NS: France basically abandoned the colony after 1731, right?
GMH: Well, “abandoned” in the sense that most of the French colonists left, and very few came, so that there was a majority of Africans in all of the French settlements in colonial Louisiana, so that French Louisiana was heavily African. And it remained heavily African during the Spanish period, although there were more European-type colonizers who were brought in during the Spanish period, but there was still a slight majority of Africans and their descendants – a slight majority of slaves, in fact. There were also some Native American slaves.
NS: One of the major points I get from reading Africans in Colonial Louisiana was that there was an Afro-Louisianan identity firmly established early on.
GMH: Yes, it was established through language and culture. And the language, of course, was Louisiana Creole, which arose in the first generation. And that’s normal; Creole languages do that, they are established very early, and then newcomers have to pretty much learn that language, although of course, all languages evolve. But Louisiana Creole had been established for a long time before there was any substantial immigration from Haiti. So that Haitian Kreyol and Louisiana Creole are fairly distinct languages. And you cannot attribute Louisiana Creole to Haitian Kreyol, which is often done.
NS: If an Afro-Louisianan culture was well-established from an early date, that also would necessarily have included music.
GMH: Yes. Now, unfortunately, at least from what I’ve seen, I’ve seen much less about music than what we would want. Just a few descriptions of dances and instruments and stuff like that in the documents, but not a lot.
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NS: There’s a certain amount of lore that suggests that from that point we start to see – though there was already, as you pointed out, a Dahomeyan population in Louisiana. At that point we start to see voodoo appear in New Orleans culture. And I notice that in Louisiana they have “voodoo queens,” something unknown in Haiti…
GMH: Exactly. It’s distinctive. And Marie Laveau – you know, there’s this tendency to have everybody be Haitian. And they weren’t! Including Marie Laveau. She had no Haitian ancestors. She was Louisiana Creole. Charles Lalond, who was the leader of the 1811 slave revolt on the German Coast – Charles Gayarré passed the misinformation that he was a free man of color from Haiti. He was no such thing. He was a mulatto Creole slave of Louisiana. And I have not found any Haitians involved in any revolt or conspiracy against slavery in Louisiana. And I’ve looked through lots and lots of documents. And you can look yourself in my database. None of them were Haitians.
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