Tignon_law

Tignon law

Tignon law

1786 Louisiana law that required black women to wear a tignon headscarf

The tignon law (also known as the chignon law[1]) was a 1786 law enacted by the Spanish Governor of Louisiana Esteban Rodríguez Miró that forced black women to wear a tignon headscarf. The law was intended to halt plaçage unions and tie freed black women to those who were enslaved, but the women who followed the law have been described as turning the headdress into a "mark of distinction".[2]

A young Creole woman in a tignon of her own creation. Note that the rosette in the tignon is repeated as either a brooch or in the linen at her neck. Painting from the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Background

The Code Noir, or black code, was a French law that restricted the lives of people of color living in French colonies. It had first been created to apply in the Caribbean colonies in 1685, but was extended to Louisiana in 1724. Spanish authorities instituted a similar law, first in 1769 and again in 1778.[3] By 1786, Esteban Rodríguez Miró was the Spanish governor of Louisiana. He disliked actions some black women had taken, considering them to show "too much luxury in their bearing."[4] White women began to urge Miró to act to restrict the fashion of non-whites.[5]

Law

Miró added an item to a decree that he was already going to issue.[4] The June 2, 1786,[5] decree, formally titled the bando de buen gobierno or "proclamation of good government",[6] stated that women of color had to wear a scarf or handkerchief over their hair as a visible sign of belonging to the slave class, whether they were enslaved or not;[7] specifying that "the Negras Mulatas, y quarteronas can no longer have feathers nor jewelry in their hair. [... instead, they] must wear [their hair] plain (Ilanos) or wear panuelos, if they are of higher status, as they have been accustomed to."[4]

Effect

During the 18th century, laws restricting what black people could wear were not uncommon.[4][6] Miró hoped that the law would halt plaçage unions[3] and tie freed black women to those who were enslaved. While white women in New Orleans initially stopped wearing their hair in the style, Empress Joséphine of France eventually adopted the headpiece, and it became considered haute couture in the early 19th century before decreasing in popularity in the 1830s.[8][9]

Virginia Gould writes that the true purpose of the law was to control women "who had become too light skinned or who dressed too elegantly, or who, in reality competed too freely with white women for status and thus threatened the social order."[5] She also notes that there is no evidence it was ever enforced and the women who followed the law turned the headdress into a "mark of distinction".[2]

Publications such as Essence and Vice have discussed the law and its effects.[10][11]

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Dillman, Caroline M. (2013-10-28). Southern Women. Routledge. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-136-55696-8.
  2. [2]
    Clinton, Catherine; Gillespie, Michele (1997-06-26). The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South. Oxford University Press. p. 238. ISBN 978-0-19-802721-8.
  3. [3]
    Cabildo, Friends of the; Toledano, Roulhac; Christovich, Mary Louise; Swanson, Betsy (2008-03-13). New Orleans Architecture: Faubourg Tremé and the Bayou Road. Pelican Publishing. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-56554-831-2.
  4. [4]
    Johnson, Jessica Marie (2020). Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-8122-5238-5.
  5. [5]
    Kein, Sybil, ed. (2000). Creole : the history and legacy of Louisiana's free people of color. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-8071-4205-9. OCLC 703156104.
  6. [6]
    Winters, Lisa Ze (15 January 2016). The mulatta concubine : terror, intimacy, freedom, and desire in the Black transatlantic. University of Georgia Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-8203-4897-1. OCLC 937451149.
  7. [7]
    "NPS Ethnography: African American Heritage & Ethnography". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2021-02-06.Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  8. [8]
    Stewart, Whitney Nell (2018-06-23). "Fashioning Frenchness: Gens de Couleur Libres and the Cultural Struggle for Power in Antebellum New Orleans". Journal of Social History. 51 (3): 526–556. ISSN 1527-1897.
  9. [9]
    Bird, Stephanie Rose (2009). Light, bright, and damned near white : biracial and triracial culture in America. Praeger. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-275-98954-5.
  10. [10]
    "The Tignon Laws Set The Precedent For The Appropriation and Misconception Around Black Hair". Essence. Retrieved 2021-02-06.
  11. [11]
    Nasheed, Jameelah. "When Black Women Were Required By Law to Cover Their Hair". Vice. Retrieved 2021-02-06.
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