The Strange History of the American Quadroon

Exotic, seductive, and doomed: the antebellum mixed-race free woman of colour has long operated as a metaphor for New Orleans. Commonly known as a “quadroon”, she and the city she represents rest irretrievably condemned in the popular historical imagination by the linked sins of slavery and interracial sex. However, as Emily Clark shows, the rich archives of New Orleans tell a different story.