RACE
Are Creole People a Privileged or Oppressed, or Somewhere in Between?
Louisiana's history exposes the complexity of the racial identity
Creole people are a group of Louisianians mixed with African, Indigenous, and either French or Spanish ancestry. If you've visited New Orleans, you may have tried some creole dishes like gumbo, shrimp and grits, red beans and rice, jambalaya, and bananas foster. However, only some people outside of Louisiana understand who Creole people are and what their experiences have been like. The question many people want to know is whether or not Creole people in Louisiana were an oppressed class because of their African and Indigenous lineage or privileged because of their proximity to whiteness. So, let's unpack this.
In many ways, Creole people are a product of the chattel slavery system. When French and Spanish colonizers arrived in the early 1600s, the land we now call "Louisiana" was inhabited by Indigenous tribes, such as the Chitimacha, Atakapa, Caddo, Choctaw, Houma, Natchez, and Tunica. Rene-Robert Cavelier, a Frenchman, Sieur de la Salle, led expeditions throughout the coastal wetlands and made first contact with Indigenous tribes "whose ancestors had resided throughout the Mississippi River Valley for more than a thousand years." Sadly, the population of…
