New Orleans Museum of Art; Museum Purchase, Clarence John [86.113]

Jean-Phillipe Potteau. Portrait of Marie Lassus of New Orleans. Albumen print, 14 3/4 x 11 inches.

Marie Lassus, the young daughter of a black mother and a French father, was an affluent member of the city's free population. The New Orleans community of free people of color was large and, in many instances, well educated and prosperous. By 1840, fifteen thousand free people of color, the majority of whom were French-speaking Creoles, lived in the city. Their status, however, had deteriorated with the Americanization of the state. The American two-tiered system that only recognized whites and blacks had relegated them to a degraded status.