Louisiana state law was unique in allowing slaves to contract for their freedom and to initiate a lawsuit for liberty. Judith Kelleher Schafer describes the ingenious and remarkably sophisticated ways New Orleans slaves used the legal system to gain their independence and find a voice in a society that ordinarily gave them none. Showing that remaining free was often as challenging as becoming free, Schafer also recounts numerous cases in which free people of color were forced to use the courts to prove their status. She further documents seventeen free blacks who, when faced with deportation, amazingly sued to enslave themselves. Schafer’s impressive detective work achieves a rare feat in the historical profession—the unveiling of an entirely new facet of the slave experience in the American South.
Winner of the Francis Butler Simkins Award for 1995 and the 1994 General L. Kemper Williams Prize In what may be the most impressive research to date of state supreme court records, this study analyzes the evolution of Loui siana’s slave laws from the territorial period to the Civil War. Schafer presents numerous concise case his tories, stories that are fascinating and at times heartbreaking in the particulars they reveal about slaves’ existence. Anyone interested in slavery will find Schafer’s work riveting reading, for it depicts in detail, probably better than most fictional or narrative accounts, what living in bondage could mean.
Winner of the 2009 Gulf South Historical Association Book Award When a priest suggested to one of the first governors of Louisiana that he banish all disreputable women to raise the colony's moral tone, the governor responded, "If I send away all the loose females, there will be no women left here at all." Primitive, mosquito infested, and disease ridden, early French colonial New Orleans offered few attractions to entice respectable women as residents. King Louis XIV of France solved the population problem in 1721 by emptying Paris's La Salpêtrière prison of many of its most notorious prostitutes and convicts and sending them to Louisiana. Many of these women continued to ply their trade in New Orleans. In Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women, Judith Kelleher Schafer examines case histories from the First District Court of New Orleans and tells the engrossing story of prostitution in the city prior to the Civil War. Louisiana law did not criminalize the selling of sex until the Progressive Era, although the law forbade keeping a brothel. Police arrested individual public women on vague charges, for being "lewd and abandoned" or vagrants. The city's wealthy and influential landlords, some of whom made huge profits by renting their property as brothels, wanted their tenants back on the streets as soon as possible, and they often hired the best criminal attorneys to help release the women from jail. The courts, in turn, often treated these "public women" leniently, exacting small fines or sending them to the city's workhouse for a few months. As a result, prosecutors dropped almost all prostitution cases before trial. Relying on previously unexamined court records and newly available newspaper articles, Schafer ably details the brutal and often harrowing lives of the women and young girls who engaged in prostitution. Some watched as gangs of rowdy men smashed their furniture; some endured beatings by their customers or other public women enraged by fits of jealousy; others were murdered. Schafer discusses the sexual exploitation of children, sex across the color line, violence among and against public women, and the city's feeble attempts to suppress the trade. She also profiles several infamous New Orleans sex workers, including Delia Swift, alias Bridget Fury, a flaming redhead with a fondness for stabbing men, and Emily Eubanks and her daughter Elisabeth, free women of color known for assaulting white women. Although scholars have written much about prostitution in New Orleans' Storyville era, few historical studies on prostitution in antebellum New Orleans exist. Schafer's rich analysis fills this gap and offers insight into an intriguing period in the history of the "oldest profession" in the Crescent City.
*** EBOOK EXCLUSIVE *** BOOK 1: Spectacular Wickedness From 1897 to 1917 the red-light district of Storyville commercialized and even thrived on New Orleans's longstanding reputation for sin and sexual excess. This notorious neighborhood, located just outside of the French Quarter, hosted a diverse cast of characters who reflected the cultural milieu and complex social structure of turn-of-the-century New Orleans, a city infamous for both prostitution and interracial intimacy. BOOK 2: The Great Southern Babylon With a well-earned reputation for tolerance of both prostitution and miscegenation, New Orleans became known as the Great Southern Babylon in antebellum times. Following the Civil War, a profound alteration in social and economic conditions gradually reshaped the city's sexual culture and erotic commerce. Historian Alecia P. Long traces sex in the Crescent City over fifty years, drawing from Louisiana Supreme Court case testimony to relate intriguing tales of people both obscure and famous whose relationships and actions exemplify the era. BOOK 3: Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women When a priest suggested to one of the first governors of Louisiana that he banish all disreputable women to raise the colony's moral tone, the governor responded, "If I send away all the loose females, there will be no women left here at all." Primitive, mosquito infested, and disease ridden, early French colonial New Orleans offered few attractions to entice respectable women as residents. King Louis XIV of France solved the population problem in 1721 by emptying Paris's La Salpêtrière prison of many of its most notorious prostitutes and convicts and sending them to Louisiana. Many of these women continued to ply their trade in New Orleans.
Covering the lively, even raucous, history of Louisiana from before First Contact through the Elections of 2012, this sixth edition of the classic Louisiana history survey provides an engaging and comprehensive narrative of what is arguably America’s most colorful state. Since the appearance of the first edition of this classic text in 1984, Louisiana: A History has remained the best-loved and most highly regarded college-level survey of Louisiana on the market Compiled by some of the foremost experts in the field of Louisiana history who combine their own research with recent historical discoveries Includes complete coverage of the most recent events in political and environmental history, including the continued aftermath of Katrina and the 2010 BP oil spill Considers the interrelationship between Louisiana history and that of the American South and the nation as a whole Written in an engaging and accessible style complemented by more than a hundred photographs and maps
Central to the development of the American legal system, writes Professor Finkelman in Slavery & the Law, is the institution of slavery. It informs us not only about early concepts of race and property, but about the nature of American democracy itself. Prominent historians of slavery and legal scholars analyze the intricate relationship between slavery, race, and the law from the earliest Black Codes in colonial America to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision prior to the Civil War. Slavery & the Law's wide-ranging essays focus on comparative slave law, auctioneering practices, rules of evidence, and property rights, as well as issues of criminality, punishment, and constitutional law. What emerges from this multi-faceted portrait is a complex legal system designed to ensure the property rights of slave-holders and to institutionalize racism. The ultimate result was to strengthen the institution of slavery in the midst of a growing trend toward democracy in the mid-nineteenth-century Atlantic community.
Louisiana state law was unique in allowing slaves to contract for their freedom and to initiate a lawsuit for liberty. Judith Kelleher Schafer describes the ingenious and remarkably sophisticated ways New Orleans slaves used the legal system to gain their independence and find a voice in a society that ordinarily gave them none. Showing that remaining free was often as challenging as becoming free, Schafer also recounts numerous cases in which free people of color were forced to use the courts to prove their status. She further documents seventeen free blacks who, when faced with deportation, amazingly sued to enslave themselves. Schafer’s impressive detective work achieves a rare feat in the historical profession—the unveiling of an entirely new facet of the slave experience in the American South.
Winner of the Francis Butler Simkins Award for 1995 and the 1994 General L. Kemper Williams Prize In what may be the most impressive research to date of state supreme court records, this study analyzes the evolution of Loui siana’s slave laws from the territorial period to the Civil War. Schafer presents numerous concise case his tories, stories that are fascinating and at times heartbreaking in the particulars they reveal about slaves’ existence. Anyone interested in slavery will find Schafer’s work riveting reading, for it depicts in detail, probably better than most fictional or narrative accounts, what living in bondage could mean.
This interesting and informative book shows how different groups of urban residents with different social, economic, and political power cope with the urban environment, struggle to make a living, participate in communal institutions, and influence the direction of cities and urban life. An absorbing book, The Evolution of American Urban Society surveys the dynamics of American urbanization from the sixteenth century to the present, skillfully blending historical perspectives on society, economics, politics, and policy, and focusing on the ways in which diverse peoples have inhabited and interacted in cities. Key topics: Broad coverage includes: the Colonial Age, commercialization and urban expansion, life in the walking city, industrialization, newcomers, city politics, the social and physical environment, the 1920s and 1930s, the growth of suburbanization, and the future of modern cities. Market: An interesting and necessary read for anyone involved in urban sociology, including urban planners, city managers, and those in the urban political arena.
Winner of the 2009 Gulf South Historical Association Book Award When a priest suggested to one of the first governors of Louisiana that he banish all disreputable women to raise the colony's moral tone, the governor responded, "If I send away all the loose females, there will be no women left here at all." Primitive, mosquito infested, and disease ridden, early French colonial New Orleans offered few attractions to entice respectable women as residents. King Louis XIV of France solved the population problem in 1721 by emptying Paris's La Salpêtrière prison of many of its most notorious prostitutes and convicts and sending them to Louisiana. Many of these women continued to ply their trade in New Orleans. In Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women, Judith Kelleher Schafer examines case histories from the First District Court of New Orleans and tells the engrossing story of prostitution in the city prior to the Civil War. Louisiana law did not criminalize the selling of sex until the Progressive Era, although the law forbade keeping a brothel. Police arrested individual public women on vague charges, for being "lewd and abandoned" or vagrants. The city's wealthy and influential landlords, some of whom made huge profits by renting their property as brothels, wanted their tenants back on the streets as soon as possible, and they often hired the best criminal attorneys to help release the women from jail. The courts, in turn, often treated these "public women" leniently, exacting small fines or sending them to the city's workhouse for a few months. As a result, prosecutors dropped almost all prostitution cases before trial. Relying on previously unexamined court records and newly available newspaper articles, Schafer ably details the brutal and often harrowing lives of the women and young girls who engaged in prostitution. Some watched as gangs of rowdy men smashed their furniture; some endured beatings by their customers or other public women enraged by fits of jealousy; others were murdered. Schafer discusses the sexual exploitation of children, sex across the color line, violence among and against public women, and the city's feeble attempts to suppress the trade. She also profiles several infamous New Orleans sex workers, including Delia Swift, alias Bridget Fury, a flaming redhead with a fondness for stabbing men, and Emily Eubanks and her daughter Elisabeth, free women of color known for assaulting white women. Although scholars have written much about prostitution in New Orleans' Storyville era, few historical studies on prostitution in antebellum New Orleans exist. Schafer's rich analysis fills this gap and offers insight into an intriguing period in the history of the "oldest profession" in the Crescent City.
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