Plaçage
Encyclopedia
Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in which white French
and Spanish
and later Creole
men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriage
s with women of African, Indian and white (European) Creole descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives, but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color
as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages
. Many were often quarteronnes or quadroon
s, the offspring of a European and a mulatto
, but plaçage did occur between whites and mulattoes and blacks. The system flourished throughout the French
and Spanish colonial periods, and apparently reached its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803. It was not limited to Louisiana, but also flourished in the cities of Natchez
and Biloxi, Mississippi
; Mobile
, Alabama
; St. Augustine
and Pensacola
, Florida
; as well as Saint-Domingue
(present-day Haiti
). Plaçage, however, drew most of its fame—and notoriety—from its open application in New Orleans. Despite the prevalence of interracial encounters in the colony, not all Creole women of color were or became placées.
However, historian Joan Martin maintains that there is little recorded proof that the 'casket girls', considered the progenitors of white French Creoles, were even brought to Louisiana (the Ursuline order of nuns that supposedly chaperoned the arrivals until they married deny that they ever did so). Furthermore, Martin suggests not only that interracial relationships occurred almost the moment Europeans set foot in the New World, but that even some Creole families who today consider themselves white actually began with black or mixed-race forebears. Native women were either traded, sold, or stolen or captured in raids or battles. The only constant was that there were African female slaves, who tended to live longer than either white or Indian women, and who had been imported against their will to labor in the field and settlement. Marriage between the races was forbidden according to the Code Noir
, but French
and Spanish
explorers had become habituated to choosing native women in Asia
, Africa
, and the Americas
as their consorts. European
men during this period were not expected to marry until their early thirties, and premarital sex
with an intended white bride, especially if she was of high rank, was inconceivable.
African women soon became the concubines of white male colonists, who were sometimes the younger sons of noblemen, military men, plantation owners, merchants and administrators. (There was a particular precedent they came to follow from Saint Domingue, where the French carefully chose their consorts, eventually producing such allegedly attractive women that they were called Les Sirènes or the sirens.) So it became acceptable behavior for a white man to take a slave as young as twelve as a lover. And possession over time had a way of changing the original premise of a relationship. When the women produced children, they were sometimes emancipated along with their children, and were allowed to assume the surnames of their fathers and lovers. When Creole men reached an age when they were expected to marry, some were content to keep their relationships with their placées. Thus, a wealthy white Creole man could possess not just one, but two (or more) families. One with a white woman to whom he was legally married, and the other with a light-skinned Creole woman of color, a placée, who was faithful to him until death. Their mixed-race children became the nucleus of the class of free people of color
or gens de couleur
in Louisiana, to be replenished with waves of refugees and immigrants from Haiti
and other Francophone
colonies. The descendants of the gens de couleur also constituted a part of what later became known as the black middle class
in the United States
; however, most Creoles of color
deem themselves as neither White
nor black
and constitute a nation within a nation.
By 1788, 1,500 Creole women of color and black women were being maintained by white men, and a certain manner of living had emerged to be followed by each generation. It was not unusual for a wealthy, married Creole to live primarily outside New Orleans on a plantation
with his white family, with a second address to use in the city for entertaining and socializing among the white elite, while the placée and their children would live primarily in the house he had built or bought for her in New Orleans, and participate in the society of Creoles of color. The white world might not recognize the placée as a wife legally and socially, but she was recognized as such among the Creoles of color. They even owned slaves and plantations, although some of them, particularly during the Spanish colonial era, were relatives that the placées wished to manumit
at a later date.
While in New Orleans, the man would cohabit with the placée as an official 'boarder' at the Creole cottage or house near Rampart Street
--once the demarcation line or wall between the city and the frontier--or in either the Faubourg Marigny
and the Tremé
neighborhoods that slowly became the traditional enclave of the New Orleans Creoles of color. Sometimes, if he was not married and wished to keep up social appearances, he kept yet another, separate residence, preferably next door or in the same or next block, housing not being as stringently segregated
in New Orleans as they were in other American cities. He also took part in and arranged for the upbringing and education of their children, which meant that both boys and girls were educated in France, as there were no schools available to educate mixed-race children, and it was illegal to teach blacks to read and write. Naturally, the ideal plaçage arrangement(s) ran into the thousands of dollars per year.
Upon the death of her protector and lover, the placée and her family could, on legal challenge, expect up to a third of the man's property. Some white lovers attempted—and succeeded—in making their mixed-race children primary heirs over other white descendants or relatives. But expectation and fulfillment are two different concepts. If a white lover abandoned her or died without provision, which usually did occur, the former placée found other ways to keep herself against these possibilities. She acquired property, ran legitimate rooming-houses, or tried her hand as a hairdresser, as a marchande
(female street or country merchant/vendor usually selling Creole cheeses, herbs, pastries, condiments, jams or other dry goods) or as a seamstress. She could become placée to yet another white Creole. Or she could bring up her own daughters to become placées. It was also possible for her to legally marry or to cohabit with a Creole man of color and produce more children.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, placées were not and did not become prostitutes, although the New Orleans sex industry
as well as opponents of plaçage (embittered white wives, children, relatives; even former male participants, celebrity travelers, and religious and social activists) attempted to capitalize on or to promote this view of the placées. Creole men of color seemed to be of two minds. While they deplored the practice as denigrating the virtue of Creole women of color, some of them were also the products of liaisons with white Creole males. While many have condemned Creole women of color for seeking liaisons with white men, in reality, the women had no other choice. For many decades, they outnumbered free black men. As a subclass, they were not considered to have honor or morals respected by white social or legal custom because of their African origins. So they sought another way within the bounds of decency and even humanity. As Martin relates, "They did not choose to live in concubinage; what they chose was to survive."
The white Creole historians Charles Gayarré
and Alcée Fortier
also wrote revisionist histories more accommodating to prevailing theories of Southern white supremacy. They held that little race mixing had ever occurred during the colonial period, that it was the placées who had seduced or led white Creole men astray (Gayarré, when younger, had apparently taken a woman of color as his placée and who had borne him children to his later shame; he ended up marrying a white woman late in life and wrote of his experience in the novel Fernando de Lemos); and that Creoles were wholly pure-blooded whites who were threatened by the spectre of race-mixing like other Southern whites. As a result, placées were viewed through a stereotypical and often racist and romantic
prism that presented little of the reality regarding mixed-race women and about New Orleans itself.
on Cane River
in August 1742 as a slave of the post founder, the controversial explorer Louis Juchereau, Sieur de St-Denis. She would be, for twenty years, the placée of a French colonial merchant-turned-planter, Claude Thomas Pierre Métoyer, two years her junior. At the onset of their plaçage, she was already the mother of five children; she would bear ten more to Métoyer. In 1778, he freed her after the parish priest filed charges against Coincoin as a "public concubine" and threatened to have her sold at New Orleans if they did not end their relationship. As a free woman, she remained with Métoyer until 1788, when his growing fortune persuaded him to take a wife who could provide legal heirs. (He chose another Marie Thérèse, a white Créole of French and German birth.)
In setting Coincoin aside, Métoyer donated to her his interest in 80 arpents, about 68 acres (275,186.5 m²) of unpatented land, adjacent to his plantation, to help support their free-born offspring. On that modest tract, Coincoin planted tobacco--a valuable commodity in the struggling colony. She and her children trapped bears and wild turkeys for sales of meat, hide, and oil locally and at the New Orleans market. She also manufactured medicine--a skill shared by her freed-slave sister Marie Louise dite Mariotte and likely one acquired from their African-born parents. With this money, she progressively bought the freedom of four of her first five children and several grandchildren, before investing in three African-born slaves to provide the physical labor that became more difficult as she aged. After securing a colonial patent on her homestead in 1794, she petitioned for and was given a land concession from the Spanish crown. On that piney-woods tract of 800 arpents (667 acres) on Old Red River, about five miles from her farmstead, she set up a vacherie (a ranch) and engaged a Spaniard to tend her cattle. Shortly before her death in 1816, Coincoin sold her homestead and divided her remaining property (her piney-woods land, the three African slaves, and their offspring) among her own progeny.
As often happened among the children of plaçages, Coincoin's one surviving daughter by Métoyer, Marie Susanne, became a placée also. As a young woman, apparently with the blessing of both parents, she entered into a relationship with a newly arrived physician, Joseph Conant from New Orleans. When he left Cane River, soon after the birth of their son, she formed a second and lifelong plaçage with a Cane River planter, Jean Baptiste Anty. As a second-generation entrepreneur, Susanne became far more successful than her mother and died in 1838 leaving an estate of $61,600 (equivalent to $1,500,000 in 2009 currency).
Modern archaeological work at the site of Coincoin's farmstead is documenting some of the aspects of her domestic life. A mid-nineteenth century dwelling, now dubbed the Coincoin-Prudhomme House although it was not the actual site of her residence, commemorates her within the Cane River National Heritage Area. Popular lore also has, erroneously, credited her with the ownership of a Cane River plantation founded by her son Louis Metoyer, known today as Melrose Plantation
, and its historic buildings Yucca House and African House. Her eldest half-French son, Nicolas Augustin Métoyer, founded St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church
, the spiritual center of Cane River's large community of Creoles of color who trace their heritage to Coincoin.
There were many other examples of white Creole fathers who raised and then carefully and quietly placed their daughters of color with the sons of known friends or family members. This occurred with Eulalie de Mandéville, the elder half-sister of color to the eccentric nobleman, gambler and land speculator Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandéville
. Taken from her slave mother as a baby, and partly raised by a white grandmother, 22-year-old Eulalie was "placed" by her father, Count Pierre Enguerrand Philippe, Écuyer de Mandéville, Sieur de Marigny with Eugène de Macarty, a member of the famous French
-Irish
clan in 1796, in an alliance that resulted in five children and lasted almost fifty years. Macarty, like some white Creoles who were already fulfilled in their relationships with their placées, did not care to legally marry a white woman and produce suitable heirs.
(In comparison to the Macartys' steadfast devotion to each other, Eugène's brother, Augustin de Macarty, although married, was said to have had numerous, complex affairs with Creole women of color; so much, that at his death, there were five or six Augustin de Macarty heirs from several different mothers making claims against his will.)
On his deathbed in 1845, Eugène de Macarty married Eulalie and then willed her all of his money and property then worth $12,000; both actions were later contested by his white relatives, including the notorious Marie Delphine de Macarty LaLaurie, his niece. But the terms of the will favoring Eulalie was upheld by the courts, and after she died, their surviving children were able to beat back a second attempt to claim an estate that had ballooned to over $150,000. At one point, Eulalie even lived next door to Rosette Rochon (below). Eulalie de Mandéville de Macarty was a successful marchande
, and she also ran a dairy. She died in 1848.
Rosette Rochon was born in 1767 in colonial Mobile
, the daughter of Pierre Rochon, a shipbuilder from a Québécois family (family name was Rocheron in Québec
), through his mulâtresse slave consort Marianne, who bore him five other children. Once Rosette reached a suitable age, she became the consort of a Monsieur Hardy, with whom she relocated to the colony of Saint Domingue. During her sojourn there, Hardy must have died or relinquished her, for in 1797 during the Haitian Revolution, she escaped to New Orleans, where she later became the placée of Joseph Forstal and Charles Populus, both wealthy white New Orleans Creoles.
Rochon came to speculate in real estate in the French Quarter
; she eventually owned rental property, opened grocery stores, made loans, bought and sold mortgages, and owned and rented out slaves. She also traveled extensively back and forth to Haiti
, where her son by Hardy had become a government official in the new republic. Her social circle in New Orleans once included Marie Laveau
, Jean Lafitte
, and the free black contractors and real estate developers Jean-Louis Doliolle and his brother Joseph Doliolle.
In particular, Rochon became one of the earliest investors in the Faubourg Marigny
, acquiring her first lot from Bernard de Marigny
in 1806. Bernard de Marigny, the Creole speculator, refused to sell the lots he was subdividing from his family plantation to anyone who spoke English. While this turned out to be a losing financial decision, Marigny felt more comfortable with the French-speaking, Catholic free people of color (having relatives, lovers and even children on this side of the color line); consequently, much of Faubourg Marigny was built by free black artisans for free people of color or for French-speaking white Creoles. Rochon remained largely illiterate dying in 1863 at the age of 96, leaving behind an estate valued at $100,000 (today, an estate worth a million dollars).
Marie Laveau
(also spelled Leveau, Laveaux), known as the voodoo
queen of New Orleans, was born between 1795 and 1801 as the daughter of a white Haitian plantation owner, Charles Leveaux, and his mixed black and Indian placée Marguerite Darcantel (or D'Arcantel). Because there were so many whites as well as free people of color in Haiti
with the same names, Leveaux could also have been a free man of color who owned slaves and property as well. All three may have escaped Haiti along with thousands of other Creole whites and Creoles of color during the slave uprisings that culminated in the French colony's becoming the only independent black republic in the New World.
At 17, Marie married a Creole man of color popularly known as Jacques Paris (however, in some documents, he is known as Santiago Paris). Paris either died, disappeared or deliberately abandoned her (some accounts also relate that he was a merchant seaman or sailor in the navy) after she produced a daughter. Laveau was styling herself as the Widow Paris and was a hairdresser for white matrons (she was also reckoned to be an herbalist and yellow fever nurse) when she met Louis-Christophe Dumesnil de Glapion and in the early 1820s, they became lovers.
Marie was just beginning her spectacular career as a voodoo
practitioner (she would not be declared a 'queen' until about 1830), and Dumesnil de Glapion was a fiftyish white Creole veteran of the Battle of New Orleans
with relatives on both sides of the color line. Recently, it's been alleged that Dumesnil de Glapion was so in love with Marie, he refused to live separately from his placée according to racial custom
. In an unusual decision, Dumesnil de Glapion passed
as a man of color in order to live with her under respectable circumstances--thus explaining the confusion many historians have had whether he was truly white or black. Although it is popularly thought that Marie presented Dumesnil de Glapion with fifteen children, only five are listed in vital statistics and of these, two daughters--one the famous Marie Euchariste or Marie Leveau II--lived to adulthood. Marie Euchariste closely resembled her mother and startled many who thought that Marie Leveau had been resurrected by the black arts, or could be at two places at once, beliefs that the daughter did little to correct.
Sebastopol
This plantation house and property was built and cultivated by Don Pedro Morin in the 1830s in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. It was bought twenty years later by Colonel Ignatius Szymanski a Polish American who later served in the Confederate Army, and renamed Sebastopol. At his death, Colonel Szymanski willed this estate to his placée Eliza Romain, a free woman of color, and to their son John Szymanski.
In 1805, a man named Albert Tessier began renting a dance hall where he threw twice weekly dances for free quadroon women and white men only (80). These dances were elegant and elaborate, designed to appeal to wealthy white men. Although race mixing was prohibited by New Orleans law, it was common for white gentleman to attend the balls, sometimes stealing away from white balls to mingle with the city's quadroon female population. The principal desire of quadroon women attending these balls was to become plaçee as the mistress of a wealthy gentleman, usually a young white Creole or a visiting European (81). These arrangements were a common occurrence, Guillory suggests, because the highly educated, socially refined quadroons were prohibited from marrying white men and were unlikely to find Black men of their own status.
A quadroon's mother usually negotiated with an admirer the compensation that would be received for having the woman as his mistress. Typical terms included some financial payment to the parent, financial and/or housing arrangements for the quadroon herself, and, many times, paternal recognition of any children the union produced. Guillory points out that some of these matches were as enduring and exclusive as marriages. A beloved quadroon mistress had the power to destabilize white marriages and families, something she was much resented for.
The system of plaçage demands consideration of economic implications of mixed race. The plaçage of black women with white lovers, Guillory writes, could take place only because of the socially determined value of their light skin, the same light skin that commanded a higher price on the slave block, where light skinned girls fetched much higher prices than did prime field hands (82). Guillory posits the quadroon balls as the best among severely limited options for these near-white women, a way for them to control their sexuality and decide the price of their own bodies. She contends, "The most a mulatto mother and a quadroon daughter could hope to attain in the rigid confines of the black/white world was some semblance of economic independence and social distinction from the slaves and other blacks" (83). She notes that many participants in the balls were successful in actual businesses when they could no longer rely on an income from the plaçage system. She speculates they developed business acumen from the process of marketing their own bodies.
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
and Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
and later Creole
Louisiana Creole people
Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...
men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriage
Common-law marriage
Common-law marriage, sometimes called sui juris marriage, informal marriage or marriage by habit and repute, is a form of interpersonal status that is legally recognized in limited jurisdictions as a marriage even though no legally recognized marriage ceremony is performed or civil marriage...
s with women of African, Indian and white (European) Creole descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives, but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages
Morganatic marriage
In the context of European royalty, a morganatic marriage is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband's titles and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage...
. Many were often quarteronnes or quadroon
Quadroon
Quadroon, and the associated words octoroon and quintroon are terms that, historically, were applied to define the ancestry of people of mixed-race, generally of African and Caucasian ancestry, but also, within Australia, to those of Aboriginal and Caucasian ancestry...
s, the offspring of a European and a mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
, but plaçage did occur between whites and mulattoes and blacks. The system flourished throughout the French
Louisiana (New France)
Louisiana or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. Under French control from 1682–1763 and 1800–03, the area was named in honor of Louis XIV, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle...
and Spanish colonial periods, and apparently reached its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803. It was not limited to Louisiana, but also flourished in the cities of Natchez
Natchez
Natchez may refer to:* Natchez people, a Native American nation* Natchez language, the language of that Native American tribe* Natchez, Mississippi, United States* Natchez, Louisiana, United States* Natchez, Indiana, United States...
and Biloxi, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
; Mobile
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
; St. Augustine
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine is a city in the northeast section of Florida and the county seat of St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer and admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United...
and Pensacola
Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
; as well as Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue
The labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...
(present-day Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
). Plaçage, however, drew most of its fame—and notoriety—from its open application in New Orleans. Despite the prevalence of interracial encounters in the colony, not all Creole women of color were or became placées.
History and development of the plaçage system
The plaçage system grew out of a shortage of accessible white women. France needed wives for the men it had sent overseas, if its colonial population were to grow. Persuading women to follow the men was not easy. First, the motherland recruited willing farm- and city-dwelling women, known as casket or casquette girls, because they brought all their possessions to the colonies in a small trunk or casket. Then France also sent females convicted along with their debtor husbands, and in 1719, deported 209 women felons "who were of a character to be sent to the French settlement in Louisiana," so desperate were the colonial administrators for women to help create settled families in the colony. (See filles du roi for other ways the French encouraged women to go to the colonies.)Code Noir
The Code noir was a decree originally passed by France's King Louis XIV in 1685. The Code Noir defined the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire, restricted the activities of free Negroes, forbade the exercise of any religion other than Roman Catholicism , and ordered...
, but French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
explorers had become habituated to choosing native women in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, and the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
as their consorts. European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
men during this period were not expected to marry until their early thirties, and premarital sex
Premarital sex
Premarital sex is sexual activity, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex, practiced by persons who are unmarried. Although it has always been practiced, in the West it has increased in prevalence since the mid-1950s...
with an intended white bride, especially if she was of high rank, was inconceivable.
African women soon became the concubines of white male colonists, who were sometimes the younger sons of noblemen, military men, plantation owners, merchants and administrators. (There was a particular precedent they came to follow from Saint Domingue, where the French carefully chose their consorts, eventually producing such allegedly attractive women that they were called Les Sirènes or the sirens.) So it became acceptable behavior for a white man to take a slave as young as twelve as a lover. And possession over time had a way of changing the original premise of a relationship. When the women produced children, they were sometimes emancipated along with their children, and were allowed to assume the surnames of their fathers and lovers. When Creole men reached an age when they were expected to marry, some were content to keep their relationships with their placées. Thus, a wealthy white Creole man could possess not just one, but two (or more) families. One with a white woman to whom he was legally married, and the other with a light-skinned Creole woman of color, a placée, who was faithful to him until death. Their mixed-race children became the nucleus of the class of free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
or gens de couleur
Gens de couleur
Gens de couleur is a French term meaning "people of color." The term was commonly used in France's West Indian colonies prior to the abolition of slavery, where it was a short form of gens de couleur libres ....
in Louisiana, to be replenished with waves of refugees and immigrants from Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
and other Francophone
Francophone
The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....
colonies. The descendants of the gens de couleur also constituted a part of what later became known as the black middle class
Black middle class
The black middle class, within the United States, refers to African Americans who occupy a middle class status within the American class structure. It is predominately a development that arose after the 1960s, during which the African American Civil Rights Movement led to reform movements aimed at...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
; however, most Creoles of color
Creoles of color
The Creoles of Color are a historic ethnic group of Louisiana, especially the city of New Orleans.-History:During Louisiana’s colonial period, Creole referred to people born in Louisiana with ancestors from elsewhere; i.e., all natives other than Native Americans. They used the term to separate...
deem themselves as neither White
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
nor black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
and constitute a nation within a nation.
By 1788, 1,500 Creole women of color and black women were being maintained by white men, and a certain manner of living had emerged to be followed by each generation. It was not unusual for a wealthy, married Creole to live primarily outside New Orleans on a plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
with his white family, with a second address to use in the city for entertaining and socializing among the white elite, while the placée and their children would live primarily in the house he had built or bought for her in New Orleans, and participate in the society of Creoles of color. The white world might not recognize the placée as a wife legally and socially, but she was recognized as such among the Creoles of color. They even owned slaves and plantations, although some of them, particularly during the Spanish colonial era, were relatives that the placées wished to manumit
Manumission
Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...
at a later date.
While in New Orleans, the man would cohabit with the placée as an official 'boarder' at the Creole cottage or house near Rampart Street
Rampart Street
Rampart Street is a historic avenue located in New Orleans, Louisiana.The upper end of the street is in the New Orleans Central Business District...
--once the demarcation line or wall between the city and the frontier--or in either the Faubourg Marigny
Faubourg Marigny
The Marigny is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Bywater District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: North Rampart Street and St...
and the Tremé
Treme
Tremé is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Mid-City District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are Esplanade Avenue to the north, North Rampart Street to the east, St. Louis Street to the south and North Broad Street to the west...
neighborhoods that slowly became the traditional enclave of the New Orleans Creoles of color. Sometimes, if he was not married and wished to keep up social appearances, he kept yet another, separate residence, preferably next door or in the same or next block, housing not being as stringently segregated
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
in New Orleans as they were in other American cities. He also took part in and arranged for the upbringing and education of their children, which meant that both boys and girls were educated in France, as there were no schools available to educate mixed-race children, and it was illegal to teach blacks to read and write. Naturally, the ideal plaçage arrangement(s) ran into the thousands of dollars per year.
Upon the death of her protector and lover, the placée and her family could, on legal challenge, expect up to a third of the man's property. Some white lovers attempted—and succeeded—in making their mixed-race children primary heirs over other white descendants or relatives. But expectation and fulfillment are two different concepts. If a white lover abandoned her or died without provision, which usually did occur, the former placée found other ways to keep herself against these possibilities. She acquired property, ran legitimate rooming-houses, or tried her hand as a hairdresser, as a marchande
Marchande
A marchande is a term that refers to a female street or country merchant/vendor usually selling Creole cheeses, herbs, pastries, condiments, or jams. These women were common in South Louisiana up until the beginning of the 20th century, but in the last 100 years died out as a custom...
(female street or country merchant/vendor usually selling Creole cheeses, herbs, pastries, condiments, jams or other dry goods) or as a seamstress. She could become placée to yet another white Creole. Or she could bring up her own daughters to become placées. It was also possible for her to legally marry or to cohabit with a Creole man of color and produce more children.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, placées were not and did not become prostitutes, although the New Orleans sex industry
Sex industry
The sex industry consists of businesses which either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment...
as well as opponents of plaçage (embittered white wives, children, relatives; even former male participants, celebrity travelers, and religious and social activists) attempted to capitalize on or to promote this view of the placées. Creole men of color seemed to be of two minds. While they deplored the practice as denigrating the virtue of Creole women of color, some of them were also the products of liaisons with white Creole males. While many have condemned Creole women of color for seeking liaisons with white men, in reality, the women had no other choice. For many decades, they outnumbered free black men. As a subclass, they were not considered to have honor or morals respected by white social or legal custom because of their African origins. So they sought another way within the bounds of decency and even humanity. As Martin relates, "They did not choose to live in concubinage; what they chose was to survive."
The white Creole historians Charles Gayarré
Charles Gayarré
Charles Etienne Arthur Gayarre was an American historian born in New Orleans, Louisiana. A historian and a writer of plays, essays, and novels, he is chiefly remembered for his histories of Louisiana....
and Alcée Fortier
Alcée Fortier
Alcée Fortier was a renowned Professor of Romance Languages at Tulane University in New Orleans. In the late 19th and early 20th century, he published numerous works on language, literature, Louisiana history and folklore, Louisiana Créole languages, and personal reminiscence. His perspective...
also wrote revisionist histories more accommodating to prevailing theories of Southern white supremacy. They held that little race mixing had ever occurred during the colonial period, that it was the placées who had seduced or led white Creole men astray (Gayarré, when younger, had apparently taken a woman of color as his placée and who had borne him children to his later shame; he ended up marrying a white woman late in life and wrote of his experience in the novel Fernando de Lemos); and that Creoles were wholly pure-blooded whites who were threatened by the spectre of race-mixing like other Southern whites. As a result, placées were viewed through a stereotypical and often racist and romantic
Romantic love
Romance is the pleasurable feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person....
prism that presented little of the reality regarding mixed-race women and about New Orleans itself.
Noted placées
Marie Thérèse dite Coincoin, who has become an icon of black female entrepreneurship in colonial Louisiana. She was born at the frontier outpost of NatchitochesNatchitoches
Natchitoches may refer to:*Natchitoches , an American Indian people*Natchitoches, Louisiana, a city*Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana...
on Cane River
Cane River
Cane River is a lake and river formed from a portion of the Red River that is located in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it has been best known as the site of a historic Creole de couleur culture that has centers upon the National Historic Landmark Melrose...
in August 1742 as a slave of the post founder, the controversial explorer Louis Juchereau, Sieur de St-Denis. She would be, for twenty years, the placée of a French colonial merchant-turned-planter, Claude Thomas Pierre Métoyer, two years her junior. At the onset of their plaçage, she was already the mother of five children; she would bear ten more to Métoyer. In 1778, he freed her after the parish priest filed charges against Coincoin as a "public concubine" and threatened to have her sold at New Orleans if they did not end their relationship. As a free woman, she remained with Métoyer until 1788, when his growing fortune persuaded him to take a wife who could provide legal heirs. (He chose another Marie Thérèse, a white Créole of French and German birth.)
In setting Coincoin aside, Métoyer donated to her his interest in 80 arpents, about 68 acres (275,186.5 m²) of unpatented land, adjacent to his plantation, to help support their free-born offspring. On that modest tract, Coincoin planted tobacco--a valuable commodity in the struggling colony. She and her children trapped bears and wild turkeys for sales of meat, hide, and oil locally and at the New Orleans market. She also manufactured medicine--a skill shared by her freed-slave sister Marie Louise dite Mariotte and likely one acquired from their African-born parents. With this money, she progressively bought the freedom of four of her first five children and several grandchildren, before investing in three African-born slaves to provide the physical labor that became more difficult as she aged. After securing a colonial patent on her homestead in 1794, she petitioned for and was given a land concession from the Spanish crown. On that piney-woods tract of 800 arpents (667 acres) on Old Red River, about five miles from her farmstead, she set up a vacherie (a ranch) and engaged a Spaniard to tend her cattle. Shortly before her death in 1816, Coincoin sold her homestead and divided her remaining property (her piney-woods land, the three African slaves, and their offspring) among her own progeny.
As often happened among the children of plaçages, Coincoin's one surviving daughter by Métoyer, Marie Susanne, became a placée also. As a young woman, apparently with the blessing of both parents, she entered into a relationship with a newly arrived physician, Joseph Conant from New Orleans. When he left Cane River, soon after the birth of their son, she formed a second and lifelong plaçage with a Cane River planter, Jean Baptiste Anty. As a second-generation entrepreneur, Susanne became far more successful than her mother and died in 1838 leaving an estate of $61,600 (equivalent to $1,500,000 in 2009 currency).
Modern archaeological work at the site of Coincoin's farmstead is documenting some of the aspects of her domestic life. A mid-nineteenth century dwelling, now dubbed the Coincoin-Prudhomme House although it was not the actual site of her residence, commemorates her within the Cane River National Heritage Area. Popular lore also has, erroneously, credited her with the ownership of a Cane River plantation founded by her son Louis Metoyer, known today as Melrose Plantation
Melrose Plantation
Melrose Plantation, also known as Yucca Plantation, is a National Historic Landmark in Natchitoches Parish in north central Louisiana. This is one of the largest plantations in the United States built by and for free blacks...
, and its historic buildings Yucca House and African House. Her eldest half-French son, Nicolas Augustin Métoyer, founded St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church
St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church
St. Augustine Catholic Church is in Natchez, Louisiana. Tradition holds that the church was established by Nicolas Augustin Métoyer, a newly freed slave, in 1803 and that services have been held continuously since then. The congregation may have gathered then, but the church and priest came later...
, the spiritual center of Cane River's large community of Creoles of color who trace their heritage to Coincoin.
There were many other examples of white Creole fathers who raised and then carefully and quietly placed their daughters of color with the sons of known friends or family members. This occurred with Eulalie de Mandéville, the elder half-sister of color to the eccentric nobleman, gambler and land speculator Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandéville
Bernard de Marigny
Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, was a French-Creole American nobleman, playboy, politician, and President of the Louisiana Senate between 1822-1823.-Early life:...
. Taken from her slave mother as a baby, and partly raised by a white grandmother, 22-year-old Eulalie was "placed" by her father, Count Pierre Enguerrand Philippe, Écuyer de Mandéville, Sieur de Marigny with Eugène de Macarty, a member of the famous French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
-Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
clan in 1796, in an alliance that resulted in five children and lasted almost fifty years. Macarty, like some white Creoles who were already fulfilled in their relationships with their placées, did not care to legally marry a white woman and produce suitable heirs.
On his deathbed in 1845, Eugène de Macarty married Eulalie and then willed her all of his money and property then worth $12,000; both actions were later contested by his white relatives, including the notorious Marie Delphine de Macarty LaLaurie, his niece. But the terms of the will favoring Eulalie was upheld by the courts, and after she died, their surviving children were able to beat back a second attempt to claim an estate that had ballooned to over $150,000. At one point, Eulalie even lived next door to Rosette Rochon (below). Eulalie de Mandéville de Macarty was a successful marchande
Marchande
A marchande is a term that refers to a female street or country merchant/vendor usually selling Creole cheeses, herbs, pastries, condiments, or jams. These women were common in South Louisiana up until the beginning of the 20th century, but in the last 100 years died out as a custom...
, and she also ran a dairy. She died in 1848.
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
, the daughter of Pierre Rochon, a shipbuilder from a Québécois family (family name was Rocheron in Québec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
), through his mulâtresse slave consort Marianne, who bore him five other children. Once Rosette reached a suitable age, she became the consort of a Monsieur Hardy, with whom she relocated to the colony of Saint Domingue. During her sojourn there, Hardy must have died or relinquished her, for in 1797 during the Haitian Revolution, she escaped to New Orleans, where she later became the placée of Joseph Forstal and Charles Populus, both wealthy white New Orleans Creoles.
Rochon came to speculate in real estate in the French Quarter
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré as it was known then...
; she eventually owned rental property, opened grocery stores, made loans, bought and sold mortgages, and owned and rented out slaves. She also traveled extensively back and forth to Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, where her son by Hardy had become a government official in the new republic. Her social circle in New Orleans once included Marie Laveau
Marie Laveau
Marie Laveau was a Louisiana Creole practitioner of Voodoo renown in New Orleans. She was born free in New Orleans....
, Jean Lafitte
Jean Lafitte
Jean Lafitte was a pirate and privateer in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He and his elder brother, Pierre, spelled their last name Laffite, but English-language documents of the time used "Lafitte", and this is the commonly seen spelling in the United States, including for places...
, and the free black contractors and real estate developers Jean-Louis Doliolle and his brother Joseph Doliolle.
In particular, Rochon became one of the earliest investors in the Faubourg Marigny
Faubourg Marigny
The Marigny is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Bywater District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: North Rampart Street and St...
, acquiring her first lot from Bernard de Marigny
Bernard de Marigny
Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, was a French-Creole American nobleman, playboy, politician, and President of the Louisiana Senate between 1822-1823.-Early life:...
in 1806. Bernard de Marigny, the Creole speculator, refused to sell the lots he was subdividing from his family plantation to anyone who spoke English. While this turned out to be a losing financial decision, Marigny felt more comfortable with the French-speaking, Catholic free people of color (having relatives, lovers and even children on this side of the color line); consequently, much of Faubourg Marigny was built by free black artisans for free people of color or for French-speaking white Creoles. Rochon remained largely illiterate dying in 1863 at the age of 96, leaving behind an estate valued at $100,000 (today, an estate worth a million dollars).
Marie Laveau
Marie Laveau
Marie Laveau was a Louisiana Creole practitioner of Voodoo renown in New Orleans. She was born free in New Orleans....
(also spelled Leveau, Laveaux), known as the voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of underground religious practices which originated from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions which developed within the French, Spanish, and Creole speaking African American...
queen of New Orleans, was born between 1795 and 1801 as the daughter of a white Haitian plantation owner, Charles Leveaux, and his mixed black and Indian placée Marguerite Darcantel (or D'Arcantel). Because there were so many whites as well as free people of color in Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
with the same names, Leveaux could also have been a free man of color who owned slaves and property as well. All three may have escaped Haiti along with thousands of other Creole whites and Creoles of color during the slave uprisings that culminated in the French colony's becoming the only independent black republic in the New World.
At 17, Marie married a Creole man of color popularly known as Jacques Paris (however, in some documents, he is known as Santiago Paris). Paris either died, disappeared or deliberately abandoned her (some accounts also relate that he was a merchant seaman or sailor in the navy) after she produced a daughter. Laveau was styling herself as the Widow Paris and was a hairdresser for white matrons (she was also reckoned to be an herbalist and yellow fever nurse) when she met Louis-Christophe Dumesnil de Glapion and in the early 1820s, they became lovers.
Marie was just beginning her spectacular career as a voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of underground religious practices which originated from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions which developed within the French, Spanish, and Creole speaking African American...
practitioner (she would not be declared a 'queen' until about 1830), and Dumesnil de Glapion was a fiftyish white Creole veteran of the Battle of New Orleans
Battle of New Orleans
The Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815 and was the final major battle of the War of 1812. American forces, commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson, defeated an invading British Army intent on seizing New Orleans and the vast territory the United States had acquired with the...
with relatives on both sides of the color line. Recently, it's been alleged that Dumesnil de Glapion was so in love with Marie, he refused to live separately from his placée according to racial custom
Convention (norm)
A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms or criteria, often taking the form of a custom....
. In an unusual decision, Dumesnil de Glapion passed
Passing (racial identity)
Racial passing refers to a person classified as a member of one racial group attempting to be accepted as a member of a different racial group...
as a man of color in order to live with her under respectable circumstances--thus explaining the confusion many historians have had whether he was truly white or black. Although it is popularly thought that Marie presented Dumesnil de Glapion with fifteen children, only five are listed in vital statistics and of these, two daughters--one the famous Marie Euchariste or Marie Leveau II--lived to adulthood. Marie Euchariste closely resembled her mother and startled many who thought that Marie Leveau had been resurrected by the black arts, or could be at two places at once, beliefs that the daughter did little to correct.
Sebastopol
Sebastopol
Sebastopol is a former spelling and frequent variant of Sevastopol, the port on the Crimean peninsula.Sebastopol may refer to the following:Places:* Sebastopol, California, USA* Sebastopol, Mississippi, USA...
This plantation house and property was built and cultivated by Don Pedro Morin in the 1830s in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. It was bought twenty years later by Colonel Ignatius Szymanski a Polish American who later served in the Confederate Army, and renamed Sebastopol. At his death, Colonel Szymanski willed this estate to his placée Eliza Romain, a free woman of color, and to their son John Szymanski.
The quadroon balls
The term quadroon is a fractional one referring to a person with one white and one mulatto parent, someone courts would have considered one-fourth Black. The quadroon balls were social events designed to encourage mixed-race women to form liaisons with wealthy white men through a system of concubinage known as plaçage. (Guillory 68-9). The history of the balls epitomizes White America's exoticizing fascination with light-skinned individuals of mixed race. It is a fascination that can seem condescending, pernicious, and even sordid. Monique Guillory writes about quadroon balls that took place in New Orleans, the city most strongly associated with these events. She approaches the balls in context of the history of a building the structure of which is now the Bourbon Orleans Hotel. Inside is the Orleans Ballroom, a legendary, if not entirely factual, location for the earliest quadroon balls.In 1805, a man named Albert Tessier began renting a dance hall where he threw twice weekly dances for free quadroon women and white men only (80). These dances were elegant and elaborate, designed to appeal to wealthy white men. Although race mixing was prohibited by New Orleans law, it was common for white gentleman to attend the balls, sometimes stealing away from white balls to mingle with the city's quadroon female population. The principal desire of quadroon women attending these balls was to become plaçee as the mistress of a wealthy gentleman, usually a young white Creole or a visiting European (81). These arrangements were a common occurrence, Guillory suggests, because the highly educated, socially refined quadroons were prohibited from marrying white men and were unlikely to find Black men of their own status.
A quadroon's mother usually negotiated with an admirer the compensation that would be received for having the woman as his mistress. Typical terms included some financial payment to the parent, financial and/or housing arrangements for the quadroon herself, and, many times, paternal recognition of any children the union produced. Guillory points out that some of these matches were as enduring and exclusive as marriages. A beloved quadroon mistress had the power to destabilize white marriages and families, something she was much resented for.
The system of plaçage demands consideration of economic implications of mixed race. The plaçage of black women with white lovers, Guillory writes, could take place only because of the socially determined value of their light skin, the same light skin that commanded a higher price on the slave block, where light skinned girls fetched much higher prices than did prime field hands (82). Guillory posits the quadroon balls as the best among severely limited options for these near-white women, a way for them to control their sexuality and decide the price of their own bodies. She contends, "The most a mulatto mother and a quadroon daughter could hope to attain in the rigid confines of the black/white world was some semblance of economic independence and social distinction from the slaves and other blacks" (83). She notes that many participants in the balls were successful in actual businesses when they could no longer rely on an income from the plaçage system. She speculates they developed business acumen from the process of marketing their own bodies.
Recent books
- The Free People of Color of New Orleans, An Introduction, by Mary Gehman and Lloyd Dennis, Margaret Media, Inc., 1994.
- Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century, by Gwendolyn Midlo HallGwendolyn Midlo HallGwendolyn Midlo Hall is a prominent historian and public intellectual who focuses on the history of slavery in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Louisiana , and the African Diaspora in the Americas...
, Louisiana State University Press, 1995. - Creole New Orleans, Race and Americanization, by Arnold R. Hirsch and Joseph Logsdon, Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
- Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans,, by Kimberly S. Hanger.
- Afristocracy: Free Women of Color and the Politics of Race, Class, and Culture, by Angela Johnson-Fisher, Verlag, 2008.
Contemporary accounts
- Travels by His Highness Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach through North America in the years 1825 and 1826, by Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach; William Jeronimus and C.J. Jeronimus, University Press of America, 2001. (The Duke relates his visits to quadroon balls as a tourist in New Orleans.)
- Voyage to Louisiana, (An abridged translation from the original French by Stuart O. Landry) by C.C. Robin, Pelican Publishing Co., 1966. (Robin visited Louisiana just after its purchase by the Americans and resided there for two years.)
Fiction
- PropertyProperty (novel)Property is a 2003 novel by Valerie Martin, and was the winner of the 2003 Orange Prize.The book is set on a sugar plantation near New Orleans during the 1830s, and tells the story of Manon Gaudet, the wife of the plantation's owner, and Sarah, the slave Manon was given as a wedding present and who...
, by Valerie MartinValerie MartinValerie Martin is an American novelist and short story writer. She has also taught at Mount Holyoke College, Loyola University New Orleans, The University of New Orleans, The University of Alabama, and Sarah Lawrence College, among other institutions. She is a graduate of the MFA Program for...
. Novel from the point-of-view of a white slaveowning widow who obsessively pursues the former slave lover/placée of the husband she loathed. - Saratoga TrunkSaratoga TrunkSaratoga Trunk is a 1945 film written by Edna Ferber and Casey Robinson, based on Ferber's best-selling novel of the same name. It stars Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Florence Bates, and Flora Robson, who was nominated for a Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance.-Plot:Ingrid Bergman played a...
, by Edna FerberEdna FerberEdna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big , Show Boat , and Giant .-Early years:Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,...
. Ferber was hampered by stereotypes, by how much she really knew and what she could reveal about Creole women of color in this novel regarding a placée's daughter, a near-white Clio Dulaine, who returns from exile in France to wreak revenge on her father's white family and to marry a rich man in the 1880s (and thus, pass into whiteness). The book was later made into a film starring Ingrid BergmanIngrid BergmanIngrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
and Gary CooperGary CooperFrank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
. But it, like the film, falls apart after the action and the heroine move on to Saratoga Springs, New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. - The Grandissimes, A Story of Creole Life by George Washington CableGeorge Washington CableGeorge Washington Cable was an American novelist notable for the realism of his portrayals of Creole life in his native Louisiana. His fiction has been thought to anticipate that of William Faulkner.- Biography:...
. He also wrote the short stories, "Títe Poulette", "Madame John's LegacyMadame John's LegacyMadame John's Legacy is a house in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. The name is taken from a story by George Washington Cable. The house was built in 1788, after a fire destroyed much of the neighborhood...
" and "Madame Delphine" that were sympathetic to the placée as societal outcast. - The Feast of All SaintsThe Feast of All SaintsThe Feast of All Saints is a novel by Anne Rice.-Plot summary:This novel is about the gens de couleur libres, or free people of color, who lived in New Orleans before the Civil War. The gens de couleur libres were the descendants of European settlers of Louisiana, particularly the French and...
, by Anne RiceAnne RiceAnne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...
. A coming of age novel about a young man making his way in Creole New Orleans. A filmFilmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
was also made of this novel. - The Benjamin January Mysteries, by Barbara HamblyBarbara HamblyBarbara Hambly is an award-winning and prolific American novelist and screenwriter within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction...
. This series of novels involves Benjamin January, a free man of colour, in New Orleans in the 1830s. His half-sister Dominique appears prominently in the novels and is a placée. - The Island Beneath the SeaThe Island Beneath the SeaThe Island Beneath the Sea is a 2010 novel by Chilean author Isabel Allende. It was first published in the United States by HarperCollins. The book was issued in 2009 in Spanish as La Isla Bajo el Mar, and was translated into English by Margaret Sayers Peden, who has translated all of Allende's...
, by Isabel AllendeIsabel AllendeIsabel Allende Llona is a Chilean writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts , which have been commercially successful...
. A novel about a mixed race slave who is brought to Saint-DomingueSaint-DomingueThe labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...
and is eventually brought to New Orleans with her master's family and quadroonQuadroonQuadroon, and the associated words octoroon and quintroon are terms that, historically, were applied to define the ancestry of people of mixed-race, generally of African and Caucasian ancestry, but also, within Australia, to those of Aboriginal and Caucasian ancestry...
daughter, Rosette. Rosette is introduced to society as a placée.
External links
- http://www.nsula.edu/creole/moncher.pdf Mon Cher, Creole genealogical newsletter, dated June 20, 2003, on the genealogy of Marie Laveau, also related to the Trudeaus, page 5.
- http://www.canerivercolony.com/History/UpFromSlavery.htm Information about the life of Marie Thérèse Coincoin Metoyer.
- http://www.enlou.com/fq/vc912.htm History of 918 Barracks Street in the French Quarter, where Eugène Macarty purchased and then built another home for his placée, Eulalie Mandeville (fwc; for free woman of color) and their children.
- http://www.frenchcreoles.com/index.html Website of Louisiana Creoles of color.
- http://www.rosetterochon.com/ Website of the Musée Rosette Rochon, located on 1515 Pauger Street, Marigny, New Orleans. This house, which survived Hurricane Katrina, is the only extant residence built by Mme. Rochon.