Slavery & Incarceration in New Orleans

Unsung History

Shortly after New Orleans became a US city (via the Louisiana Purchase), the municipal council established one of the country’s first professional salaried police forces and began operation of Police Jail, both efforts aimed at the capture and control of enslaved people who had run away from or otherwise disobeyed their enslavers. The history of New Orleans and Louisiana is an intertwined history of slavery and incarceration, the effects of which can still be felt today.

Joining me in this episode is Dr. John Bardes, Assistant Professor of History at Louisiana State University and author of The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “The Best Jazz Club In New Orleans,” by PaoloArgento, available for use via the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Slave prison (Calabozo), New Orleans,” by photographer A. Genthe, taken between 1920 and 1926; the photograph is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress.

Additional sources:

• “Timeline: New Orleans,” PBS American Experience.
• “Third Treaty of San Ildefonso,” by Elizabeth Clark Neidenbach, 64 Parishes.
• “Louisiana Purchase, 1803,” United States Department of State Office of the Historian.
• “‘Confined in the Dungeons’: Orleans Parish Prison and Self-Emancipated People,” Lauren Smith, Kathryn O’Dwyer, Editor, and with initial research contributions by Brett Todd, New Orleans Historical, accessed May 12, 2024.
• “Before the Civil War, New Orleans Was the Center of the U.S. Slave Trade,” by Joshua D. Rothman, Smithsonian Magazine, April 19, 2021.
• “Lincoln’s 'laboratory': How emancipation spread across South Louisiana during Civil War,” by Andrew Capps, Lafayette Daily Advertiser, June 18, 2021.
• “Why slavery as a punishment for crime was just on the ballot in some states,” PBS News Hour, November 18, 2022.
• “‘You’re a slave’: Inside Louisiana’s forced prison labor and a failed overhaul attempt,” by Cara McGoogan, Washington Post, Published January 1, 2023, and updated January 3, 2023.
• “Louisiana's over-incarceration is part of a deeply rooted pattern,” by Hassan Kanu, Reuters, February 1, 2023.

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