Freedom Papers

          Freedom Papers displays many different ideas concerning topics like gender, race/ color categories, importance of documentation to identity and citizenship, and both geographical and social movement. All four of these topics link together in some way or another. I have personally been focusing on the topic of movement throughout the book.  I believe it ties into the topics of gender and importance to documentation to identity and citizenship very well.                                                          
          The questioning of if Elisabeth Dieudonne's status could be reversed from free to slave when arriving in New Orleans was one example I found. Her status in Saint- Domingue was free, but could her movement to New Orleans change that status? Many free slaves that moved to New Orleans had this problem. "Once designated explicitly or implicitly as a slave, a person who had previously lived as free would require substantial resources and powerful allies in order to contest that label" (67). This was not only  problem of movement and documentation, but a problem with gender. Many men of color were banned, but free women of color and children were exempted, on the grounds that they "shall be supposed to have left the island above named, to fly from the horrors committed during its insurrection."
         Widow Aubert is another example of this. Her previous labels reemerged in the written record and was to be designated a free women of color. Individuals had to prove their freedom and those who couldn't would most likely be put back into slavery. Some could even be deemed a "fugitive slave" in the absents of their putative master. Sometime individuals freedom was allowed with no questions asked. This process seemed unfair to many slaves that had previously had their status changed before arriving in Louisiana. Movement had a direct effect on these individuals of certain race and genders, and their identities were definitely challenged.