Zwischen Machtlosigkeit und Ermächtigung: Ehe und ‚Rasse‘ in Louisiana im 19. Jahrhundert

Abstract

Between Powerlessness and Empowerment: Marriage and Race in Louisiana in the 19th Century. Throughout colonial and Antebellum times, Louisiana governments banned intermarriage between white and black or colored Louisianians – slave or free – in order to curtail the growth of a racially-mixed, potentially subversive population. However, due to the extralegal system of plaçage, many Free Women of Color in New Orleans had marriage-like, often long-term relationships with white men.

This article combines aspects of family, gender and identity history with legal history. Based on Louisiana Supreme Court cases of the first half of the 19th century dealing with the legitimacy of marriages and inheritances, it traces the interdependencies between normative family legislation, Louisiana’s exceptional social structure and constructions of race and gender. On the surface, these litigations regulate the transfer and distribution of material possessions. More profoundly, however, they negotiate racial identities as a prerequisite for specific social rights and privileges. The examination of these lawsuits demonstrates that courts and juries did not just react to codifications, ritualized through social conventions, but actively participated in the judicial and social constructions of race. Furthermore, women in extralegal relationships and their illegitimate children made use of Louisiana’s particular judicial system to create spaces of resistance to sexual and social dependency by procuring financial gains for themselves and their offspring.