The Code Noir
The Code Noir, or Edict of the King, for the government and administration of justice, police, discipline, and the commerce of black slaves, in the province and colony of Louisiana.
Paris: De l’Imprimerie royale, 1727
In 1719, the French Indies Company began transporting enslaved Africans to Louisiana. Primarily taken from the Senegambia region of West Africa, enslaved laborers had knowledge of tobacco, rice, corn, cotton, and indigo production, though the colony never succeeded at cultivating a reliable crop. In 1724, France adapted the legal code known as the Code Noir. First drafted for use in the kingdom’s colonies in the Antilles, the Code Noir regulated relations between Europeans and Africans; prohibited the practice of any religion other than Catholicism; and instituted other measures—including punishment by branding and maiming—meant to control and terrorize Louisiana’s growing population of enslaved Africans as well as its so-called freed people of African descent.
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