[1] It is used in the English language to describe the social class of freedmen in Saint-Domingue, and other slave-holding French territories, who held legal rights intermediate between those of free whites and enslaved Africans.
Because of such property and class issues, some free men of color considered themselves to have status above that of the petits blancs, shopkeepers and workers.
The colonists passed so many restrictions that the affranchis were limited as a separate caste: they could not vote or hold colonial administrative posts, or work in professional careers as doctors or lawyers.
There were sumptuary laws: the free people of color were forbidden to wear the style of clothes favored by the wealthy white colonists.
One of their leaders in the late 18th century, Julien Raimond, an indigo planter, claimed that affranchis owned a third of all the slaves in the colony at that time.