Revolution, romanticism, and reform: The Afro-Creole protest tradition in the origins of radical Republican leadership, 1718-1868
Description
In nineteenth century New Orleans Afro-Creole leaders, like their free black counterparts in other regions of the Americas, emerged from the age of democratic revolution with mounting expectations of social and political equality. Given the democratic ideals embodied in the founding principles of the new American republic, they anticipated the extinction of racial oppression after the Louisiana Purchase Contrary to their expectations, however, the process of Americanization negated the ideals of the revolutionary era. Instead of moving toward freedom and racial equality, the new government promoted the evolution of an increasingly harsh slave regime which, in the end, prohibited emancipation and threatened free blacks with enslavement. During the repression of the antebellum decades, a government policy of relegating all blacks to a single and subservient caste counteracted class divisions within the Afro-Creole community. Sustained by a keen sense of ethnic solidarity, slaveholding as well as nonslaveholding Creoles developed an intense antagonism toward the new regime Joined by disaffected whites who resented the increasing dominance of Louisiana's planter oligarchy, the highly politicized black Creole intelligentsia nurtured the idealism of the revolutionary age. They tapped the ongoing current of political radicalism in nineteenth century Europe and the Americas After federal troops occupied the city in 1862, they demanded the abolition of slavery and equal rights. With the war's end, they proposed to transform state government. Together with their white allies, they devised a blueprint for the reorganization of the state. The plan, drawn up by the biracial, radical Republican platform committee during the summer of 1867, assured black Louisianians, whether born slave or free, of an equal share of elective and appointive political offices as well as equal access to public accommodations Before their political enemies derailed their attempts to revolutionize their society and government, black Creole radicals succeeded in transforming the symbolic ideals of Liberte, Eqalite, Fraternite into an aggressive campaign for meaningful change. Though their dream of a utopian millennia of racial justice and harmony far exceeded what their state and their nation were willing to concede, they assured, by their actions, the survival of their protest tradition