The Tignon Law — Part 1 Teacher Resources

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The Tignon Law

Part 1: The Law They Wrote to Erase Her — Teacher Resources

It Was Illegal To Look Too Good.

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Quiz — The Tignon Law: Part 1: The Law They Wrote to Erase Her

PART A — MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. What did free Black women in 1786 New Orleans commonly own, according to the lesson?

B) Property and businesses.

Students should recall that free Black women commonly worked as seamstresses, laundresses, midwives, and boardinghouse keepers, investing their earnings into land, homes, and other property. [4]Noir NOLA. "The Tignon Law: How Black Women Formed Decor Out of Oppression." noirnnola.com.[6]64 Parishes. "Free People of Color." 64parishes.org. Students who answer A, C, or D are selecting options not supported by the historical record.

2. Who issued the 1786 edict that became known as the Tignon Law?

B) Esteban Rodríguez Miró.

Students should identify Miró, the Spanish colonial governor of Louisiana, as the official who issued the Bando de Buen Gobierno in 1786. [1]"Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.[2]Vice. "When Black Women Were Required By Law to Cover Their Hair." vice.com.[3]Kiddle Encyclopedia. "Tignon Law Facts for Kids." kids.kiddle.co. Students who answer A, C, or D are naming other historical figures not associated with this specific edict.

3. What was the official name of the edict that included the tignon requirement?

B) Bando de Buen Gobierno.

Students should recall that the tignon requirement was part of the Bando de Buen Gobierno, or Proclamation of Good Government, rather than a standalone law. [1]"Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.[3]Kiddle Encyclopedia. "Tignon Law Facts for Kids." kids.kiddle.co. Students who answer A, C, or D are naming other colonial-era legal terms, including the earlier Code Noir, which predates this specific 1786 edict.

4. According to the lesson, which group pressured colonial officials to restrict free Black women's dress?

B) White women.

Students should recall that white women in the colony pressured colonial authorities to act, viewing the elegance and status of free Black women as a challenge to the racial hierarchy of colonial society. [1]"Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.[5]Gould, Virginia Meacham. "A Chaos of Iniquity and Discord." In The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie. Oxford University Press, 1997. Students who answer A, C, or D are selecting groups not identified in the historical record as the source of this pressure.

5. What were free and enslaved Black women required to wear over their hair under the law?

B) A tignon.

Students should identify the tignon as the knotted head covering required by the 1786 edict, applied to Black women regardless of free or enslaved status. [1]"Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.[2]Vice. "When Black Women Were Required By Law to Cover Their Hair." vice.com. Students who answer A, C, or D are naming other head coverings not specified in the historical record.

6. What was the stated purpose of the tignon requirement, according to the historical record?

B) To mark Black women as belonging to the slave class, even if free.

Students should recognize that the tignon requirement was designed to visually erase the distinction between free and enslaved Black women, regardless of a woman's actual legal status. [1]"Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.[2]Vice. "When Black Women Were Required By Law to Cover Their Hair." vice.com. Students who answer A, C, or D are selecting explanations not supported by the historical record.

7. What phrase does the lesson use to describe the reaction the law's authors did not anticipate?

C) "They never saw what was coming."

Students should identify this line as the lesson's closing statement, setting up the response free Black women would go on to have to the law. Students who answer A, B, or D are selecting phrases not used in the lesson's text.

PART B — SHORT ANSWER KEY POINTS

Question 8. Explain what free Black women in 1786 New Orleans owned and how they dressed, based on details in the lesson. Why might this visible status have provoked resentment among white colonists?

A strong answer should include:

  • The specific claim: free Black women commonly worked as seamstresses, laundresses, midwives, and boardinghouse keepers, investing earnings into land, homes, and other property, and dressed in elaborate hairstyles, fine jewelry, and silk fabrics reflecting this standing [4]Noir NOLA. "The Tignon Law: How Black Women Formed Decor Out of Oppression." noirnnola.com.[6]64 Parishes. "Free People of Color." 64parishes.org.
  • Why this provoked resentment: white women in particular pressured colonial officials, viewing this visible wealth and status as a challenge to the racial hierarchy the colony depended on [1]"Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.[5]Gould, Virginia Meacham. "A Chaos of Iniquity and Discord." In The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie. Oxford University Press, 1997.
  • Strong answers will note: coartación, the Spanish colonial mechanism allowing enslaved people to purchase their own freedom in installments, had contributed to the growth of this free Black population in the years before 1786 [7]64 Parishes. "Coartación." 64parishes.org.
  • Strong answers will connect: the specific, documented nature of this wealth (property records, named occupations) to why it functioned as concrete evidence rather than a vague claim of prosperity

Question 9. Describe the stated and actual motivations behind the Tignon Law, using at least two specific details from the lesson.

A strong answer should include:

  • The stated motivation: the edict was framed around "excessive attention to dress" [1]"Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.[2]Vice. "When Black Women Were Required By Law to Cover Their Hair." vice.com.[3]Kiddle Encyclopedia. "Tignon Law Facts for Kids." kids.kiddle.co.
  • The actual motivation, per historian Virginia Gould: the law targeted women who "become too light skinned or who dressed too elegantly, or who competed too freely with white women for status" [5]Gould, Virginia Meacham. "A Chaos of Iniquity and Discord." In The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie. Oxford University Press, 1997.
  • Strong answers will note: the edict built on an existing pattern of racially restrictive law in Louisiana, including the Code Noir extended in 1724 and Spanish decrees in 1769 and 1778 [1]"Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.
  • Strong answers will connect: the gap between stated and actual motivation to the lesson's broader point that laws can be written in neutral language while targeting a specific group

Question 10. The lesson ends by stating the law's authors "never saw what was coming." Using evidence from the lesson about who free Black women were in 1786, explain why this line functions as foreshadowing.

A strong answer should include:

  • The evidence: free Black women in 1786 were already property owners, skilled tradeswomen, and educated members of their community, with a demonstrated history of building status for themselves under difficult legal conditions [4]Noir NOLA. "The Tignon Law: How Black Women Formed Decor Out of Oppression." noirnnola.com.[6]64 Parishes. "Free People of Color." 64parishes.org.[7]64 Parishes. "Coartación." 64parishes.org.
  • Why this matters as foreshadowing: a population already shown to be resourceful and determined is unlikely to simply accept a law designed to erase their visible status without response
  • Strong answers will note: the law's own architects underestimated the very qualities — creativity, resilience, and social standing — that had made these women a perceived threat in the first place
  • Strong answers will connect: this line to the broader pattern, addressed in Part 2 of this series, of how the response to a law can outlast and outshine the law itself

Sources & Footnotes

  1. [1] "Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.
  2. [2] Vice. "When Black Women Were Required By Law to Cover Their Hair." vice.com.
  3. [3] Kiddle Encyclopedia. "Tignon Law Facts for Kids." kids.kiddle.co.
  4. [4] Noir NOLA. "The Tignon Law: How Black Women Formed Decor Out of Oppression." noirnnola.com, on the status of gens de couleur libres in colonial New Orleans.
  5. [5] Gould, Virginia Meacham. "'A Chaos of Iniquity and Discord': Slave and Free Women of Color in the Spanish Ports of New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola." In The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, edited by Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie, 232–246. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
  6. [6] 64 Parishes. "Free People of Color." 64parishes.org, on occupations and property ownership among free women of color in Spanish colonial New Orleans.
  7. [7] 64 Parishes. "Coartación." 64parishes.org, on self-purchase and manumission under Spanish colonial rule in Louisiana.
  8. [8] Johnson, Jessica Marie. Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020, p. 198.

Note on This Lesson

The edict's own words: Governor Miró's June 2, 1786 edict ordered that Black, mulatta, and quadroon women could no longer wear feathers or jewelry in their hair, and directed women of higher status to wear pañuelos, the kerchiefs commonly worn by enslaved women. In Louisiana, these head wraps came to be known as tignons. [1]"Tignon law." Wikipedia, citing Miró's 1786 Bando de Buen Gobierno and subsequent historical scholarship.[8]Johnson, Jessica Marie. Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020, p. 198.

In her full words, historian Virginia Meacham Gould describes the women the law targeted as those "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]Gould, Virginia Meacham. "A Chaos of Iniquity and Discord." In The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie. Oxford University Press, 1997.

The images in this lesson are illustrations created for teaching. They are not photographs of historical people or documents.

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