Happy Black History Month! Today, we’ll highlight a piece of history that illustrates Black women’s creative resistance to the Tignon Laws (tē-yȯn) - policies put into place in 1700s Louisiana to regulate and police Black women’s hair. These laws mandated that both free and enslaved Black women’s hair remain covered by a head wrap known as a tignon. How did Black women respond? They transformed the tignon into an iconic, visually striking fashion statement that not only became an enduring symbol of defiance and cultural heritage, but also celebrated each woman’s unique beauty and style.
Where and when did Tignon Laws originate?
In the latter half of the 1700s, enslaved Black people in Louisiana had started to acquire emancipation through various channels. Under Spanish colonial rule at this time, there was a sizable free Black community living, working, growing communities, and building futures in New Orleans.
Spanish rulers became wary of the way free Black people were advancing socially and economically, and sought to legally define and impose a strict racial hierarchy to limit their power. Part of that effort to control and restrict the lives of free Black people were the Tignon laws, created in 1786.
What did the Tignon laws require?
The Tignon laws required that all Black women, enslaved or free, must wear head wraps known as tignon in order to visually mark them as belonging to the enslaved class.
This was done to aesthetically link free Black women to enslaved Black women, who wore head coverings while working. However, it is important to note that head wraps and adornments were key components of dress in many parts of Africa, particularly West Africa, long beforehand.
Why?
Historian Virginia M. Gould notes that the Spanish colonial governor Don Esteban Miró hoped the laws would control Creole women “who had become too light skinned or who dressed too elegantly, or who competed too freely with white women for status and thus threatened the social order.”
The tignon laws were put into place in efforts to mark both enslaved and free Black women as racially inferior and to limit their control of their own bodies and appearances. Spanish colonizers also believed that preventing free Black women from sporting beautiful, elaborate hairstyles by keeping their hair covered would detract white male admirers.
So what did the women do?
The women complied with the laws - but they did it with innovation, style, and creative excellence. Free Black women found countless ornate and extravagant ways to tie the tignon - it became an artform.
Those who could afford to do so crafted their tignon out of luxurious fabrics or adorned them with jewels, feathers, or other eye-catching decorations.
Mandating the tignon was intended to suppress Black women, but they transformed it into not only a rebellious fashion statement but also a way of proudly displaying individuality, style, taste, and craft.
Even after tignon laws were no longer enforced as Spanish colonial rule came to an end and the U.S. enacted the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, tignons continued to be worn. Tignons remained symbols of Black women’s resistance amidst racial oppression, celebration of Black beauty and African heritage, and fashionable means of personal expression.
Historically, Black women’s hair has been policed not only through legal means such as the Tignon Laws, but also via other social and structural impacts of anti-Black racial bias and white supremacy that still exist today. Black women and girls continue to face relentless policing of their appearances on a daily basis.
Black women have invented countless ways to express unique personhood and cultural identity through hair styles, wraps, and accessories while continuing to push back at the white status quo. The tignon is just one example.
For many Black women, it's not "just hair."
As multiple systems of oppression attempt to restrict Black women’s bodily autonomy and personal expression, hair is often more than “just hair.”
Choices about hair can be reflective of individual personality, aesthetic tastes, spiritual beliefs, ancestral pride or familial tradition, refusal to assimilate, rejection of Eurocentric beauty standards, celebration of Black beauty, community, and culture, or anything else she wants.
Every Black woman deserves to have that choice be her own - without restrictions - and to have every chance to shine.
Reflections:
What other instances of Black women using fashion as resistance can you find and research throughout history?
Are there other examples you can think of that apply today where Black women and other minoritized women face policing of their appearances and/or use dress as resistance?
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