“Only in Default of Whites”
Keyword(s):
The Law
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This chapter offers a grand tour of French court procedures as applied to the enslaved in French Louisiana, in order to frame the analysis of slave testimony. Using particular court cases to flesh out the application of the law in the colony, it discusses the role of slave codes against the backdrop of French colonial laws and judicial procedure, which dictated in minute detail how crimes were investigated, prosecuted, sentenced, and, especially, how testimony was heard, transcribed, and recorded in the archive.