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COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group, COPYRIGHT 2005 Thomson Gale, a part of The Thomson Corporation
CREOLES
OVERVIEW
Unlike many other ethnic groups in the United States, Creoles did not migrate from a native country. The term Creole was first used in the sixteenth century to identify descendants of French, Spanish, or Portuguese settlers living in the West Indies and Latin America. There is general agreement that the term "Creole" derives from the Portuguese word crioulo, which means a slave born in the master's household. A single definition sufficed in the early days of European colonial expansion, but as Creole populations established divergent social, political, and economic identities, the term acquired different meanings. In the West Indies, Creole refers to a descendant of any European settler, but some people of African descent also consider themselves to be Creole. In Louisiana, it identifies French-speaking populations of French or Spanish descent. Their ancestors were upper class whites, many of whom were plantation owners or officials during the French and Spanish colonial periods. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, they formed a separate caste that used French. They were Catholics, and retained the traditional cultural traits of related social groups in France, but they were the first French group to be submerged by Anglo-Americans. In the late twentieth century they largely ceased to exist as a distinct group. Creoles of color, the descendants of free mulattos and free blacks, are another group considered Creole in Louisiana.
HISTORY
In the seventeenth century, French explorers and settlers moved into the United States with their customs, language, and government. Their dominant presence continued until 1768 when France ceded Louisiana to Spain. Despite Spanish control, French language and customs continued to prevail.
Many Creoles, however, are descendants of French colonials who fled Saint-Domingue (Haiti) for North America's Gulf Coast when a slave insurrection (1791) challenged French authority. According to Thomas Fiehrer's essay "From La Tortue to La Louisiane: An Unfathomed Legacy," Saint-Dominque had more than 450,000 black slaves, 40,000 to 45,000 whites, and 32,000 gens-decouleur libres, who were neither white nor slaves. The slave revolt not only challenged French authority, but after defeating the expeditionary corps sent by Napoleon, the leaders of the slaves established an independent country named Haiti. Most Whites were either massacred or fled, many with their slaves, as did many mulatto freemen, many of who also owned slaves. By 1815, over 11,000 refugees had settled in New Orleans.
Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743-1803), a self-educated slave, took control of Saint-Domingue in 1801, sending more refugees to the Gulf Coast. Some exiles went directly to present-day Louisiana; others went to Cuba. Of those who went to Cuba, many came to New Orleans in the early 1800s after the Louisiana territory had been purchased by the United States (1803). This influx from Saint-Domingue and Cuba doubled New Orleans' 1791 population. Some refugees moved on to St. Martinville, Napoleonville, and Henderson, rural areas outside New Orleans. Others traveled further north along the Mississippi waterway.
In Louisiana, the term Creole came to represent children of black or racially mixed parents as well as children of French and Spanish descent with no racial mixing. Persons of French and Spanish descent in New Orleans and St. Louis began referring to themselves as Creoles after the Louisiana Purchase to set themselves apart from the Anglo-Americans who moved into the area. Today, the term Creole can be defined in a number of ways. Louisiana historian Fred B. Kniffin, in Louisiana: Its Land and People, has asserted that the term Creole "has been loosely extended to include people of mixed blood, a dialect of French, a breed of ponies, a distinctive way of cooking, a type of house, and many other things. It is therefore no precise term and should not be defined as such."
Louisiana Creoles of color were different and separate from other populations, both black andThis woman is a quilter at the Amand Broussard House in Louisiana Creole Country.white. These Creoles of color became part of an elite society; in the nineteenth century they were leaders in business, agriculture, politics, and the arts, as well as slaveholders. Nonetheless, as early as 1724 their legal status had been defined by the Code Noir (Black Code). According to Violet Harrington Bryan in The Myth of New Orleans in Literature, Dialogues of Race and Gender, they could own slaves, hold real estate, and be recognized in the courts, but they could not vote, marry white persons, and had to designate themselves as f.m.c. or f.w.c. (free man or color or free woman of color) on all legal documents.
THE FIRST CREOLES IN AMERICA
According to Virginia A. Dominguez in White By Definition, much of the written record of Creoles comes from descriptions of individuals in the baptismal, marriage, and death registers of Catholic churches of Mobile (Alabama) and New Orleans, two major French outposts on the Gulf Coast....
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