1718: African Slavery in the French and Spanish Colonies
Big Idea
Free Black men and women in the French and Spanish regions of the Americas maintained their freedom and established independent lives for themselves. Enslaved Africans under French rule were governed by a brutal enslavement code known as the Code Noir—which enforced a race-based social and political hierarchy and the forced labor of Africans in the Americas.
What’s important to know?
Africans in the Missouri Region: The French-controlled Missouri region had many free Blacks. The French began bringing enslaved Africans to the region as agriculture developed.
The Code Noir: King Louis XIV passed “The Black Code” to govern enslavement practices in the Americas. The Code Noir enshrined race-based slavery, especially in the French and Spanish controlled parts of North America.
1: Africans in the Missouri Region
The French brought the majority of African peoples from Senegambia (West Africa) and first settled them in the Louisiana area south of Missouri.
Map of West Africa, 1736
Image Source: Wikipedia
These Africans were skilled in agricultural cultivation and thus suited the needs of the French economy in Louisiana. By 1746, 60 percent of the Louisiana population were made up of Africans (Smith, p. 15.).
After 1718, the French began importing African slaves to the Mississippi region in response to increasing needs for labor. Some Africans came to the region as free men and helped develop the fur trade.
The French also enslaved Native Americans (unlike the Spanish who forbid the enslavement of Native Americans due to the belief that they were subjects of the Spanish Crown). However, because of their familiarity with the land, Native Americans often escaped.
Investigate
Want to learn more? Many of the enslaved Africans brought to America came from West Africa, from modern day countries such as Senegal, The Gambia, and Mali. To see where these countries are and to learn about the path that slave ships followed from Africa to the Americas visit slavevoyages.org.
2: The Code Noir
Cover of the French Issued Code Noir
Image Source: Code noir - Vikidia, l’encyclopédie des 8-13 ans
As their colonies became more reliant upon enslaved Africans, King Louis XIV of France passed the Code Noir, which has been viewed as one of the most extensive governance documents regulating slavery in the colonies. His purpose in doing so, as anthropologist Laurence Ralph (2021), wrote, “was to provide comfort to French officers living in colonies who were said to ‘need our authority and justice… [in order] to regulate the status and condition of the slaves” (p. 58.)
The Code Noir mandated governance of free Black men and women, treatment of enslaved persons by slave owners, and the types of punishment allowed for addressing “unruly” enslaved people. It also mandated that all enslaved people (and subjects under French rule) convert to Catholicism. It forbade the separation of African families, torture of enslaved persons, and generally allowed for greater education of free Blacks. These distinctions, as well as the acknowledgement that Africans had souls that needed attention (hence the command to convert), did create some degree of difference between French enslavement practices and British and Spanish practices (Stovall, 2021, p. 205). However, the end result was to further enshrine race-based enslavement in North America.
When the Spanish assumed control of the area after the Seven Years War (also known as the French and Indian War) in 1763, the Code Noir continued to govern the enslavement of Africans.
Your Turn
How did the Code Noir contribute to furthering European views of the inferiority of Black people? How is this history still impacting the St. Louis region today?
-
Read the Code Noir, “The Code Noir (The Black Code),” LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOUTION, accessed February 2, 2025, https://revolution.chnm.org/d/335.
Exploration of the Code Noir from the Library of Congress.
-
Materials from Learning for Justice related to the Code Noir
Laws related to slavery in Missouri
-
General Resources:
Explore the Library of Congress site detailing how the Code Noir was applied in the Louisiana region (which included Missouri at the time).
Read Louisiana’s Black Code (which applied to Missouri at the time).
Books & Articles:
Cleary, P. (2024). Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in St. Louis. University of Missouri Press.
Gitlin, J. Morrissey, R. and Kasto, P. (2021). French St. Louis: Landscape, Contexts, and Legacy (France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization). University of Nebraska Press.
Archives:
The State Historical Society of Missouri: African American Experience Research Guide.
Museums & Parks:
The Gateway Arch Museum: Colonial St. Louis
-
Early, G. (1998). Ain’t But a Place: An Anthology of African American Writings About St. Louis. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Kendi, I. X. and Blain, K. N. eds. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. One World Press.
Lubrin, C. (2023). Code Noir. Knopf. [Note: This is a novel exploring the Code Noir.]
Peterson, C, Coles, K, and Bauer, R. eds. (2018). The Cultural Politics of Blood, 1500–1900. Springer.
-
Ralph, L. 1684-1689: The Code Noir. In Kendi, I. X. and Blain, K. N. eds. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. One World Press.
Smith, D. E. (2017). African American lives in St. Louis, 1763-1865: Slavery, freedom and the west. McFarland Press.
Stovall, T. E. (2021). White freedom: the racial history of an idea. Princeton University Press.