Slavery's Metropolis: Unfree Labor in New Orleans during the Age of Revolutions

Cambridge Studies on the African Diaspora

by Rashauna Johnson

New Orleans is an iconic city, which was once located at the crossroads of early America and the Atlantic World. New Orleans became a major American metropolis as its slave population exploded; in the early nineteenth century, slaves made up one third of the urban population. In contrast to our typical understanding of rural, localized, isolated bondage in the emergent Deep South, daily experiences of slavery in New Orleans were global, interconnected, and transient. Slavery's Metropolis uses slave circulations through New Orleans between 1791 and 1825 to map the social and cultural history of enslaved men and women and the rapidly shifting city, nation, and world in which they lived. Investigating emigration from the Caribbean to Louisiana during the Haitian Revolution, commodity flows across urban-rural divides, multiracial amusement places, the local jail, and freedom-seeking migrations to Trinidad following the War of 1812, it remaps the history of slavery in modern urban society.

Genres: History, Politics, Historical, Nonfiction, American History

258 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2016

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

World history in New Orleans. Impressive archival research combined with deep analysis and contextualization situates the history of enslaved people in New Orleans in the broader Atlantic World during the Age of Revolutions. Although focused on a US city, the book has much offer World History teachers. The city was under French, Spanish, and American colonial rule before becoming an American state. Johnson details how the city was an integral part of Caribbean migration and trade networks.

From the conclusion: "Too much of a focus on New Orleans and its cultural uniqueness, however, obscures the concrete ways that circuits of capital, communication, and migration simultaneously rooted that city firmly within a larger American expansionist project and Atlantic plantation complex...New Orleans was no exception in the early modern world; it was an exaggeration. ..

In addition, this book reveals that the legal and illegal motions of slaves in the port city connected them to regional and international networks of slaves and free people that broke down overly neat dichotomies between plantation and urban space. The geographies of slavery were expansive, contingent, and constantly contested" (205-206).

[Phillip Lowrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched and academic in its approach. Covers the myriad of ways in which slaves and free people of color interacted in the labor market and public sphere. Charts the movements and social circulations of slaves in New Orleans, the surrounding area, and the Atlantic market. A little too dense and meticulous in some ways. Talks back to a whitewashed history of New Orleans. Strips back layers to reveal how slaves made the city in a revolutionary era, how they were simultaneously set in motion and confined.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rashauna Johnson did a good job of showing the extent of her research and providing an insight into the history of New Orleans during their usage of enslaved people. For what it is worth, Johnson made this a very digestible read when compared to other authors of history texts, but I only wish that she went further in-depth on the transition in New Orleans from their usage of slaves to what the city has become today. Overall, a solid read about the dark side of New Orleans’ past.

[Jeffrey Bostick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Traces the movement of enslaved people to, through, and from New Orleans during a pivotal period centered around the Haitian revolution. The context of this book is global but most of the focus is local. Slavery marked every aspect of life in the city. Johnson describes its effect on domestic living patterns in the city's neighborhoods. She discusses its influence on popular culture and entertainment. One example of this is an explicit characterization of the sometimes romanticized raquette matches played near Hunter's Field during this period as a brutal and exploitative use of black bodies. She also writes about the local jail's role as an aggregator and lessor of slave labor (some things never change.)

Here also is a brief WWNO interview with Johnson from 2017.

[Sarah Duggan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enslaved people in New Orleans were more than just field hands or maids - they were also market vendors, nurses, and the chain gang workers forced to dig canals and levees. There was also a sizable population of free people of color who owned property and ran businesses. This approachable, thoroughly researched volume explains how they contributed to the city's expansion and how the legal code limited even free people. Particularly interesting is Johnson's examination of how immigrants from Saint Domingue to Louisiana changed it forever - the Caribbean population shifts in the wake of the Haitian Revolution are lesser-known but highly significant parts of American history.

[Devon]

so much reading for class...

but really good history of slavery in new orleans
too bad im drowning in work to give it more appreciation