Ben Franklin's world.

The podcast dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people and events of our early American past have shaped

the present day world we live in.

And I'm your host, Liz Kovart.

Every year, there seems to be a handful of history books that cause a stir among historians.

These are the books that historians can't seem to stop talking about,

and at least once or twice a year I try to place at least one of these books into our

editorial calendar so that you can get an idea of what historians are talking about and what historical research seems most exciting to them.

Well today's conversation is about one of these most talked about books.

It's called Wicked Flesh, Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World.

Now in Wicked Flesh, Johns Hopkins University history professor Jessica Marie Johnson takes us into the Atlantic

world of colonial New Orleans and Louisiana to show us how the story of freedom in colonial New Orleans tended to pivot on the choices

that black women made to retain control of their bodies, their families, and their

futures. But how did black women in colonial Louisiana

navigate French and Spanish black codes or slavery codes

to retain control of their bodies, families, and futures?

Well, during our conversation,

Jessica will answer this question, as well as reveal details about French entry into colonization and the diplomacy they needed to conduct to establish a trade with the West Coast of Africa.

The place of colonial New Orleans in Louisiana

within the larger world of Atlantic trade and colonization,

and information about the French Code Noir or Slave Code of 1685, and how African women and women of African descent

navigated that code to create opportunities for freedom and control. But first,

...