“A New Way of Smuggling Free Negroes”: Black Unauthorized Workers and the Police Power in Antebellum New Orleans

Abstract: This article examines Black “unauthorized workers” in antebellum New Orleans, enslaved and free, who participated in the city’s underground labor market while evading state efforts to restrict their labor and movement. In the urban South, Black workers encountered large police forces, high arrest rates, and extensive regulations on their employment, housing, and travel. Urban commitment to slavery’s public regulation spurred the growth of a shadow workforce, pervasive yet hidden, made of Black workers who legally were prohibited from working. These workers were heavily policed and criminalized, and employers grew to rely on them as a source of low-cost labor. In turn, these workers developed strategies for navigating a dangerous urban economy wherein their labor simultaneously was outlawed and in high demand. By exploring how these workers used forged documents, counterfeit identities, and subversive strategies to avoid police detection, this article highlights the tension between state police powers and economic interests in a dynamic urban environment. Through detailed case studies, the essay illustrates the complex interplay of state regulation, market demands, and the everyday resistance of Black laborers in a slaveholding city.