Conceived primarily as a case study of Savannah, Georgia, this dissertation addresses the evolution of racial ordering practices between the end of the eighteenth century and the mid-antebellum period. The increased perception of danger in the Lowcountry following the Haitian Revolution, the subsequent influx of black and white French refugees into the Lowcountry, and the enlargement of the free black population across the South compelled state and city authorities in Georgia and Savannah to assert greater legal control over free and enslaved blacks. New laws that restricted the entry of slaves and free blacks from outside the state, prohibited manumission, and forced free blacks to obtain white guardians in order to access legal rights expanded public authority into traditionally private spheres in reaction to these new threats towards the stability of the slave population.
While recognizing that policing statutes within slave codes were central in the creation and maintenance of the racial hierarchy, this project emphasizes the contributions of other laws. These legal arrangements established tighter, more personalized, and less visible control over free blacks and slaves while they formalized processes that ultimately awarded them status, residency, and even freedom on the basis of reputation. These measures each built upon existing strategies that engaged the community more broadly in policing free and enslaved people of color in the urban environment.
At the same time, whites and blacks alike reacted in defiant and unpredictable fashion towards the increasing harshness of laws that asserted greater public authority over institutions previously mediated among individuals within local institutions. In particular, refugees from St. Domingue who arrived following the revolution brought with them distinctive legal practices, customs, and expectations concerning freedom for former slaves that quickly surfaced in their encounters with local courts. Through an examination of county and city court records, newspapers, and state and local government records, I argue that Savannahians often ignored formal rules in favor of their own customary practices in several key instances where state and city authorities at Savannah attempted to assert greater and unprecedented control over slaves and free blacks under the law
