11.945 Katrina Practicum Session 6 Race in New Orleans/ Reflections/ Student Presentations Whiteness: - 18th/19th century: whiteness did not exist. - Irish, trying to differentiate themselves from blacks. (Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White.) - Same thing with other European immigrants, trying to associate themselves with the elites of the city rather than the African Americans. Thomas Jefferson: - Virginian, slave owner, rural agricultural base of slave owners - 1803: article describing his new scientific discovery: o Rather than purchasing slaves, can rape slave women and reproduce slave population. o Virginia became a slave-producing state. - Fighting Alexander Hamilton and other northern industrialists o Industrialists looking to raise taxes for infrastructure improvements to make their investments more profitable o Jefferson fighting to keep taxes low, especially on slave owners/property owners. - At the time, no concept of whiteness o Anglo o Catholics/Jews/Slavs/Irish: not Anglo-Saxon  Somewhere around Blacks/Moors - Jefferson looking to build political formula to gain numbers against the north (not a large number of property owners) o A number of Europeans working in factories in the north o Sought to make the workers landowners: American frontier  Rather than live in a hovel in New England, workers should be able to go west to farm and become independent. o Western territories controlled by Native Americans.  England originally intended to make a treaty with Native Americans like with Ireland • Jefferson claims that the land belongs to “white people” as distinguished from Native Americans and black slaves. • Unites very diverse groups of people o Democracy in America totally associated with race and whiteness. o Irish in Ireland resisted this fiercely – wanted Irish in America to unite with the slaves and fight slavery. Promoted seizure/extermination of Native Americans from their own territory  Promoted rigid caste line: white vs. other (Native American/African American) - New Orleans o New Orleans was founded in 1718 and governed by the French in Native American territory  Slaves (almost all men) come in 1719 (come mostly in 12 year period after 1718.  Enslaved Native American women to grow crops  Slaves and settlers both tend to marry Native American women  Small settler populations • No cohesive white elite governing • Retained a lot of African culture • Difficult to keep slaves enslaved – easy to slip out into the marshland o Native Americans could help them escape  Could not easily manage the slave population  Natchez Indians massacred a population just outside of New Orleans in 1720 • Many slaves supported the Natchez in the massacre • French colonists armed slaves and encouraged them to attack the Natchez • Slave militias in New Orleans going back 100 years before the civil war. o Spain took over in 1743 and governed for 40 years (after 7 Year War).  Spain had more liberal laws • Number of free blacks greatly increased during that period o 129-1500 o Lewis, Pierce. New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape. Sante Fe, NM: Center for American Places, 2003 o Free people of color were a distinct group (founded the Treme)  Intermarried heavily with slaves and Native Americans o Racial pattern much more like Latin America than in English-controlled colonies  African-Native American  African-French  Africano Native French-African (Creole) population followed events in France and French colonies more than they followed events in America.  Haitian revolution of 1803 when Haiti rebelled and kicked the French out  Many émigrés came from Haiti to New Orleans afterward: French and African  Haiti and Cuba have close relationships with New Orleans  Other anti-colonial fights had big impact on slaves and free blacks in New Orleans • 1848 French abolished slavery. • French granted citizenship to former slaves • Believed that when slavery ended, blacks were entitled to full voting rights, full citizenship • 1795 rumors of a slave rebellion terrified the Spanish and slaves were hanged. • Spanish couldn’t maintain control  Creoles and Slavery • Some Creoles owned slaves o A lot was made of that by Americans when they came into New Orleans during Reconstruction • By and large, creoles were very liberal in their thinking about slavery, most did not own slaves • More expansive view of race relations than the American view • Started first black daily newspaper o Supported by black creoles and white French radicals o Taken aback by American view of race o A lot of anti-Catholicism interwoven into the American project • Plessey vs. Ferguson o Plessey was a Creole • Creole widely spoken in Southern Louisiana through 20th century o Dying out now o Ernest “Dutch” Morial: A radical Creole who ran as an insurgent against more conservative protestant blacks  Moon Landrieu: mayor during the 1960s – credited with supporting African Americans and bringing them into government through normal patronage structure  Dutch was from the NAACP with a grassroots base, ran against the machine. • Did not get the support of the black political structure • Elected through his grassroots connections• Fought against the political machine during both terms as mayor o Mantra: get rid of the machine, bring in competent people o Racial agitator o Sydney Barthelemey: Moderate Creole. Elected primarily by whites in New Orleans o Ralph Nagin: More of the Barthelemey school. At odds with the Morial school. White voters were strategic in their choice of black candidates. - New Orleans does not conform directly to black/white dichotomy o Total Intermixing + Rigid Separation o Blacks and whites both participate in Mardi Gras  Blacks not allowed to march on St. Charles Street - Rogers Smith. Civic Ideals. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. ISBN: 0300069898. Offers a good treatment of the early origins of race and citizenship. - Price, Richard (ed.), Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, Johns Hopkins, 1979 Reflection This course will use reflection as a way to help the students structure a process for what they are learning about themselves and the world. The reflection will provide an opportunity for you to looking back at your work that you did as a