Categories: Genealogy, History, Identity, Language, Migrations, Slavery

This morning I (somehow) wound up on the annotated census of slaveholders in 1860 for St. Martin Parish (Louisiana), which I did earlier this year. I cannot even recall how I got there. But there I was. And as I perused the entries and statistics, 2 slaveholders, in particular, caught my eyes. They were Dr. David de Lauréal and St-Rose R. de St-Laurent (lines 206 and 221, respectively). Dr. de Lauréal was a Creole from Guadeloupe as was St-Rose de St-Laurent, and his wife, Rose Suzanne Mongé. The de St-Laurent’s ran a popular boarding school in 19th century St. Martinville called Le Pensionnat St-Laurent.[1] 

Although migration to south Louisiana from the French West Indies (Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guyana, Dominica, St. Martin, etc) was relatively small, there still were other notable FWI Creoles who made south Louisiana their home, and did business between the 2 locations.

In the 1830s, the Duchamp de Chastaigné family had an opera house built on Main Street in St. Martinville. The Opera House, it is reported, served as the town’s cultural centerpiece for a century, probably until classical music gave way to jazz and blues after World War One. Eugène Auguste Duchamp de Chastaigné, who was born in New Jersey, but of Martiniquais parents (Jean-Baptiste-Eugène Duchamp de Chastaigné and Marie Euphémie Mérope Martin de la Martinère), served as an early mayor of St. Martinville, and married Amélie Sandoz, the daughter of prominent St. Martin Parish Creoles, David-François Sandoz and Marie Christine Labbé. Titus Gardemal, also a prominent resident of citizen of St. Martinville, equally was born in Guadeloupe as was Pierre Morein, a resident of Opelousas. [2]

Statewide, there were many more FWIndians. The 1850 US census identified 25 Guadeloupe Creoles in Louisiana. That number increased by 1860 to 60; most of them in New Orleans. By 1870, that number decreased to 23, and in each decennial census thereafter, the number of Guadeloupe Creoles diminished. There were slightly more Creole migrants from Martinique, however. In 1850, there were 73, and in 1860, enumerators counted 80 Martinique Creoles in Louisiana. [3]

With numbers so small, it shouldn’t be a surprise that, while Louisiana and the FWI saw Creole cultures and people emerge in parallel in each locale, Louisiana’s Creole culture, especially it’s language, differs somewhat from that of the FWI. Although, for reasons we still do not understand fully, the Creole language that emerged in French Guyana is especially close to that of Louisiana and of Mauritius (see language chart below). [4]

Nevertheless, as sister cultures, whose roux is composed primarily of Francophone, African, and Indigenous ingredients, Louisiana and the FWI share just enough elements for a FWI Creole to feel right at home in St. Charles or in St. Martin Parishes (Louisiana), and vice versa. Such was the case when a Facebook contact, Mahité Perrault, who lives in Guadeloupe, voyaged to Latin Louisiana for the first time this summer. Just as the FWI Creole prepares calalou (spelled many ways), the Louisiana Creole prepares gombo févi (smothered okra with shrimp and sausage). We both celebrate carnival (Mardi Gras it is called in Louisiana), a Catholic feast mostly celebrated in former Latin colonies. We use the same physical descriptors to describe the broad range of phenotypes in our diverse population of Creoles. And, our Creole plantations are both painted in vibrant colors, build with the same architectural style and same spatial elements (linear plantations).

Endnotes

[1] For more on the de St-Laurents, see St. Martin Weekly Messenger, 23 August 1902, p. 2; Glenn R. Conrad, ed., New Iberia: Essays on the Town and Its People (Lafayette, La.: Center for Louisiana Studies, 1983); Maurine Bergérie, They Tasted Bayou Water (Ann Arbor, Mi.: Edwards Brothers, 1962).