Eat Your Colors- Romance Issue

FREE PEOPLE of COLOR (Les Gens de Couleur Libres)

As we enter February and the 28 days dedicated to Black History, I’d like to talk about a forgotten history of mixed race culture(s)- Les Gens de Couleur Libres , which is a Creole French patois for The Free People of Color.

Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants, oil painting by Agostino Brunias, Dominica, c. 1764–1796.

Most have never even heard of the Free People of Color. You really cannot find this Black Experience in history books. Whereas you may find a couple of paragraphs on the American Black Experience (Slavery) in grade school-books, you will not find any history on Les Gens de Couleur Libres.

This was a time before the Louisiana Purchase, where the middle section, about 1/3 of North America, was colonized by France in 1682. France ceded the region to Spain and Britain in 1763 after the French and Indian War, regained it by treaty in 1800 and sold it to the United States in 1803 through the Louisiana Purchase.

Les Gens de Couleur Libres were a mixed-race People of African, European and Native American descent that were born free. Not only in La Louisiane but in other regions such as the Caribbean islands including Saint-Domingue (Haiti), St. Lucia, Dominica, Guadeloupe, and Martinique

In these territories, particularly New Orleans and those cities held by the Spanish, a large third class of primarily mixedrace, free people developed.

“Now here’s the part of history that gets some of my family and friends heated with me.”

- H. Luiz

Saint-Domingue, also known as Hispaniola (or the island’s Spanish name Santo Domingo) was 1 territory. The Free People of Color and/or the Freed Slaves occupied most of the Island. The Gens de Couleur Libres were prosperous and owned a lot of land. They were highly educated and spoke French rather than the Creole French patois of the day.

Although Free, due to the Code Noir, they did not possess the same rights as their Colonial French White counterparts. They did not have the right to vote- that was until 1791.

The entire Island Territory of Sainte Domingue (where the 2 countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic now stands) was divided into three distinct groups: Free Whites (who were divided socially between the affluent plantation-class grands blancs and the working-class petits blancs); Freedmen (affranchis), and the Slaves. More than half of the affranchis were gens de couleur libres and others were considered freed black slaves. In addition, runaway slaves were sometimes able to establish independent small communities and some freedoms in the mountains, along with remnants of Haiti's original Taino.

The primary adversary of the Gens de Couleur before and into the Haitian Revolution were the poor White farmers and tradesmen of the colony, known as the petits blancs (small whites).

Because of the Free People of Color’s relative economic success in the region, sometimes related to blood ties to influential Whites, the petits blancs farmers often resented their social standing and worked to keep them shut out of government.

Beyond financial incentives, the Free People of Color caused the poor Whites further problems in finding women to start a family. The successful mixed-raced people often won the hands of the small number of eligible women on the island. With growing resentment, the working-class Whites monopolized assembly participation and caused the Free People of Color to look to France for legislative assistance.

On May 15, 1791, the Constituent Assembly in France voted to give full French citizenship to Free Men of Color. The decree restricted citizenship to those persons who had two free parents. Many petits blancs were enraged. Fighting broke out in Saint-Domingue over exercising the National Assembly's decree and started a civil war.

It really sparked the French Revolution of 1791. Black slaves on the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue rose up against their French owners amidst the French Revolution. Toussaint came to prominence as a leader of Rebel Slaves in the North. Rigaud emerged as a rebel leader among the Gens de Couleur Libres who were based in the South around the port of Les Cayes.

In May 1792, Saint-Domingue's French Republican commissioners formed an alliance with Rigaud, allowing him to march his forces into the capital of Port-au-Prince and dissolve the city's government of White Planters. In August 1793, the new Republican Commissioner, Sonthonax, proclaimed freedom for all enslaved persons in Saint- Domingue in an attempt to secure control over the colony from counter-revolutionary revolt by White Planters in Le Cap and invasions by rival European powers as part of the War of the First Coalition. After they abolished slavery, Sonthonax and his fellow Commissioner Polverel successfully convinced Toussaint to join the French Republican side of the conflict.

Toussaint and Rigaud had become Allies by 1794. In early 1795, the French National Convention promoted both men to the rank of Brigadier General. However, Toussant was the General in Chief.

Toussaint and Rigaud effectively controlled all of the troops and territory within Saint-Domingue. Toussaint ruled the colony's northern region around Le Cap and the western region around the capital of Port-au-Prince. Meanwhile, Rigaud ruled the southern region around Les Cayes.

In April 1798, the British commander Thomas Maitland approached Toussaint to negotiate a British withdrawal, which was concluded in August.

In July 1798, Toussaint and Rigaud traveled in a carriage together from Port-au-Prince to Le Cap to meet the recently arrived representative Théodore-Joseph d'Hédouville, sent by France's new Directory regime. Oral tradition asserts that during this carriage ride, Toussaint and Rigaud made a pact to collaborate against Hédouville's meddling. However, those efforts soon came undone, as Hédouville intentionally treated Rigaud with more favor than Toussaint, in an effort to sow tension between the two leaders. In a letter to Rigaud, Hédouville criticized "the perfidy of General Toussaint Louverture" and absolved Rigaud of Toussaint's authority as General-in-Chief. He invited Rigaud to "take command of the Department of the South." Hédouville eventually fled Saint-Domingue, sailing from Le Cap in October 1798 due to threats by Toussaint.

In 1799, Toussaint independently negotiated "Toussaint's Clause" with the U.S. government, allowing American merchants to trade with Saint-Domingue despite the ongoing Quasi War between the U.S. and France. Imagine that, the U.S. Government, negotiating trade deals with a Black Leader- 65 years BEFORE they abolished slavery in out own country.

“I have never heard of ‘Toussant’s Clause’ until I started my research of my own personal family tree- 25 years ago.”

- H. Luiz

1813 painting of Louverture

This turmoil played into the slaves' revolts on the island. In their competition for power, both the Whites and Free People of Color enlisted the help of Slaves and of the Taino Natives.

This ever-growing feud led the Slave population in the colony to seek further inclusion and liberties in society. As the widespread Slave Rebellion in the North of the island wore on, many Free People of Color abandoned their earlier distance from Slaves.

A growing coalition between the Free People of Color and the former Slaves was essential for the eventual success of the Haitians to expel the French.

However, the former Slaves, the Freed Slaves and the Free People of Color still remained segregated. Their struggle for power erupted in 1799.

The competition between the Gens de Couleur led by André Rigaud and the Black Haitians led by Toussaint Louverture evolved into the War of the Knives.

The War of Knives was a civil war from June 1799 to July 1800 between the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, a black exslave who controlled the north of Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti) and his adversary André Rigaud, a mixed-race Free person of Color who controlled the south. Louverture and Rigaud fought over de facto control of the French colony of Saint-Domingue during the war. Their conflict followed the withdrawal of British forces from the colony during the early stages of the Haitian Revolution. The war resulted in Toussaint taking control of the entirety of Saint-Domingue, and Rigaud fleeing into exile

After their loss in that conflict, many wealthy Gens de Couleur left as refugees to Puerto Rico, France, Cuba, the United States and elsewhere. Some took slaves (usually blood-family members) with them. Others remained to play an influential role in Haitian politics.

The Taíno were the indigenous people of the Caribbean. At the time of European contact in the late fifteenth century, they were the principal inhabitants of most of what is now Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The Taíno were the first New World peoples encountered by Christopher Columbus during his 1492 voyage. They spoke the Taíno language, a division of the Arawakan language group.

Many Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Dominicans have Taíno mtDNA, showing they are descendants through the direct female lines.

This is why I wrestle with family and friends over some cultural, ingrained division between the modern-day Hattian and Dominican Peoples. If it weren’t for the Free People and the Slaves along with the Taino population, they still might have been enslaved today.

It was all of them organizing, working and succeeding together to over through European rule over them that started Slave Revolts in the Americas including the Caribbean as well as French La Louisiane and the Spanish territory.

Slavery in La Louisiane or French Louisiana was not harsh like slavery in Saint Domingue or the Americas. The Slaves owned by the Free People of Color were treated more like servants. They were also usually family members and some were given their freedoms. They were still slaves but most did not endure harsh punishments.

I have written a historical novel about Les Gens de Couleur Libres and I used a lot of the ancestorial names and some romanticized stories of my family tree.

In the novel, Taboo Down the Bayou I delve into the psychology of many themes and ideologies in an era where such concepts or labels for transgenderism, sexuality, identity and rape culture oftentimes did not exist yet. But just because the “terms” may not have existed, it does not mean that people were not feeling these feelings.

Taboo Down the Bayou takes place is La Louisiane before, during and after the Louisiana Purchase. A caste system, plaçage, gender identity and colorism are explored throughout.

Here’s an excerpt…

Tammy approached the far side of the slave quarter’s out-house, ready to enjoy one of her secret pleasures. She surveyed the area for any possible predators. In the late 1700s, a girl alone was not safe in the darkness of the bayou, especially a slave girl. Tammy clawed the soft Louisiana dirt and dug up a well-worn smoking pipe she had wrapped in a rag. The pipe was an old corn-cob one she had found on the side of the road. If caught with it, she would be accused of theft – not too many slave girls had personal possessions. She could be beaten or whipped to within inches of her life if the Master thought she stole from him – much worse if he thought she stole from someone else. Once inside the out-house, Tammy slipped off her field dress as fast as she could. She began to embed the tobaccopacking end of the pipe between her lean muscular legs, feeling for just the right spot. Then, to her satisfaction, it began.

Read the rest and all 10 Episodes of Taboo Down the Bayou on Amazon’s new reading format VELLA.