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Caribbean New Orleans. Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society. Cécile Vidal. Williamsburg, Virginia: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019552 p.

Léna Loza
p. 385-388
Bibliographical reference

Caribbean New Orleans. Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society. Cécile Vidal. Williamsburg, Virginia: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 978-1-4696-4518-6, 552 p.

Editor's notes

Index Nominum Charles Philippe Aubry, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, Jean-Bernard Bossu, Marc-Antoine Caillot, Jean-François-Benjamin Dumont de Montigny, François Fleuriau, Marie Madeleine Hachard, Louis Billouart de Kerlérec, Jacques de La Chaise, (royal commissioner), Nicolas La Frénière, Sébastien François Ange Le Normant de Mézy, Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, Louis alias Foÿs or Foÿe, Marie-Jeanne alias Jeannette (femme libre de couleur), Honoré-Gabriel Michel, Jean-Charles de Pradel, Étienne Périer, Gilles-Bernard Raguet (Abbé), Vincent-Gaspard-Pierre de Rochemore, Edmé Gatien Salmon, Alejandro O’Reilly, St. Louis alias La Nuit, Antonio de Ulloa, Pierre Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnac, Claude Joseph Villars Dubreuil

Full text

1Caribbean New Orleans: Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society is a 552-page masterpiece by Professor of History Cécile Vidal. This qualitative yet comprehensive study of French colonial New Orleans sheds light on the social history of the Louisiana capital in the 18th century and methodically demonstrates its Caribbean identity. Drawing on an impressive range of primary and secondary sources, Cécile Vidal manages to combine micro- and macro-levels of analysis to skillfully deliver a lively and original account of New Orleans’s development as a slave society. The author’s approach is all the more interesting as it challenges traditional historiographical frameworks. Not only does it invite the reader to go beyond the Caribbean vs North American slavery opposition, but it also offers an alternative to the dominant continental perspective on Louisiana’s colonial history. Vidal aims both at showing that “all colonial and slave societies [are] parts of a continuum” (2) and at “decentering North America” (2). This daunting undertaking is successfully carried out through a rich introduction followed by nine thematic chapters and a conclusion, all of which emphasize the tight connection between Louisiana and Saint-Domingue.

2The comparative approach to empire, the conceptual discussion of “slavery” and “racial formation” as well as the critical analysis of key sources, provided in the introduction, are noteworthy. The careful presentation of the historiographical positioning of the work which contextualizes the founding of New Orleans in 1718 as a Caribbean port city within a mature Atlantic World is similarly invaluable. The case made for the centrality of the Caribbean is further elaborated on in the first chapter which highlights the significance of mobility in the complex process of racial formation underlying New Orleans’s distinctive character. Run by the Company of the Indies until it became a royal colony in 1731, French New Orleans developed as a slave society mostly comprising French settlers from different social classes, a small elite group of free people of color and slaves of African descent. Vidal points out that the demographic constraints faced by this territory from 1731 resulted in the increased creolization of its population in the following decades. Yet its social stability was jeopardized by strengthened connections with Saint-Domingue and, to a lesser extent, Martinique, from the mid-18th century.

3The second chapter focuses on New Orleans’s local spatial environment, which allows the author to closely examine the ambivalent relationships between the white settlers and the local Native American population. She stresses the heightened sense of insecurity triggered by the outbreak of the Natchez Wars in 1729 and deepened by the threat of slave unrest from 1731. She argues that the growing feeling of vulnerability among white settlers fostered the need for mutual protection and bolstered their sense of racial solidarity with a view to making New Orleans their safe haven.

4In the third chapter, the complex power relations in New Orleans’s public space are examined. Increased physical proximity between people from different racial categories made it a pressing issue to assert the social superiority of white settlers. This was achieved through the racialization of space. Official public ceremonies and church-related practices served as means to consolidate the marginalization of Blacks. Social differentiation between lower-class whites and slaves was also enforced in taverns. Although lower-class whites could sometimes share leisure places with free people of color, the use of violence materialized the latter’s inferior status. All in all, the need to preserve the racial order cemented the white community despite its heterogeneity.

5In chapter 4 Vidal further analyzes the construction of whiteness by delving into Louisiana censuses. This allows her to account for the evolution of racial boundaries and to underscore the different social representations attached to various groups of white people. The data on domestic households gathered through censuses lead the author to broach the subject of domestic violence both against women and against urban slaves—be it physical or symbolic. The role of violence in maintaining social distance is further explored both in specific institutional contexts such as hospitals and the Ursulines convent which contributed to the process of racialization and subjugation.

6Chapter 5 takes a closer look at whites’ and blacks’ marital status and intimate lives. It raises the issue of interracial sexuality and emphasizes the gap between theory and practice. It is argued that despite the ban on mixed marriages imposed by the Code Noir of 1724, “métissage” was widespread. However, Vidal stresses that it was marked by secrecy, which, according to her, undermines the claim that greater racial openness prevailed in French Louisiana.

7In chapters 6 and 7, the author concentrates on New Orleans’s labor market and provides information on the breakdown of its diverse labor force. While the white labor force was made up of indentured servants, soldiers and convicts, slave labor gradually gained prominence, eventually replacing indentureship. On the one hand, slave ownership became a major factor of upward social mobility and rivalry among whites. On the other hand, New Orleans’s slaves had the opportunity to be trained as skilled workers and enjoyed better living conditions overall, due to the local shortage of laborers. Insisting on the role of trade in bringing urban dwellers closer, Vidal contends that “commerce and credit illuminate more than any other social practice the ambiguous position of enslaved men and women in urban settings, in between greater autonomy and greater repression” (357). As a matter of fact, slaves’ growing involvement in the market economy triggered tensions with whites. The growing popularity of trade among whites was also controversial as it threatened to blur their group’s internal social boundaries, reshape identities and upset the traditional social hierarchy.

8A detailed reflection on the racial taxonomy which prevailed in New Orleans opens chapter 8. It is followed by an analysis of the violent and discriminatory judicial system faced by slaves, despite the fact that they were regarded as scarce assets that had to be preserved. The last part of the chapter explores the opportunities offered to free Blacks in the context of growing defensive concerns, as well as their ambivalent condition. As a matter of fact, while the creation of a free colored militia in the early 1760s spurred the emergence of an upwardly mobile group of free Blacks, the author observes that their social progress was hampered by segregation and made racial domination over slaves even harsher.

9The last chapter of the book explores the sense of belonging expressed by New Orleans’s inhabitants. It reveals the political context in which the label “Louisianans” was coined as well as its racial overtones. This leads Vidal to place emphasis on the vain efforts of the New Orleans elite to fully share in the French imagined national community. The study of whites’ self-identification and assigned identity leads up to a discussion of “Creoleness” which is followed by an extensive exploration of slaves’ identification in court hearings. The author maintains that in Louisiana, slaves’ ethnic identities were downplayed whereas their country of origin or their Creole identity were pointed up.

10The conclusion acts as a reminder of the special ties uniting Louisiana and Saint-Domingue. Vidal first mentions the significant demographic weight of the refugees from Saint-Domingue who arrived in New Orleans due to the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution in 1791. She also brings into relief the impact of the circulation of ideas and technologies between the Caribbean and Louisiana. Thirdly, she contends that New Orleans’s urban features ensured greater social control, stating that: “[i]n Louisiana, like everywhere else in the Americas, the urban milieu was more favorable to autonomy and freedom for people of African descent, but the subordination and dependency of both enslaved and free blacks remained more pronounced in the Louisiana capital than in more advanced urban slave societies” (503). Comparing and contrasting French New Orleans and other Caribbean colonies, Vidal maintains that “[t]he formation of a slave society happened more quickly and more smoothly in Louisiana (…)” (502). She argues that such a development was built on the experience gained from older colonies coupled with local demographic circumstances and favorable geographical characteristics, and thus draws attention to “both the discontinuities and continuities between the colonial and slave societies of [North America and the Antilles]” (510).

11With its argumentative rigor, its extensive referencing and its informative maps and tables, Cécile Vidal’s book is likely to be of great interest to scholars. Although a few passages may seem lengthy, the thought-provoking anecdotes and the many examples giving access to various scenes of social life in 18th-century New Orleans make this book an enjoyable, worthwhile reading experience.

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References

Bibliographical reference

Léna Loza, Caribbean New Orleans. Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society. Cécile Vidal. Williamsburg, Virginia: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019552 p.Caliban, 64 | 2020, 385-388.

Electronic reference

Léna Loza, Caribbean New Orleans. Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society. Cécile Vidal. Williamsburg, Virginia: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019552 p.Caliban [Online], 64 | 2020, Online since 30 July 2021, connection on 19 July 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/caliban/9484; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/caliban.9484

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About the author

Léna Loza

Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès

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Copyright

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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