This path was created by Jaleesa Harris. The last update was by David Squires.
Creole
The attempt to define Louisiana Creoles faces the same dilemma facing any attempt to define an ethnic group complied of people of different diasporas, languages, and experiences: deciding which or what elements to include in the synopsis, fearing one is too broad and the other too general. History has a way of establishing cultural norms adapted or created within a group of people with shared ancestry, and the same is true for Creoles of Louisiana.
Historically, Louisiana Creoles were a group of free people of color based in New Orleans before the Civil War. These people were distinguished by “their French language, culture, education, religion, and often a mixed heritage of African, French, Spanish, and Native American” (Eble 48). As a group, conflicting and confrontational racial differences created labels such as White Creoles, Black Creoles, and Creoles of Color. According to one historian, “continuing to focus on the confrontational aspect would, however, be overly simplistic, since, while the numerous groups interacted through opposition, they also progressively mingled and gave birth to a particular society, making New Orleans the “Creole capital” of the United States” (Dessens 187). Creoles of color provided a dichotomy for race relations in Louisiana during a time when most people of African descent were enslaved and considered sub-human.
The Louisiana Creole community of color, treated as an elite group of Negroes, proved privilege and phenotypic differences allowed the group levels of autonomy in education, finances, and dialect. The 1863 introduction of the Emancipation Proclamation freed all people of African descent in the Confederacy. Emancipation ushered in a time of great hope and opportunity for many, but for elite Creoles, this freedom for all removed a previously clear identity marker between the free and the enslaved. Creoles lost their once elite status and were forced to migrate from the Creole capital and create exclusives communities to maintain resemblances of their antebellum lives. In The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest Gaines defines Louisiana Creoles through their relationship to the African American community at Samson Plantation.
