Louisiana Creole people

Louisiana Creole people

Regions with significant populations
Louisiana, East Texas, Los Angeles County, California, coastal Mississippi, Chicago, Illinois, coastal Alabama, Detroit, Michigan
Languages
English, French, and Creole
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic or Protestant; minorities practice Voodoo or other faiths
Related ethnic groups
Cajuns French American Spanish American African American Native Americans

This article is about an ethnic culture in Louisiana, USA. For uses of the term "Creole" in other countries and cultures, see Creole (disambiguation).

Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the early French settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World. After the Civil War, in response to the imposition of a binary racial classification imposed by the increasingly dominant Anglo-Saxon society (and the anxieties provoked thereby), some Creole scholars such as Charles Gayarre and Alcee Fortier began to assert that the word Creole referred exclusively to people of wholly European descent. However, references to "Creoles of Color" and "Creole Slaves" can be found in colonial-era documents.

The term is now commonly applied to individuals of mixed-race heritage. Both groups have common European heritage and share cultural ties, such as the traditional use of the French language and the continuing practice of Catholicism; in most cases, the people are related to each other. Those of mixed race also have African and sometimes Native American ancestry.

The term "French Creoles" came to be applied to Creoles of European or white ancestry. "Creoles of color", in use in the Colonial era but popularized in the 19th century, came to refer to mixed-race people of African and European ancestry (primarily French and Spanish), who were native in the area before the Louisiana Purchase. Some Creoles of color may also have Native American heritage. Later immigrants to New Orleans, such as Irish, Germans and Italians, also married into the Creole groups. Most modern Creoles have family ties to Louisiana, particularly New Orleans; they are mostly Catholic in religion; through the nineteenth century, most spoke French and were strongly connected to French colonial culture; and they have had a major impact on the state's culture.

While the sophisticated Creole society of New Orleans has historically received much attention, the Cane River area developed its own strong mixed-race Creole culture, as did Frilot Cove, the Rideau Settlement, Bois Mallet, and other enclaves in south Louisiana. These Creole enclaves have had a long history of cultural independence.

History

Map of North America in 1750, before the French and Indian War (part of the international Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763). Possessions of Britain (pink), France (blue), and Spain (orange)

An early 1718 history of New Orleans defined "Creole" as "a child born in the colony as opposed to France or Spain." Through both the French and Spanish regimes, parochial and colonial governments used the term Creole for ethnic French and Spanish born in the New World as opposed to Europe.(Logsdon). Parisian French was the language of early New Orleans.

Later the regional French evolved to contain local phrases and slang terms. The French Creoles spoke what became known as Colonial French; over time, the language in the colony developed differently than that in France. It was a Roman Catholic culture, practiced by the ethnic French and Spanish and their white Creole descendants.

The mixed-race Creole descendants, who developed as a third class of free people of color, particularly in New Orleans, also were strongly influenced by the French Catholic culture. By the end of the eighteenth century, many mixed-race Creoles had gained education and tended to work in artisan or skilled trades; a relatively high number were property owners.

American rule

The transfer of the French colony to the United States in 1803 under the Louisiana Purchase and the arrival of Anglo-Americans from New England and the South resulted in a cultural confrontation. Some Americans were reportedly shocked by aspects of the cultural and linguistic climate of the newly acquired territory: the predominance of French language and Catholicism, the free class of mixed-race people, and the strong African traditions of enslaved peoples. They pressured the United States' first Louisiana governor, W.C.C. Claiborne to change it.

Particularly in the American South, which was a slave society, slavery had become a racial caste, as children born to slave mothers had been born into slave status since the late seventeenth century, through laws throughout the South. As a result, many whites liked to think of society as binary in racial terms, with all who had African ancestry classified as black, regardless of their proportion of white or European ancestry. Although there was a growing population of free people of color, particularly in the Upper South, they generally did not have the same rights and freedoms as did those in Louisiana.

When Claiborne made English the official language of the territory, the French Creoles in New Orleans were outraged, and reportedly paraded in protest in the streets. They rejected the Americans' effort to transform them overnight. In addition, upper-class French Creoles thought many of the arriving Americans were uncouth, especially the rough Kentucky boatmen (Kaintucks) who regularly visited the city, having maneuvered flatboats down the Mississippi River filled with goods for market.

Realizing that he needed local support, Claiborne restored French as an official language. In all forms of government, public forums and in the Catholic Church, French continued to be used. Most importantly, Colonial French and Creole French remained the languages of the majority of the population of the state.

Race

Colonists referred to enslaved blacks who were native-born as creole, to distinguish them from new arrivals from Africa. Over time, the Creoles and Africans created a French and West African hybrid language called Creole French or Louisiana Creole French. In some circumstances it was used by slaves, planters and free people of color alike. It is still spoken by Louisiana Creoles in Texas and Louisiana...it can be mostly heard in Zydeco music, at Creole Rodeos and among Creole neighboorhoods. Creole French is typically not spoken in New Orleans any more, but certain words and phrases are still used. Creole people and culture are distinct from the Cajun people and culture, who are descended from French-speaking refugees forcibly resettled by the British from Acadia in Canada to Louisiana in the 18th century.

Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, better known as "Madame X", was a Creole from New Orleans

Adah Isaacs Menken, Creole actress, painter and poet

As in the French or Spanish Caribbean and Latin American colonies, the Louisiana territory developed a mixed-race class, of whom there were numerous free people of color. In the early days they were descended mostly from European men and enslaved or free black or mixed-race women. French men took African women as mistresses or common-law wives, and sometimes married them.

Later, wealthy young white Creole men, often took free or enslaved mixed-race women as mistresses or consorts before, or in addition to, their legal marriages, in a system known as plaçage. The young women's mothers often negotiated a form of dowry or property settlement to protect their futures. The men would often transfer social capital to their mistresses and children, including freedom for those who were enslaved, and education or apprenticeships. Mixed-race sons of wealthy men were sent to France for education, while daughters were educated in the local convent schools.

As a group, the mixed-race Creoles rapidly began to acquire education, skills (many in New Orleans worked as craftsmen and artisans), businesses and property. They were overwhelmingly Catholic, spoke Colonial French (although some also spoke Louisiana Creole French), and kept up many French social customs, modified by other parts of their ancestry and Louisiana culture. The free people of color married among themselves to maintain their class and social culture. The French-speaking mixed-race population came to be called "Creoles of color". It was said that "New Orleans persons of color were far wealthier, more secure, and more established than blacks elsewhere in Louisiana."

Under the French and Spanish rulers, Louisiana developed a three-tiered society, similar to that of Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, St.Lucia, Mexico, and other Latin colonies. This three-tiered society included white Creoles; a prosperous, educated group of mixed-race Creoles, of European and African descent; and the far larger class of African slaves. The identity of the mixed-race Creoles as free people of color (gens du couleur libres) was one they had worked diligently toward and guarded carefully. By law they enjoyed most of the same rights and privileges as white Creoles. They could and often did challenge the law in court and won cases against whites (Hirsch; Brasseaux; Mills; Kein etc.). They were property owners and created schools for their children. There were some free blacks in Louisiana, but most free people of color were of mixed race. They acquired education, property and power within the colony, and later, state.

Creole girls, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana" (1935 photo by Ben Shahn)

After the United States acquired the area in the Louisiana Purchase, Civil War, mixed-race Creoles of Color resisted American attempts to impose their binary racial culture. In the American South slavery had become virtually a racial caste, in which most people of any African descent were considered to be slaves. The planter society viewed it as a binary culture, with whites and blacks (the latter including everyone other than whites, although for some years they counted mulattos separately on censuses).

While the American Civil War promised rights and opportunities for the enslaved, the free persons of color, who had long been free before the war, worried about losing their identity and position. The Americans did not legally recognize a three-tiered society.

Following the Union victory in the Civil War, the Louisiana three-tiered society was gradually overrun by more Anglo-Americans who classified everyone by the South's binary division of "black" and "white".

Following the Reconstruction era, when white Democrats regained power in the Louisiana state legislature by using paramilitary groups like the White League to suppress black voting. They worked to establish white supremacy by passing Jim Crow laws and a constitution near the turn of the century that effectively disfranchised most blacks and people of color through discriminatory application of voter registration and electoral laws. The US Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 supported the binary society and the policy of "separate but equal" facilities (which were seldom achieved in fact) in the segregated South.

White Creoles increasingly claimed that the term Creole applied to whites only. According to Virginia Dominguez:

Charles Gayarré ... and Alcée Fortier ... led the unspoken though desperate defense of the Creole. As bright as these men clearly were, they still became engulfed in the reclassification process intent on salvaging white Creole status. Their speeches consequently read more like sympathetic eulogies than historical analysis.

P.G.T. Beauregard, Creole Confederate General

Sybil Kein suggests that, because of their struggle for redefinition, white Creoles were particularly hostile to the exploration by the writer George Washington Cable of the multiracial Creole society in his stories and novels. She believes that in The Grandissimes, he exposed white Creoles' preoccupation with covering up blood connections with the free people of color and slaves. She writes:

There was a veritable explosion of defenses of Creole ancestry. The more novelist George Washington Cable engaged his characters in family feuds over inheritance, embroiled them in sexual unions with blacks and mulattoes, and made them seem particularly defensive about their presumably pure Caucasian ancestry, the more vociferously the white Creoles responded, insisting on purity of white ancestry as a requirement for identification as Creole.

New Orleans was a city divided geographically between Latin (French Creole) and Anglo-American populations until well into the late 19th century (Hirsch & Logsdon). Those of Latin European descent lived east of Canal Street, in what became known as the French Quarter; the new American migrants settled west ("Uptown") of it. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Esplanade became the center of the Irish Channel, a neighborhood of Irish Catholic immigrants.

The remnant Native American peoples of Louisiana were not all fully admitted to citizenship until 1924. However, those who accepted state and United States citizenship by dropping tribal affiliations at the time of Indian Removal were citizens. They also became constrained by the racially segregated society. As noted above, the white Democrats disfranchised people of color, including Native Americans, a status that essentially persisted until Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Culture

Cuisine

Main article: Louisiana Creole cuisine

Crawfish étouffée, a Creole dish

Louisiana Creole cuisine is recognized as a unique style of cooking originating in New Orleans. It makes use of what is called the Holy trinity (in this case, chopped celery, bell peppers, and onions) (as does Cajun cuisine). It has developed primarily from French, Spanish, African, Native American, and Caribbean historic influences, as well as later Irish, Italian, German, and American influences.

Gumbo is a traditional Creole dish from the French Quarter or Vieux Carré, the original European quarter of the city. It is a stew based on either seafood (usually shrimp, crabs, with oysters optional) and sausage, or chicken and sausage. Both contain the "Holy Trinity" and are served over rice. Gumbo is often seasoned with filé, which is dried, ground sassafras leaves. It was created by French colonists trying to make bouillabaisse with New World ingredients. Starting with aromatic seasonings, the French used onions and celery as in a traditional mirepoix, but lacked carrots. Africans contributed okra; the Native Americans contributed filé; the Spanish contributed peppers and tomatoes; and new spices were adopted from Caribbean uses. The French would later favor a roux for thickening. In the nineteenth century, the Italians added garlic.

After arriving in numbers, German immigrants dominated city bakeries, including those making traditional French bread. They introduced having buttered French bread as a side to eating gumbo, as well as a side of German-style potato salad.

"Gumbo" (Gombô, in Louisiana Creole, Gombo, in Louisiana French); in French, gombo is the name for okra, derived from the West African name for okra. Okra is traditionally grown in regions of Africa, and parts of the Middle East and Spain. Gombo is a shortened version of the words kilogombó or kigambó, also guingambó or quinbombó, in West Africa. Gombo became the informal name of the stew, due to the popularity of okra for thickening the mixture. "Gumbo" became the anglicized version of the word after the English language became dominant in Louisiana.

Jambalaya is the second of the famous Louisiana Creole dishes. It also developed in the European sector of New Orleans. It combined ham with sausage, rice and tomato, as a variation of the Spanish dish, paella, based on locally available ingredients. The name for jambalaya comes from French and Spanish: the French jambon (for ham), the French and Spanish language article à la, and the ending of paella, which was gradually spelled as "ya."

Today, jambalaya is commonly made as a seafood (usually shrimp) or chicken jambalaya, or a combination of shrimp and chicken; most varieties contain smoked sausage, more commonly used instead of ham in modern versions. However, a version of jambalaya that uses ham with shrimp may be closer to the original.

Jambalaya is prepared in two ways: "red" and "brown." Red is the tomato-based version native to the New Orleans and metro area, also known as Creole style. It is also found in parts of Iberia and St. Martin parishes, and generally uses shrimp stock.

After the Civil War, some French Creoles whose fortunes had collapsed moved out of the metropolitan area to Cajun country, taking jambalaya with them. Gradually it was altered to Cajun tastes and ingredients, and the "brown" version was developed: it omits tomatoes and gets its color from the rendering of tasso (a type of salt-cured, smoked pork shoulder).

Music

Main article: Creole music

Zydeco (a transliteration in English of 'zaricô' (snapbeans) from the song, "Les haricots sont pas salés"), was born in Creole communities on the prairies of southwest Louisiana in the 1920s. It is often considered the Creole music of Louisiana. Zydeco purportedly hails from Là-là, a genre of music now defunct, and old south Louisiana jurés. As Louisiana French and Creole French was the lingua franca of the prairies of southwest Louisiana, zydeco was initially sung only in Louisiana French or Creole French. Later, Louisiana Creoles, such as the 20th-century Chénier brothers, Andrus Espree (Beau Jocque), Rosie Lédet and others, added a new linguistic element to zydeco music. Today, most of zydeco's latest generation sings in English or Cajun French, with a few in Louisiana Creole French.

Zydeco is related to Swamp Pop, Blues, Jazz, and Cajun music. An instrument unique to zydeco is a form of washboard called the frottoir or scrub board. This is a vest made of corrugated aluminum, and played by the musician's working bottle openers or caps up and down the length of the vest.

The Creole music music of enslaved African people from the nineteenth century is represented in Slave Songs of the United States, first published in 1867. The final seven songs in that work are printed with melody along with text in Creole French. These and many other songs were sung by slaves on plantations, especially in St. Charles Parish, and when they gathered on Sundays at Congo Square in New Orleans.

Language

Main article: Louisiana French

Main article: Louisiana Creole French

19th-century newspaper clipping from Thibodaux, LA

Louisiana French (LF) is the regional variety of the French language spoken throughout contemporary Louisiana in the south-eastern USA by individuals who today identify ethno-racially as Creole, French Creole, Spanish Creole, Mississippi Creole, Alabama Creole, Texas Creole, California Creole, African-American, Black, Chitimacha, Houma, Biloxi, Tunica, Choctaw, White, Cajun, Acadian, French and Irish. The Asian population now found in Louisiana is not considered Creole or Cajun even though the Creoles and Cajuns have allowed them to fish in Louisiana's waters they do not speak the language nor do they adhere to the Creole and Cajun cultures. Individuals and groups of individuals through innovation, adaptation and contact, continually enrich the French language spoken in Louisiana, seasoning it with linguistic features that can sometimes only be found in Louisiana.

Tulane University's Department of French and Italian's website declares in bold text: FRENCH IS NOT A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN LOUISIANA. Figures from U.S. decennial censuses report that roughly 250,000 Louisianans claimed to use or speak French in their homes.

Louisiana Creole French (Kréyol La Lwizyàn) is a French Creole language spoken by the Louisiana Creole people of the state of Louisiana. The language consists of elements of French, Spanish, African, and Native American roots.

Among the eighteen governors of Louisiana between 1803–1865, six were French Creoles and were speakers of French: Jacques Villeré, Pierre Derbigny, Armand Beauvais, Jacques Dupré, Andre B. Roman, and Alexandre Mouton.

According to the historian Paul Lachance, "the addition of white immigrants to the white creole population enabled French-speakers to remain a majority of the white population [in New Orleans] until almost 1830. If a substantial proportion of free persons of color and slaves had not also spoken French, however, the Gallic community would have become a minority of the total population as early as 1820." In the 1850s, white Francophones remained an intact and vibrant community; they maintained instruction in French in two of the city's four school districts. In 1862, the Union general Ben Butler abolished French instruction in New Orleans schools, and statewide measures in 1864 and 1868 further cemented the policy. By the end of the 19th century, French usage in the city had faded significantly. However, as late as 1902 "one-fourth of the population of the city spoke French in ordinary daily intercourse, while another two-fourths was able to understand the language perfectly," and as late as 1945, one still encountered elderly Creole women who spoke no English. The last major French language newspaper in New Orleans, L’Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orléans, ceased publication on December 27, 1923, after ninety-six years; according to some sources Le Courrier de la Nouvelle Orleans continued until 1955.

Today, it is generally in more rural areas that people continue to speak Louisiana French or Louisiana Creole. Also during the '40s and '50s many Creoles and Cajuns left Louisiana to find work in Texas...mostly in Houston and East Texas. The language and music is widely spoken here. For example 5th ward Houston was originally called Frenchtown due to the reason mentioned above. There were also Zydeco clubs started in Houston,like the famed Silver Slipper owned by a Creole named Alfred Cormier that has hosted the likes of Clifton Chenier and Boozoo Chavais.

New Orleans Mardi Gras

Main article: New Orleans Mardi Gras

New Orleans Mardi Gras in the early 1890s

Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday in English) in New Orleans, Louisiana, is a Carnival celebration well known throughout the world.

The New Orleans Carnival season, with roots in preparing for the start of the Christian season of Lent, starts after Twelfth Night, on Epiphany (January 6). It is a season of parades, balls (some of them masquerade balls), and king cake parties. It has traditionally been part of the winter social season; at one time "coming out" parties for young women at débutante balls were timed for this season.

Celebrations are concentrated for about two weeks before and through Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras in French), the day before Ash Wednesday. Usually there is one major parade each day (weather permitting); many days have several large parades. The largest and most elaborate parades take place the last five days of the season. In the final week of Carnival, many events large and small occur throughout New Orleans and surrounding communities.

The parades in New Orleans are organized by Carnival krewes. Krewe float riders toss throws to the crowds; the most common throws are strings of plastic colorful beads, doubloons (aluminum or wooden dollar-sized coins usually impressed with a krewe logo), decorated plastic throw cups, and small inexpensive toys. Major krewes follow the same parade schedule and route each year.

While many tourists center their Mardi Gras season activities on Bourbon Street and the French Quarter, none of the major Mardi Gras parades has entered the Quarter since 1972 because of its narrow streets and overhead obstructions. Instead, major parades originate in the Uptown and Mid-City districts and follow a route along St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street, on the upriver side of the French Quarter.

To New Orleanians, "Mardi Gras" specifically refers to the Tuesday before lent, the highlight of the season. The term can also be used less specifically the whole Carnival season, sometimes as "the Mardi Gras season". The term "Fat Tuesday" or "Mardi Gras Day" always refers only to that specific day.

Cane River Creoles

While the sophisticated Creole society of New Orleans has historically received much attention, the Cane River area developed its own strong Creole culture. The Cane River Creole community in the northern part of the state, along the Red River and Cane River, is made up of multi-racial descendants of French, Spanish, Africans, Native Americans, similar mixed Creole migrants from New Orleans, and various other ethnic groups who inhabited this region in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The community is centered around Isle Brevelle in lower Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. There are many Creole communities within Natchitoches Parish, including Natchitoches, Cloutierville, Derry, Gorum, and Natchez. Many of their historic plantations still exist. Some have been designated as National Historic Landmarks, and are noted within the Cane River National Heritage Area, as well as the Cane River Creole Historic Park. Some plantations are sites on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

Isle Brevelle, the area of land between Cane River and Bayou Brevelle, encompasses approximately 18,000 acres (73 km²) of land, 16,000 acres of which are still owned by descendants of the original Creole families. The Cane River as well as Avoyelles and St.Landry Creole family surnames include but are not limited to: Métoyer, LaCour, Lambre', Arnaud, PrudHomme, Balthazar, Chevalier, Dunn, Hebert, Fradieu,Llorens, Barre', Buard, Bayonne, Bossier, Brossette, Coutée, Cassine, Monette, Sylvie, Sylvan, Moran, Rachal, Conant, Chargòis, Esprít, Demby, Guillory, LéBon, Lefìls, Papillion, Arceneaux, DeBòis, Landry, Gravés, Deculus, St. Romain, Beaudion, Darville, LaCaze, DeCuir, Pantallion, Mathés, Mullone, Severin, Byone, St. Ville, Delphin, Sarpy, Laurent, De Soto, Christophe, Mathis, Honoré, De Sadier, Anty, Dubreil, Roque, Cloutier, Le Vasseur, Vachon, Versher, Vercher, Mezière, Bellow, Gallien, Conde, Porche and Dupré. (Most of the surnames are of French and sometimes Spanish origin).

Pointe Coupee Creoles

Another historic area to Louisiana is Pointe Coupee, an area west of Baton Rouge. This area is known for the False River; the parish seat is New Roads, and other villages such as Morganza are located off the river. This parish is known to be uniquely Creole; today a large portion of the nearly 22,000 residents can trace Creole ancestry. The area was valuable for its many plantations during the French, Spanish, and American colonial periods. The population here had become bilingual or even trilingual with French, Louisiana Creole, and English because of its plantation business before most of Louisiana. The Louisiana Creole language is widely associated with this parish; the local French, Creole, and Spanish plantation owners and their African slaves formed it as communication language, which became the primary language for many Pointe Coupee residents well into the 20th century. The local white and black populations spoke the language, because of its importance to the region; even Italian immigrants in the 20th century often adopted the language.

Common Creole family names of the region include the following: Battley, Parker, Guerin, Bridgewater, Decuir, Gremillion, Roberson, Christophe, Joseph, Part, Major, Valéry, Robert, Ramirez, Castillo, Olivier, Fontenot, Francois, Aguillard, Duperon, Gaspard, St. Armand, Domingue, Patin, Chenevert, Savoir, Gaines, Fabre, Tounoir, and dozens more.

Avoyelles Creoles

Avoyelles Parish has a history rich in Creole ancestry. Marksville has a significant populace of French Creoles who have Native American ancestry. The languages that are spoken are Louisiana French and English. This parish was established in 1750. The Creole community in Avoyelles parish is alive and well and has a unique blend of family, food and Creole culture. Creole family names of this region are: Sylvan, Auzenne, Normand, Gaspard, Fontenot, Chargois, Fuselier, Carriere, Barbin, DeBellevue, Goudeau, Bordelon, Gauthier, Lemoine, Gremillion, Broussard, Boutte, Esprit, Rabalais, Beaudoin, DeCuir, Dufour, Deshotels, Muellon, Lemelle, Saucier and Biagas.

St. Landry Creoles

St. Landry Parish has a significant population of Creoles, specially in Opelousas and its surrounding areas. The traditions and Creole heritage are prevalent in Opelousas, Port Barre, Melville, Palmetto, Lawtell, Swords, Mallet, Frilot Cove, Plaisance, Pitreville, and many other villages, towns and communities. The Roman Catholic Church and French/Creole language are dominant features of this rich culture. Zydeco musicians host festivals all through the year. Some Creole family names are: Guillory, Esprit, Jolivette, Jolivet, Rosignon (Rousillion), Sonnier, Hollier, Frilot, Roberts, Papillion, Simien, Lemon(d), Rideau, Barnabe, Bossier, Pain, Cezar, Thierry, Rene, Darbonne, Gobert, Coutee, Fontenot, Chargois, Villere, LaChappelle, Delafosse, Dupre, Birotte, LeBon, Guilbeaux, Arceneaux, Breaux, Chevalier, Durousseau, Chachere, Aubespin, Auzenne, Chenier, Chretien, Ledet, Fuselier, Carrier(e), LaStrapes, Piert, LaFleur, Lemelle, Leblanc, Deculus, Chavis, Victorian, Thomas, LaTour, St Mary, Ceasar (Ceaser), Frank, Soileau and Goodley.

See also

• Creoles of color
• List of Louisiana Creoles
• Cajun
• French Creoles
• Gens de couleur

External links

• Too White To Be Black, Too Black To Be White: The New Orleans Creole
• Creole Poems
• Creole Literature (1800-1900)
• Learn Louisiana French
• francoluoisiane.com
• LA Creole
• Louisiana Creole Heritage Center
• Creole spirit
• Celebrating Frenchtown
• Left Coast Creole
• Cast From Their Ancestral Home, Creoles Worry About Culture's Future
• THE MEXICO-LOUISIANA CREOLE CONNECTION
• The Battle of New Orleans
• Les Gens de Couleur Libres
• Harriet J. Bauman, "French Creoles in Louisiana: An American Tale", Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, Yale University