Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana

by Sophie White

In eighteenth-century New Orleans, the legal testimony of some 150 enslaved women and men--like the testimony of free colonists--was meticulously recorded and preserved. Questioned in criminal trials as defendants, victims, and witnesses about attacks, murders, robberies, and escapes, they answered with stories about themselves, stories that rebutted the premise on which slavery was founded.

Focusing on four especially dramatic court cases, Voices of the Enslaved draws us into Louisiana's courtrooms, prisons, courtyards, plantations, bayous, and convents to understand how the enslaved viewed and experienced their worlds. As they testified, these individuals charted their movement between West African, indigenous, and colonial cultures; they pronounced their moral and religious values; and they registered their responses to labor, to violence, and, above all, to the intimate romantic and familial bonds they sought to create and protect. Their words--punctuated by the cadences of Creole and rich with metaphor--produced riveting autobiographical narratives as they veered from the questions posed by interrogators.

Carefully assessing what we can discover, what we might guess, and what has been lost forever, Sophie White offers both a richly textured account of slavery in French Louisiana and a powerful meditation on the limits and possibilities of the archive.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, African American, American History, Labor

352 pages, Hardcover

First published December 16, 2019

About the author

Sophie White is an Irish author, journalist and podcaster. She is the co-host of the podcasts Mother of Pod and The Creep Dive.

Reviews

[Sasha (bahareads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voices of the Enslaved gives readers a glimpse into enslaved thoughts and daily life. Using mainly French court records, which gives academics a rare look into the thoughts and feelings of the enslaved. Sophie White is able to show how enslaved people fought to establish boundaries and the worlds slaves created for themselves. Readers see power dynamics in enslaved testimony, and how West Africans were familiar with judicial practices because similar things were practised in West Africa. The French slave court records counteract the question of what is a reliable slave narrative and how academics can use these records.

The first chapter tours French court proceedings. From there, White uses specific court cases to show relations between enslaved people, enslaved people and their masters, and enslaved people and how they regulated their communities. White ends with a slave story between two enslaved people owned by different enslavers. They were able to live as man and wife, free, for eight months. White and readers do not know what happens to Jean Baptiste and Kenet after they are recaptured but the fact they were willing to sacrifice everything to be together was powerful.

Court systems do not reveal the syncretism between Catholicism and Western African spirituality. Testimony allows enslaved people to narrate their feelings and stories. White shows historians what can be done with little source material. Seemly "useless" sources deserve to be used for unheard voices. Intimacy is a big factor in this work and in these stories. The construction and destruction of intimacy. The medium of court testimony allows readers autobiographical snapshots allowing us all to hear the voice of the enslaved.

[bored reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very smart book! Super fascinating