Reviewed by:

• Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana by Sophie White
• Randy J. Sparks

Sophie White has written a compelling and insightful chronicle of the lives of individual enslaved men and women in French colonial Louisiana. Her book is a fine example of what a talented historian can accomplish with the tools of microhistory. Louisiana, she explains, has more court cases representing the enslaved than any other archive in the French empire and anywhere else in colonial North America. Because of the protocols governing court cases and testimony in the French legal system, these records offer remarkable insights into the lives of the men and women who testified in the cases. She reads these records against the grain, not so much for empirical information about slavery, but rather to listen carefully to enslaved voices for what they reveal about their lived experiences. Their testimony, she argues, is another form of autobiographical narrative that, in her capable hands, takes us deep into the lives of these enslaved men, women, and children. While the focus is Louisiana, she often makes comparisons with other parts of the French empire, from the Caribbean, to France, to the Indian Ocean, thereby broadening the scope of her study. The results are fascinating.

White did not select cases because of their typicality, though they often take us into the everyday lives of the plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses. On a Wednesday afternoon in 1752, three enslaved women, the property of the Ursuline Convent, were washing clothes in the Mississippi River when they were accosted by a drunken soldier, who demanded that they wash his handkerchief. When they refused, he attacked two of the women with his [End Page 110] bayonet, seriously injuring them. This case allows White to explore the range of relationships between people of different classes and races in New Orleans and the lowly status of soldiers. The rich archives of the Ursuline Convent provide extensive information on the lives of the enslaved women and their families who lived within its walls and on the politics swirling around the sisters at this moment in time, which impacted their response. The fact that a stiff corset protected one of the women from the soldier’s bayonet’s blow provides White with an opportunity to delve into contemporary fashions, examining how race and status often governed what clothes people wore and how the corset was an unusual garment for an enslaved woman.

White uncovers many such cases. One involves an allegation of infanticide leveled against an enslaved Native American woman in Illinois Country, whose complicated case opens windows on Native American slavery, life in Illinois Country, medical knowledge and practice, and infanticide across the French empire. A captured runaway turns out to be from Philadelphia, a dashing, dancing, romancing, thieving dandy whose escapades alienated the slave community. White finds him later in Saint Domingue once again as a runaway, after being convicted, beaten, branded, and banished from Louisiana. A pair of enslaved lovers ran away multiple times to be together, finally hiding out in the swamps for several months until they were tracked down again. White uses their case to delineate the sorts of relationships open to enslaved men and women in Louisiana and how they struggled to sustain them. In Louisiana, in contrast to the English colonies, enslaved couples could legally marry with their owners’ consent, and in the decade between 1759 and 1769, 35 percent of marriages were enslaved couples.

Finally, an enslaved man was the sole witness to an act of bestiality that a French soldier inflicted on a mare in Mobile. The high stakes in the case— the soldier could be burned at the stake—put heavy pressure on the sole witness, whose status as a slave was used against him. The soldier was interrogated under torture, but the court could not agree on his guilt or innocence and so held him in prison...

审核人：

• 奴隶之声：法属路易斯安那州的爱，劳动和渴望，索菲·怀特（Sophie White）
• 兰迪·J·斯帕克斯（Randy J.Sparks）

索菲·怀特（Sophie White）对法国殖民时期路易斯安那州被奴役的男性和女性的生活写了一篇引人入胜的有见地的纪事。她的书很好地说明了有才华的历史学家可以用微观历史工具完成的工作。她解释说，路易斯安那州比法国帝国及北美殖民地其他任何地方都有更多代表被奴役的法院案件。由于法国法律体系中有关法院案件和证言的议定书，这些记录提供了对在案件中作证的男人和女人的生活的深刻见解。她读这些唱片是靠谷物，而不是为了获得有关奴隶制的经验信息，而是要认真倾听奴役的声音，以了解他们所经历的生活。她争辩说，是自传式叙事的另一种形式，在她有能力的掌握中，我们可以深入了解这些被奴役的男人，女人和孩子的生活。虽然重点是路易斯安那州，但她经常与法国帝国的其他地区进行比较，从加勒比海地区到法国再到印度洋，从而扩大了她的研究范围。结果令人着迷。

尽管怀特经常将我们带入原告，被告和证人的日常生活，但怀特没有选择案件，因为它们具有典型性。1752年的一个星期三下午，三名被奴役的妇女，是Ursuline修道院的财产，在密西西比河上洗衣服时，一名醉酒的士兵要求她们洗手帕。当她们拒绝时，他用[End Page 110]袭击了其中两个女人。刺刀，严重伤害他们。这种情况使怀特能够探索新奥尔良不同阶级和种族的人与士兵地位低下之间的关系范围。Ursuline修道院的丰富档案库提供了有关居住在其墙壁内的被奴役妇女及其家人的生活的广泛信息，以及此时此刻在姐妹周围盘旋的政治方面，这影响了他们的反应。坚硬的紧身胸衣保护了其中一名妇女免受士兵刺刀的打击，这为怀特提供了深入研究当代时尚的机会，研究了种族和地位如何决定人们所穿的衣服，以及紧身胸衣如何成为奴役妇女的不寻常服装。

怀特发现了许多这样的情况。其中一项指控是对伊利诺伊州一名被奴役的美国原住民妇女处以杀婴罪的指控，该案的复杂案件为人们了解了美国原住民的奴役，伊利诺伊州的生活，医学知识和实践以及整个法国帝国的杀婴行为。被捕获的逃亡者来自费城，那是一条奔放，跳舞，浪漫，窃贼的花花公子，其出逃使奴隶社区疏远了。怀特后来在路易斯安那州被定罪，殴打，烙印和放逐后，再次在圣多明格找到他，成为逃亡者。一对被奴役的恋人多次逃跑在一起，最后在沼泽中隐瞒了几个月，直到再次被追踪。怀特用他们的案子描述了路易斯安那州对被奴役的男女开放的各种关系，以及他们如何努力维持这种关系。与英国殖民地相反，在路易斯安那州，被奴役的夫妇可以在拥有人同意的情况下合法结婚，并且在1759年至1769年的十年间，有35％的婚姻为被奴役的夫妇。

最后，一个被奴役的男人是法国士兵在莫比尔的母马身上实施兽交行为的唯一见证。案件中的高额赔付金-士兵可能被钉死在火刑柱上-对唯一的证人施加了沉重的压力，证人的身分是奴隶。那个士兵受到了酷刑的讯问，但法院无法同意他的罪恶或无罪，因此将他关进了监狱。