Haitian History in New Orleans

[Kooley_High]

I don't think it's inaccurate to say that the black culture in Louisiana is indeed Afram culture. But there was some influence by West Indies and Haitians blacks. 90-10, 80-20? I don't pretend to know. But it wasn't 0.

I agree, it wasnt zero but I do think a lot of it is overblown. You look at the hatian culture in miami from the immigrants and there is really not much of a link.

Primarily I just really hate the assumption that AAs were just a culture-less hodgepodge in NO until the hatians came and “saved the day”. Like we were somehow incapable of producing our own cultural uniqueness.

 

[Kooley_High]

IMO, it's easier to find/prove someone notable of Afro-Haitian descent in New Orleans history than to prove/show Afro-Haitian cultural influence. It's a very casually done thing to do in New Orleans/historians of New Orleans for someone to say "_________, came from Haiti" but when you do the knowledge, sh1t don't be adding up Take something like Gumbo for example: If people aren't claiming that it came from Cajuns, they say it came from Choctaw Indians or Haitian refugees; but when you really look into it, you find the real truth

Yeah I agree, historically its easy to prove hatians being there, but culturally is where it gets exaggerated. A lot people dont know that blacks in the gulf states were doing a lot of the same thing back then. Mississippi, Alabama, Florida,

 

[Supper]

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[Supper]

@IllmaticDelta

Very North American indeed.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

@Supper


Good finds! yeah, this myth that Louisiana was was an extension of the West Indies/Haiti is way off both on a surface level and when you actually dig deeper.

 

[Supper]

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Cont from same book

 

[Supper]

Very North American indeed.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Cont from same book

This further gives context as to why, as I stated before, the actual culture of Haitians in Haiti is closer to Dominicans than it is to Creoles in New Orleans/Louisiana

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Very North American indeed.

yup, heavy overlap outside of bight of benin vs biafra element

 

[IllmaticDelta]

@Supper

peep the senegambian stock in louisiana/ north america vs haiti

vs


usa

 

[xoxodede]

Saw this today: It's a full thread.



and.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Saw this today: It's a full thread.

..........more like the end of creoles enjoying that 3 tier caste system

 

[im_sleep]

IMO, it's easier to find/prove someone notable of Afro-Haitian descent in New Orleans history than to prove/show Afro-Haitian cultural influence. It's a very casually done thing to do in New Orleans/historians of New Orleans for someone to say "_________, came from Haiti" but when you do the knowledge, sh1t don't be adding up Take something like Gumbo for example: If people aren't claiming that it came from Cajuns, they say it came from Choctaw Indians or Haitian refugees; but when you really look into it, you find the real truth

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this is before both Acadians and Haitian refugees arrived




Bayou Teche Dispatches: Gumbo in 1764?

At this point anybody that thinks of Gumbo as Cajun is an idiot, but this is great evidence for arguments sake. It definitely wasn’t that long ago people were still saying Gumbo had a French origin.

I’m still convinced the oldest Gumbo comes out of South Carolina though, they just haven’t found an old enough document yet to “prove” it.

 

[Supper]

..........more like the end of creoles enjoying that 3 tier caste system

Nah, I actually hate this.

The conflation of 'creole' society with the 3 tier system.

It's been aptly demonstrated that the 3 tier system was present in deep southern anglo american society as well namely in the carolinas. Louisiana wasn't unique in this regard.

They brought their OWN 3 tier system to LA after the purchase.

Of course since racial classifications trump everything in this country especially back then people integrated across CULTURES(anglo/american <> french/creole) much more easily rather than over racial lines. This is especially true for the enslaved populations. 2nd tier free POC/mulattos were the next to assimilate. IE Free redbone creole hybrid families.

But Creole and Anglophone black slaves were the FIRST to integrate with each other in Louisiana.

^^^^THIS is what contributes to the racialization and conflation of 'creoles' in New Orleans being of FreePOC/light skin stock vs black non-creoles being of (post Civil War)Freedmen/dark skin black stock. In fact this dynamic often played out between the darkskinned 9th ward creoles and light skinned 7th/8th ward creoles in NOLA were the 3 tier system was CULTURALLY holding on for dear life.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Nah, I actually hate this.

The conflation of 'creole' society with the 3 tier system.

The Creole society would exist w/o the 3 tier system but the special privileges granted to the FPC element wouldn't

It's been aptly demonstrated that the 3 tier system was present in deep southern anglo american society as well namely in the carolinas. Louisiana wasn't unique in this regard.

There was no true 3 tier caste system anywhere in the Upper South, the Lower (Deep) South obviously had it in the French/Spanish parts

but the only Anglosphere area that had anything close was South Carolina

(Georgia had a semi one)

and even then, they weren't a true 3 tier caste like thay had in Louisiana/New Orleans

Spoiler

They brought their OWN 3 tier system to LA after the purchase.

amongst themselves, but white people didn't give/acknowledge any of the special privileges that was afforded to the Creole FPC

Although many historians and ordinary people today assume that all free people of color in Louisiana were Creoles, it is ahistoric to assume so. In the Summer of 1812, the Louisiana legislature, in its first session as a state, enacted the incorporation of state militias, composed of “certain free men of color, to be chose from among the Creoles.” The provision excluded Americans who were free people of color. Free African Americans and Melungeons had been in Louisiana for three decades by 1812. In New Orleans, these free people of color can be found in the American municipalities “uptown.” In 1825 or 1826, Asa Goldsbury founded the First African Baptist Church in New Orleans with 20 members. Goldsbury’s congregation grew out of an earlier Baptist congregation in New Orleans with a white and a nonwhite minister catering to each separately.

Beyoncé and Solange Knowles breaking boundaries - Page 2 of 4 - Louisiana Historic and Cultural Vistas

Of course since racial classifications trump everything in this country especially back then people integrated across CULTURES(anglo/american <> french/creole) much more easily rather than over racial lines. This is especially true for the enslaved populations. 2nd tier free POC/mulattos were the next to assimilate. IE Free redbone creole hybrid families.

But Creole and Anglophone black slaves were the FIRST to integrate with each other in Louisiana.

Facts!

But to sum up the Antebellum period: there were no (legal) importation of slaves to Louisiana from Africa or the Caribbean. Saint-Domingue and Cuban refugees who arrived between 1809 and 1810 in New Orleans did bring slaves with them. But they remained mostly in New Orleans and to a lesser extent in Pointe-Coupée, the Acadian and German Coasts (all along the Mississippi River). Nathalie Dessens’s study (From Saint-Domingue to New Orleans) as well as Emily Clark’s discuss this. The vast majority of slaves entering Louisiana during the Antebellum period entered New Orleans slave market by way of the US interstate market, mostly from Virginia, with smaller numbers from Kentucky, Maryland, and Tennessee. This is why so many Creoles in Grand Côteau and Sunset have English surnames – the Jesuits were ousted from Maryland in 1821 and they established a colony, with their slaves, at Grand Côteau that year. That colony became Sacred Heart Convent, Sacred Heart Church (now St. Charles Borromeo) and St. Charles College school for (white) boys.

So by 1860, on all Creole plantations, there was a mixture of Creole, American, and really old African slaves; whereas on American plantations in Louisiana, virtually all slaves were Americans, with few Africans.

What may slaves in colonial Louisiana have looked like?

^^^^THIS is what contributes to the racialization and conflation of 'creoles' in New Orleans being of FreePOC/light skin stock vs black non-creoles being of (post Civil War)Freedmen/dark skin black stock.

yeah, this is mostly myth

In fact this dynamic often played out between the darkskinned 9th ward creoles and light skinned 7th/8th ward creoles in NOLA were the 3 tier system was CULTURALLY holding on for dear life.

I never looked into it but I know the 7th and 8th ward are mainly from FPC but I wonder if the 9th ward were more from Creole slaves. In New Orleans the divide between FPC (who were mainly mixed) slaves/freedmen (who were more African) has always existed