The Code Noir originally barred legal discrimination on the basis of ancestry

Evidence

The 1685 Code Noir declared that emancipation was the legal equivalent to “birth in our islands,” and therefore granted the affranchi—the freed individual—the same rights as those born in the kingdom, even if they had been born in “foreign lands.” Still, certain stipulations differentiated the affranchis from other free individuals. They were enjoined to show respect to their former masters, and they could be reenslaved as punishment for certain crimes. These provisions, however, applied only to the individual who had been freed, not to his or her children; they were linked to the person’s legal trajectory from slavery to freedom, and not to their ancestry. There was, in principle, no discrimination solely on the basis of African descent or skin color. Although they probably experienced racial discrimination in their day-to-day lives, free people of African descent could buy land and slaves, live in any neighborhood in the towns, educate themselves in any school, and practice any profession they wished. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 217

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that French colonial racial law was originally status-based (slave-freed trajectory), not ancestry-based.
• XREF: This ‘trajectory not ancestry’ principle parallels the shift Coleman maps for trust, and the reverse-engineering of category by government in 216.