These descriptions, although far from complete and from only one source, are useful. They represent an eyewitness account by a Creole living in Saint-Domingue and writing with a fresh mind on the people he saw everyday while living on the island. These descriptors moreover correspond to evolutionary biologist Shemar K. Okeita’s position that the world’s many phenotypes can be found natively on the African continent. These phenotypes, from straight hair and light eyes, to dark skin and hair, as well as kinky hair, Okeita argues, are not due to admixing with Europeans. Instead, “they have always been there.”
Hopefully this article may inspire other Louisiana specialists to explore the topic more seriously.
But as we have seen, the slaves that arrived in colonial Saint-Domingue, and no doubt colonial Louisiana, arrived with many of the same features we now associate with European and Native American admixture with Africans. For now, it appears that this later mixing, which did in fact occur during the colonial and national period in Louisiana, only enhanced the features that already existed in those of African descent in Creole Louisiana.
Do you mean French speaking / Caribbean slaves were only bought in Louisiana, though? My ancestors bought Caribbean and French speaking slaves regularly, but took them to Maryland. (It was actually one of the reasons they resented having to put up the Cajuns while they were homeless in the 18th century — they were worried they would encourage them in French speaking, Catholicism, and desire for freedom.) I thought N.O. was a huge slave port and people came from all over to buy there. I further thought that with the difficulties in transatlantic slave trade in 19th century, more and more had to be brought in from the Caribbean. ?
There were 3 separate waves of slave importation in Louisiana. From 1718-1935/40, the Compagnie des Indes, under John Law, enjoyed a trade monopoly in the French colonies, and this was most manifested in the slave trade from Senegambia and Guinea. The Compagnie imported the same ethnic groups from those French comptoirs in west Africa to Mauritius and Louisiana during that period. They also imported to other French colonies.
During the Spanish period, the orientation shifted from upper west Africa’s muslim population to regions from present-day Ghana all the way to present-day Congo. A majority of all slaves imported during the Spanish period came from the vast region including today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congo, and parts of Angola. A number of these slaves from the Congo and Angola arrived already Catholic.
When looking at colonial ecclesiastic and parochial records in, say, 1790, on individual plantations, the difference in the slave arrivals per colonial period is pretty clear: Congos dominate in young ages, and Wolof, Bambara, Mandingos, Senegalese, Fulani, Soso, Kisi, et al. dominate in the older generation of the slaves.
Few of these slaves, in either period, came from the Caribbean. In 1706, at old Mobile, the first slaves attested were from St. Kitts. I wrote about them here: http://www.mylhcv.com/louisiana-st-kitts-nevis/
After 1803, the U.S. began to halt the importation. The importation of slaves directly from Africa ended in 1807: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/slavery/europe/abolition.aspx
American administrators in Louisiana were extremely concerned about the situation in Saint-Domingue already upon arrival in December 1803. Emily Clark has a great study on how Americans reacted to the S-D revolution in her 2013 study American Quadroon. She demonstrates how that impacted territorial Louisiana (1803-1812). Gary B. Mills and Elizabeth Shown Mills’s Forgotten People (LSU Press: 2013) and Judith Kelleher Schafer’s two legal studies are the best out there on how the S-D revolution and growth of American legislators in the Louisiana legislature impacted slavery during the Antebellum period.
But to sum up the Antebellum period: there were no (legal) importation of slaves to Louisiana from Africa or the Caribbean. Saint-Domingue and Cuban refugees who arrived between 1809 and 1810 in New Orleans did bring slaves with them. But they remained mostly in New Orleans and to a lesser extent in Pointe-Coupée, the Acadian and German Coasts (all along the Mississippi River). Nathalie Dessens’s study (From Saint-Domingue to New Orleans) as well as Emily Clark’s discuss this. The vast majority of slaves entering Louisiana during the Antebellum period entered New Orleans slave market by way of the US interstate market, mostly from Virginia, with smaller numbers from Kentucky, Maryland, and Tennessee. This is why so many Creoles in Grand Côteau and Sunset have English surnames – the Jesuits were ousted from Maryland in 1821 and they established a colony, with their slaves, at Grand Côteau that year. That colony became Sacred Heart Convent, Sacred Heart Church (now St. Charles Borromeo) and St. Charles College school for (white) boys.
So by 1860, on all Creole plantations, there was a mixture of Creole, American, and really old African slaves; whereas on American plantations in Louisiana, virtually all slaves were Americans, with few Africans.
Hope that helps.