Louisiana Creole people
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Louisiana Creoles
Flag of the Louisiana Creole People
Total population
Unknown
Regions with significant populations
Louisiana, East Texas[1], Los Angeles County, California, small numbers in Veracruz, Mexico[2], Haiti, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and France.
Languages
English, Louisiana Creole French
Religions
Predominantly Roman Catholic
Related ethnic groups
Cajuns
French
Spaniards
Africans
Various Native American groups
Mexican
Puerto Rican
Cuban
Dominican
This article is about an ethnic culture in Louisiana, USA. For uses of the term "Creole" in other countries and cultures, see Creole (disambiguation).
Louisiana Creole refers to people of any ancestry or mixture thereof who are descended from settlers in colonial French Louisiana before it became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, or to the culture and Creole cuisine typical of these people. There are Creoles of relatively full black (African American) descent and Creoles of relatively full white (French and Spanish) descent; however, the majority are of mixed Native American, Spanish and French, and African American ancestry. There are also creoles who have a Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican and Mexican descent also.
Contents
[hide] [hide]
* 1 Etymology
* 2 History of a People
* 3 Language
* 4 Religion
* 5 Identity Crises. Cajun or Creole. White, Black or Mixed.
* 6 Cuisine
* 7 Music
* 8 See also
* 9 References
* 10 External links
[edit] Etymology
During Louisiana’s first French régime, the French borrowed a term the Spanish and Portuguese used in their colonies to refer to native-born products and people of the colony. The Spanish referred to this term as criollo and the Portuguese, crioulo. Ultimately, the colonial term derived from the latin ‘creare’, meaning to rear or create (Brasseaux).
[edit] History of a People
Creole girls
Creole girls
Creole largely remained an expression of parochial and colonial government use through both the French and Spanish régimes, a period in which native-born free and slaves of all biological backgrounds were referred to as Créole (Logsdon). Simultaneously, the people of the colony forged a new local identity, however it is clear that everyone referred to themselves as French. Parisian French was the language of whites and the mixed elite, and Louisiana Creole the language of the servile classes.
New Orleans is the birthplace of the Louisiana Creole People.
The transfer of the French colony to the United States in 1803 (officially admitted into statehood in 1812) and the arrival of Anglo-Saxons from New England ignited an outright cultural war. Anglo-Saxons, reportedly disgusted by the cultural and linguistic climate of the newly acquired territory, the United States’ first Louisiana governor, W.C.C. Claiborne swiftly moved to thoroughly americanize the Louisiana people in making English the official language. Outraged, Louisiana Creoles in New Orleans allegedly paraded the streets of New Orleans renouncing the Americans plight to transform them into Americans overnight. Realizing that he needed the local support to make any progress in Louisiana, Claiborne restored French as an official language of the newly acquired state, and in all forms of government, public forums and in the catholic church, French continued to be used. Most importantly, French and Creole remained the language of the majority of the population of the state. New Orleans remained a city divided between Latin (French and Creole) and Anglo-Saxon populations until well into the late 19th century (Hirsch & Logsdon). Among the eighteen governors of Louisiana between 1803-1865, six were Creole and were monolingual speakers of French: Jacques-Philippe Villeré, Pierre Augustin Charles Bourguignon Derbigny, Armand Julien Beauvais, Jacques Dupré de Terrebonne, André Bienvenue Roman, and Alexandre Mouton.
When the Americans began to arrive in Louisiana, locals began identifying themselves overtly as Creoles to distinguish themselves from the nouveaux-arrivés from New England and the American South.
If the American Civil War promised rights and opportunities for the enslaved, it caused anxiety for the Free Mixed Person of Color. Louisiana under the French and Spanish had long forged a three-tiered society, the exact same as in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, and other French and Spanish colonies. This three tiered-society allowed for the emergence of a wealthy and extremely educated group of mixed and black Creoles. Their identity as a Free Person of Color, or Gens de couleur libres or ‘personne de couleur libre’ was one they had worked diligently towards and guarded with an iron-fist. They enjoyed most rights and privileges, by law, as whites, and could and often did challenge the law in court of law winning their case against whites (Hirsch; Brasseaux; Mills; Kein etc). Knowing that the United States did not legally recognize a three-tiered society, the American Civil War posed a considerable threat to the Gens de couleur libres identity and position. The American Civil War eventually was a success for the North, and the Louisiana three-tiered society was dismantled.
In efforts to maintain their social and political identity, the former Gens de couleur libres began using the term ‘Creole’ much in the same way that the white elite did beginning in 1803. The Gens de couleur libres were native speakers of both French and Louisiana Creole.
Black slaves too in Louisiana, particularly in the southern realm of the state, were Creoles. The success of the North in the Civil War ultimately released slaves from servitude, at least on paper. Through sharecropping and Jim Crow laws, they found themselves in bondage again. However this servitude allowed for the preservation of the Creole language of the Black Creole working class of South Louisiana. They too were largely of Roman Catholic faith and saw themselves different from their Protestant English-speaking counterparts.
[edit] Language
Louisiana Creoles historically have spoken Louisiana Creole, Colonial Louisiana French and Metropolitan French.
[edit] Religion
Louisiana Creoles historically have been devout members of the Roman Catholic Church. Louisiana Creoles of Color and their descendants have constituted the nation’s largest group of non-white Catholics. In recent times, many Creoles have become members of other religious bodies.
[edit] Identity Crises. Cajun or Creole. White, Black or Mixed.
Since the conception of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana and the resurgence of Cajun pride in the late 1960s, Creole identity and pride has been neglected both by Creoles and non-Creoles.
For example, it is not odd to arrive in New Orleans, the birthplace of Creole, and find signs all over saying Cajun Restaurant or Cajun Music, and to hear local New Orleaneans refer to themselves as Cajun.
Similarly, it is not odd to find historic Creole families west of the Mississippi River referring to themselves as Cajuns now too.
The entire Cajun movement has ultimately redivided Louisiana latins into white (Cajun) and non-white (Creole and Amerindian). It should however be noted that "Cajun" originally refers to a different subset of Louisiana francophones. The term is a corruption of "Acadien" and therefore reflects the population of colonists resettled in Louisiana from Acadia following the Great Upheaval of 1755. Creoles, therefore would be the other colonists who were already in Louisiana at the time of the arrival of the Acadians, or those who arrived after from elsewhere.
Most Creoles are no longer fluent in either Louisiana Creole nor Colonial French. This has made the community vulnerable and susceptible to much scrutiny and neglect.
Some locals, especially those of relatively pure French and Spanish Creole descent, have often argued that the traditional usage excluded African lineage.
The American Civil Rights Movement forced Black and Mixed Creoles to either join the rest of country in gaining inalienable rights or to continue to exist without social and political rights. It also forced them to identify as Negro or Black, leaving behind their Creole identity, an identity then and now not consciously recognized by American Blacks.
American Blacks have been the most numerous in challenging the existence of the Louisiana Creole identity, typically among Creole of color populations.
The Louisiana Creole Heritage Center describes Creole people as those who are "generally known as a people of mixed French, African, Spanish, and Native American ancestry, most of whom reside in or have familial ties to Louisiana."[1] They add that "many other ethnicities have contributed to this culture including, but not limited to, Chinese, Russian, German, and Italian."
Creole is now accepted as a broad cultural group of people who share French, Spanish and/or African ancestry.
A definition from the earliest history in New Orleans (circa 1718) is "a child born in the colony as opposed to France or Spain. (see Criollo)"[2] The definition became more codified after the United States took control of the city and Louisiana in 1803. The Creoles at that time included the Spanish ruling class, who ruled from the mid-1700s until the early 1800s.
[edit] Cuisine
Gumbo is a feature of Cajun and Louisiana Creole cuisine.
Gumbo is a feature of Cajun and Louisiana Creole cuisine.
Louisiana Creole cuisine is recognized as an unique a style of cooking originating in New Orleans, which makes use of the same Holy trinity (in this case chopped celery, bell peppers, and onions) as Cajun cuisine, but has a large variety of European, French Caribbean, African, and American influences. Gumbo is a tradional family Creole dish. It is a stew consisting of but can vary depending on the family chicken, crab legs, rice…) It is seasoned with filé.
[edit] Music
Jazz, born in New Orleans sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, is the first local Creole music to be popularized.
Amédé Ardoin made the first audio recordings of Zydeco music in 1928.
Amédé Ardoin made the first audio recordings of Zydeco music in 1928.
Zydeco (a transliteration in English of ‘zaricô’ (Snapbeans) from the song, "Les haricots sont pas salés"), born in Black Cajun and Black Creole sharecropping communities on the prairies of southwest Louisiana in the 1920s is considered by many, if not most, as the Creole music of Louisiana. Zydeco purportedly hails from "Là-là", a genre of music now defunct, and old south Louisiana jurés. As Cajun French was the lingua franca of the prairies of southwest Louisiana, Zydeco was initially sang only in Cajun French. Later, creole-speaking Creoles and Cajuns, such as the Chénier brothers, Rosie Lédet and others, adding a new linguistic element to Zyedco music. Today, Zydeco’s new generation sings in English only.
Zydeco is related to Swamp Pop, American Blues, Jazz, and Cajun music. An instrument unique to Zydeco music is a form of washboard called the frottoir, or scrubboard, a vest made of corrugated aluminum, and played by using bottle openers or caps down the length of the vest.
[edit] See also
* Creole peoples
* Isle of Canes
* List of notable Louisiana Creoles
[edit] References
* Brasseaux, Carl, Keith P. Fontenot, Claude F. Oubre. Creoles of Color in the Bayou Country. University Press of Mississippi, 1996.
* Brasseaux, Carl. French, Cajun, Creole, Houma: A Primer on Francophone Louisiana. Bâton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.
* Cosse Bell, Caryn. Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana, 1718-1868. Louisiana State University Press, 2004.
* Desdunes, Rodolphe Lucien. Our People, Our History: Fifty Creole Portraits. Trans and ed by Sister Dorothy Olga McCants. Louisiana State University Press, reprint ed 2001.
* Hangar, Kimberly S. Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769-1803. Duke University Press, 1997.
* Hirsch, Arnold R., Joseph F. Logsdon. Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization. Bâton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
* Kein, Sybil. Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color. Bâton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.
* Midlo-Hall, Gwendolyn. Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Bâton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995.
* Mills, Gary B. The Forgotten People: Cane River’s Creoles of Color. Louisiana State University Press, 1977.
[edit] External links
* Frenchcreoles.com Website focusing on the French Creoles of Louisiana
* Creole Heritage Center
* Learn Louisiana Creole Online
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Creole_people"
Categories: "Related ethnic groups" needing confirmation | Ethnic groups in the United States | Louisiana Cre
Yes, depending on how you define Hispanic.
"creole
Language
Any pidgin language that has become established as the native language of a speech community. A creole usually arises when speakers of one language become economically or politically dominant over speakers of another. A simplified or modified form of the dominant group’s language (pidgin), used for communication between the two groups, may eventually become the native language of the less powerful community. Examples include Sea Island Creole (formerly Gullah, derived from English), spoken in South Carolina’s Sea Islands; Haitian Creole (derived from French); and Papiamento (derived from Spanish and Portuguese), spoken in Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire.
Native America
In the 16th – 18th centuries, a person born in Spanish America of Spanish parents, as distinguished from one born in Spain but residing in America. Under Spanish colonial rule, Creoles suffered from discrimination; it was consequently Creoles who led the 19th-century revolutions against Spain and became the new ruling class. Today Creole has widely varying meanings. In Louisiana it can mean either French-speaking white descendants of early French and Spanish settlers, or people of mixed descent who speak a form of French and Spanish. In Latin America the term may denote a local-born person of pure Spanish extraction or a member of the urban Europeanized classes as opposed to rural Indians. In the West Indies it refers to all people, regardless of ancestry, who are part of the Caribbean culture. See also Creole language."
Good luck.