Atlantic Passports: An Analysis of the Destinations of Black Travelers from New Orleans in the Early 19th Century

From 1818 to 1831 New Orleans instituted a passport requirement for its free and enslaved African descended residents to travel outside of the city. These municipal passports documented in a New Orleans Public Library, City Archives miscellaneous collection entitled “Record Book of Licenses, Bakers’ Declarations, and Statements of Public Works, 1812, and Passports, 1818-1831” contain information about more than 450 free and enslaved travelers of color. The collection provides information about the names, ages, familial connections, status, owner (when applicable), height, physical descriptions, race and racial heritage, and travel plans of travelers of color. Typically, the travel plans recorded disclose a traveler of color’s intended mode of transportation (usually a sea-going vessel), the Captain of said vessel, and their destinations. The most frequently listed destinations listed in the passports for the travelers of color included France, Haiti, Cuba, and Mexico. Using the information from the collection, this paper analyzes the mobility of black residents of New Orleans to France, Haiti, Cuba, and Mexico. It elucidates the historical circumstances, such as the Haitian Revolution, that linked New Orleans to these places. I argue that the destination of these travelers of color identifies the city as both French and Caribbean. Consequently, in the early nineteenth century, American New Orleans remained a part of the Atlantic World.