Constituting what may be the most impressive research to date of state supreme court records, Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana analyzes the evolution of Louisiana's slave laws from the territorial period to the Civil War. Over the course of four years, Judith Kelleher Schafer examined the original handwritten decisions (only recently made available) of the Louisiana Supreme Court, scrutinizing 1,200 appeals involving slaves as plaintiffs, defendants, or objects in lawsuits or criminal actions. The result is the first book-length study of those manuscripts and the first study of any state's slave law and its courts to use original case records from the entire antebellum era. Louisiana's legal system was unique among those of southern slave states in that it embodied a legacy of French, Spanish, and thus, indirectly, Roman law. However, through repeated exposure to common-law tenets over time - a development Schafer tracesLouisiana law became more "Americanized," so that by the dawn of the Civil War it was in many respects very similar to that of other states seceding from the Union. Louisiana was unusual also in that its highest court was required to hear virtually every case brought to it on appeal. Decisions of that body, therefore, represent not merely a few landmark cases but a spectrum of typical parish- and district-court cases, many of which include vivid details about the day-to-day realities of slavery and the world that formed, and was formed by, that institution. Schafer presents numerous concise case histories, stories that are fascinating and at times heartbreaking in the particulars they reveal about slaves' existence. We see how the court continually wrestled with the paradox that slaves were considered by the law to be at once persons and property. Property considerations usually won out: even cases involving the abuse or killing of slaves often came before the court as civil matters rather than criminal. Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana offers a mine of information to the student of southern, legal, Louisiana, or African-American history. Anyone interested in slavery will find Schafer's book compelling reading, for it depicts in detail, probably better than most fictional or narrative accounts, what living in bondage could mean.

Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana

History

Schafer, Judith Kelleher

Americas

Louisiana State Univ Pr

Winner of the Francis Butler Simkins Award for 1995 and the 1994 General L. Kemper Williams Prize In what may be the most impressive research to date of state supreme court records, this study analyzes the evolution of Loui siana’s slave laws from the territorial period to the Civil War. Schafer presents numerous concise case his tories, stories that are fascinating and at times heartbreaking in the particulars they reveal about slaves’ existence. Anyone interested in slavery will find Schafer’s work riveting reading, for it depicts in detail, probably better than most fictional or narrative accounts, what living in bondage could mean.

Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana (Southern Literary Studies)

LSU Press

For more than 150 years, the tales of hundreds of slaves and free people of color who used the judicial system to negotiate their freedom lay buried deep within the dusty records of the New Orleans district courts. Then Judith Kelleher Schafer spent fourteen years poring over Minute Books and trial transcripts, uncovering fascinating cases. In Becoming Free, Remaining Free, Schafer presents her findings and offers a profound analysis of slavery and manumission in the Crescent City. Louisiana state law was unique in allowing slaves to contract for their freedom and to initiate a lawsuit for liberty. Schafer describes the ingenious and remarkably sophisticated ways slaves used the legal system to gain their independence and find a voice in a society that ordinarily gave them none. Showing that remaining free was often as challenging as becoming free, she also recounts numerous cases in which free people of color were forced to use the courts to prove their status. She further documents seventeen free blacks who, when faced with deportation, amazingly sued to enslave themselves. Schafer's impressive detective work achieves a rare feat in the historical profession-the unveiling of an entirely new facet of the slave experience in the American South. With a rich bibliography sure to ease future research, Becoming Free, Remaining Free is a milestone in the historiography of slavery.

Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846-1862

Louisiana state law was unique in allowing slaves to contract for their freedom and to initiate a lawsuit for liberty. Judith Kelleher Schafer describes the ingenious and remarkably sophisticated ways New Orleans slaves used the legal system to gain their independence and find a voice in a society that ordinarily gave them none. Showing that remaining free was often as challenging as becoming free, Schafer also recounts numerous cases in which free people of color were forced to use the courts to prove their status. She further documents seventeen free blacks who, when faced with deportation, amazingly sued to enslave themselves. Schafer’s impressive detective work achieves a rare feat in the historical profession―the unveiling of an entirely new facet of the slave experience in the American South.

Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846--1862

When a priest suggested to one of the first governors of Louisiana that he banish all disreputable women to raise the colony's moral tone, the governor responded, "If I send away all the loose females, there will be no women left here at all." Primitive, mosquito infested, and disease ridden, early French colonial New Orleans offered few attractions to entice respectable women as residents. King Louis XIV of France solved the population problem in 1721 by emptying Paris's La Salpêtrière prison of many of its most notorious prostitutes and convicts and sending them to Louisiana. Many of these women continued to ply their trade in New Orleans. 
In Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women, Judith Kelleher Schafer examines case histories from the First District Court of New Orleans and tells the engrossing story of prostitution in the city prior to the Civil War. Louisiana law did not criminalize the selling of sex until the Progressive Era, although the law forbade keeping a brothel. Police arrested individual public women on vague charges, for being "lewd and abandoned" or vagrants. The city's wealthy and influential landlords, some of whom made huge profits by renting their property as brothels, wanted their tenants back on the streets as soon as possible, and they often hired the best criminal attorneys to help release the women from jail. The courts, in turn, often treated these "public women" leniently, exacting small fines or sending them to the city's workhouse for a few months. As a result, prosecutors dropped almost all prostitution cases before trial. 
Relying on previously unexamined court records and newly available newspaper articles, Schafer ably details the brutal and often harrowing lives of the women and young girls who engaged in prostitution. Some watched as gangs of rowdy men smashed their furniture; some endured beatings by their customers or other public women enraged by fits of jealousy; others were murdered. Schafer discusses the sexual exploitation of children, sex across the color line, violence among and against public women, and the city's feeble attempts to suppress the trade. She also profiles several infamous New Orleans sex workers, including Delia Swift, alias Bridget Fury, a flaming redhead with a fondness for stabbing men, and Emily Eubanks and her daughter Elisabeth, free women of color known for assaulting white women. 
Although scholars have written much about prostitution in New Orleans' Storyville era, few historical studies on prostitution in antebellum New Orleans exist. Schafer's rich analysis fills this gap and offers insight into an intriguing period in the history of the "oldest profession" in the Crescent City.

Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women: Illegal Sex in Antebellum New Orleans

Winner of the 2009 Gulf South Historical Association Book Award When a priest suggested to one of the first governors of Louisiana that he banish all disreputable women to raise the colony's moral tone, the governor responded, "If I send away all the loose females, there will be no women left here at all." Primitive, mosquito infested, and disease ridden, early French colonial New Orleans offered few attractions to entice respectable women as residents. King Louis XIV of France solved the population problem in 1721 by emptying Paris's La Salpêtrière prison of many of its most notorious prostitutes and convicts and sending them to Louisiana. Many of these women continued to ply their trade in New Orleans. In Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women, Judith Kelleher Schafer examines case histories from the First District Court of New Orleans and tells the engrossing story of prostitution in the city prior to the Civil War. Louisiana law did not criminalize the selling of sex until the Progressive Era, although the law forbade keeping a brothel. Police arrested individual public women on vague charges, for being "lewd and abandoned" or vagrants. The city's wealthy and influential landlords, some of whom made huge profits by renting their property as brothels, wanted their tenants back on the streets as soon as possible, and they often hired the best criminal attorneys to help release the women from jail. The courts, in turn, often treated these "public women" leniently, exacting small fines or sending them to the city's workhouse for a few months. As a result, prosecutors dropped almost all prostitution cases before trial. Relying on previously unexamined court records and newly available newspaper articles, Schafer ably details the brutal and often harrowing lives of the women and young girls who engaged in prostitution. Some watched as gangs of rowdy men smashed their furniture; some endured beatings by their customers or other public women enraged by fits of jealousy; others were murdered. Schafer discusses the sexual exploitation of children, sex across the color line, violence among and against public women, and the city's feeble attempts to suppress the trade. She also profiles several infamous New Orleans sex workers, including Delia Swift, alias Bridget Fury, a flaming redhead with a fondness for stabbing men, and Emily Eubanks and her daughter Elisabeth, free women of color known for assaulting white women. Although scholars have written much about prostitution in New Orleans' Storyville era, few historical studies on prostitution in antebellum New Orleans exist. Schafer's rich analysis fills this gap and offers insight into an intriguing period in the history of the "oldest profession" in the Crescent City.

From its ancient Indian peoples to its troubled beginning as a French colony to the tragic events of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana has a history that, whatever else one might say about the state, has never been dull. This fifth edition of our classic survey history of Louisiana reflects a re-examination on the part of its esteemed team of authors of recent historical findings as well as of their own research, ensuring that Louisiana: A History will continue to present the most comprehensive and current account of the many different peoples that have and currently do make the rich, colorful land known as Louisiana their home.

Louisiana: A History

Cummins, Light Townsend

Haas, Edward F.

Kurtz, Michael L.

Wiley/Blackwell

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schafer, Judith Kelleher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Schafer, Judith Kelleher

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schafer, Judith Kelleher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana

Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana (Southern Literary Studies)

Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846-1862

Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846--1862

Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women: Illegal Sex in Antebellum New Orleans

Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women: Illegal Sex in Antebellum New Orleans

Louisiana: A History