Louisiana Anthology

Bruce R. Magee.
“The Codes Noir.”

1. Constitution of 1812 (Adopted January 22, 1812 — frame of government for statehood)

2. Constitution of 1845 (Adopted May 14, 1845)

3. Constitution of 1852 (Adopted May 4, 1852)

4. Constitution of 1861 (Adopted March 21, 1861 — Confederate constitution)

5. Constitution of 1864 (Adopted July 23, 1864 — Unionist Presidential Reconstruction constitution)

6. Constitution of 1868 (Adopted March 11, 1868 — Radical Reconstruction constitution)

7. Constitution of 1879 (Adopted July 23, 1879 — Redeemer/post-Reconstruction constitution)

8. Constitution of 1898 (Adopted May 12, 1898 — Jim Crow/disenfranchisement constitution)

9. Constitution of 1913 (Adopted November 22, 1913)

10. Constitution of 1921 (Adopted June 18, 1921)

11. Constitution of 1974 (Adopted January 19, 1974 — effective January 1, 1975; current constitution)

Lesson Plans

The Black Codes. This lesson plan comes from the New Jersey Bar Foundation. It's tailored for grades 6-8. The primary focus is on the black codes that were adopted by some parishes immediately following the Civil War in 1865.
https:// njsbf.org/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2021/02/ The_ Black_ Codes-Lesson-Plan.pdf

Black Codes. The history channel has an overview of the black codes of 1865-1866.
https:// www.history.com/ articles/ black-codes

Code Noir of Louisiana. Article on the 1724 Code Noir of Louisiana.
https://www.history.com/articles/black-codes

Teaching Aid: The Code Noir and the Legal Consequences of White Supremacy in Louisiana

A chronological repository of primary source texts and cultural documentation available on the Louisiana Anthology website.

1685. Louis XIV, Code Noir (English Translation): https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ louis_xiv/ louis_xiv-- code_noir_english.html
French version. https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ louis_xiv/ louis_xiv--code_ noir_ french.html
The foundational colonial decree issued by France to govern the lives, religious mandates, and severe legal restrictions placed on enslaved and free Black populations within Saint-Domingue (Haiti). It served as the model for the version applied to Louisiana.

1724. Louis XV, Gov. Bienville, et al.
https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ louis_15/ louis_xv--code_ noir--bilingual.html
This is the specific version written for Louisiana in 1724 and re-published in 1727.

1789. Carlos IV, King of Spain. The Codigo Negro Carolino. Spanish and English.
https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ carlos_iv/ carlos_iv--codigo_ negro.html
The was Spain's version of the Code Noir. The intent was to gather regulations involving slaves into a single code that could be implemented in all Spanish colonies. When it came to Louisiana, at that time a Spanish colony, plantation owners rejected it because they saw it as too humane to slaves.

1794. Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet, Circulaire, adressée par le gouvernement à tous les habitans de la Louisiane.
https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ de_carondelet/ de_carondelet--circulaire.html
Not a code itself, this colonial circular reveals the panic behind the next code. The Spanish realm is a bit protected from the revolutions, but they could come to Louisiana. There's the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution. Carondelet was also afraid of agitators forming a militia along the Ohio River. They had the goal of invading Louisiana, much like the Texas Revolution later. He wrote the 1795 decree in response to the revolts and the colony's rejection of Carlos IV's code.

1795. Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet, Carondelet Slave Decree of 1795 (English Translation): https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ de_carondelet/ de_carondelet--slave_decree--1795--english.html
Because the planters rejected the Codigo Negro as being too easy on slaves, Gov. Carondelet issued his own version. This Spanish colonial update moderated some of the burdens of slavery while it also tightened control and surveillance over enslaved populations, enacted in response to growing fears of rebellion following the Point Coupée conspiracy and the revolution in Saint-Domingue (Haiti). The Decree actually covers several topics. The slave code is after the other regulations.

1806. Thomas Brown and Louis Moreau-Lislet, Black Code of 1806 (English): https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ brown/ brown--black_code--1806.html
Code Noir Acte (French): https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ brown/ brown--black_ code--1806--french.html
The hardening of racial restrictions into American territorial law following the Louisiana Purchase, legally codifying a strict racial caste system and stripping away the civil standing and rights of Black individuals.

1812. Constitution or Form of Government of the State of Louisiana. Adopted January 22, 1812 — frame of government for statehood. This document paved the way for Louisiana to officially join the United States as the 18th state on April 30, 1812.
      Constitution ou forme de gouvernement de l’État de la Louisiane. Adoptée le 22 janvier 1812 — cadre de gouvernement pour l’accession à l’État. The French version was placed after the English. We've placed them side by side.
     The Constitution of 1812 was the first constitution of the state of Louisiana, and it was heavily influenced by the French and Spanish legal traditions that had previously governed the region, as well as by the US Constitution. It established a framework for governance, including the separation of powers, the establishment of a bicameral legislature, and provisions for civil liberties. However, it also contained provisions that reinforced racial hierarchies and restricted the rights of free people of color, reflecting the prevailing attitudes of the time. The Constitution has provision that maintain the existing laws that haven't been specifially overturned, meaning that the 1806 Code Noir remains in effect. We have only included the sections of the Constitution that relate to the Code Noir and the legal consequences of white supremacy in Louisiana.

[1844-1845]. Salomé Müller, aka Sally Miller, was a German girl who came to the USA in 1817. Her father had to agree that the family would be indentured servants to pay for the trip. Soon all the family but Sally died. Years later, other German immigrants thought they recognized her, leading to a famous legal case that set her, but not her children, free (In this case, the children did not follow the condition of the mother.)
https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ cable/ cable--salome_ muller.html

[1857-1859]. Edward Larocque Tinker, Toucoutou (Covers the 1850s New Orleans racial identity trial): https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ 303_download/ texts/ 01--tinker--toucoutou/ tinker--toucoutou. html
A historical novel charting the devastating social and legal consequences of colorism and racial definitions in antebellum New Orleans, based on a real-world court battle over hidden ancestry.

1864. Louis Charles Roudanez, “Is the Black Code Still in Force?”: https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ roudanez/ roudanez--black_code.html
A 1864 editorial in La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans, a daily newspaper servicing free people of color. The editorial condemning efforts to restore the Black Codes that the Union was dissolving.

February 3, 1864. Major-General Nathaniel Banks. General Orders No. 23, Issued by Major General Banks at New Orleans, Dated February 3, 1864. Banks' code was designed to regulate agricultural labor in Union-held Louisiana. The workers were not longer slaves, but they weren't entirely free either. They were required to work; they had to sign a labor contract for a full year; their freedom of movement was limited, etc.

1865. Black codes adopted by different parishes in 1865.
https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ estilette/ estilette--parish_black_codes--1865.html

1865. "Black" "code" adopted by the Louisiana State legislature in November and December 1865.
Acts Passed by the General Assembly.
Actes Passés par l’Assemblée Générale.
After Congress learned of the black codes passed by Mississippi and 3 Louisiana Parishes, their outrage helped lead to Radical Reconstruction. The Louisiana legislature reacted by trying to disguise their black code — so what they passed was neither a code, nor did it explicitly regulate black people. All previous codes had been explicit about being for slaves and people of color. The laws had also been published together as a unit. That's the way codes work. The Louisiana innovation was to pass the laws separately rather than all together. They also omitted race from the laws, so formally they applied to everybody. From now on, black codes will tend to not be formal codes or to apply explicitly to black people. They will alternate with laws that do discriminate by race, such as explicit segregation laws. This is the beginning of pernicious "color blind" laws.

[1865] Laurence W. Mazzeno. "Louisiana Black Codes," https:// www.ebsco.com/ research-starters/ history/ analysis-louisiana-black-code. "The Louisiana Black Code consisted of a series of laws passed in December 1865 to regulate the transition of former slaves into a society where they would be allowed to earn a living without disrupting the economic and social order of the state. The newly elected, all-white legislature feared that without strict controls on the newly emancipated black population, the state's agrarian economy might not recover from the setbacks of the Civil War. The code set out certain limited rights for blacks, especially the right to enter into contracts, but at the same time placed heavy restrictions on their right to seek employment by creating penalties for vagrancy and establishing requirements for apprenticeship that effectively forced former slaves and their descendants to continue working for those who had once been their masters. Local authorities were given wide authority to enforce these restrictive practices."

1865-1870. The Post Civil-War amendments.
The 13th Amendment: Dec. 6, 1865 abolished slavery.
The14th Amendment: July 9, 1868 granted citizenship and equal protection under the law.
The 15th Amendment: Feb. 3, 1870 secured voting rights for African American men.
While these amendments aren't specific to Louisiana, they were crucial in shaping the post-Civil War legal landscape in the United States, until the end of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow. Ultimately these amendments demonstrate that laws, even constitutional amendments, aren't self-executing; their effectiveness depends on having people in place to defend them. The final defense of a republic is the citizen.

July 30, 1866. Mechanics Hall Massacre. Governor J. Madison Wells, President Andrew Johnson, R. K. Howell.
“The New Orleans Riot.” https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ wells-j/ wells--new_ orleans_riot.html.
After the Civil War ended, Gov. Wells called for the delegates who wrote the 1864 Constitution to reconvene in order to write an addition to it allowing black men to vote. Ex-Confederates in and out of the New Orleans Police Department attacked the delegates and their supporters. This terrorism on the part of Louisiana officials enraged northern Republican, and they passed the Radical Reconstruction in response.

[1860-1880]. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in Louisiana (Covers the post-Civil War era, 1860-1880): https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ du_bois/ du_bois--black_ proletariat_ in_la.html
An essential historical analysis tracing the brief rise of democratic participation for freedmen during Reconstruction and the swift, violent backlash that dismantled those gains to re-establish white supremacy.

1887. Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes, Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes prospectus, 1887: https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ 303_download/ texts/ desdunes--radical_prospectus/ desdunes--radical_ prospectus.htm
An early, radical French-language publication layout reflecting the political philosophies, organizing strategies, and civil rights resistance emerging within New Orleans' Afro-Creole community.

[1814-1898] Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes, Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire (Published 1911, documenting  19th-century Creole of Color activism): https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ desdunes/ desdunes--nos_hommes.html
A foundational historical record honoring the artistic, intellectual, and political contributions of free people of color, featuring direct accounts of the Comité des Citoyens and their legal fight against Jim Crow segregation. Covers the period from the Battle of New Orleans to the Plessy v Ferguson decision.

[1945] Lyle Saxon, Gumbo Ya-Ya (Published 1945, compiling Louisiana folklore, music, and oral histories): https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ saxon/ saxon--gumbo_ya_ya.html
A collection of localized folklore and oral histories that documents the cultural memory of the "Toucoutou" song, capturing how legal racial boundaries trickled down into popular street culture and music. The book also has examples of extreme punishment under the Black Codes.

2006. Mayor Ray Nagin. The Chocolate City Speech. https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ nagin/ nagin--chocolate_city.html. Nagin's response to the Bush Administration's attempt at ethnically cleansing New Orleans and other post-Katrina racist actions.

2016. Reverend Al Sharpton, Alton Sterling Funeral Eulogy (2016): https:// louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ jackson/ jackson--alton-sterling-funeral.html
A modern oratorical text providing crucial cultural and political context regarding contemporary systemic racism, police accountability, and civil rights mobilizations in Baton Rouge.

2022. Governor John Bel Edwards, Homer Adolph Plessy Posthumous Pardon (2022): https:// louisiana-anthology.org/ texts/ plessy/ plessy--homer_plessy_pardon.html
The official executive proclamation granting a posthumous pardon to Homer Plessy, serving as a formal, modern state acknowledgment of the institutional injustice birthed by the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling.

2026. Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Clarence Thomas, Elena Kagan. Louisiana v. Callais et al. https://louisiana-anthology. org/ texts/ alito/ alito--louisiana_vs _callais.html. This decision is the culmination of a 60-year effort to overturn the Voting Rights Act and return to the the Black Codes and Jim Crow. It's part of the 2026 panicked attempts by President Trump and his followers to prevent black citizens from voting. And of course, if they see they're losing anyway, violence and intimidation become the fallback strategy.

Notes

1. Word Definition

Text prepared by:

• Bruce R. Magee
  

Source

Bibliography

L’Anthologie  Louisianaise