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BestsellerE-book
Author Aslakson, Kenneth R., author.

Title Making race in the courtroom : the legal construction of three races in New Orleans / Kenneth R. Aslakson.

Publication Info. New York ; London, England : New York University Press, [2014]
©2014

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (xii, 249 pages)
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Note Based on the author's thesis (doctoral - University of Texas, 2007) issued under title: Making race : the role of free Blacks in the development of New Orleans' three-caste society, 1791-1812.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-239) and index.
Contents The Gulf and Its City -- A Legal System in Flux -- "We Shall Serve with Fidelity and Zeal" -- Outside the Bonds of Matrimony -- Owning So as Not to Be Owned -- When the Question Is Slavery or Freedom? -- Epilogue : From Adele to Plessy.
Summary "No American city's history better illustrates both the possibilities for alternative racial models and the role of the law in shaping racial identity than New Orleans, Louisiana, which prior to the Civil War was home to America's most privileged community of people of African descent. In the eyes of the law, New Orleans's free people of color did not belong to the same race as enslaved Africans and African-Americans. While slaves were "negroes," free people of color were gens de couleur libre, creoles of color, or simply creoles. New Orleans's creoles of color remained legally and culturally distinct from "negroes" throughout most of the nineteenth century until state mandated segregation lumped together descendants of slaves with descendants of free people of color. Much of the recent scholarship on New Orleans examines what race relations in the antebellum period looked as well as why antebellum Louisiana's gens de couleur enjoyed rights and privileges denied to free blacks throughout most of the United States. This book, however, is less concerned with the what and why questions than with how people of color, acting within institutions of power, shaped those institutions in ways beyond their control. As its title suggests, Making Race in the Courtroom argues that race is best understood not as a category, but as a process. It seeks to demonstrate the role of free people of African-descent, interacting within the courts, in this process."-- Provided by publisher.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Free African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Louisiana -- History -- 19th century.
Free African Americans.
Louisiana.
History.
Chronological Term 19th century
Subject Louisiana Purchase -- Social aspects.
Louisiana Purchase.
Social aspects.
Louisiana -- History -- 1803-1865.
Chronological Term 1803-1865
1800-1899
Genre/Form Electronic books.
History.
Other Form: Print version: Aslakson, Kenneth R. Making race in the courtroom : the legal construction of three races in New Orleans, 1791-1812. New York : New York University Press, [2014]. 9780814724316 (DLC) 2014015123 (OCoLC)881848432
ISBN 9780814724972 (electronic book)
0814724973 (electronic book)
0814724310
9780814724316
9780814724316