Lecture 5A. Reid, Whitman, Reizenstein.

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Lecture 5A

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Required

Reid. The Quadroon. (Excerpts)

Preface.
Chapter 10. Raising the Steam.
Chapter 11. Boat Race.
Chapter 13. Wounded.
Chapter 17. Aurore.
Chapter 18. The Creole and the Quadroon.
Chapter 19. A Louisiana Landscape.
Chapter 25. An Hour of Bliss.
Chapter 27. The Devil's Douche.
Chapter 79. The Crisis.

Whitman. "Louisiana Poems."
Reizenstein. "Lesbian Love."

Optional

"Captain" Mayne Reid.
The Quadroon.

Louisiana has an extremely complicated racial history, one involving multiple nations, ethnicities, religions, and languages. Race is a social construct rather than biological, and Louisiana has worked overtime constructing race. Here are some racial terms that were common in Louisiana history.

Creole. In the era of European colonization of the New World, creole (in French, criollo and crioulo in Spanish and Portuguese, respectively) referred to any person of “Old World” descent (European or African) who was born in the “New World.” For example, a Creole slave was an enslaved person born in the New World, whatever his or her degree of African ancestry. The early use of the term did not refer or was not part of a system of racial classification; rather, it was meant to identify people who were born and raised in the Americas but were not indigenous to the region. In Louisiana, particularly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the influx of Anglo Americans and immigrants, the term took on additional significance to distinguish those born in colonial Louisiana of French, Spanish, and/or African extraction and their descendants from the new arrivals and their descendants. Related to that distinction, “Creole” also came to be associated with the culture and language (typically French) of that distinct population, whose members were termed Creoles. The term “Creole of color” also came into use to distinguish among white Creoles and Afro-Creoles, and in some usage became a synonym for “free person of color” or for their descendants, after emancipation.

Negro: In antebellum Louisiana, “negro” or “negress” described a person who did not have any European ancestry, as distinguished from a “person of color.”

Mulatto: Historically this term is meant to describe someone of Emixed African and European ancestry. In Louisiana, it is even more specific- describing someone who is believed to be of one-half African ancestry and one-half European ancestry.

Griffe: Refers to a person who is believed to be one-quarter European descent and three-quarters African descent. Alternately, it could refer to someone of African and Native American ancestry.

Quadroon: Refers to a person who is thought to be of one-quarter African descent and three-quarters European descent.

Octoroon: Refers to a person who is of one-eighth African descent and seven-eighths European descent. (LSU Library)

English	French	Spanish
Negro	Nègre	Negro (m) Negra (f)
Mulatto	Mulâtre (m) Mulâtresse (f)	Mulato (m) Mulata (f)
Griffe	Griffe	Griffe
Quadroon	Quateron	Cuaterón
Octoroon	Octoron	Octorón Octoróna

To help you remember these terms, here is a portion of Inside the Creole Mafia: A Not-too-Dark Comedy.

Now a few more terms:

Plaçage "was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into civil unions with non-Europeans of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages" (Wikipedia). The placée would often own the house she lived in, and the children were educated. The girls went to the Ursuline school, and the boys were often sent to France to finish their education.
Gens de couleur libres, (g.c.l.) (French), gente de color libre (Spanish) the free people of color (f.p.c.), or the free Creoles of color. According to Desdunes, "These Creoles of color with Latin blood, and certain other free blacks, made up a group known collectively as gens de couleur libres. This caste seems to have existed from the first introduction of slaves, and the gens de couleur were a part of the population from the beginning of Louisiana history: they are specifically named in the Black Code issued by Bienville in 1724. The Haitian descendants excelled as musicians, artists, teachers, writers, doctors, and in all major professions. Som e amassed considerable fortunes and educated their children in France or in unsegregated schools. They were an integral part of southern Louisiana life and maintained their own social status with a rigidity as strong as that found among the whites." Some of the free people of color were the children of plaçage, others came from traditional marriages within the fpc community.
Quadroon Ball. There is a mythic version of this where young, single quadroon women would attend a ball with wealthy, white men, who would arrance a plaçage arrangement with the mother of the woman he desired. This form of the ball doesn't seem to have existed. Rather they seem to have been an early form of sex tourism, and the women there were coerced into sex work by either poverty of slavery.
Tragic Mulatto. The racist stereotypes of the time held that there was a hierarchy of races, with white people on top. Miscegenation (another vocabulary word) was the mixing of the races, and of the 50 states, Louisiana did the most mixing of the races. We still have the highest mixed-race percentage of people of any state. Miscegenation resulted in children who were lower in the hierarchy than purer white people but lower than pure black people. The tragic mulatto was close enough to being white to be beautiful (according to white conventions) and to have a more elevated sensitivity to her (it was always a woman) situation, but black enough not to have the right to make her own choices. The very characteristics that lifted her up made her a target for the sexual aggression of white men.