This research guide is for anyone interested in researching Black life in New Orleans during the nineteenth century. While more advanced researchers may already be familiar with some of the resources included herein, new content is often still being added to this body of documentation. Novice researchers may be overwhelmed by the volume of digitized and/or transcribed materials available, so finding a way to narrow down and focus searches will help this work feel more manageable. That said, this guide is far from comprehensive.
Items in this guide span a wide variety of formats, from newspapers and ships' manifests to commercial maps and digitized photographs. Each different type of document will yield its own distinct type of insights, and finding which types of sources work together most productively is a key part of any research project. While some contents may be searchable thanks to character recognition software, the varying quality of scans may make this method of searching less complete. There is much to be said for browsing materials, and picking specific dates, events, or topics is one way to get a grasp of the lived experiences represented by these documents. Bear in mind, too, that older, colonial documents may be in poor shape, may be written in a script that is difficult to read, and are generally not written in English.
As you search, bear in mind that it may be helpful to use the language of the period for keywords, particularly if you are doing full-text searching. While contemporary search tags are more likely to use current terminology, words used in nineteenth century materials may be more useful for uncovering materials from that period. Keyword searches that include numerous alternative terms used when referring to Black people during the period may be especially useful, for example: <African Americans OR Blacks OR slaves OR negros OR fmc OR fwc OR fpc OR mulattos OR grif* OR octoroons OR gens de couleur libre>
Finally, a word about the emotional toll of researching traumatic histories. Holocaust historians such as Shoshana Felman and Marianne Hirsch argue that bearing witness to the traumas of a not-so-distant past, such as in the examination of archival materials, can often carry its own psychological and emotional impact. Though the weight of empathy with which we may read about humans treated as chattel is a heavy one, we can think of our rediscovery of their lives, however fragmentary, as a way of honoring their memory and their struggles.
