Black History Culture : A Creole Plantation?

SlickBeast · Jul 2, 2012

Creole is absolutely not French culture. What all creole cultures have in common is that they have bits and pieces of African cultures from all around Africa mixed with European (not just French) culture. This is why Brazil can be considered a creole culture as well. From this type of culture you have plenty of dances and ritual influence by African dances and African indigenous religion respectively. Creole culture is way more African than Afro-American culture. That's for sure.

Burr · Nov 10, 2012

Take a tour guide course at Delgado's Community College. You will learn "a" history of New Orleans and the surrounding area. You will learn accurate dates that historical events occurred, 100 famous people that influenced the history of New Orleans and many definitions of terms used in New Orleans i.e Creole has a very simple definition.

A Creole is any person born in New Orleans of French, Spanish, German, Islenos, Irish, American etc. descent, There are French Creoles, Spanish Creoles, Irish Creoles, American Creoles, Italian Creoles, etc.

trying to find my way · Nov 11, 2012

The best way to find out about my state is to visit. I promise you won't regret it and plus you will leave with your belly full lol.

dunwiddat · Nov 11, 2012

Astrologer4U said: ↑

During my recent visit to New Orleans from 2-23-09 through 2-28-09, I drove into Vacherie Louisiana to see the "Laura Plantation" a so called Creole plantation. I always thought that Creole was a mixed race consisting of French, Indian and African but that is not what Creole is. During the tour, I asked the question, what exactly is Creole? I was told that, Creole is in fact a French Culture, that Africans and Indians in America, preferably Louisiana, gravitated towards due to colonization and slavery. Here is what I found on a google search...

Definitions of Creole on the Web:

a person of European descent born in the West Indies or Latin America

a person descended from French ancestors in southern United States (especially Louisiana)

of or relating to a language that arises from contact between two other languages and has features of both; "Creole grammars"
of or relating to or characteristic of native-born persons of French descent in Louisiana; "Creole cooking"

A Creole language, or simply a Creole, is a stable language that originates seemingly as a nativized pidgin.

Black folks been going around talkin bout they Creole, I always thought that was kind of strange. From what it apparently seems, Creole basically means French speaking whites, born or living in Louisiana... Currently meaning, black or Indian living the so called Creole culture, which is impossible because the plantation seems to be made up of African Culture. Even the food that the french ate, was prepared by Africans, for which was an African style of food. I had some so called Creole Gumbo when I was in New Orleans, thats what it said on the menu. The French don't know nothing about no gumbo, besides the fact that Africans cooked it for them. The tour guide her self said that, it was the Okra brought to America by African slaves which in turn originated the makings of Gumbo.

I also learned that the story of Brer Rabbit, brer Fox and Tar Baby, origins in America came from the Africans who lived on the Laura Plantation. Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Tar baby played a huge role in the reason for why it was decided to preserve this particular Plantation, the Laura plantation...

"Laura Plantation was rescued from demolition, not because of its Big House but, because of its remaining slave quarters and what happened in them many years ago. In the 1870s, Alcée Fortier, a young neighbor of Laura's, visited the workers' cabins at this site and at nearby plantations. On his visits, he wrote down what he heard. Throughout his life, Fortier was known for the passion he had for his native Creole culture and for his special interest in recording folklore that he, as a child, had been exposed to on his family plantation on the River Road and in New Orleans.
As a teenager, Fortier began to collect these stories from former slaves, just as they told them to their children, all lively accounts of Compair Lapin and Compair Bouki, the clever rabbit and the stupid fool. In 1894, Fortier, the president of the American Folklore Society and Dean of Foreign Languages of Tulane University, published his stories, entitling them "Louisiana Folktales."

One year later, Fortier's friend and colleague in Georgia, Joel Chandler Harris, published stories that he had heard in English, tales told by former slaves (whose ancestors were from Senegal) in Georgia and the Carolinas. To great success, Harris published "Tales of Uncle Remus", including his "The Little Tar Baby." Ever since, English-speakers would know Compair Lapin as that rascal: Br'er Rabbit.

Fortier recorded 2 main characters in his tales: Lapin & Bouki. Lapin is French for Rabbit. Bouki is a Wollof word, the language spoken in Senegal in west-Africa, and means "stupid hyena." In the 1720s, when the first slaves arrived in Louisiana, Senegal was the homeland for almost all of these captives. For the next 60 years, Senegalese slaves formed the core of the African experience in Louisiana. Then, in the 1780s, the slave trade shifted to the English colonies, again bringing slaves out of Senegal. During all these years, the Senegalese slaves, whether in Louisiana or on the East Coast, were handing down the same tales of the rabbit and hyena to their descendants.

Today, in Senegal, Wollof-speaking children learn French in school. Third-graders there are taught from one textbook, written in 1953 by a local teacher, Leopold Senghor, who took stories children already knew in their Wollof language and translated them into French. Senghor was, for years, President of Senegal, and the stories he recorded 50 years ago about Leuk, the clever rabbit, and Bouki, the stupid hyena, are the same, almost word for word, that Fortier collected in the 1870s.

For hundreds of years, in many countries, these same tales have been handed down, some calling the rabbit Lapin or Malice, Brother Rabbit or Br'er Rabbit or, for unknown ages before, Leuk. Recalled by young and old, rich and poor, enslaved and free, these stories are, today, among the most widely known folktales in the world. It is this shared cultural treasure that visitors re-discover at Laura Plantation."

http://www.lauraplantation.com/fest_frame.htm

During the tour, I saw the big metal looking, what the tour guides call Sugar Kettles used for cooking sugar cane and washing clothes. For those of you who have seen the movie MandingoThe big boiling pot Mandingo was pushed into was a sugar kettle The tour guide said the bowls/sugar kettles, came from straight from Haiti... there were at least ten of them placed amongst the plantation

Sugar Kettle...

However, the plantation was built by the west African slaves from Senegal. I thought that was interesting that the tour guide made no mention of Haitian slaves, for which I am sure there had to be some Haitian slaves here in America, since America has Haitian ruins left behind from the American slave era.

Here you can read some history on the Laura plantation...

http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/louisiana/lau.htm

If you look at the above picture, due to it's colors, the plantations main house looks like a house in the Caribbean. The tour guide however, after telling the tourist that Senegal slaves built the house, that it was the slave master Laura, who told them how to build the house and what colors to use. I find that hard to believe because Laura was not a skilled architect, nor was she a skilled construction worker. The tour guide claimed that all Creole plantation houses had the same multi colors, as opposed to the traditional white plantation house. I believe that the houses were multi colored because it was Africans building the house in the image of African architecture which involves lots of colors for which the slave owners had no problem with. African people in America are known for their trend setting, due to their unique universal style. Any way, The tour guide also said that when the preservers came into preserve the Laura plantation, that in an effort to make the house look the way it looked when the Dupare family originally had it built, they had to strip it of it's white paint. After removing the white paint, they attempted to remove the multi colors they found underneath the white paint, to only run into more original multi colors. Come to find out, during the Louisiana purchase, the English took over and declared that all plantation houses be painted white.
The Louisiana Purchase... http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/maps/lapurchase/essay1.html

On the way up to the Plantation, I took highway 18/River Road. All one could see was a sea of black faced residents amongst a River Side community that looked poor. I caught my self thinking, why is there so many black people living close to the Laura Plantation? Could it be that these people are actually descendants of the Slaves who lived on the Laura Plantation? Sure enough when the tour guide was giving the tour, she said that plenty of the descendants of the Senegalese slaves, still live in the area... needless to say, my mouth dropped. I asked the tour guide are the descendants were aware that they are actual descendants of slaves who lived on the Laura Plantation? The tour guide answered yes, they are aware. I was like... Wow!

The plantation had bannana trees, which needless to say, Africans brought Bananas to that plantation. Oranges, lemons, greens, sugar cane and a host of other things were still growing on the plantation.

The great grandmother of Laura thought it would be cheaper to start breeding slaves on the Laura Plantation, so she had 3 in a half miles worth of slave cabins built on the plantation. The Cabins consisted of two rooms for which 4 slaves each lived in. Only three of the slave cabins are there today but there is an old picture in one of the slave shack/cabin, of two slaves standing along side the row, where the cabins start and you could see the 3 miles worth of slave cabins that used to exist.

Has anyone else at Destee.com, ever toured a real life Slave plantation?

Astrologer4U

Newton plantation is just one of many here in Barbados. My aunt and great aunt worked as cooks on Newton plantation here in Barbados. My grandfather worked on this same plantation. There is a burial ground where many of the slaves were buried. As a girl I visited this plantation with my aunts. We still have a few slave huts here in Barbados. This plantation is now a manufacturing company.
Some information on slaves on this plantation during slavery.

I sure would love to visit the one in New Orleans. Thanks for posting.
Morgan Lewis Sugar Mill - Barbados Colonial Past - The Holiday Place
This one is mainly a tourist site who visit this one where they can get freshly ground sugar cane juice

Life and Death on a Barbadian Sugar Plantation: Historic and ...