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Halle Berry on the set of Boomerang (1992)

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In Louisiana Afro Creoles and Free black women dressed elegantly and decorated their hair with feathers and beautiful jewels. With their new freedom they used their clothing and their hair to embrace their femininity. The majority of Afro Creoles and free black women married free men of color and raised families with them. They were also getting attention from white men which threatened the fragile social order and angered many white women because now Afro creoles and black women were being recognized as beautiful and becoming big competition to white women.

So, In 1786 Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró passed a law called The Tignon Law, that forced Afro creole and black women to cover their hair with cloth called a Tignon. Virginia M. Gould said that Esteban hoped the law would control women “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.” However, the intent behind the Tignon Laws took a different turn when Afro creoles and black women turned it into a huge fashion statement. The vibrant colors of the scarves and the many wrapping techniques enhanced their beauty instead of marking them inferior to white women. Even in the early 1800s when the Tignon Laws ended, free women of color continued wearing the tignons.