The term “Creole” has long generated confusion and controversy. The word invites debate because it possesses several meanings, some of which concern the innately sensitive subjects of race and ethnicity. In its broadest sense, Creole means “native”—or, in the context of Louisiana history, “native to Louisiana.” In a narrower sense, however, it has historically referred to black, white, and mixed-raced persons who are native to Louisiana. In short, the word means different things to different people, and more than one ethnic group arguably has a claim to the term.
The word Creole derives from the Latin creare, meaning “to beget” or “to create.” It appears to have been used first by the Portuguese in the form crioulo, which denoted a slave born in the New World (as opposed to one born in Africa). By the 1600s, crioulo came to denote a native New World colonist, regardless of racial or ethnic heritage—black, white, or mixed race. In Louisiana, the term—which evolved into criollo in Spanish and créole in French—adhered to this convention.
Eighteenth-Century Creoles
By the 1720s, free mixed-race Louisianans made up such a substantial part of the population that the Code Noir (laws governing race relations in Louisiana) spelled out the group’s special place in colonial society. These Creoles of color, as they were known (gens de couleur libres in French, “free persons of color”), occupied a middle ground between whites and enslaved blacks. They commonly owned property, including slaves, and received formal educations, sometimes in Europe.
Nineteenth-Century Creoles
In the antebellum nineteenth century, black, white, and mixed-race Louisiana natives continued to use Creole in reference to themselves. The term distinguished native-born persons from increasing numbers of immigrants hailing from overseas and, after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Anglo-American newcomers. But with the coming of the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the subsequent collapse of the South’s economy, white Louisianans gradually took away the privileged status that set Creoles of color apart from formerly enslaved black Creoles. By the 1890s, no middle ground remained for the mixed-race ethnic group. As one historian has observed, Creoles of color “were left with nothing but their sense of group identity and a nostalgia for halcyon times.” Although they now occupied the same social stratum as former slaves, Creoles of color continued to hold themselves apart as distinct from blacks. They did so, for example, through the practice of endogamy (marriage within the ethnic group).