Description

In 1717, French finance minister John Law decided to introduce the importation of slaves into the colony of Louisiana, with the goal of developing the plantation economy in Lower Louisiana. The Compagnie des Indes (Company of the Indies) subsequently obtained the monopoly on economic activity in the region and between 1719 and 1743 imported approximately 6,000 slaves to the colony. To regulate relations between slaves and colonists, the Louisiana Code noir, or slave code, was introduced in 1724. Based largely on the code compiled in 1685 for the French ...