of the French, then it was given to the Spanish, then the Louisiana Purchase took place, and ever since it has been in the hands of the United States. Le Vieux Carré; (the French Quarter) is a spirited tourist attraction for the city of New Orleans that is steeped in history, and has made and continues to make a tremendous cultural and financial impact on the city's economy.

This paper discusses the experiences of African American Women under slavery during the Slave Trade, their exploitation, the secrecy, the variety of tasks and positions of slave women, slave and ex-slave narratives, and significant contributions to history. Also, this paper presents the hardships African American women faced and the challenges they overcame to become equal with men in today’s society. Slavery was a destructive experience for African Americans especially women. Black women suffered doubly during the slave era.

The life of African Americans in the 1800 was so harsh and unfair. Their owners would treat them cruelly and made them work long hours. They were not fed and had no sanitation which led to malnutrition and disease. Many young girls also went through sexual abuse and owners wouldn’t even get prosecuted because they were the ones who ruled everything. They separated many families from husbands, wife’s, and children. Those who were not prepared suffered every day because they were not with their families. Many of them never saw their family again.

During these years of radical reconstruction, the African Americans were going through some very tough times. The laws that were put on them were harsh and unreasonable. All they wanted to do was becomes socially and economically apart of the United States. Groups like the KKK were unfair towards the blacks and made their lives miserable by holding rallies and killing them. As a result of reconstruction, the blacks were not given social or economic equality because of laws like the black codes and Jim Crow laws, and the rebellious whites in the south. These African Americans struggled just to support themselves, but whites eventually accepted them at the end of the

Once free they had a realization that they could do anything. This appeared in the stories, essays and poems they wrote. They were opened up to a world that held so many possibilities. The world was theirs and because they didn’t have it for so long. African Americans lived oppressed and without any rights. When they were freed it opened up so many possibilities. Emily Dickinson talked about how we can’t understand something until it is no longer with us. African Americans were trapped for all their lives and once released they had ambition. Their ambition sent them to work and continue to advance in the world. The problem for the white people is they didn’t have this ambition. They had never had been without rights, so they couldn’t understand. African Americans worked until they surpassed the white’s so no white could ever put them in captivity again. They were humans and were equal and nothing could change that.

New Orleans culture is a melting pot of Spanish, French, Mexican, Native American, and African descent. Creole is a term that refers to mixed-race natives of Louisiana. Many creoles were free and their ancestors often had the same rights as white people. They often received formal education and owned property and slaves. Creole culture was catholic and French-speaking as opposed to the Protestant and English-speaking whole of America. This amalgamation of cultures created a safe haven for personal expression, and caused the development and evolution of the culture and Jazz music.

The South was a complete mess after the Civil War. The early part of the 20th century brought many changes for African Americans. There was a difficult challenge of helping newly free African American slaves assimilate among their white counterparts. They suffered from crop failures, economic hardships, and the early failures of Reconstruction in the south. So as result many Southern African Americans migrated to northern cities in search of employment and a chance at a better life. However, Southern African Americans migrating to northern cities quickly discovered that they were not able to enjoy the same social and economic mobility experienced by their European immigrant counterparts arriving around the same time. There were many

The work of Michael Ross in The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era, helps us understand the history of New Orleans and Reconstruction Era in only 10 chapters of the book. “Ever since Reconstruction ended in 1877, many have questioned whether the North’s effort to bring a new social, economic and political order to the old Confederacy had any real chance for success” (6). During this essay we are going to discuss how Michael Ross helps understand more about the history of New Orleans in terms of the Reconstruction Era.

 African Americans had a rough life during the revolution. Mary Postill is a prime example of the hardships that an African American slave had to go through. After she fled to Charleston, the military gave her a certificate of freedom. At the time, the military was controlled by the British. A loyalist who claimed freed blacks wrongly then took control of Mary and her family and made them his slaves so they could no longer be free. Gray brought Mary to court when she attempted to flee. She swore that she was free, but Gray, being that he was an esteemed white man, won the case. He then sold Mary and her family down the river for a hundred bushels of potatoes. This was her punishment for trying to escape him. The owners of slaves usually made their workers do the most tedious and tiresome work such as helping with the rice production. They were not well fed and they were not given enough supplies to make their own clothing. The slaves were also physically and mentally abused. Carol Berkin states in chapter 8 of

They were free from slavery and had new opportunity, but were often met with limited ability to pursue those opportunities as well as being met with outright resentment and violence from the white population in the form of gangs like the Ku Klux Klan. However, despite all the violence and resistance they faced the freepeoples had a significant interest in how Reconstruction policies affected them as now they had the ability to marry legally, which created legitimacy for children and access to land titles. (Nash, et al., 2007., p. 471) The creation of the Freedman’s Bureau was also another policy that attempted to benefit them, but it’s resources being stretched too thin and too often turned disadvantageous for them in terms of contracts giving rise to sharecropping and tenant farming. (Nash, et al., 2007., pp.

African Americans living in the North, as well as those in the South, faced multiple challenges. In 1860, tension grew between the North and South. Most southern states still held onto slavery, because their slaves were worth money, while the North was trying to abolish it. The North had many free African Americans, but the question is, were they actually free? Free Africans Americans in the North before the civil war were not actually free because, they had little to none political right, they were not allowed to associate with whites, and making a living, no matter what, was hard.

The African Americans were given their own freedom as well after being free from Britain. The diversity had become denser and so trade had flourished, and America had become more social. In Document F, it would state, "In 1790, the first U.S. census counted 13,059 free blacks in New England, with another 13,975 in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Strictly speaking, none of them was "free," for their lives were proscribed politically, economically, and socially. While white indentured servants often became respected members of their communities after their indentures ended, free blacks in the North rarely had the opportunity to rise above the level of common laborers and washerwomen, and as early as 1760 they had formed ghettoes in the grimy alleys and waterfront districts of Boston and other Northern towns" This would show how the indentured servants became members of the community and had not been looked down from the rest of the other people. And how America was the land of the free and was not discriminating other people based on their race or ethnicity.  To sum up, the people of races were not judged and were accepted by the

African American’s, after the Civil War and abolishment of slavery, still found themselves in a racist and oppressive society. Though legally free, lots were still engaged in forced labor. Threatened with back lash by their so called “masters” they were trying to find their way as free people. Trying to find some sort of or create better reality in a vile society of people who still believed African American’s were only fit to be slaves. The onslaught of World War I gave African American’s an opportunity to leave the vile societies of the south.

on July 14, 1803. The total cost of the whole Louisiana Purchase was about fifteen

Saint John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana was established by a group of Germans on March 31, 1807. The parish was named after Saint John the Baptist and is also called the heart of the River Parishes and the German Coast. The settling and intermingling of the French and Spanish emigrants caused the culture and demographics of the parish to diversify by creating new ethnicities such as Creoles and Acadians. St. John the Baptist Parish (St. John Parish) is the fifth smallest parish in Louisiana and one of the 19 original parishes which made up the Territory of Orleans which later became the state of Louisiana. St. John Parish is bisected by the Mississippi River which separates the parish into a northern (East St. John Parish) and southern part (West St. John Parish). The parish John is also approximately 130 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico and 30 miles north of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. St. John parish has been known as a river region due to its extraction and exportation of biotic and potential resources. The parish’s primary source of income is generated through the processing of petroleum, natural gas and sulfur. Due to the parish’s mild climate the farming (sugar cane, feed