Free People of Color and Freedmen

In 1830, the Louisiana Legislature passed an act “to prevent free persons of color from entering into this state.” Section 12 of this act required initially that “all free negroes, griffs and mulattoes of the first degree” who had entered the state after the adoption of the Constitution of 1812 and before January 1, 1825 to enroll themselves with the office of the Parish Judge of their resident parish or with the office of the Mayor of the City of New Orleans.

The records, volume 1 in French and English, volumes 2 – 4 in English, list the name of the person registering, sex, and color, age, profession, place of birth, time of arrival in the state (or date of emancipation), and “observations” or “remarks.” The observations or remarks consist, in general, of a statement substantiating the person’s claim to be free.

• Register of Free Persons of Color Entitled to Remain in the State, as registered with the Office of the Mayor.
• Available on microfilm, call number: mf AA430.
• These documents were digitized as part of Louisiana State University’s digital collection Free People of Color in Louisiana: Revealing an Unknown Past.
• All names contained in the volumes were databased as part of the project Slave Biographies: Atlantic Database Network (the “Free Black” dataset). The names can be searched and the dataset downloaded.
• An index to the register is available digitally. This indexes a transcription of the register published by Le Comité des Archives de la Louisiane. The page numbers given in the index refer to the published transcription, not to the manuscript register which is available on microfilm.