MS01.01.03.B02.F10.007

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in the founding years of this nation4. An import^{ant} example was ^{the craft of} ornamental ironwork
which was introduced to Louisiana in the 18th century. Its preceding patterns
are said to have come [ crossed out: to Louisiana] there from France. Black labor was used for the
cast and ornamental ironwork which adorned the many private dwellings and public
buildings in other cities such as Charleston and Mobile. The Louisiana Work
Projects Administration Guide gives the following account of slave labor in the
craft of the ironsmither in the eighteenth century:

" The metal work used in the construction of the first
Ursuline Convent, ... was forged by slave labor; and
through later years both slave and free forge workers
made grills, guardrails, gates, and other wrought iron
pieces that survive in Louisiana's time-worn buildings."5

Many slaves and "free people of color" proved their artistry to a waiting public
who needed the fineries of ^{life supplying} tasteful furnishings for the home, couturiers ^ {services} for
the ladies of high society, and the approved services of master craftsmen in
every respect of daily living by creating, upon demand, the complete furnishings
then found in Southern homes.

Less than one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence was
signed, free people of color, both black and mulatto, dominated the artisan
related crafts and labor force in the register of laborers in Louisiana. In

{line}
4Henry Castellanous, a well-known Louisiana hostorian wrote of these
artisans: "...in our factories and blacksmith shops bosses or foremen would
be white, while the operatives were either Blacks or mulattoes. And so with
other trades, such as bricklayers or masons, carpenters, painters, tinsmiths,
butchers, bakers, tailors, etc. In fact, had not the progress of the country,
from the condition of unrest under which it had been laboring, developed itself
into the proportions which it has since assumed, there cannot be the least doubt
but that all the lower mechanical arts would have been monopolized in the
course of time by the African race." He further implies that an influx of
labor in the crafts wrestled from Blacks this form of labor in the crafts.

5Louisiana: A Guide To State: W.P.A. In the State of Louisians (Hastings
House, 1941), p. 176.