Bruce R. Magee.
“The Codes Noir.”
Lesson Plans
The Black Codes. This lesson plan comes from the
New Jersey Bar Foundation. It's tailored for grades 6-8. The
primary focus is on the black codes that were adopted by some parishes
immediately following the Civil War in 1865.
https://
njsbf.org/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2021/02/ The_ Black_
Codes-Lesson-Plan.pdf
Black Codes. The history channel has an overview of
the black codes of 1865-1866.
https:// www.history.com/ articles/ black-codes
Code Noir of Louisiana. Article on the 1724 Code
Noir of Louisiana.
https://www.history.com/articles/black-codes
Teaching Aid: The Code Noir and the Legal Consequences of White Supremacy in Louisiana
A chronological repository of primary source texts and cultural documentation available on the Louisiana Anthology website.
1685. Louis XIV, Code Noir (English
Translation): https://
louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ louis_xiv/ louis_xiv--
code_noir_english.html
French version. https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ louis_xiv/ louis_xiv--code_
noir_ french.html
The foundational colonial decree issued by France to govern the
lives, religious mandates, and severe legal restrictions placed
on enslaved and free Black populations within Saint-Domingue (Haiti). It served as the
model for the version applied to Louisiana.
1724. Louis XV, Gov. Bienville, et al.
https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ louis_15/ louis_xv--code_
noir--bilingual.html
This is the specific version written for Louisiana in 1724 and
re-published in 1727.
1789. Carlos IV, King of Spain. The Codigo
Negro Carolino. Spanish and English.
https://
louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ carlos_iv/ carlos_iv--codigo_
negro.html
The was Spain's version of the Code Noir. The intent was
to gather regulations involving slaves into a single code that
could be implemented in all Spanish colonies. When it came to
Louisiana, at that time a Spanish colony, plantation owners
rejected it because they saw it as too humane to slaves.
1794. Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet, Circulaire,
adressée par le gouvernement à tous les habitans de la
Louisiane.
https://
louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ de_carondelet/
de_carondelet--circulaire.html
Not a code itself, this colonial circular reveals the panic
behind the next code. The Spanish realm is a bit protected from
the revolutions, but they could come to Louisiana. There's the
American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Haitian
Revolution. Carondelet was also afraid of agitators forming a
militia along the Ohio River. They had the goal of invading
Louisiana, much like the Texas Revolution later. He wrote the
1795 decree in response to the revolts and the colony's
rejection of Carlos IV's code.
1795. Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet, Carondelet
Slave Decree of 1795 (English Translation): https://
louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ de_carondelet/
de_carondelet--slave_decree--1795--english.html
Because the planters rejected the Codigo Negro as being
too easy on slaves, Gov. Carondelet issued his own version. This
Spanish colonial update moderated some of the burdens of slavery
while it also tightened control and surveillance over enslaved
populations, enacted in response to growing fears of rebellion
following the Point Coupée conspiracy and the revolution in
Saint-Domingue (Haiti). The Decree actually covers several
topics. The slave code is after the other regulations.
1806. Thomas Brown and Louis Moreau-Lislet, Black
Code of 1806 (English): https://
louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ brown/
brown--black_code--1806.html
Code Noir Acte (French): https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ brown/ brown--black_
code--1806--french.html
The hardening of racial restrictions into American territorial
law following the Louisiana Purchase, legally codifying a strict
racial caste system and stripping away the civil standing and
rights of Black individuals.
[1844-1845]. Salomé Müller, aka Sally Miller, was a
German girl who came to the USA in 1817. Her father had to agree
that the family would be indentured servants to pay for the
trip. Soon all the family but Sally died. Years later, other
German immigrants thought they recognized her, leading to a
famous legal case that set her, but not her children, free (In
this case, the children did not follow the condition of
the mother.)
https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ cable/ cable--salome_
muller.html
[1857-1859]. Edward Larocque Tinker, Toucoutou
(Covers the 1850s New Orleans racial identity trial): https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ 303_download/ texts/
01--tinker--toucoutou/ tinker--toucoutou. html
A historical novel charting the devastating social and legal
consequences of colorism and racial definitions in antebellum
New Orleans, based on a real-world court battle over hidden
ancestry.
1864. Louis Charles Roudanez, “Is the Black Code
Still in Force?”: https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ roudanez/
roudanez--black_code.html
A 1864 editorial in La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans, a
daily newspaper servicing free people of color. The editorial
condemning efforts to restore the Black Codes that the Union was
dissolving.
February 3, 1864. Major-General Nathaniel Banks. General
Orders No. 23, Issued by Major General Banks at New Orleans,
Dated February 3, 1864. Banks' code was designed to
regulate agricultural labor in Union-held Louisiana. The workers
were not longer slaves, but they weren't entirely free either.
They were required to work; they had to sign a labor contract
for a full year; their freedom of movement was limited, etc.
1865. Black
codes adopted by different parishes in 1865.
https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ estilette/
estilette--parish_black_codes--1865.html
1865. "Black" "code" adopted by the Louisiana State
legislature. After Congress learned of the black codes passed by
Mississippi and 3 Louisiana Parishes, their outrage helped lead
to Radical Reconstruction. The Louisiana legislature reacted by
trying to disguise their black code — so what they passed was
neither a code, nor did it explicitly regulate black people. All
previous codes had been explicit about being for slaves and
people of color. The laws had also been published together as a
unit. That's the way codes work. The Louisiana innovation was to
pass the laws separately rather than all together. They also
omitted race from the laws, so formally they applied to
everybody. From now on, black codes will tend to not be formal
codes or to apply explicitly to black people. They will
alternate with laws that do discriminate by race, such as
explicit segregation laws. This is the beginning of pernicious
"color blind" laws.
[1865] Laurence W. Mazzeno. "Louisiana Black
Codes," https://
www.ebsco.com/ research-starters/ history/
analysis-louisiana-black-code. "The Louisiana Black Code
consisted of a series of laws passed in December 1865 to
regulate the transition of former slaves into a society where
they would be allowed to earn a living without disrupting the
economic and social order of the state. The newly elected,
all-white legislature feared that without strict controls on the
newly emancipated black population, the state's agrarian economy
might not recover from the setbacks of the Civil War. The code
set out certain limited rights for blacks, especially the right
to enter into contracts, but at the same time placed heavy
restrictions on their right to seek employment by creating
penalties for vagrancy and establishing requirements for
apprenticeship that effectively forced former slaves and their
descendants to continue working for those who had once been
their masters. Local authorities were given wide authority to
enforce these restrictive practices."
July 30, 1866. Mechanics Hall Massacre.
Governor J. Madison Wells, President Andrew Johnson, R. K.
Howell.
“The New Orleans Riot.” https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ wells-j/ wells--new_
orleans_riot.html.
After the Civil War ended, Gov. Wells called for the delegates
who wrote the 1864 Constitution to reconvene in order to write
an addition to it allowing black men to vote. Ex-Confederates in
and out of the New Orleans Police Department attacked the
delegates and their supporters. This terrorism on the part of
Louisiana officials enraged northern Republican, and they passed
the Radical Reconstruction in response.
[1860-1880]. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black
Reconstruction in Louisiana (Covers the post-Civil War
era, 1860-1880): https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ du_bois/ du_bois--black_
proletariat_ in_la.html
An essential historical analysis tracing the brief rise of
democratic participation for freedmen during Reconstruction and
the swift, violent backlash that dismantled those gains to
re-establish white supremacy.
1887. Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes, Rodolphe
Lucien Desdunes prospectus, 1887: https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ 303_download/ texts/
desdunes--radical_prospectus/ desdunes--radical_
prospectus.htm
An early, radical French-language publication layout reflecting
the political philosophies, organizing strategies, and civil
rights resistance emerging within New Orleans' Afro-Creole
community.
[1814-1898] Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes, Nos
Hommes et Notre Histoire (Published 1911,
documenting 19th-century Creole of Color activism): https://
louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ desdunes/
desdunes--nos_hommes.html
A foundational historical record honoring the artistic,
intellectual, and political contributions of free people of
color, featuring direct accounts of the Comité des Citoyens
and their legal fight against Jim Crow segregation. Covers the
period from the Battle of New Orleans to the Plessy v
Ferguson decision.
[1945] Lyle Saxon, Gumbo Ya-Ya (Published
1945, compiling Louisiana folklore, music, and oral histories):
https://
louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ saxon/
saxon--gumbo_ya_ya.html
A collection of localized folklore and oral histories that
documents the cultural memory of the "Toucoutou" song, capturing
how legal racial boundaries trickled down into popular street
culture and music. The book also has examples of extreme
punishment under the Black Codes.
2006. Mayor Ray Nagin. The Chocolate City Speech.
https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ nagin/
nagin--chocolate_city.html. Nagin's response to the Bush
Administration's attempt at ethnically cleansing New Orleans and
other post-Katrina racist actions.
2016. Reverend Al Sharpton, Alton Sterling
Funeral Eulogy (2016): https://
louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ jackson/
jackson--alton-sterling-funeral.html
A modern oratorical text providing crucial cultural and
political context regarding contemporary systemic racism, police
accountability, and civil rights mobilizations in Baton Rouge.
2022. Governor John Bel Edwards, Homer Adolph
Plessy Posthumous Pardon (2022): https://
louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ plessy/
plessy--homer_plessy_pardon.html
The official executive proclamation granting a posthumous pardon
to Homer Plessy, serving as a formal, modern state
acknowledgment of the institutional injustice birthed by the
1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling.
2026. Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Clarence Thomas, Elena
Kagan. Louisiana v. Callais et al. https://
louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ alito/ alito--louisiana_vs
_callais.html. This decision is the culmination of a
60-year effort to overturn the Voting Rights Act and return to
the the Black Codes.
Notes
- Word Definition
Text prepared by:
- Bruce R. Magee
Source
Bibliography