ePub Paths to Freedom: Manumission in the Atlantic World (Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World) by From Brand: Univ of South Carolina Pr in History

Description

From its very beginnings in the early eighteenth century; New Orleans was a slave society with a black majority. It combined the labor and social relations of an urban setting with those of a planter society: for much of its early history it consisted of a town center encircled by plantations. Each individual in this community was shaped by his or her color; class; and gender; but slavery structured the community as a whole. In a study that is both sweeping and finely detailed; Thomas N. Ingersoll tells the story of this city of slaves; slaveholders; and nonslaveholders and how it grew during its first century.Drawing on a wealth of sources—judicial and sacramental records; notarial archives; administrative reports; eyewitness accounts; personal correspondence—Ingersoll illuminates the lives of those who built New Orleans against great odds. Woven throughout the book is a fascinating comparative analysis. Since Louisiana fell under the administration of France and Spain before becoming a U.S. territory in 1803; the case of New Orleans offers an opportunity to test the longstanding thesis that slave regimes under the French; Spanish; and Anglo-Americans were significantly different. Ingersoll finds that; by contrast; the city's development was remarkably continuous; affected mainly by the changing volume of its slave trade between 1719 and 1808 and thereafter primarily by urban conditions. In addition; Ingersoll disputes the conventional wisdom that early New Orleans society was anarchic—a paradise; as one writer put it; for "thieves; vagabonds; and prostitutes." In fact; Ingersoll argues; the community's development was no less orderly than that of Charleston or Savannah. Consequently; it was incorporated swiftly and easily into the United States following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803; after which it rapidly emerged as the largest and most economically important city in the South.Ultimately; Ingersoll argues; it was "Mammon"—the lure of wealth and possessions—that ruled in New Orleans throughout its early history and imposed order on a city whose population had become remarkably diverse by 1819. In the author's view; "Manon"—the enduring image of New Orleans as a disorderly place; ruled by a sultry temptress—"deserves not modification but retirement."The Author: Thomas N. Ingersoll is associate professor of history at the Université de Montréal. The author of articles in such journals as Louisiana History and William and Mary Quarterly; he co-organized the conference "The Family and Slavery in the Americas" at the Université de Montréal in 1994.