John LaFleur's essay on Vermilionville and Creoles

'CREOLE DAY' AT VERMILIONVILLE IN LAFAYETTE, LOUISIANA DID AFRICAN-FRENCH CREOLE CULTURE BEGIN WITH THE ARRIVAL OF THE 'HAITIAN' CREOLES IN 1809? OR, IS THERE SOMETHING MISSING FROM 'THE GUMBO'? by John laFleur II, copyright 2014 Like parting curtains opening upon a much anticipated opera, the morning sun welcomed all of us to a beautiful Sunday morning at historic Vermilionville's "Creole Day." And, it's true that Louisiana's broad ethnic Creole diversity was represented in terms of attendance. And, I certainly had a very good time teaching the full spectra of Louisiana's historical and diverse 'Creole' culture and the contributions of each group across the pages of our earliest history and beginnings; in fact, all the way back to North America's 'creole' and metis cultural beginnings which are the first strata of Louisiana's French Creole cultural history. The second strata is that of the West Africans whose history antedates the founding of the city of New Orleans and is synonymous to the founding of Mobile as a successful French Creole colony. Unfortunately, while reading the Opelousas "Daily World's" report, "Creole Culture Day explores rich history, traditions..." by Katie de la Rosa this morning, I again realized that another turn of unintentional misinformation had occurred; a mistake which wrongly gives the impression that 'Creole' culture is a uniquely black phenomenon traceable to Haitian Kreyole culture. That was the focus of the article; flawed though it is. This misinformation is no doubt, due to an apparent lack of knowledge of Louisiana's unique pre-American, pre-Haitian, pre-Acadian and pre-Spanish French Creole & Metis cultural history. Yes, that's right, 'La Nouvelle France" or the pre-American Louisiana Purchase Territory and its CREOLE-METIS & AFRO-Creole (French-Indian & West African culture), existed BEFORE the so-called "Haitian" influx of 1809, and BEFORE the arrival of both the Spanish and our Acadian cousins all of whom assimilated THIS cultural base. First of all, we must understand that the majority of "Haitian" Creoles were WHITE and were accompanied by their mixed-race Creole children and a few slaves who chose to join them in fleeing Saint-Domingue-Haiti's original name at the time. "Haitian" represents the black Creole world which came into being AFTER the "Saint-Domingue" Creoles (white & mixed-race) had already left and sought refuge in New Orleans! Once again, I have no desire to offend, nor to deprive anyone of needed treasured myths, but: IN LOUISIANA, CREOLE CULTURE DID NOT BEGIN WITH THE ARRIVAL OF THE SAINT-DOMINGUE/"HAITIAN CREOLES." The true "Haitian" Kreyole culture is different from that of Louisiana and even from that of West Africa, especially in its Kreyole language tradition. And, while it has similarities, it is NOT THE SAME as Louisiana's unique Creole/Kreyole language tradition still spoken around St. Martin, St. James, & Pointe Coupee Parishes and Cecilia which presupposes the existence of Louisiana French-the creole French married to the Mobilian-Choctaw pidgin; a patois which has never existed in the Indian Ocean, nor the French Antilles and certainly not in Haiti! Louisiana linguistic scholars such as Kirsten Squint has established this fact in "Post Colonial Text" Vol. I, No. 2, 2005, and more recently by Dr. Chris Landry who has convincingly argued this very point. Of course, while the "Haitian" or more correctly, Saint-Domingue Creoles did contribute largely to New Orleans social and commercial enterprises such as the introduction of Opera, craftsmanship and furniture-making. Some earlier immigrant entrepreneur French Creoles from Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue reached out into the country "Creole parishes" (the pre-1970s historical designation of French-speaking parishes outside of New Orleans), as evidenced by the remaining families and their Saint-Domingue historical surnames still found in St. Landry and area Creole parishes. These entrepreneurs moved northwestward to the Poste des Opelousas in an attempt to escape competition in the city, but it was especially in New Orleans that their influence was felt. This acknowledgement being made, however, the fact remains that Louisiana's pre-existing French Creole & Metis culture was viewed as distinct from that of Haiti, even by the white Creole planter-immigrants themselves as seen in the comments made by P. Collette, a former Saint-Domingue refugee who was writing to Stanislaus Foache in New Orleans, on November 16, 1804, as shown in famous French historian Gabriel Debien's report, "The Saint-Domigue Creoles in Cuba" featured in the anthology, "The Road To Louisiana: The Saint-Domingue Refugees: 1792-1809, edited by Glenn R. Conrad and Carl A. Brasseaux & translated by now Dr. David Cheramie, CEO of historic Vermilionville. Here is what Mr. Collette observed while bemoaning his painful change of circumstances: "...in a word, everything here leads me to look at other countries to find a more convenient place to live. I thought I saw in Louisiana the place that would offer the most advantages to a poor colonist forced to flee, because, first of all, they (Louisianians), speak the same language (meaning Colonial French). ...moreover, one finds there the same habits, as well as Frenchmen who know more or less who you are, either personally or by reputation, and who share MORE OR LESS the same culture." (emphasis added through capitalization) It's fairly obvious that the Saint-Domingue Creoles, much as the Acadians, were a minority group in terms of numbers and did not establish any new culture, nor did they significantly impact the long established French Creole food or linguistic culture of Louisiana, which as Collette notices, "...was more or less the same culture.' The "more" was the shared Colonial French language base and general socio-cultural traditions; the "less" would be the unique Amerindian indigenous linguistic and cultural factor, along with the 'other' factor too often missed or ignored: that of the largely unique West African/Senegambian cultural factor and the unique 'accident' of New Orleans' Slave Trade tactics. It was the practice of slavers to avoid creating large groups of culturally homogenous slaves in the colonies. This was because they would share the same language and therefore, the possibility of rebellion would be increased. This rule of order was largely ignored in Spanish Louisiana, and "Haitian" (or slaves from Saint-Domingue) slaves were largely avoided for fear of causing rebellion along with the French fears of 'voodoo. The West African Creole accent itself resembles much more Louisiana's accent as heard in the upper northwest French-speaking triangle. This singular fact, to say nothing of our food ways, distinguishes uniquely, all of LOUISIANA'S French Creoles-white and non-white-from not only the Haitian Creoles, but from all other French Creole cultures of the globe, while, simultaneously, uniting us because of our shared Colonial FRENCH-based linguistic heritage. Louisiana cultural historians too often look at "Louisiana" as a fragmented glass pane, ignoring or failing to note that before 1803, "la louisiane" included both "upper and lower Louisiana" -the modern United States of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Their earliest cultural history is largely an extended narrative of our own. T hese modern states were all part of the vast French colonial Creole & Metis cultural empire of France until the end of the Seven Years War (French & Indian War) which saw their populations move to the last French-Spanish exempted stronghold of the then known, "Territory of Orleans" -our modern-day Louisiana, represented by Bienville's dream city of New Orleans. The West African Slaves were the second group of enslaved peoples brought to what is now Alabama at Mobile, by Governor Jean-Batiste LeMoyne, Sieur de Bienville around 1705-6. Are we to imagine that these almost uniquely West African French-speaking slaves and their native-born and often mixed-race French 'Creole' children contributed nothing to "Louisiana's" Creole-metis culture, until almost a hundred years later in 1809? That would be a SERIOUS mistake, especially in view of the numbers present compared to the smaller white population. To illustrate my point, let's talk about 'okra'? Did that arrive in 1809? Shall we move on? Our beloved and world-renown, Dr. Gwendolyn-Midlo Hall has already established in her research that "..African women cooking gumbo in the French Quarter as early as 1763!" Her most famous work, "Africans In Colonial Louisiana: The Beginnings of Afro-Creole Culture" provides a wealth of remarkable documentation on Louisiana's earliest African-Creole contributions into the Spanish period, and needless to say, up to the period of "Haitian" influx. Dr. Jay Higginbotham's history, "Old Mobile: Fort Louis de la Louisiane,1702-1711" is also enlightening concerning Louisiana's pre- "Haitian" French Creole culture. Regarding "upper Louisiana's Creole & Metis culture which was extended across the Louisiana Purchase territory (La Nouvelle France), I would recommend the works of Dr. Carl Ekberg, Professor Emeritus of History at Illinois State University and that of Dr. Shannon Lee Dawdy, founder of the school of Archaeology at of the University of New Orleans, to better comprehend the pre-Spanish Creole & metis culture of "La Louisiane." Dr. Germain Bienvenu's splendid essay, "The Beginnings of Louisiana Literature" found in LSU professor John Lowe's "Louisiana Cutlure: From the Colonial Era To Katrina" is a beautifully and thoughtfully written and well-documented study of the Creole-metis world noticed by numerous French & Spanish Colonial period writers. It too provides an exquisite view or pre-American & Spanish Louisiana. This essay was written to expressly demonstrate that Louisiana's Creole culture, and especially, its African-Creole component is not the gift of Haiti, but rather of the first West-African slaves and their Creole children. May all serious students of our Louisiana French Creole culture and heritage benefit from this article which is penned for the benefit of all people who seek to understand accurately our shared culture and heritage. Please feel free to SHARE this information with all who would benefit from it.