What Is Creole ?

An article I found giving definitions and explanations to the word Creole.
Mamou Acadian Press, Thursday, July 3,1997
Du Crow's Nest

What is the meaning of Creole?

Ask anybody what a Creole is and you may get many different answers. As a noun Webster's define Creole as (1) a person of French or Spanish descent born in Latin America. (2) a person descended from the original French settlers of Louisiana, and French as spoken by such people. (3) Loosely; a person with both Creole and Negro ancestry.
Sort of confusing isn't it? Unlike the noun Cajun. Creole has many connotations. When you say you a Cajun, we know you are a descendent of the Acadians who were exiled from Acadia (now Nova Scotia) by the British in 1755.
So what is a Creole? Historian George Cable wrote: "Even in Louisiana the question would be variously answered. The title here did not fist belong to the descendants of Spanish, but of French settlers."
In a July 5,1960 column in the Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate, Claire D'Artois Leeper writes, "Prof. Harrison says that he deduces the word, though with many misgivings, from the Spanish criallo, a native of America or West Indies; a corrupt word made by the Negros, said to be a contraction of criadilla, a diminutive of criado- one educated, instructed or bred up, past participle of criar, literally to create, also to nurse, instruct."
Historian Charles Gayarre says the word Creole was invented by the Spaniard to distinguish their children, native of their conquered colonial possessions from the original inhabitants, and that to be a criollo implied a certain excellence of orgin and so early came to include any native of French and Spanish descent by either parent, whose non-alliance with the slave race entitled him to social rank.
George W. Cable wrote this about the Creole: "They will not share their distinction with the worthy 'Acadians', he is a Creole only by courtesy, and in the second person singular. There are not Italian or Sicilian, nor any English, Scotch, Irish, or Yankee' Creole, unless of parentage married into, and themselves thoroughly proselyted in Creole society."
Historian Lyle Saxon writes that many German families changed their names to become Creoles. For an example he says the Zweig (which is German for twig) family became the LaBranche family.
According to the 1990 U.S. Census, with 187,658 persons speakng the language, Florida ranks number one with Creole speakers. Those Florida Creoles are mostly immigrants from the Caribbean including Haiti, Martinique and Guadaloupe, who were at one time under French rule. When I was sailing the Caribbean Sea as merchant seaman I had no trouble communicating with them. There is not that much difference between Cajun French and their dialect.
Father Jules Daigle in the preface of his "Dictionary of the Cajun Language," which was published in 1984, writes that "In Louisiana the term Creole applies to both the Spaniard and the French whose ancestors came to Louisiana directly from Europe. The Cajuns, whose ancestors came from Acadia are obviously not Louisiana Creoles. In the same way, Negroes and Mulattoes, even those with some white blood, cannot properly be considered to Creoles without falsifying the very definition of Creole."
Father Daigle concedes that "the adjective Creole has a much broader meaning. Thus we speak of Creole horses, Creole chicken, creole Negroes. By common usage this adjective so applied, simply means indigenous or local. When applied to animals, it also carry the implication of being smaller than those 'imported." In the case of Negro Creole, the ability to speak some French is implied."
Robert Hendrickson, who published his book "Whistlin' Dixie: A, dictionary of Southern Expressions" in i993 did not help my confusion when he wrote the word Creole comes from the French creole, meaning 'a native.' By the end of the 18th century, however, Creole began to black salves of the Creole as well as to themselves, was next applied to a black person with any French or Spanish blood, then came to mean a native born black as opposed to one born in Africa, and by the end of the 19th century described any Louisianan with the state of Louisiana dubbed the 'Creole State.' The word is confusing and can be defined in the context it is being used, for creole also means a pidgin language spoken by a second generation of speakers, and in Alaska of the last 1960s it even meant a native of Russian and Indian blood!" (Really, how about an Eskimo and a Russian?)
In the 192Os, Lyle Saxon was the most admired Louisiana author with his "Father Mississippi", "Old Louisiana" and other books. About Creoles Saxon wrote, "Although the term Creole was adopted by Negroes, the word was not conceded to them and the use of the word in that sense is very properly resented by the French and Spanish descendants. In fact, the erroneous use of the word Creole in reference to Negroes caused Louisianians in the 1880s to discard the popular title "The Creole State."
Of course today we have Creole music, Creole culture, Creole cooking and even Creole coffee (with chicory). Remember Creole Belle coffee dans l'paquet bleu?
My paternal progenitor, Gabriel Fuseller de la Clare, and my maternal progenitor Frencois Marcantel, came to Louisiana circa 1748, on different boats directly from Europe so as their seventh generation progeny born in Louisiana no one will argue that I'm not a Creole. But down the some, whom I'm directly descended from, married Acadians, so I am also Cajun.
So after doing much research and studying, and lots of soul-searching it is my conclusion and belief that regardless of the pigmentation of a person's skin any Native Louisiana who has French or Spanish blood running in their veins are right when they tell you: "moi je suis un Creole." (Me, I am a Creole.)

Any comment my e-mail spearsville@centurytel.net


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