"CREOLE PRIDE!" -Speaks the Thursday AM edition of
the Ville Platte GAZETTE newspaper headlining the multi-ethnic Louisiana Creole
Families cultural Renaissance!
It's not been since 1910 that any headline spoke
to and referred to our community as 'Creoles' when St Landry Parish referred to
the "Creole Rebels" of the upper northwestern part of St. Landry
Parish which was to become "Evangeline Parish" in 1910.
The namesake
of "Evangeline" was chosen by French Creole Paulin Fontenot, a
descendant of wealthy French Alabama Creole planter Louis Fontenot whose three
daughters were all married to former Napoleonic soldiers. Fontenot foresaw a
new blossoming tourism based upon the story of the Acadians and the fairytale
of the maiden 'Evangeline' which poem was written by American poet Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow. The French colonial soldier and later Napoleonic soldiers
and 19th c.
French Creole families were long present in this region before the
Acadians had even arrived. The very few Acadians (6.2% according to Dr. Glenn
Conrad's famous, but embarrassing "phone book study), such as the Pitre,
Broussard, Cormier and Naquin familie arrived after 1765, and a few other Acadian
creoles much later into the 19th and early 20th centuries. These few Acadian
families quickly and proudly assimilated into the indigenous Louisiana Creole
culture of gumbo and jambalaya, and never looked back.
In fact, Francois
Pitre's wealthy family is credited with introducing horse racing into St.
Landry Parish! Governor Mouton and his family are referred to as 'Creole'
during his campaign and throughout their lives in early Louisiana newspapers.
(See Dr. Carl A. Brasseaux's "Acadian To Cajun, The Transformation of a
People..." Attorney and founding editor of the Ville Platte Gazette, the
very honorable Jules Ashlock and retired educator Roland Hebert and the famous
Tony Chachere were among the few educated men to remind the public that 'Creole'
was the historical and cultural heritage of this area's first families, and
that most had no Acadian roots at all! They refused to sell their cultural
'shirts' to greed or need.
But, racial fears and insecurities, the new
opportunities to make money on the myth of 'Cajunization' introduced by
CODOFIL, Gov. Edwards and his mentor old Senator Dudley LeBlanc-who made
millions on his "snake oil "Hadacol" introduced a mythical
"history" of the poor Acadians crediting them for a culture which
never existed in Nova Scotia! Lafayette's "Cajun" marketeers jumped
on this fairytale and made it their "official history" through public
schools welcoming CODOFIL! Whites French-speakers would then be labeled 'Cajun'
and only "mulattos" would become "Creole" -in spite of
hundreds of years of documented history that spoke to the contrary, and which
still proves that 'Creole' was never any 'race' but a generic word for anyone
born in the colony from foreign-born parents from anywhere who shared the
French-based Louisiana cultural heritage!
But, the tons of genealogical
records, the internet and the free access to records, civil, ecclesiastical
(church), and historical would eventually 'catch up' with the deceivers and
today, a new "CREOLE PRIDE" now headlines the historic Gazette founded
by a proud and highly intelligent man once again! Jules Ashlock was so afraid
that our families and our children would lose their proud heritage that he paid
homage to Ville Platte's founder Marcellin Garand by literally mounting a
lasting granite tombstone on his grave in "Le Vieux Cimetier de la Ville
Platte" on Chataignier St. His own tomb rests protectively across the
pathway as if to keep watch over Marcellin Garand's final resting place so far
away from his native France. As a child artist, I met Jules at his office as I
was peddling my paintings to have needed money, as my father was a poor, but
honorable man who worked as a laborer/janitor to provide for his stay-at-home
wife and four good kids.
He told me in one of several fascinating conversations
that his own grandmother was a 'LaFleur' of the Grand Prairie French-Choctaw
Creoles of Alabama and he knew that our people were not 'Cajun' -a word then
views as degrading to 'French' people as was/is the "N" word to
African Americans, but a contraction of 'Acadien.' I, however, actually am of
partial Acadian descent on my maternal grandma's line of Francois Pitre; a fact
of which I am quite proud.
Today, since the past 5 years, I have picked up his
legacy-proudly. Along with the venerable Gene Buller, and many well-educated,
and intelligently honest men and women, we have remarried historical fact to
present-day reality, for ALL of our Creole people, black, white, red and of
color. It's ALL about truth, faith and love, Cher. Now, come and celebrate our
history, our heritage and our Louisiana-based creole culture, people and
heritage on Sunday, July 12, 10:00 am-3:00 pm at 704 N. Soileau St, at the
Ville Platte Civic Center Grand Pavilion!
--John La Fleur