page_title: Louisiana Creole people
section_title: 2nd French period and Louisiana Purchase
hierarchical_section_title: Louisiana Creole people / History / 2nd French period and Louisiana Purchase
caption_attribution_description: English: Watercolor painting of a Creole Woman and Boy in St. Louis by Anna Maria von Phul.Title: Painting of Creole Woman and Boy by Anna Maria Von Phul
context_page_description: Louisiana Creole people are persons descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana during the period of both French and Spanish rule. Louisiana Creoles share cultural ties such as the traditional use of the French, Spanish, and Louisiana Creole languages and predominant practice of Catholicism.
  The term créole was originally used by French settlers to distinguish persons born in Louisiana from those born in the mother country or elsewhere. As in many other colonial societies around the world, creole was a term used to mean those who were "native-born", especially native-born Europeans such as the French and Spanish. It also came to be applied to African-descended slaves and Native Americans who were born in Louisiana. The word is not a racial label, and people of fully European descent, fully African descent, or of any mixture therein may identify as Creoles.
  Starting with the native-born children of the French, as well as native-born African slaves, 'Creole' came to be used to describe Louisiana-born people to differentiate them from European immigrants and imported slaves.
context_section_description: Spain ceded Louisiana back to France in 1800 through the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso. Napoleon sold Louisiana (New France) to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, following defeat of his forces in Saint-Domingue. He had been trying to regain control of the island colony following a multi-year slave rebellion.
  Thousands of refugees from the revolution, both whites and affranchis or Gens de Couleur Libres, arrived in New Orleans, often bringing their African slaves with them. These groups had a strong influence on the city, increasing the number of French speakers, Africans with strong traditional customs, and Creoles of Color. The Haitian Revolution ended in the slaves gaining independence in 1804, establishing the second republic in the Western Hemisphere and the first republic led by black people. While Governor Claiborne and other officials wanted to keep out additional free black men, the French Creoles wanted to increase the French-speaking population. As more refugees were allowed in Louisiana, Haitian émigrés who had first gone to Cuba also arrived. Many of the white Francophones had been deported by officials in Cuba in retaliation for Bonapartist schemes in Spain. After the Purchase, many Americans were also migrating to Louisiana. Later European immigrants included Irish, Germans, and Italians.
  During the antebellum years, the major commodity crops were sugar and cotton, cultivated on large plantations along the Mississippi River outside the city with slave labor. Plantations were developed in the French style, with narrow waterfronts for access on the river, and long plots running back inland.
  Nearly 90 percent of early 19th century immigrants to the territory settled in New Orleans. The 1809 migration from Cuba brought 2,731 whites; 3,102 Gens de Couleur Libres; and 3,226 enslaved persons of African descent, which in total doubled the city's population. The city became 63 percent black in population, a greater proportion than Charleston, South Carolina's 53 percent.
  The transfer of the French colony to the United States and the arrival of Anglo-Americans from New England and the South resulted in a cultural confrontation. Some Americans were reportedly shocked by aspects of the culture and French-speaking society of the newly acquired territory: the predominance of the French language and Roman Catholicism, the free class of mixed-race people, and the strong African traditions of enslaved peoples. They pressured the United States' first governor of the Louisiana Territory, W.C.C. Claiborne, to change it.
  Particularly in the slave society of the South, slavery had become a racial caste. Since the late 17th century, children in the colonies took the status of their mothers at birth; therefore, all children of enslaved mothers were born into slavery, regardless of the race or status of their fathers. This produced many mixed-race slaves over the generations. Whites classified society into whites and blacks (the latter associated strongly with slaves). Although there was a growing population of free people of color, particularly in the Upper South, they generally did not have the same rights and freedoms as Creoles of Color in Louisiana under French and Spanish rule, who held office in some cases and served in the militia. For example, around 80 free Creoles of Color were recruited into the militia that fought in the Battle of Baton Rouge in 1779. And 353 free Creoles of Color were recruited into the militia that fought in the Battle of New Orleans in 1812. Later on, some of the descendants of these Creole of Color veterans of the Battle of New Orleans, like Caesar Antoine, went on to fight in the American Civil War.
  When Claiborne made English the official language of the territory, the French Creoles of New Orleans were outraged, and reportedly paraded in protest in the streets. They rejected the Americans' effort to transform them overnight. In addition, upper-class French Creoles thought that many of the arriving Americans were uncouth, especially the rough Kentucky boatmen (Kaintucks) who re
caption: Painting of Creole Woman and Boy by Anna Maria von Phul, 1818
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