![]() ![]() Racial classifications were numerous in Latin America. These colonial societies classified mixed-race people in a variety of ways, generally related to visible features and to the proportion of African ancestry. In these territories and major cities, particularly New Orleans, and those cities held by the Spanish, a substantial third class of primarily mixed-race, free people developed. They were a distinct group of free people of color in the French colonies, including Louisiana and in settlements on Caribbean islands, such as Saint-Domingue ( Haiti), St. Lucia, Dominica, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. Record the pronunciation of this word in your own voice and play it to listen to how you have pronounced it. ![]() ![]() However, the term also applied to people born free who were primarily of black African descent with little mixture. Pronunciation of gens de couleur libre with 2 audio pronunciations. Others, however, remained to play an influential role in Haitian politics.In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: gens de couleur libres Spanish: gente de color libre) were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not enslaved. Equal rights for free people of color became an early central issue of the Haitian Revolution, although the struggle within Haiti between the gens de couleur led by Julien Raimond and the black Haitians led by Toussaint Louverture devolved into the War of the Knives.Īfter their loss in that conflict, many wealthy gens de couleur left as refugees to France, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Louisiana, Florida and elsewhere. Nevertheless most were pro-slavery, at least up to the time of the French Revolution. Under the ancien régime, despite the provisions of equality nominally established in the Code Noir, the gens de couleur were limited in their freedoms and did not possess the same rights as white Frenchmen. Most gens de couleur were Roman Catholic, and many denounced the Vodoun religion originating in Africa. They were often well-educated in the French language, as distinct from the scorned Haitian Creole language used by slaves. Often working as artisans, shopkeepers or landowners, the gens de couleur frequently became quite prosperous, and many prided themselves on their European culture and descent. Il comporte 1162 dclarations et les entres remontent au dbut du XVIIIe sicle. Le premier graphique prsente les entres annuelles des noirs et gens de couleurs tablis en France en 1777. As property owners themselves, freedmen sought very distinct lines set between their own class and that of slaves. Il s'agit d'tudes statistiques qui ont t ralises partir des recensements des Noirs et gens de couleur en 1777 et en 1807-08. The slaves were generally not friendly with the freedmen, who sometimes portrayed themselves as bulwarks against a slave uprising. Regardless of their color, freedmen could own plantations and often owned large numbers of slaves themselves. These free men were known as gens de couleur libres to distinguish them both from the former black freedmen and those mulattos who had remained slaves. Those remaining were the free people of color: métis ("people of mixed race"), usually born of French men and slave women. About 12,000 of these anciens libres were black slaves who had either purchased their freedom or had received it from their masters for one reason or another. The term was used to distinguish those who were already free, compared to those liberated by the general emancipation of 1793. In addition, marrons (runaway slaves) were sometimes able to establish small communities in the mountains, along with remnants of Haiti's original Taino people.Īfter slavery ended in the colony, there were approximately 28,000 anciens libres ("former free") in Haiti. Prior to the Haitian Revolution, Saint-Domingue was legally divided into three distinct groups: free whites (who were divided socially between the plantation-class grands blancs and the working-class petits blancs), freedmen ( affranchis), and slaves. Gens de couleur is a French term meaning "people of color." The term was commonly used in France's West Indian colonies prior to the abolition of slavery, where it was a short form of gens de couleur libres (" free people of color"). Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article does not cite any references or sources.
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