In The Flow of Time – June 30, 2024
Around 1800 in New Orleans, white men seriously outnumbered white women. Conversely, free women of color seriously outnumbered free men of color. There were also more women as slaves (household workers in the city) than men. White men absolutely used slave women. It’s hard to impute consent when one of these people owns the other.
Nonetheless, this was the demographic reality that led to a widely recognized (if technically illegal) form of concubinage called “plaçage.” White men, planters from the countryside or wealthy city dwellers, would form a long-term relationship with a free woman of color, get her a house, and provide for the children of this relationship. In New Orleans in 1800, the idea that rich white men could have both a white marriage, and a “left-hand marriage,” common.
Associated with plaçage is the idea of the quadroon ball. “The young women who were presented to wealthy white men at the quadroon balls were carefully selected, often highly-educated Afro-Creole ladies whose beauty, poise, and wit were proverbial. Only white men were allowed to attend these social events.”
To be a bit blunt, you can think of this as courtesans on parade. We have elegant ladies in fine dresses available for perusal and selection by the wealthy white men. And out of this, lifelong relationships arose. It’s a grand elegant “coming out” ball where wealthy planters meet beautiful courtesans, chaperoned by their moms or surrogate moms, and cut contracts for services to be rendered.
However widespread the idea, these balls are probably myth. It’s a white man’s fantasy. New Orleans is the Big Easy. It was then as it is now. I have no doubt that white men and free women of color consorted. This part of my family tree has quite a few such relationships. They probably met at church, at the markets, at the home of a mutual friend… all the ways that people meet. They might have even met at a ball. There is zero doubt that white men had lifelong relationships with free women of color. Marie Laveau herself had a common-law relationship with a white man who pretended to be a free man of color so they could live together. They did, for decades. He moved into her house, and stayed. They had kids, raised a family… all outside the color of the law.
So, back to Quadroon Balls. I found two records of a real, genuine “Quadroon Ball.” One is from 1805, the other in 1858. In 1805, a recent immigrant from Haiti rented a hall and set up a dance twice a week for the benefit of white men. I think to myself, Twice a week? This is not the event of the season. This is, “come on down to the dance hall, we’ve got girls.”
The other is an advertisement from 1858. Again, this is a regular event. Price of admission reduced, girls get in free. There’s promise of beautiful companions, extra police protection, and the location is a notorious former-gambling den near the waterfront. Where you would want a bit of extra police protection. Where sailors and tourists would hang out. Oh, and we have private rooms…
New Orleans was the Las Vegas of its time, filled with girls and gambling. Women have always been victimized: if not by direct action, by an economy that limits options. There were thousands of single women, slave, free women of color, and white, making their way. Each made their choices, within whatever freedom they had. In many cases, sex work was the answer, either as a dance-hall girl, or a courtesan.
