Creoles of color

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Creoles of color are a historic ethnic group of Creole people in Louisiana (especially in the city of New
Orleans), Southern Mississippi, Alabama, and Northwestern Florida.

Contents
1 History
2 Contribution to the arts
2.1 Music
2.1.1 Notable classical Creole musicians
2.1.2 Jazz musicians
3 See also
4 References
5 Further reading
6 External links

History
Mixed-race Creoles of color became identified as a distinct ethnic
group, Gens de couleur libres (free persons of color), prior to the 19th
century. During Louisiana’s colonial period, Créole referred to people
born in Louisiana who had ancestors from elsewhere; i.e., all natives
other than Native Americans. The term Créole was first used by French
colonists to distinguish themselves from foreign-born settlers, and later
as distinct from Anglo-American settlers. Colonial documents show that
the term Créole was used variously at different times to refer to white
people, mixed-race people, and black people, including slaves.[1]

Many Creoles of color were free, and their descendants often enjoyed
many of the same privileges that whites did, including (but not limited
to) property ownership and formal education. During the antebellum
period, their society was structured along class lines. While it was not
illegal, it was a social taboo for Creoles of color to marry slaves and it
Creole cartoonist George Herriman was a rare occurrence. Some of the wealthier and prosperous Creoles of
color owned slaves. Other Creoles of color such as Thomy Lafon used
their social position to support the abolitionist cause. Another Creole of
color, Francis E. Dumas, emancipated all of his slaves and organized them into a company in the Second
Regiment of the Louisiana Native Guards.[2]

Some historians suggest that New Orleans was the cradle of the civil rights movement in the United States,
due to the earliest efforts of Creoles to integrate the military en masse.[3] Creoles of Color had been
members of the militia for decades under both Spanish and French control of the colony of Louisiana. For
example, around 80 free Creoles of Color were recruited into the militia that participated in the Battle of
Baton Rouge in 1779.[4] They volunteered their services and pledged their loyalty to their newly adopted
country and its Territorial Governor appointed by Thomas Jefferson, W.C.C. Claiborne, when the French
colony of Orleans was formally accepted by the United States on December 20, 1803.[5]

Just months after the colony became part of the United States, the Claiborne's administration was faced with
a dilemma previously unknown in the U.S.; integration in the military by incorporating entire units of
previously established "colored" militia.[6] In a February 20, 1804 letter, Secretary of War Henry Dearborn
wrote to Clairborne saying, ". . .it would be prudent not to increase the Corps, but to diminish, if it could be
done without giving offense. . ." [7] A decade later, the militia of color that remained volunteered to take up
arms when the British began landing troops on American soil outside of New Orleans in December 1814.
This was the commencement of the Battle of New Orleans.[8]

During and after the Louisiana Purchase many Creoles of color lost their favorable social status, despite
their service to the militia and their social status prior to the U.S. takeover. America's Southern society
developed a caste system. In this new caste system, all people with African ancestry or visible African
features were classified as black, and therefore categorized as second class citizens. Former free Creoles of
Color were relegated to the ranks of emancipated slaves.

With the advantage of having been better educated than the new freedmen, many Creoles of color were
active in the struggle for civil rights.[9][10] During Reconstruction and in the aftermath the American Civil
War, white Democrats regained political power across the former Confederate states. By the late nineteenth
century many Southern men in positions of power began to re-impose the idea of white supremacy. To
achieve this, they established legal racial segregation under the Jim Crow system. This consequently
disfranchised the majority of blacks, especially through new voter registration rules which were part of new
state constitutions; effectively taking away any political power which creoles of color had previously.

Creoles of color suffered yet another major social reversal when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against them
in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, ruling that "separate but equal" accommodations were
constitutional.

Finally, more than a century later, social change had reversed much of its two-century eclipse. On June 14,
2013 Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed into law Act 276, creating the "prestige" license plate
proudly showing the words "I'm Creole", in honor of the Creole of Louisiana's contributions, culture, and
heritage.[11]

Contribution to the arts

Music
Some Creoles of color were trained as classical musicians in 19th century Louisiana. These musicians would
often study with those associated with the French Opera House; some traveled to Paris to complete their
studies. Creole composers of that time are discussed in Music and Some Highly Musical People, by James
Monroe Trotter, and Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire, by Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes.

Notable classical Creole musicians

Basile Barès
Edmund Dédé
Laurent Dubuclet
Andrus Espree
 Lucien-Léon Guillaume Lambert
Charles Lucien Lambert
Sidney Lambert
Victor-Eugene McCarty
Samuel Snaër

Jazz musicians

Creoles of Color from the New Orleans area were active in defining the earliest days of jazz.[12][13] Some of
the most notable names:

George Baquet
Paul Barbarin
Louis Barbarin
Danny Barker
Emile Barnes
Paul Barnes
Sidney Bechet
Barney Bigard
Louis Cottrell, Sr.
Louis Cottrell, Jr.
Joe Darensbourg
Louis Nelson Delisle
Cie Frazier
Freddie Keppard
Lawrence Marrero
Jelly Roll Morton (Ferdinand J. LaMothe) Creole jazz musician Sidney
Albert Nicholas Bechet, a virtuoso on the
Kid Ory soprano saxophone
Manuel Perez
Jimmy Palao
Alcide Pavageau
Alphonse Picou
De De Pierce
Armand J. Piron
John Robichaux
Omer Simeon
Lorenzo Tio

See also
List of Louisiana Creoles
Louisiana Creole people Barney Bigard, noted jazz
Louisiana French clarinetist long a part of Duke
Louisiana Creole French Ellington's orchestra
Cane River Creole National Historical Park
Melrose Plantation
Faubourg Marigny
Tremé
Little New Orleans
Frenchtown, Houston
Magnolia Springs, Alabama
References
1. Kein, Sybil. "Creole: the history and legacy of Louisiana's free people of color". Louisiana State
University Press, 2009, p. 73.
2. Shirley Elizabeth Thompson, Exiles at Home: The Struggle to Become American in Creole New
Orleans, Harvard University Press, 2009, pg. 162
3. Eaton, Fernin. "Louisiana's Free People of Color-Digitization Grant-letter in support" (http://www.aca
demia.edu/3505760/Louisianas_Free_People_of_Color-Digitization_grant_awarded_to_LSU_Hill_lib
rary_others). Retrieved June 7, 2013.
4. Charles Gayarré, History of Louisiana: The Spanish domination, William J. Widdleton, 1867, pp 126-
132
5. Carter, Clarence (1940). The Territorial Papers of the United States, Vol. IX, The Territory of Orleans.
p. 174.
6. Eaton, Fernin. "1811 Slave Uprising, etc" (http://www.academia.edu/1910804/Gov._Claiborne_in_his
_own_words--a_salon_publique_at_Pitot_House_Bayou_St._John). Salon Publique, Pitot House,
November 7, 2011. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
7. Rowland, Dunbar (1917). Official Letter Books of W.C.C. Claiborne, 1801-1816. Mississippi Dept. of
Archives & History. pp. Vol II, p. 54–55.
8. Eaton, Fernin. "1811 Slave Uprising-Governor on Trial: Claiborne in His Own Words" (http://www.ac
ademia.edu/1910804/Gov._Claiborne_in_his_own_words--a_salon_publique_at_Pitot_House_Bayou_
St._John). Salon Publique, Pitot House, November 7, 2011, p. 11-13. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
9. Kathe Managan, The Creole Community and the Struggle for Civil Rights (http://www.lameca.org/dos
siers/new_orleans_creole/eng/p2.htm), lameca.org, Accessed November 22, 2013.
10. Adam Fairclough, Race & Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972 (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?id=QnQbw5EyPREC&lpg=PP1&dq=Race%20%26%20Democracy%3A%20
The%20Civil%20Rights%20Struggle%20in%20Louisiana%2C%201915-1972&pg=PA1#v=onepage
&q&f=false), University of Georgia Press, 2008, pp. 1-21
11. http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?s=13RS&b=HB147&sbi=y
12. Charles B. Hersch, Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans, University of
Chicago Press, 2007, pg. 98-109
13. Scott DeVeaux, Gary Giddins, Jazz (http://www.wwnorton.com/college/music/jazz/ch/04/outline.aspx
), wwnorton.com, Accessed November 22, 2013

Further reading
Douglas, Nick (2013). Finding Octave: The Untold Story of Two Creole Families and Slavery in
Louisiana. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Jacques Anderson, Beverly (2011). Cherished Memories: Snapshots of Life and Lessons from a 1950s
New Orleans Creole Village. iUniverse.com.
Malveaux, Vivian (2009). Living Creole and Speaking It Fluently. AuthorHouse.
Kein, Sybil (2009). Creole: the history and legacy of Louisiana's free people of color. Louisiana State
University Press.
Jolivette, Andrew (2007). Louisiana Creoles: Cultural Recovery and Mixed-Race Native American
Identity. Lexington Books.
Thompson, Shirley Elizabeth (2009). Exiles at Home: The Struggle to Become American in Creole
New Orleans. Harvard University Press.
Martin, Munro; Britton, Celia (2012). American Creoles: The Francophone Caribbean and the
American South. Liverpool University Press.
Gehman, Mary (2009). The Free People of Color of New Orleans: An Introduction. Margaret Media,
Inc.
Clark, Emily (2013). The Strange History of the American Quadroon: Free Women of Color in the
Revolutionary Atlantic World. The University of North Carolina Press.
 Dominguez, Virginia (1986). White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana. Rutgers
University Press.
Cossé Bell, Caryn (2004). Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition in
Louisiana 1718-1868. Louisiana State University Press.
Anthony, Arthe A. (2012). Picturing Black New Orleans: A Creole Photographer's View of the Early
Twentieth Century. University Press of Florida.

External links
In their words: We are all Creole (http://www.dailyworld.com/story/news/local/2015/07/11/words-creo
le/30034077/)
Creole Poems (https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/creole-poems/)
C.R.E.O.L.E. Inc. (http://www.louisianacreoleinc.org/)
Zydeco Nation (http://www.zydeconation.org/)
Test Suggests 'Black' Man Is Really Not (http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=129005&page=1
&singlePage=true)
Quadroons for Beginners: Discussing the Suppressed and Sexualized History of Free Women of Color
with Author Emily Clark (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/quadroons-for-beginners-d
_b_3869605.html)
I Am What I Say I Am: Racial and Cultural Identity among Creoles of Color in New Orleans (http://sc
holarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1926&context=td)
A Creole Melting Pot: the Politics of Language, Race, and Identity in southwest Louisiana, 1918-45 (h
ttp://www.academia.edu/26040724/A_Creole_Melting_Pot_the_Politics_of_Language_Race_and_Ide
ntity_in_southwest_Louisiana_1918-45)
Beyoncé and Solange Knowles breaking boundaries (http://www.mylhcv.com/beyonce-knowles-break
ing-boundaries/)
Michelle Covington: The Great Migration and Creole Cooking (http://www.kcet.org/socal/departures/
columns/arrival-stories/arrival-story-michelle-c.html)
The Creole Connection (http://www.laweekly.com/2006-04-20/news/the-creole-connection/)
After Katrina, transplanted Creoles vow to keep culture alive (http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/state
/20050907-0018-ca-californiacreoles.html)
Bay Area Grammy Nominee Represents Local Creole Community (http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2
013/02/10/grammy-nominee-zydeco-thierry/)
Cluse: 'Creole is a lot more than people think' (http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/2016/06/09/cl
use-creole-lot-more-than-people-think/85553794/)
Finding Agnes (http://findingagnesmathieu.blogspot.com/)

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