Skip to main content
editor@theusajournals.com | Oscar Publishing Services Journal Home
Login

International Journal Of History And Political Sciences

Peer Reviewed | Open Access | E-ISSN: 2771-2222
Published Article

A Critical Discourse and Structural Analysis of Patriarchal Masculinities and Transnational Slave Violence in French Colonial North America: A Framework-Based Study Of “Comme Des Bons Pères De Famille”

A Critical Discourse and Structural Analysis of Patriarchal Masculinities and Transnational Slave Violence in French Colonial North America: A Framework-Based Study Of “Comme Des Bons Pères De Famille”

Authors

  • Olivia Martin
    Department of Public Policy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Keywords:

Patriarchal masculinity Code Noir colonial discourse slave violence

Abstract

This study develops a critical discourse and structural analytical framework to examine patriarchal masculinities and transnational regimes of slave violence in French colonial North America, with specific attention to the ideological and legal construction embedded in the phrase “comme des bons pères de famille.” The research interrogates how colonial governance articulated paternalistic masculinity as a legitimizing discourse for coercion, regulation, and racialized control under the Code Noir system. Drawing on a synthesis of colonial legal texts, historiographical scholarship, and discourse-analytical perspectives, the paper demonstrates that paternal authority was not merely symbolic but functioned as a structural technology of domination. The study integrates insights from colonial Louisiana historiography and Atlantic world scholarship to construct a multi-layered interpretive model combining legal anthropology, discourse analysis, and colonial governance theory. Findings indicate that paternalistic rhetoric masked systemic violence while embedding moral legitimacy into slave regulation systems. The analysis further reveals transatlantic continuities in racial governance and the reproduction of patriarchal authority across French and Spanish colonial regimes. The paper contributes to scholarship on colonial masculinity, legal ideology, and slavery by proposing a framework for understanding how discourse and institutional structure co-produced colonial violence.

 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Aubert, “’To Establish One Law and Definite Rules’: Race, Religion, and the Transatlantic Origins If the Louisiana Code Noir,” in Louisiana: Crossroads of the Atlantic World, ed. Cécile Vidal, 21-43, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).

Brasseaux, “The Administration of Slave Regulations in French Louisiana,”140.

Brasseaux, “The Administration of Slave Regulations in French Louisiana,”148.

Brasseaux, “The Administration of Slave Regulations in French Louisiana,”140.

Carl A. Brasseaux, “The Administration of Slave Regulations in French Louisiana, 1724-1766,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 21, no. 2 (1980): 149.

Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie, The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South,(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997),256.

Catherine Desbarats,“French Louisiana,”lecture for HIST 334: History of New France, McGill University, Montreal, QC, March 9, 2015.

Dawdy, Building the Devil's Empire,195.

Dawdy, Building the Devil’s Empire, 200.

Dawdy, Building the Devil’s Empire, 214.

Shannon Lee Dawdy, Building the Devil's Empire: French Colonial New Orleans,(Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2008),207.

Desbarats,“French Louisiana.”

Desbarats, "French Louisiana."

G.C. Din, Spaniards, Planters, and Slaves: The Spanish Regulation of Slavery in Louisiana, 1763-1803,(Texas:A&M University Press, 1999),15.

Du Pratz, Le Page,“Of the Negroes of Louisiana.”Chap. IV In The History of Louisiana or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina: Containing a Description of the Countries That Lie on Both Sides of the River Missisippi: [Sic] with an Account of the Settlements ... Translated from the French of M. Le Page Du Pratz; with Some Notes and Observations. (London: Printed for T. Becket, 1774),380.

Henry P. Dart, The Louisiana Historical Quarterly,Vol. 5, (New Orleans, LA: The Louisiana Historical Society, 1922),92.

See Appendix I Henry P. Dart, The Louisiana Historical Quarterly,Vol. 5, (New Orleans, LA: The Louisiana Historical Society, 1922).

John Dymond, Henry Plaucher Dart, The Louisiana Historical Quarterly,Vol. 4, (New Orleans, LA: The Louisiana Historical Society, 1921).

See Appendix I. John Dymond, Henry Plaucher Dart, The Louisiana Historical Quarterly,Vol. 4, (New Orleans, LA: The Louisiana Historical Society, 1921),510.

For an example of this argument see Guillaume Aubert, “’To Establish One Law and Definite Rules’: Race, Religion, and the Transatlantic Origins If the Louisiana Code Noir,” in Louisiana: Crossroads of the Atlantic World, ed. Cécile Vidal, 21-43, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).

J.M.Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New Orleans,(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010),72.

Jean Bernard Bossu, Nouveaux Voyages Aux Indes Occidentales Contenant Une Relation Des Differens Peuples Qui Habitent Les Environs Du Grand Fleuve Saint-Louis, Appellè Vulgairement Le Mississippi : LeurReligion : Leur Gouvernement : Leurs Moeurs : Leurs Guerres & Leur Commerce,Vol. 1, (Paris: Chez Le Jay, 1768),201.

Le Code Noir Ou Édit Du Roi, Article 49. Louis XV. Versailles, 1724.

Le Code Noir Ou Édit Du Roi, Article 49.

My translation from the original French, “mélange de sang.” Le Code Noir Ou Édit Du Roi, Article 6.

Patrick G. Williams, S. Charles Bolton, and Jeannie M. Whayne, eds., Whole Country in Commotion: The Louisiana Purchase & the American Southwest,(Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press, 2005),108.

See Appendix I: April 29, 1730; September 5, 1730; September 18, 1730.

See Appendix: April 29, 1730.

Williams, Bolton, and Whayne, Whole Country in Commotion, 109.

“Comme des bons pères de famille”5028Brasseaux, “The Administration of Slave Regulations in French Louisiana,”148.