Creoles Professionals Involved in Therapy and Counseling

Creoles

Professionals involved in therapy and counseling with members of the Creole culture of New Orleans and southern Louisiana should be aware of the history and traditions of this group that make it distinctive from all others in the United States, and indeed from the French-speaking Cajun communities in the same region. In Louisiana, Creoles are not simply the white descendants of the early French and Spanish colonists, although in the post-Civil War era of Jim Crow there was a major attempt to redefine them as 100% white. This was never the case in history since they are a mixed-race people descended from Europeans, Native Americans and African slaves during the 18th Century and occupied a special caste in pre-Civil War Louisiana. They spoke their own language known as Creole French, as do tens of thousands of their descendants today, and in appearance have often been able to 'pass' as white. Those who could not were harshly discriminated against during the period of segregation, while many Creoles were involved in leading the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In 300 years, they have not lost their memory of being a distinct caste and culture in Louisiana, and still have many traditional African customs that have been embraced by much of the population, including whites, such as jazz music and jazz funerals, Creole cuisine like jambalaya and gumbo, and rituals associated with Voodoo (Vodun). They are a family-oriented people who follow a traditionalist form of Catholicism, especially in rural areas, and have their own poems, oral history, songs, legends and tall tales that have been written down and compiled over the decades.

Creole is a term that has had many meanings over the centuries, although is present-day Louisiana it refers to natives of the state who identify with French language and culture. Many of these are of African-American or mixed-race ancestry, even though much of this was concealed during the era of Jim Crow segregation as those who were lighter-skinned identified themselves as whites. Indeed, contrary to its original meaning of descendants of slaves born in the New World -- or of any person native to the French and Spanish colonies -- in the 19th Century it was actually redefined to refer to the French-speaking elite of planter-aristocrats who governed the state. Not even the Acadians (Cajuns), the French-speaking deported from Canada by the British, qualified as Creoles in this sense, and in fact have never identified themselves as such. Even so, it was impossible to deny that Creoles of color (a term that only came into common usage after the Civil War) existed and that mixed-race ancestry was the norm in Louisiana among the Creole population. Creole culture produced jazz music and food like gumbo and jambalaya that blended African, Native American, French and Spanish cuisine, as well as "Voodoo" (Vodun) in its American form (Juang, 2008, p. 315). Creole French is still "spoken by tens of thousands of people, white as well as black, in some parts of the state," while "Afro-creole folk life, religion, and music, most noticeably jazz, spread up the Mississippi Valley into Memphis, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and, ultimately, the world" (Hall, 1992, p. 60).

Most of the French migrants who came to Louisiana in the 18th Century did not arrive voluntarily but were galley slaves, paupers, beggars and convicts deported by the government. Louisiana was never a destination of choice for immigrants until the great sugar boom after 1790, when the colony began to develop a true planter aristocracy. Below the elite levels, however, most of the French immigrants and Creoles did not own slaves, and were considered peasant farmers and peones by colonial officials. Due to a shortage of white women in the colony, "race mixture was common and widely accepted" in ways that were never permitted in British North America (Hall, p. 66). African and Native American slaves, white soldiers, convicts and indentured servants all fled into the forests and swaps frequently and lived as free farmers, trappers and hunters, who still traded regularly with New Orleans. About two-thirds of the Africa slaves brought to Louisiana in the 18th Century came from the Bambara culture in Senegal and they created the Louisiana Creole language that was also spoken by many whites, especially the lower classes.

Samba Bambara was one of their folk heroes who had led a conspiracy in 1731 to overthrow the government in alliance with the Indians and free the slaves. He was already legendary for conspiring against the French slave traders in Senegal and leading a revolt of the slave ship, but his conspiracy was uncovered by the governor Le Page du Pratz and he was executed. His words to the Le Page were some of the first ever recorded in the Louisiana Creole language "Ah! M. le Page li diable li sabai tout" or "Mr. Le Page is a devil who knows everything" (Hall, p. 76). Moluron was another legendary folk hero among the Creoles, representing a slave who frequently ran away into the swamps, and there were many songs, poems and stories about him. Louisiana slaves had one song that served as a warning to their masters:

Moluron! He! Moluron! He!

C'est pas 'jordi mo dans moune

Si ye fait ben avez muin moreste

Si ye fait mo mal, m'a-chap-pe.

Moluron! He! Moluron! He!

I wasn't born yesterday

If you treat me well, I'll stay

If you treat me bad, I'll run away.[footnoteRef:1] [1: Hall, p. 78.]

Maroon settlements of runaway slaves existed all around New Orleans, and in the late-18th Century their leader was Juan Malo or St. Malo, whose name in Bambera means "a charismatic leader who defies the social order" (Hall, p. 80). His base was in the town of Ville Gaillaude, which has an ax buried in a tree near its entrance, placed there by St. Malo who had uttered the curse "Woe to the first white who passes this boundary" (Hall, p. 82). There were many folk songs and legends about him in Creole oral tradition, especially about how the governor required two hundred men to defeat St. Malo, who was captured and executed in 1784.

New Orleans is unique in that it was one of the few large cities in the South before the Civil War, and in having a strong French influence, combined with the Catholic religion and Creole culture. It has never been studied as much as the major industrial cities like Boston, New York and Chicago, nor did it ever become a major industrial center. New Orleans developed largely independent of any influence from the British North American colonies like Massachusetts and Virginia, and its Creole inhabitants ensured "not only that English was not the prevailing language, but also the Protestantism was scorned, public education unheralded, and democratic government untried" (Hirsch and Logsdon, 1992, p. xi). Both Northerners and Southerners were shocked by this state of affairs, as well as the city's "bawdy sensual delights" and "proud free black population," none of which existed in most other parts of the United States (Hirsch and Logsdon, p. xi). Blacks who came to Louisiana from Haiti and West Africa brought the Vodun religion with them, and even had many followers among white Christians. New Orleans had Vodun parades and rituals, while African-American "Voodoo Queens" had "a broad clientele that included blacks, whites, Indians and coloreds" who would obtain fortune telling, readings, healing and magical charms (Johnson, 2003, p. 447). Both Creoles and English-speakers still use terms like "oungu" and "gri-gri" to refer to magical charms and amulets, which originated in Haiti and Benin, while the term "zin" is a Bambera word having the same meaning (Hall, p. 85).

In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville visited New Orleans during his travels, as well as most other major cities in the U.S., and also found it highly unusual and atypical. In Detroit, which was then on the frontier, he still found Native Americans who "spoke of the French fondly and of the English fearfully," while in Canada he found 600,000 French-speakers who were defiantly proud of their language, culture and religion, and had a "deep cleavage" with the English (Hirsch and Logsdon, p. 4). He thought that the French and Anglos were not quite so hostile towards each other in New Orleans, and that they also coexisted with a variety of ethnic groups in a city that was already a "patch-work of peoples" of a kind he had observed nowhere else in Europe, Canada of the United States (Hirsch and Logsdon, p. 7). He saw the city as a combination of French, Spanish, English, German, Native American and African influences that also had the largest population of free people of color anywhere in the South. Tocqueville noted that many in this group had very "light complexions" and that:

The dignified and respectful demeanor of the French-speaking free black population clashed dramatically with the status that both the French and Anglo-Americans appeared willing to accord them.[footnoteRef:2] [2: Hirsch and Logsdon, p. 9.]

Tocqueville returned to France a committed abolitionist, and was one of the leaders of the emancipation movement that finally ended slavery in all French colonies in 1848. He also insisted that blacks receive full "civil equality" once they were freed, and the Creoles of color in New Orleans were highly influenced by his views and pursued the same goals during and after the Civil War (Hirsh and Logsdon, p. 10).

In the 19th Century, a new Creole mythology developed in which the term was no longer applied to anyone except whites of non-Anglo ancestry who were natives of Louisiana. Within this new racial orthodoxy, blacks or mixed-race persons were denied the right to be known as Creoles at all (Tregle, 1992, p. 131). This also happened in Latin America at the same time, but the original meaning of Creole was an African slave born in the Americas (Hall, p. 61). After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the great influx of Anglo-Americans, Creole generally came to mean the descendants of the original inhabitants of the state, and often the aristocratic planters who spoke French and disdained the ignorant "Kaintucks" (Kentuckians) and "crabbed, skinflint Yankee tradesmen" who poured in by the thousands to seek their fortunes (Tregle, p. 134). Members of the Creole elite would not socialize with the newcomers, and in contrast to the greedy and vulgar Americans, Creole ladies were supposed to be "paragons of gentility, style, and grace, matrons ruling as arbiters of all the nuances of polite society" (Tregle, p. 136). Even at that time, the Americans called the French "frogs" and there were riots and conflicts even over issues like whether French or English music should be played at dances. In the end, the Creoles were able to retain the Civil Law of France and the use of French in the public schools, and also lived separately from the Americans in New Orleans in the famous French Quarter (Dominquez, 1997, p. 112).

Almost all of the governors of Louisiana in 1812-60 were French-speaking Creoles as were the mayors of New Orleans, and the French still insisted on celebrating July 14th as a holiday instead of July 4th and Washington's Birthday, much to the consternation of the Americans. Few Anglo-Americans ever called themselves Creoles, even when they were born in Louisiana, and the term always referred to those who spoke French and identified with French history and culture. Even so, after the Civil War, the mixed African and Native American ancestry of the Creoles was 'whitewashed', although as late as 1906 there were still Supreme Court cases in Louisiana to determine whether the term "creole" always referred to those with "pure white" ancestry. As Virginia Dominguez noted, "how is it possible for there to be no clear consensus about the racial identity of the Creole population in a state as persistent as Louisiana in defining its racial status?" (Dominguez, p. 95).

In antebellum Louisiana, Creoles of color were equal to whites in legal status, and often engaged in trades like carpentry, blacksmithing, small trading and shoemaking. Culturally and linguistically, they identified with the French rather than the Anglo-Americans, attended church in Creole parishes. Free Creoles of color were often educated in France, attended Xavier University in New Orleans, and often had "white appearances" (Kein, p. xiii). They tended to "marry one another, and, to a remarkable degree, only one another," usually through arranged marriages" (Dormon, 1996, p. 167). After the Civil War, they lost much of their property and social status, but still retained their identity and cultural distinctiveness from 'blacks'. Creoles with black ancestry suffered from disenfranchisement and Jim Crow segregation, however, which is why they often took a very prominent part in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s (Dormon, p. 169). Well into the 1970s, they still felt highly distinct from both blacks and whites, and often commented that "whites think we're black, and blacks think we're stuck up." On 1977, for example, Nicholas Spitzer found the Creoles in rural southern Louisiana still had clubs that seemed "upper class and color conscious," and that they disliked 'blacks' from the larger cities and towns (Dormon, p. 171).

Creole culture is still very much alive in rural southern Louisiana, and has its own music in French, magazines like Bayou Talk, and Creole flags, pins and prayers (Kein, p. xvi). As Gwendolyn Midlo Hall wrote, "its creativity, intelligence, biting wit, joyfulness, poetic strain and reverence for beauty make this culture inherently attractive" (Hall, p. 87). It has retained its distinctive tradition of jokes, myths, legends, folk tales and oral history, such as animal tales in the African and West Indian style, told in French. For example, one Creole tale tells of a lazy cricket that enjoys playing the accordion while his ant neighbor literally works himself to death night and day. In this case, of course, the ant represents the Anglo-Americans (Ancelet, 1994, p. xxii). In these stories, the rabbit, fox and turtle are clever, the wolves and bears ignorant, and the spiders and monkeys evil, which is part of the mixture of African and French cultural traditions. West African and Native American stories also had many shape-shifter and Trickster stories that found their way into Creole culture, as well as long and complicated magic tales, although these are rarely heard today (Ancelet, p. xxix).

Carnival or Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is also celebrated in Gulf Coast cities like Biloxi, New Orleans and Mobile as well as in the Creole areas of southern Louisiana, especially the small towns. This tradition dates back to medieval France where "revelers traveled through the countryside offering some kind of performance in exchange for gifts" (Spitzer, 1996, p. 87). Creole culture places particular emphasis on 'respect' or respectability, while men seeking a 'reputation' fall outside this norm. Respectability is associated with "home life, land ownership, family bonds, hard work, devout Catholicism, and self-improvement," with women dutifully performing domestic tasks and men participating in cooperative labor parties or coup de main (Spitzer, p. 88). Men of 'reputation' often pursue lower-class careers like truck driver, seasonal laborer, construction worker, or employment in the oil fields, and are known for drinking, gambling and carousing, and are often called cannais (tricky), une fou (a fool) or couyon (stupid). Their behavior is not considered 'respectable' when it is "too rough, rowdy, drunken, or otherwise lacking politesse (politeness)" (Spitzer, p. 89).

After New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, many Americans from all over the country fretted that this unique city might never be rebuilt or even if it was it would still lose all of its authentic cultural traditions that had always made it so distinctive. No one could have failed to notice that during the storm, "the vast majority of the people left behind in New Orleans were poor, African-American and elderly," which "exposed the fault lines of race and class', not only in Louisiana but in the entire country (Gotham, 2007, p. 1). Tourists from all over the world going back to Tocqueville's time:

Became fascinated by the strong sense of place identity that seemed to radiate through the city's neighborhoods and institutions, despite the trenchant inequalities and antagonisms that everyday life….One of the most recognized terms that residents used to describe New Orleans is "authentic," an undefined, elusive referent that nevertheless makes up this city's everyday vocabulary. New Orleans is a place of distinctive authenticity…because of the unique "culture" that has developed over the centuries. The central components of this unique culture include jazz music and jazz funerals, creole cuisine, French and Spanish architecture, streetcars, historic neighborhoods, multiplicities of festivals like Mardi Gras, and famous cemeteries -- the "cities of the dead," where bodies are buried above the ground.[footnoteRef:3] [3: Gotham, p. viii.]

To be sure, part of this 'authentic' image of New Orleans was always manufactured for tourists going back to the 19th Century, and this became internationalized after World War II. Allen Eshew worried that whatever was truly authentic and unique about the city would disappear, and that "the dark history will be buried, along with the black bodies. And that means a lot of black culture will be buried along with it" (Gotham, p. 2). If the city were rebuilt, it would end up looking like Houston, or even worse, Las Vegas or Disneyland, and end up homogenized and prepackaged like the rest on the country.

In New Orleans, the traditional Creole and African-American practice has been the jazz funeral, although the scale of the disaster after Hurricane Katrina generally made this impossible. This custom in New Orleans is unique in the United States and is based on traditions brought from Africa by the slaves in the 18th Century. It has even become a tourist attraction for "few cities bury their dead with the high style of this southern city, where a funeral can last a week and feature jazz bands and parades, which draw bigger crowds than weddings." From the time of slavery, these funerals were a very important ritual for friends and family to aid the transition of the deceased into the spirit world, accompanied by brass bands (Dass-Brailsford, 2010, p. 34). Since the hurricane destroyed or damaged so many churches, funeral homes and cemeteries, and scattered friends and family members all over the country, survivors felt guilty over their inability to carry out the appropriate mourning rituals. When FEMA Director Michael Brown said to "ignore the dead we want the living," many Creoles regarded this as "lacking in compassion and culturally insensitive" -- yet another indication that 'Heck of a job, Brownie' was not really up to the task (Dass-Brailsford, p. 35). In Creole and African-American culture, intense public displays of grief, mourning and sadness are normal, while funeral processions, singing and playing drums for a week were common parts of African funerary rites, with the extended family heavily involved in all the preparations (Dass-Brailsford, p. 41).