Color Me A Tramp
19 th Century
African American
Prostitution


The nineteenth century was a century that evolved and changedrapidly.  The people involved were caughtup in a maelstrom of uncertainty and confusion. African American women in particular suffered.  They got caught up in the winds of change andwere sucked into the eye of the ensuing storm. Amidst the confusion stood amalgamation and with amalgamation came thelabel of prostitute. But it was not just amalgamation that dictated that term.Slavery, Victorian society itself, emancipation, law and economics all played apart in creating the African American prostitute of the 1800s.  “In the extreme, any woman who engaged inpremarital intercourse was labeled a prostitute” (Gilfoyle, 19).  So was “any woman who offered her body forhire or who sold sexual acts for ‘base gain’” (Barnhart, ix).  Unfortunately, this definition also includedwomen that just sought a normal, moralistic life.
          Interracial sex outside of marriagewas common.  Most of the time it involvedsouthern white men, often slaveholders, their sons and overseers takingadvantage of their African American women slaves. Typically, they cited the“natural lewdness of the negro” as the main cause of their own failings.  Besides the trauma the incidents caused, thechildren born of such unions caused stress as well.  White women often saw those mulatto childrenas a reminder of their husbands’ infidelity and resented it, while female slaveshad little choice in the matter and they resented it as well.  Both women suffered angst and both familiessuffered turmoil as a result (Bardaglio in Hodes, 114-117). 
          The products of that sexualexploitation were mixed-race children, and those children became the first ofwhat would eventually become ten different classifications of being non-whitein Louisiana, ranging from black to quadroon with many in between, as definedby the courts.  In one case, the courtseven went to the extreme and tried to define a level between black and mulatto,using the word “griff”.  “Griff” was usedto describe someone who is too dark to be mulatto but too light to beconsidered negro (Barthelemy in Kein, 255).  White society demanded a line of demarcation between the races.  The children of miscegenation blurred thatline (Baraglio in Hodes, 113).         
          The white people were not the onlypeople concerned with color.  The castesystem had come into play in the south and mixed-blood children had a tendencyto be treated, “as a social group with special privileges and status”(Bardaglio in Hodes, 119).  Mulattos had“ties to both blacks and whites, itself more privileged than the one but lessesteemed than the other” (Martin in Kein, 57).  
 “As miscegenation increased, mulattosgradually assumed a more dominant role... And the degree of white blood inone’s veins became an increasingly important factor.”  It also created a permanent and nearlyimpenetrable barrier that lasts to this day between Louisiana’s mixed-race anddark-skinned blacks” (Martin in Kein, 58).
           There wasanother barrier and that existed between African Americans‘ and whites.  “White sexual anxiety” had been a constantduring slave but intensified when it ended. The fear was that amalgamation would disturb the racial order thatexisted (Bardaglio in Hodes, 113).  So,during and after the process of emancipation, many states wrote laws tosafeguard the line of demarcation.  Thelaws prohibited any interracial marriages in order to placate the white societythat demanded that line drawn in the sand (Bardaglio in Hodes, 122).  This laid the groundwork forsegregation.  The courts did not worryabout sexual relations outside of marriage, as the laws against fornicationwere considered enough of a deterrent (Bardaglio in Hodes, 122).   
          It is curious that white society foundthe need to separate from people with whom they had lived for so many years,especially in the plantation areas where a separation “would have been anabsurdity, hindering daily routine and serving no possible purpose” (Fischer,927) and  “interracial households… hadformed the cornerstone of the Old South“ (Bardaglio in Hodes, 125), but manythought “the destruction of slavery necessitated a bolstering of boundariesbetween whites and blacks“ (Bardaglio in Hodes, 125).   Therefore, more laws were enacted andfurthered added to the confusion of being a free person of color.
          The Civil Code of 1808 not onlydictated that a free woman of color could not marry a slave or a free whiteman.  It also voided those marriages thatdid exist (Bardaglio in Hodes, 126 and Martin in Kein, 64).  This left many children bastards in NorthCarolina, but Virginia was different. There, the children were legitimate and thus able to inherit.  As Justice Richardson said, “The dominantwhite race has not yet struck, nor will it likely ever strike at the naturallegal rights of unoffending children through the sins of their parents”(Bardaglio in Hodes, 126).   This enabledmany mixed-race to garner wealth as well as freedom and a new society was born(Martin in Kein, 60).  However, there wasstill a problem for free women of color when it came to whom they could marry.
          Free men of color were basicallyunavailable, as Spanish census records of 1788 so adroitly point out.  According to their numbers, there were only100 free men of color for every 677+ free women of color in Louisiana at thattime.  The average life expectancy for afree man of color was only 8.1 years old and in contrast, 30.3 years old forfree women of color.  The mortality ofyoung boys is explained by climate combined with a mosquito infestation thatpromoted such diseases as smallpox, yellow fever and malaria.  Children were especially susceptible to thediseases (Martin in Kein, 63, 64, 66). With so few free colored males available, chances of finding a partner,with whom free women could have a family, were slim.  Thus, the placage arrangement and thefirst of our “prostitutes” came into existence.
                    Placage defines along-standing relationship with a white male (Martin in Kein, 58).   To create opportunities to find such arelationship, balls were implemented to allow social interaction between freecolored girls and white men (Martin in Kein, 65).  There were various types of balls, and eachcarried a different reputation.  Somewere open to the public and others were invitation only.  The white Creole ball and the quadroon ballwere carried on at the same time, but the price of admission to the quadroonball was higher than the fee charged to gain admittance to the white Creoleball (Bryan in Kein, 51).  Here there issome discrepancy, as to the nature of these balls.  It all depends on whose account one believes.   
          One writer refers to the “free Negroballs” that had been around since the colonial era as being always popular butcontinues on to give credit to a “dance hall proprietor named Auguste Tesier”who, in 1805,
…began holding balls twicea week limited to white men and free Negro women.  The experiment proved enormously successful,and the quadroon ball was soon established as one of New Orleans’ majorattractions.  White men flocked to theballs for easy sex, for an introduction that might lead to a placage, orsimply for the pleasure of an evening of dancing” (Fischer, 935).  However,there is also evidence to support the theory that not all balls were quite sounscrupulous. 
          Credit for the quadroon balls can alsobe accorded to the mother’s of mixed-race children.  According to Joan Martin, the free woman ofcolor had to accept that she had no choice of a mate and “was at the mercy ofany man, white or black, who chose to do her harm.”  There was no choice left to free women ofcolor and her parents worried about the future of their daughters without alife mate.  To allay these fears, theirmothers instituted the placage system to ensure her future and to findthose mates, and the quadroon balls were born (Martin in Kein, 64-66). 
          To be fair, both types of balls mostlikely did exist, but we will first examine the latter.  There existed in New Orleans a rich class offamilies of color called the “cordon bleus” and to “preserve theirsurvival as a race” gave birth to the “Bal de Cordon Bleu” to find theirdaughters life partners (Martin in Kein, 65).   At these balls,
…formal presentations wereexchanged, and the dancing commenced. Once a man found a girl who attracted him, he danced with her.  If the girl found him equally attractive, shesent him to her mother or guardian.  Iffor some reason she did not like him, she tactfully declined any furtherdances, and relied on her chaperone to prevent her any embarrassment.  Once agreement was reached, the girl wasspoken of as placee.  This gaveher a status similar to an honorable betrothal and secured her future.  Custom dictated that the man buy a smallhouse… and present it to her.  Until thehouse was finished, he never saw the young woman without her chaperone.  It was also understood that he would care forher completely during their life together, provide totally for any childrenthey might have, and present her with a proper settlement in the event of theirseparation.  Some of the relationshipsterminated when the man married; others lasted for life.  Seldom did any of them end in scandal (Martinin Kein, 67).
  Althoughthis did result in fornicating and cohabiting outside the bonds of matrimony,and was for “base gains“, it was really no different that what was dictated bysociety for white women.  For them,marriage provided a means of support, often included a dowry and many weremarriages of convenience (Martin in Kein, 67). The only difference was the legal sanction and protection/security ofmarriage, something that was denied to free women of color.  Still, to apply the label of prostitute inthis set of circumstances is erroneous. As Canon states,
…considering the scope ofthe obstacles they must face daily, persons who are victims of extremeoppression cannot embrace the normal moral and ethical codes of a society asthough their lives and choices were framed by the same paradigms as those ofpersons whose freedom has never been questioned.  They must adapt their behavior to thesituations in which they find themselves and then do what their sense ofhumanity and decency tells them to do. When placage is viewed within this framework, the actions of thefree woman of color can be deemed not only as moral and ethical, but also ascourageous.  They didn’t choose to livein concubine; what they chose was to survive (Martin in Kein, 64-65).Survivaldid not stop there, nor did the courage, as becomes evident as we examine thenext group of women that were labeled more accurately as prostitutes.
          As emancipation progressed, AfricanAmerican women found themselves thrust into a world in which survival gathereda new meaning.  As slaves, they survivedthrough manipulation of the system, using any means available to them whetherthrough resistance via trickery, escape and/or physical confrontation (Hortonin Holt and Barkley Brown, 331).  Theyavailed themselves of any opportunities they discovered, such as using the tasksystem to give them the time they needed to care for and provide for familymembers (Schwalm, 59).  After slaveryended, African American women needed to find survival in a world in whichprejudice reigned and employment opportunities were scarce.  Though technically manumitted fromslavery, there was no description of greater independence for freedwomen as faras society went and their battle for independence carried on.  Now, though, they fought for their dignityagainst not just the whites but freedmen as well.        
          African American men frequently abusedtheir wives according to bureau records. Most likely it was an attempt to show they were “self-reliant andmanly”; however, these actions mirrored those of plantation owners as theyincluded whipping for not accomplishing tasks (Schwalm, 262-263). AfricanAmerican women needed to earn a living and gain their own independence,particularly in light of the fact that many of those women complained to the federalbureau of their husbands’ failings to support them and their children orabandonment (Schwalm, 263-264).  So, whatdid a newly freed, African American woman do for work that could provide herboth an income and independence?
          The job outlook in the mid-eighteenhundreds was dismal at best.  TheNational laborer estimated women’s pay in 1836 to be less than 37.5 cents perday.  Cost of living in New York ranapproximately $1.50- $1.75.  After thewar it got worse and women were only making 20 cents a day and the cheapestlodging cost a dollar a week (Gilfoyle, 59). That meant a woman had to work five days a week just to pay for a room,without any money left over for food or necessities.  Should she be able work seven days a week, ifshe could find the work, she would only have forty cents to spend on what sheneeded to survive.  For a person withnothing to begin with, it simply was not enough (Soule in Hart and BarkleyBrown, 373).  That is, if they could findemployment at all.
          Work was difficult to come by afterthe war as the job market was swarming with people looking for work.  Irish immigrants as well as African Americansclamored for jobs, and many white workers refused to work alongside a blackwoman (Harris in Hodes, 193).  So whatdoes a woman do that needs to earn money? Well, in the 1800s, most turned to prostitution and the African Americanwoman was no exception.  In view of thesexual exploitation that many African American women had suffered duringslavery, it may be surprising to some that this would be a career choice.  To understand this choice, there is more thanone factor to look at.
          The first hurdle for an ex-slave toovercome, when looking at a job in which she sells her body, would be thesexual exploitation that most likely would have been endured in the past.  Harriet Jacobs probably said it best when shesaid; ‘There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no controlover you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment.’  Harriet… emphasized the choice of a sexualpartner as a marker of freedom” (Block in Hodes, 147). 
          Then there was how society itselftreated free women of color.  There werethe opinions directed right at African American women, seeing them as forexample, in mulatto women, “full of vanity, and very libertine; money willalways buy their caresses” and living “in open concubine with the whites; butto this they are more incited by money than any attachment” (Duvallon in Davis,168) or another, speaking of free black and colored people, “wallow(ing) indebauchery” (Flint in Davis, pg 177). 
          Besides opinions of free people ofcolor, there were also opinions aimed at different areas of employment.  For instance “certain types of femaleemployment had in the public mind become linked to prostitution.  Those of servants, chambermaids, tailoresses,and milliners were the most common occupations of women who became prostitutes”(Gilfoyle, 60).  In some states, prostitutionwas even legal or may has well have been.
          In 1857, Louisiana decided to followthe French’s lead and legalize prostitution. Apart from being able to assert some “supervision”, it would bring inrevenue for the city through licensing (Evans, 167).  Boston police, in the 1880‘s, “had begun toaccept as normal certain levels of prostitution” (Hobson, 46), and New York“Government did little to discourage such sexual exploitation.  The low age of consent in New York (10 years)was hardly a deterrent” (Gilfoyle, 69) and overall, society too had backed off“during the Civil War and the years after” (Hobson, 45).  Neither the law, nor society, was adeterrent.  When combined with theultimate lure of money in an impoverished economy, there were very few otheroptions for women. 
          “Throughout most of the antebellum period, women increasinglybecome the operators of brothels, boardinghouses, and houses of assignation.…Prostitution thus enabled certain women to acquire a degree of autonomy andlead semi-independent economic lives. Because of the changing boundaries of acceptable sexual display,successful prostitutes enjoyed access to previously closed avenues of mobilityand wealth.  For these women,prostitution was a good business proposition” (Gilfoyle, 73-74).  ForAfrican American women who sought independence and economic stability, therecould be no greater incentive.
After 1820, the “social profile of prostitutes” had changed.  Prostitutes accumulated property and they didnot view what they did as a “deviance or sin; rather, they considered it abetter alternative to the factory or domestic servitude”.  Nobody controlled their lives, or theirtime.  Instead, they had thecontrol and, occasionally, even fame (Gilfoyle, 73-74). 
          In the years following the Civil War,business was booming in the world of sex due to “uneven gender ratios, thepostponement of marriage, and marital dissatisfaction” (Gilfoyle, 239).  Now combine those issues with, “women of faircomplexion from Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee… were in greatdemand as prostitutes….”(Franklin and Schweninger, 254).  Autonomy, independence, and fortune werethere for the taking and many African American women, once again, seized anopportunity that was available to them.
          In 1866, down in Boston “dancecellars”, prostitutes danced, “the swarthy faces of negresses [sic] glistenedwith excitement and sweat” (Hobson, 46). In New York, “black-run establishments operated with little fanfare oropposition….” (Gilfoyle, 209) and earlier in the 1840’s, the Sixth Ward had “thelargest concentration of blacks” and “at the same time became one of theleading centers of prostitution…containing 31 percent of the city’s brothels”(Harris in Hodes, 201).  Girls of mixedrace were often passed off as Spanish. One brothel owner who liked to do that was Nell Kimball.  If the girls could not pass, she sent them“to a woman who owned a ‘nigger house’ “(Kimball in Fille de Joie, 21-22).  Brothel guides in Philadelphia alsoadvertised colored prostitutes, noting that, “…we have no objection to a whiteman hugging a negro wench to his bosom….”(Lapansky in Holt and Barkley Brown,311).  Then, of course there were girlswho apparently just prostituted on the side. One example of this would be Seneth Ann Burns who at age sixteen soldherself, as did her sister (Franklin and Schweninger, 146).  But let’s not forget the women with theentrepreneurial spirit, the brothel owners.
          In the antebellum period, “black-runestablishments in Five Points were popular and attracted much attention.”  Some black brothels owners such as CatherinePhillips, Ann Johnson, Jane Morgan, and Charlotte Carter only had AfricanAmerican customers.  Others had both,black and white prostitutes and clientele, and then others, such as “blackmadam Hannah Lewis employed only white women in her … brothel”, and some, suchas “black prostitute Adeline Sales”, did her own thing and just “brought men toher apartment” (Gilfoyle, 41).  Obviously many African American had found a niche in this profession.
          So one might ask, how lucrative wasit?  Well, in New York the price ofvirginity was approximately $35-$50, which was a typical years wage for womenin other positions, however in poor areas it only earned $10.00.  After that girls earned 25 cents to $10.00per time (Gilfoyle, 60, 69, 241, 242). This would allow girls to make upwards of $1.00 a day at the worst,which is still more than most women made with wages of a regular job onlypaying her 20 cents per day. 
          Most African American women wanted thesame as most every other women in American wanted; respect, family, and theability to survive.  Nineteenth centurywhite society with it’s underground fears and racial prejudices denied freewomen of color the most basic ways of achieving this by outlawing marriages,refusing to work alongside them, and for all women, denying them unfairwages.  However, as we have seen time andagain throughout history, the African American woman prevailed against the oddsand obstacles that waylaid her at every turn. 
          We must remember the context in whichthe label prostitution was given out in the 1800s, especially in regard toAfrican American women, and not see them as disgraced women but rather as womenwho defied and survived the attempts of society to hold them down.  They are women to be admired for fighting thefirst of many battles to come in the war for equal rights.
 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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