[inactive]Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana's Free People of Color

by Sybil Kein

The word Creole evokes a richness rivaled only by the term’s widespread misunderstanding. Now both aspects of this unique people and culture are given thorough, illuminating scrutiny in Creole, a comprehensive, multidisciplinary history of Louisiana’s Creole population. Written by scholars, many of Creole descent, the volume wrangles with the stuff of legend and conjecture while fostering an appreciation for the Creole contribution to the American mosaic. The collection opens with a historically relevant perspective found in Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson’s 1916 piece “People of Color of Louisiana” and continues with contemporary Joan M. Martin on the history of quadroon balls; Michel Fabre and Creole expatriates in France; Barbara Rosendale Duggal with a debiased view of Marie Laveau; Fehintola Mosadomi and the downtrodden roots of Creole grammar; Anthony G. Barthelemy on skin color and racism as an American legacy; Caroline Senter on Reconstruction poets of political vision; and much more. Violet Harrington Bryan, Lester Sullivan, Jennifer DeVere Brody, Sybil Kein, Mary Gehman, Arthi A. Anthony, and Mary L. Morton offer excellent commentary on topics that range from the lifestyles of free women of color in the nineteenth century to the Afro-Caribbean links to Creole cooking. By exploring the vibrant yet marginalized culture of the Creole people across time, Creole goes far in diminishing past and present stereotypes of this exuberant segment of our society. A study that necessarily embraces issues of gender, race and color, class, and nationalism, it speaks to the tensions of an increasingly ethnically mixed mainstream America.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Cultural, African American, Essays, Historical, Americana

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2000

About the author

Sybil Kein (a.k.a. Dr. Consuela Provost) is a Louisiana Creole poet, playwright, scholar, and musician.

Dr. Provost largely created the field of Creole Studies through her early publications and presentations. A protégé of Robert Hayden, her poetry is housed in the National Archives, Library of Congress. In 1981 Dr. Provost published Gombo People, a volume of poetry representing the first contribution to American letters of original literature in the Louisiana Creole language.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[The Cat In The Hat · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love this book, almost halfway through, will finish this weekend. picked it up on recent trip to new orleans in the french quarter book shop i frequent. i love the rich historical and cultural context.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the ultimate sources for true history of Creoles in Louisiana. An absolute must have for everyone's library.

[Tye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful book documenting the history and the culture my people through unbiased eyes. This work of art talks about the intricacies of Louisiana Creole culture and how it came to be.

[Scott Pomfret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This university press collection of essays both historical and contemporary addresses multiple aspects of lives of free Creole people of color of New Orleans mainly in the nineteenth century with occasional jumps to the twentieth. Topics include food, labor, Marie Laveau, language, race, and many others. Perhaps the only poorly developed theme was that of religion; while reference is made to the mostly Catholic faith of the Creoles, the influence of African belief systems, and the influx of Anglo-American Protestants, no one essay explores how this interaction shaped the lives of the Creoles. The collection is marred by some academic gobbledy-gook substituting long tired words for analysis and occasional specious reasoning from the facts presented (for example, the author of one essay on “passing” as white stated boldly that most blacks who could “pass” did not want to … but then goes on to cite many counterexamples as well as economic data showing the gains to be made by so passing, which undermined the author’s conclusion). In general, however, this was a readable collection providing decent depth on the given topic and raises questions about a future more mixed-race America.