Free Blacks’ access to guns was another problem altogether. In 1806, Virginia required them to have a license to carry firearms.118 In Louisiana, one of the key targets was the free Black militia that had thrived under Spanish and then French rule. After the territory was purchased by the United States, whites demanded that all free Blacks be disarmed. In 1804, the new municipal council in New Orleans “began a campaign to exclude free blacks from any position in which they were required to bear arms.” Not only was the Black militia targeted, but so were “the old black slave-catching crews,”
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