Citizenship and Racism in the New Public Sphere

Abstract

On January 26, 1776, Europe’s latest innovation in urban sociability opened its doors in Cap Français. An entrepreneur named Pamelart, probably a recent arrival in the colony, invited the public to his Vauxhall, a fashionable combination of meeting hall and café. Perhaps having heard how colonists loved to dance, Pamelart included a ball-room in his new establishment, which drew large crowds during that year’s Carnival season. But after the holiday, the café and its dance floor stood empty. Pamelart tried to lure the public back with tactics that might have worked in a European city, like advertising in the Affiches américaines and holding fireworks demonstrations. Only in May, when he began scheduling dances for Cap’s free people of color, did he appear to have found the formula for success. These functions again made the Vauxhall a social center, for many white men attended free colored balls to find mistresses. But since Cap Français’s new theatre opened in 1764, the city government had required the racial segregation of public places. When Pamelart began to enforce this law, his dance floor emptied again. The Vauxhall closed soon afterward. Although imperial administrators, creole magistrates, and other reformers described free people of color as a threat to public virtue, European men wanted sexual partnerships with women of color.¹