A Wave in the Global Gulf: The Emigration of Free People of Color from New Orleans to the Atlantic World, 1818 - 1831

In the ten years between 1840 and 1850, the percentage of free people of color in New Orleans' overall population dropped from 20% to 10%. This significant demographic and social phenomenon can be partially explained by the emigration of this population due to the growing hostility towards them in the Southern United States. In fact, the beginning of this movement can be traced to 1803 and the Louisiana Purchase, with its culmination in the 1840s and 50s. In this context, and as a part of the control of this population's spatial mobility, the municipality of New Orleans delivered passports to free people willing to leave, and to the enslaved following their owners out of the city. This paper will analyze the passports, available at the New Orleans Public Library, awarded between 1818 and 1831. In examination of this source, sociological considerations will be addressed in hopes of revealing the identities of the free people of color willing to leave New Orleans at this time - where were they trying to go? Were they native of New Orleans? Or did they have a prior migration experience arriving in the city, such the refugees of Saint Domingue in 1809 and the Northern population after the Louisiana Purchase? Were they planning to leave alone? Or with their families? Were they women or men? Were they slaveholders? Did they have property? Where did they live? Did they have any prior connection to the place they were headed? Did they really leave? Did they come back to New Orleans? These questions and others will be considered in this discussion. In short, this paper will attempt to draw a sociological profile of these individuals before their emigration, the necessary first step in understanding and explaining this migratory phenomenon itself