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It occurs to me that some of you may be dialed up to this
blog, from other parts of the country or world, and don’t know much about
Louisiana or why it is the why it is. For
those of you who did not have Coach Morvan in 8th Grade Louisiana
History, I would like to give you a short history lesson. Don’t worry, you will like it. I promise! And you will not be tested on this material.
First I want you to think of the shape of Louisiana. It’s kind of like a boot. Anybody who has ever been to Louisiana, to
visit or live here, understands that we are a kind of crazy all unto ourselves.
Our state has a beautiful culture, and I am not just talking about Cajun or
Creole peoples here. Louisiana is unique
in that it was colonized, and please forgive my use of that word, from the
bottom up. Most states in the US were
colonized from east to west. That
happened, but only in Northern Louisiana.
A bit of a geography lesson first. Louisiana is all old alluvial flood
plain. We are stuff that has been
deposited from eons of the Mississippi River’s and it’s tributary’s silt
deposits. So this leaves Louisiana with
a high water table. You can’t dig too deep around here without hitting water,
especially in South Louisiana. This is
why people are buried in crypts like you see in New Orleans. Those are actually above ground or very
shallow vaults. This is also why coffins
are tagged in South Louisiana. We get a
hurricane and people get washed out of their graves. Tags tell you who they are, and what cemetery
they belong to.
Louisiana is still evolving.
The Mississippi had changed her course many times, always flowing to the
path of least resistance. It was not
until the levee systems were put in, that we began to try to hold her in. Flooding was part of her annual thing and why
the land is so fertile. Today this is
part of the reason we are losing our coast line, by holding her in, we are
holding back her silt to deposit and make new land.
Most of Louisiana is not very high above sea level. New Orleans is actually a few feet
below. When she flooded during Katrina,
you could see what she is really supposed to be like. We have drained and changed that land over
the years, until it is what it is today, to allow more people and more commerce. The hill I write you from is about 250ft
above sea level. Built long ago, I am
sure by the deposits of the Red River. The
highest point in Louisiana is 535ft at Mt. Dristkell, not far from Ruston, in
North Central Louisiana.
The tribes were of course here long before the Europeans
arrived. The first peoples learned to
function in all Louisiana’s vast and different eco systems, swamp, prairie,
forest, and wetlands. The people of
Watson Break were an older civilization then Poverty Point. They go back 6000 years. They were “The
earliest known evidence of settlement in the New World, predating both
Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids.” (Garvey and Widmer, Pp. 4).
Most of Louisiana’s first peoples were mound builders, they
were very different from the Plains tribes were all taught about in
school. These people were hunters,
gathers and farmers. Some of the first
people of Louisiana were Tunica, Opelousas, Natchez, Tchoupitoulas, Attakapas,
Choctaw, Chickasaw, Acolapissa, Chitimacha, Houmas, Caddo, Natcheans, and
Biloxi. The Cherokee came in later, as
they ran away from the Trail of Tears. Each
of these tribes had their own language, as different to each other as French is
from English, and German is from Italian.
There is not just one single “Indian” language. Most of these tribes, other than the Caddo,
who I will talk about in A Brief History of North Louisiana, have had problems with federal recognition. No recognition, no programs and no assistance
for the tribe. The reason is that the
United States only recognizes tribes that have treaties with them. Many of these tribes had treaties with Spain
or France, and so were never recognized officially by the US.
The Spaniards were the first Europeans to see Louisiana in
the early 1500’s. They were exploring
these lands that were new to them. The
Spaniards had started with the Caribbean.
Remember there are no maps at this time, no satellites, so they were
kind of fumbling around in the dark.
They hit Florida and wanted to see what it was attached to. They were also still looking for the fountain
of youth.
At one time, Spain owned most of the southern half of the
US. This include: California, Arizona,
New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Florida.
The tribes had no roads; neither did the first settlers and explorers. They used the river systems like highways. Spain and France would flip flop for years in
who owned Louisiana. In fact the
Spaniards owned Louisiana longer then the French did.
Discovers and explorers came and went, killing tribal people
along the way with disease, weapons and dogs.
In 1682 LaSalle lead an expedition that traveled down the
Mississippi. When they reached the Gulf
they planted a cross and a column and claimed the river, and everything drained
by it, for the King of France. Little
did they know how much land they had claimed.
This claim would eventually become the Louisiana Purchase and made up
all or part of 13 states.
LaSalle tried a few years later to colonize Louisiana. He set out with 4 boats. He missed and hit Texas. Only one person of the compliment that
include 350 settlers and the explores men, survived. Almost as if Louisiana did not want to be
colonized. Louisiana remains a land that
is difficult to tame. She is still a difficult
mistress. It is always feast or famine
around here.
Now the French already had settlements in the New World in
Canada, but in the 1690’s they wanted to try again to colonize Louisiana. This time they chose an old boy named
Iberville to do it. The establishment of
a colony was necessary to make the claim stick.
They made the first colony in Biloxi, Mississippi, and used this as
their base of operations.
The French were a little different masters to the tribal
people of Louisiana. They helped each
other out in the beginning. Had it not
been for the tribes’ generosity, Louisiana may not exist as we know it
today. Many a French soldier turned
native and went to live with the tribes.
Many took tribal wives as well.
The first colonists were fur trappers, fortune hunters, and
criminals, (Garvey and Widmer, PP. 22), some from Canada and some from
France. Louisiana ain’t changed all that
much. We are still full of criminals and
fortune hunters.
So in 1714 Louisiana finally got it’s first real settlement
and town. A feller named St. Denis,
founded Fort St. Jean Baptist and the town of Natchitoches on the Red River in
what is central Louisiana. They chose
this spot to trade with the Spanish in Texas, and the tribes as well. They also could get no farther up the river,
because of the great log jam.
Natchitoches is the oldest, continuously occupied (by Europeans), city
in the Louisiana Purchase. New Orleans
would not be established for another 4 years, and it would be washed out by
disease and flood several times, before it finally had a permanent
settlement.
It was here at Fort St. Jean Baptist on May 29th,
1755, Jay’s ancestor, Jean Baptisite Mathieu Plaisance would marry Jeanne
Marguerite Toutin. We know a few things
about this first Plaisance. He was of
course Catholic and was a native of Pau, Lescar, France. He came from the southern region of France
called Plaisance, literally meaning pleasant.
He probable came from a large family of boys. Under French law, only the first male inherited. By custom, the second son often went into the
priesthood. Any boys born after that,
would have to find a way to make their own fortune. Jean Baptisite was the name of the saint who
protected the family. In fact the name
Jean / John has been used in this family for over 300 years. His friends probable called him Mathieu, the
French version of Mathew. I do not know
at this time if he was a settler or a soldier at the fort.
There are still Plaisance’s in the Natchitoches area, 260
years later. Jay’s Great – Grandfather
moved up here to Shreveport, around the 1900’s.
He had been a police officer in Campti, and came up here to work. Jay swears he is Cajun although he speaks no
French, and has no Cajun customs. He
just has a French last name, of which he is very proud. In doing Jay’s genealogy, we also found that
there were several tribal ladies, who were married into his family. We believe them to have been Caddo Adai. We also know
that there were a lot of Spanish that intermarried with his French side.
It is said Louisiana has some of the most beautiful women in
the world and there is a reason for that.
In the early days there were not a lot of ladies around. So finding a suitable wife could be
difficult. If it walked like a woman and talked like a woman, and of course was
Catholic, they married them, or took them as loves. So we became this beautiful mix of French,
Spanish, Native American, and African-American, with a little German and
Italian thrown in for good measure, a gumbo of peoples.
Jay’s BFF is a guy named Kenny. He is Creole.
He is descended from the Creole community outside of Lake Charles. It’s funny.
Jay and Kenny look so alike, except that Jay looks more white, and Kenny
looks more mixed. On several occasions,
I have approached the wrong man, thinking he was the other one. We know there has got to be common ancestor
around there somewhere, but as yet we have not found them.
So you are going to hear these two words in Louisiana, Cajun
and Creole. Originally Creole meant
anyone born in Louisiana of French or Spanish decent. The word has changed over the years. Creole in Louisiana has no relation to the
persons or language by that name in the West Indies. Most of the time, in Louisiana when we speak
of Creole, it is in relationship to a unique ethic group with our state, and
area. These persons were and are a mix
of African-American, French and/ or Spanish.
They were early “Free People of Color.”
Many of them even owned slaves. They
continue to have French traditions and customs.
They have for centuries lived in over 100 small endogamous communities,
scattered threw out Louisiana, many of them still in existence. One of these major
communities is outside of Natchitoches on Cane River. Another one, is the one Kenny ‘s family is
from, outside of Lake Charles. Now make
no mistake, these are not just mix persons or mulatto. This is a culture with it’s own language,
history, food ways, and customs. They
are just another part of what make’s Louisiana so wonderful!
Cajun is a term that is often applied by other persons not
from Louisiana, to anyone who is from Louisiana. That is incorrect. Cajun is a bastardization of the word
Acadian, which means “of Canada.” Acadia
was the French name of what we now know of as Nova Scotia, in Canada. In the 1750’s the British living there,
decided they wanted the French, to swear allegiance to the British crown, and
denounce their Catholicism and become Protestant. They refused.
Some left, and some were thrown
out of their homes. Many left carrying
only what they had in their hands, and set sail for Louisiana. They settled over, the next few years, into
the bayou country and worked the land.
Some say so they would never again be found to be expelled by anyone,
and some say they just wanted to be alone.
From this Cajun culture we have those who speak a 17th
century version of French, with a lot of Spanish words thrown in, as well as
some tribal and African words as well.
You have this wonderful music that also has a heavy German influence to
it. This tremendous food, that comes
from living off the land around them, and what they could grow where they
were. Rice became a staple, because
South Louisiana was too wet to grow potatoes, west of the Atchafalaya Basin. The peppers and the heat came from the
Spanish. It was something they learned
from the tribal people. Peppers and hot
food makes you sweat, and when you sweat you are cooler. We also know now that peppers have antibiotic
properties to them.
So today you have Cajun country, which makes a triangle from
Lake Charles in the South West corner of Louisiana, kind of close to Houston,
over East to New Orleans and then up to about Alexandria, in the middle of the
state. This includes Lafayette where I
would go to school at ULL, then USL, from 1994-1996.
When I met my first roommate at USL, she was from so far
back, and her accent so thick, it took her 3 days to convince me she was not a
French national. Some people there had a
thicker French accent, come more of a Cajun, and some just plain Southern. It was defiantly an interesting place to
live. After two years there I came back
with an accent and love for hot spicy food.
You learned quick there to like spicy food, or you didn’t eat. Even the pizza sauce was special made for the
area, and was spicy.
It is hard to say exactly when you pass into Cajun
country. For me, it is when I can’t
pronounce the names of the towns on the signs anymore. My Cajun friends used to laugh at me because
I could not say anything right. They did
not believe that anything north of Alexandria, was even part of Louisiana. It was just America to them, and not part of
who they were. This creates all kinds of
problems in our state government and we will talk about that in a bit.
Cajuns also have a distinct accent, which I am sure many of
you can try to imitate. They also say
strange things like:
“How many channels does your TV catch?” = “How many stations
do you get on your TV?”
“Go open the light.” = “Go turn on the light.”
“We going to get down and go make Groceries.” = “We are
going get out of the car and go into the grocery store.”
“Che’” =a version of Cheri, a term of love and affection
“Boo” = a term of love and affection
“ça suffit” = Is that enough?
I do. I think that’s
enough for one night.
Ilsa
This article could not have been possible without the help
of : Louisiana: the first 300 years,
by Joan B. Garvey and Mary Lou Widmer, Garmer Press, New Orleans, Louisiana,
2001.
And my good buddy
Ryan. Thanks Y’all!
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