Of Cajuns and Creoles: A Brief Historical Analysis

This essay is one of four in which I address current issues in Cajun and Creole studies. The other essays can be found here.

I wrote these works not only as a historian, but as someone who identifies as both a Cajun and a Creole. As I note below, “[M]any of my ancestors were Creoles of French heritage. My own family tree abounds with tell-tale Creole surnames: de la Morandière, Soileau, de la Pointe, Fuselier de la Claire, Brignac, Bordelon, de Livaudais, and others. . . . As such, I could, if I chose to do so (and sometimes I do), identify as Creole — doubly so because Cajuns themselves are to begin with a kind of Creole.”

I trust those with whom I express disagreement will accept this critique in the collegial spirit it is intended.

I thank Dr. Barry Jean Ancelet, Dr. Carl A. Brasseaux, Dr. David Cheramie, independent researcher Don Arceneaux, and former CODOFIL president Warren A. Perrin for proofing the below essay.

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I have observed a growing effort, particularly among south Louisiana's Creole population, to rein in use of the word Cajun to describe all things French in Louisiana. (I mean Creole in the broadest sense of the word: Creole devoid of racial connotations and thus applying equally to persons who are black, white, or multiracial. Creole meaning “Native to Louisiana” or a bit more narrowly “Native to south Louisiana, and of Roman Catholic and French- or Spanish-speaking heritage.”) 

"The matter almost demands a Venn diagram for clarity."

I concur with this effort: things that are not Cajun should not be called Cajun.

Implicit in the critique of Cajun as a blanket term for all south Louisiana culture is an assertion that Creole history and culture should be acknowledged more frequently and more substantively. This means, for example, that scholars should conduct more research into Creoles; that the tourism industry should highlight more Creole history and more Creole attractions; and that what is Creole should be identified as Creole, not as Cajun.

I support all these notions, for while I self-identify as Cajun, many of my ancestors were Creoles of French heritage. My own family tree abounds with tell-tale Creole surnames: de la Morandière, Soileau, de la Pointe, Fuselier de la Claire, Brignac, Bordelon, de Livaudais, and others. 

As such, I could, if I chose to do so (and sometimes I do), identify as Creole — doubly so because Cajuns themselves are to begin with a kind of Creole. After all, are they not, as I describe Creoles above, native to south Louisiana and of Roman Catholic and French-speaking heritage?

"It is interesting to note, for example, that in 2018 the University of Georgia Press issued a book titled Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture."

I view Cajuns, however, as merely one type of Creole among several other types of Creoles. These types include black Creoles, white Creoles, multiracial Creoles, French Creoles, Spanish Creoles, German Creoles, and perhaps still other types of Creoles who occupy part of Louisiana’s complex cultural landscape. (It is interesting to note, for example, that in 2018 the University of Georgia Press issued a book titled Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture.) And then there are other types of Creoles in other states, other nations, and even on other continents. (I once used the word Creole while lecturing in front of a group of Brazilian tourists in south Louisiana. They gasped in horror, telling me that in their country Creole is equivalent to America's most dreaded racial slur. They actually referred to the Portuguese version of Creole, which is crioulo. The reliable Wikitionary.org backs up their claim; see its entry for crioulo.)

In other words, Cajuns are to me a subset of Creoles, just as, say, Cherokees are a subset of Native Americans, Ashkenazim are a subset of Jews, and Mexicans are a subset of Latinos. But this does not mean Cajuns do not view themselves as distinct from other Creoles. They clearly do and arguably have done so since their origin as an ethnic group. Sociologist Jacques Henry of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, for example, has observed, “The definition of Cajun ethnicity has been on-going since the arrival of Acadian exiles in Louisiana. It has taken place amidst the economic, social and cultural changes that have happened since the eighteenth century.”(1)

The expulsion of the Cajuns' Acadian ancestors from Nova Scotia, 1755. Source: William Cullen Bryant, Sidney Howard Gay, Noah Brooks, Scribner’s Popular History of the United States, Vol. 3 (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896).

Cajuns have not been in Louisiana as long as other types of Creoles. However, the Cajuns’ common ancestors, the Acadians — forcibly expelled by the British military from what are now the Maritime Provinces of Canada — arrived in Louisiana beginning in 1764. By the late 1800s those exiles and their offspring had intermarried heavily with other south Louisiana ethnic groups (settlers of French, German, Spanish, even to some extent Anglo and Scots-Irish heritage) and become “Cajuns.” Thus, for example, R. L. Daniels wrote in 1879 of the word “Acadian — or rather its corruption ‘Cajun’ as they pronounce it.”(2) In 1893 Julian Ralph similarly observed that Acadians were "spoken of in their own country . . . as ‘Cajuns.’” And in 1898 a journalist aptly noted, “[A] large element of the French population of the state are . . . Acadians, or, as they call themselves and are generally called, ‘Cajuns’” [my italics].(3)

UL sociologist Henry thus concludes, “[B]y the turn of the [20th] century, Cajuns/cadiens are a group symbolically discrete. . . . [and] a breed apart.”(4) Cajun historian Carl Brasseaux echoes this view, stating, “[T]he Acadians [in Louisiana] were by 1803 on the threshold of a new and significant period of socioeconomic change, one that would transform them . . . into Louisiana Cajuns.”(5) He continues this theme elsewhere, averring that by the end of Reconstruction in 1877, “[A]scriptive [i.e., attributed] distinctions between Acadians and neighboring groups had become blurred, giving rise to the creation of a new people — the Cajuns.”(6)

If I myself sometimes gloss over the complex relationship of Cajuns to Creoles, it is because I find it less confusing for the uninitiated if I avoid explaining, “And, oh, by the way, Cajuns are Creoles.” (The matter almost demands a Venn diagram for clarity.) This may be one reason most Cajuns have generally chosen not to identify as both Cajuns and Creoles: besides the fact that most Cajuns simply do not think of themselves of Creoles, there is widespread confusion and debate about the very meaning of Creole, even among south Louisiana natives.

Elista Istre's excellent recent volume
about Creole history,
from the University of Louisiana Press, Lafayette, La.

Ultimately, there is only so much one can do — or ought to do, I would assert — about people choosing to self-identify as members of one ethnic group or another. According to U.S. census data, for example, there were in 2020 an estimated 100,000+ people across America who self-identified their ancestry as "Cajun."(7) If self-identification as "Cajun," or as a member of any ethnic group, is good enough for the U.S. Census Bureau, it is good enough for me. It is evidently good enough for most scholars, few if any of whom would presume to tell anyone what they should or should not call themselves in terms of ethnicity.

As a historian I believe my role is to observe, chronicle, and interpret, and to do so as objectively as possible. To involve oneself too closely, too personally with a living subject of study like an ethnic group — such as by seeking to change that group’s behavior — is to relinquish objectivity and to cross into the realm of activism. And while activism in itself can be a rewarding pursuit, I do not believe it mixes well with scholarship. Granted, complete objectivity is possible only in theory, but the very quest for objectivity can elevate the quality of research and analysis to a higher, more refined level. It can do so by guiding researchers around pitfalls like wishful thinking and what the historical profession calls filiopiety (or filiopietism), a fancy term for “ancestor worship.” Such weaknesses can result in misunderstanding or, worse, deification of those who came before us — at the expense of their humanity.

Notes

(1) Jacques Henry, “From Acadien to Cajun to Cadien: Ethnic Labelization and Construction of Identity,” Journal of American Ethnic History 17 (Summer, 1998): 56.

(2) Ibid., 34.

(3) “The ‘Cajuns’ of Louisiana,” Wood County Reporter (Grand Rapids, Wisc.) [reprinted from the Dallas (Tex.) News], 2 June 1898, 8.

(4) Henry, "Ethnic Labelization," 39.

(5) Carl A. Brasseaux, The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765-1803 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 198.

(6) ________, Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a People, 1803-1877 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992), xi.

(7)“Cajun,” People Reporting Ancestry, 2020: American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates Detailed Tables (B04006), Total U.S. Population, data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=United%20States&t=Ancestry&tid=ACSDT5Y2020.B04006, accessed 2 May 2021

Selected Readings on Creoles

This list makes no pretense of completeness. There are many other noteworthy sources about the subject.

Shane K. Bernard. “Creoles.” In Encyclopedia of Louisiana (https://64parishes.org), ed. David Johnson. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Article published 8 December 2010, https://64parishes.org/entry/creoles.

________. “Creole.” In The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 6: Ethnicity. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Carl A. Brasseaux, Keith P. Fontenot, and Claude F. Oubre. Creoles of Color in the Bayou Country. Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 1994.

James H. Dormon, ed. Creoles of Color of the Gulf South. Knoxville, Tenn.: The University of Tennessee Press, 1996.

Elista Istre. Creoles of South Louisiana: Three Centuries Strong. Lafayette, La.: University of Louisiana Press, 2018.

Gary B. Mills. The Forgotten People: Cane River’s Creoles of Color. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Louisiana State University Press, 1992.

Sybil Kein, ed. Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

Joseph G. Tregle. “Creoles and Americans.” In Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization, ed. Arnold R. Hirsch and Joseph Logsdon, 131-85. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.

________. “On That Word ‘Creole’ Again: A Note.” Louisiana History, 23 (Spring 1982): 193-98.

Notes on the Birth of Cajun Ethnic Identity

This essay is one of four in which I address current issues in Cajun and Creole studies. The other essays can be found here.

I wrote these works not only as a historian, but as someone who identifies as both a Cajun and a Creole. As I note in one of these essays, “[M]any of my ancestors were Creoles of French heritage. My own family tree abounds with tell-tale Creole surnames: de la Morandière, Soileau, de la Pointe, Fuselier de la Claire, Brignac, Bordelon, de Livaudais, and others. . . . As such, I could, if I chose to do so (and sometimes I do), identify as Creole — doubly so because Cajuns themselves are to begin with a kind of Creole.”

I trust those with whom I express disagreement will accept this critique in the collegial spirit it is intended.

I thank Dr. Barry Jean Ancelet, Dr. David Cheramie, independent researcher Don Arceneaux, and former CODOFIL president Warren A. Perrin for proofreading the below essay.

❧

I have noticed claims that Cajun ethnic identity did not originate until the late twentieth century — more particularly, that it did not emerge until the mid- to late 1960s. It arose at that time, some assert, merely as a negative response to the Black civil rights movement. It has also been claimed the very word Cajun did not appear, at least not in print, until the mid-twentieth century (implying, oddly, the ethnic label came before the ethnic identity).

"Cajun children on Terrebonne Project," June 1940. 
(Marion Post Wolcott, Library of Congress)

These assertions, it seems to me, are unfounded. Perhaps they stem from confusing the birth of Cajun identity with the birth of Cajun pride. The Cajun pride movement did in fact begin in the 1960s — but that is not the same as the birth of Cajun ethnic identity. Or perhaps these misconceptions arise from conflating the birth of Cajun identity with two other late-twentieth-century events. One happened in 1980, when a U.S. federal court declared Cajuns to be a bona fide ethnic group protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The second event occurred a few years later, when geneticists discovered a common Cajun genotype — scientific evidence that Cajuns are, by virtue of tell-tale DNA, a distinct ethnic group.(1)

Genetic and judicial considerations aside, Cajun ethnic identity, I maintain, existed well before the late twentieth century. An abundance of historical proof supports this perspective, so much so, in fact, it prompts the question: If Cajun identity and even the word Cajun did not exist until, as claimed, relatively recently, why then is it so easy to find earlier — indeed, much earlier — references to that word and the identity it signifies? And not merely a few, but numerous references?

The Troy (N.Y.) Record, 21 July 1943.

For example, if we survey evidence from the World War II era, we find Cajuns mentioned in a 1942 syndicated newspaper article titled "Cajun Chefs Help Prepare U.S. Army Mess in London." (Yes, London.) The piece featured Cajun mess-hall cooks with surnames like Marx, Gateaux, Borque (Bourque), Carrier, and Guidry (names generally considered Cajun in south Louisiana, whether of Acadian origin or not). "Most of these men," explained Sergeant Marx of Crowley, referring to his kitchen staff in wartime London, "are Cajun French . . . and hardly any of them could speak English when they enlisted." One cook, Private Freddie Guidry — referring to his own 6-foot-1-inch, 242-pound frame — quipped boastfully to the reporter, "Cajuns always do things in a big way."(2)

 

Interestingly, a few wartime images even show airplane "nose art" bearing the word Cajun. For example, the nickname Cajun Queen was painted on not one, but two B-29 bombers flown by a U.S. aircrew in the Pacific. Similarly, Cajun Coonass appeared on the fuselage of a C-47 transport plane in New Guinea. (Incidentally, that nickname is one of the earliest known uses of the controversial term coonass – see my previous blog article about this subject).(3)

 

The Cajun Queen B-29 bomber,
Pacific campaign, World War II.
(Author's Collection)

Jumping farther back in time to the late nineteenth century, we find numerous references to Cajun as an ethnic group and an ethnic label. For instance, an 1898 article in The Indianapolis Journal (originally printed in The Dallas News) not only used the word Cajun, but did so in reference to a people it considered distinct from Creoles. "[A] large element of the French population of the State [of Louisiana] are not creoles," averred the paper's unnamed journalist, "but Acadians, or, as they call themselves and are generally called, ‘Cajuns.’”(4)

 

A decade earlier an 1888 article in The (Monroe, La.) Ouachita Telegraph (which first appeared in the New Orleans Picayune) stated, "The word ‘Cajun’ is no more a term of reproach than the word ‘Hoosier’ applied to the natives of Indiana. It is associated with the idea of some rusticity and simplicity of manner and that is all. The writer has heard it playfully applied to a lovely Creole belle." Added the article, "The Acadian himself is a Creole." (As an aside, this corresponds to my own view of the Cajun-Creole relationship: as I state in another blog article, "Cajuns themselves are . . . a kind of Creole. . . .")(5)

The Ouachita Telegraph (Monroe, La.), 28 April 1888.

Similarly, an 1887 Abbeville (S.C.) Press and Banner article (originally running in The San Francisco Chronicle) observed, "The Americans, and even the Creoles, have corrupted the name Acadian into ‘Cajun,’ which term . . . these people resent strongly, yet, as ‘Cajuns,’ they are known all over the state. They are, in fact, Creoles, being the descendants of French parents born in a French colony, but they are an entirely distinct people from all other populations of Gallic descent in Louisiana."(6)

 

We can find Cajun used as an ethnic label still earlier in time — decades earlier, in fact. During the Civil War, for example, the term appeared in an 1862 issue of The Cincinnati Commercial (reprinted in The Delaware [Ohio] Gazette). Detained at Camp Pratt near New Iberia, a reporter for the Ohio paper took note of local Cajuns serving in the Confederate forces. “You don't know what a Cajun is?” he inquired of his Midwest readers. “Of course you don't, but I will try and tell you.”(7)

The Delaware (Ohio) Gazette, 12 December 1862.

As for the word Cadien, which is merely the Louisiana French form of Cajun, it has been found in print as early as 1851. That year the Louisiana francophone newspaper Le Pionnier de l'Assomption of Napoleonville ran a piece of local-color fiction containing the line, "Et moi, continua Jérôme, je m'enfoncerai dans les campagnes afin de tâcher de vendre mes bonnets de coton aux Cadiens." [Translation: "And I, continued Jerome, will go deep into the countryside to try and sell my cotton caps to the Cadiens."](8)

Le Pionnier de l'Assomption (Napoleonville, La.),
7 September 1851.

Granted, many of these historic references deride the Cajun people as backward and ignorant; some even call the word Cajun an insult. My point, however, stands: Cajun ethnic identity and the word Cajun appeared long before the mid- to late twentieth century, whether describing a discrete ethnic group or, conversely, a type of Creole, more or less (or not at all) distinct from other Creoles. Indeed, the examples I provide above are merely a few such references. I provide additional examples below, all chosen from the nineteenth century, including some using the alternate spellings Cajan, Cajen, Cadian, Cadien and cadjien. This list is by no means comprehensive: other such references exist in the historical record and still others may await discovery.

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Addendum — Early Appearances 

of the Word Cajun and Its Variants

 

"As a people, the ‘Cajuns are very simple, for they live in communities so simple that straight conduct is a necessity. The men are fairly honest, but hot-blooded and often quarrelsome, the favorite weapon of the coast ‘Cajuns being the knife. . . . These ‘Cajuns are fine duck hunters, and know their country as no stranger can. . . ." ~ E. Hough, "The Sunny South — VI," Forest and Stream (23 March 1895), pp. 224-25.

 

"Presently we saw our first Acadians — nowhere spoken of in their own country otherwise than as ‘Cajuns." ~ Julian Ralph, "Along the Bayou Teche," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 87 (November 1893), p. 874.

 

"The Cajun is sui generis [one of a kind]. He has even lost resemblance to his Canadian brother. . . . Dancing and festivals are weekly affairs, for in Cajun land everybody knows everybody else, and entire communities are often bound by ties of kindred." ~ M. A. Byrne, "Cajun Housekeeping," Good Housekeeping (October 1891), p. 170.

Good Housekeeping (October 1891).

"In this delightful climate, where illness is almost unknown, people acquire the habit of living, and keep on ad infinitum, until, as [states] the proverb of the Cajuns (the descendants of the exiled Acadians), they get old, old, so old! then shrivel up and blow away." ~ T. W. Poole, Some Late Words about Louisiana (New Orleans: E. Marchand, 1889), p. 26.

"Will the Reveille [newspaper] point out of these appointments of Cadiens those who are not creoles." ~ The (St. Martinville, La.) Weekly Messenger, 29 October 1887, p. 1.

The (St. Martinville, La.) 
Weekly Messenger, 29 October 1887.

"The Creoles proper will not share their distinction with the native descendants of those worthy Acadian exiles who . . . found refuge in Louisiana. These remain ‘cadjiens’ or ‘cajuns’ . . . ." ~ George E. Waring Jr. and George W. Cable, History and Present Condition of New Orleans, Louisiana: Social Statistics of Cities, Tenth Census of the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1881), p. 10.

 

"[T]hese Acadians, or as in common colloquial parlance they are termed ‘Cajuns, are generally illiterate, and as a race non-progressive and unenterprising. Though of America they refuse to become Americanized. . . ." ~ Louisiana Bureau of Agriculture and Immigration, Louisiana Products, Resources and Attractions (New Orleans: Times-Democrat, 1881), p. 234.

Louisiana Products, Resources and Attractions (1881).

"Among themselves they are ‘Créole Français’; and Acadian — or rather its corruption ‘Cajun,’ as they pronounce it — is regarded as implying contempt." ~ "The Acadians of Louisiana," Scribner's Monthly XIX (January 1880), p. 383.

Scribner's Monthly XIX (January 1880).

"’The Acadians of Louisiana,’ — more familiarly called Cajuns — [are] a simple people, having much in common with their congeners described in Longfellow’s poem." ~ Scribner’s preview, The Ellsworth (Maine) American, 25 December 1879, p. 3.

 

"[W]e found [the campground] had been taken possession of by ‘Cadiens,’ whose little skiffs were moored to the shore." ~ "The Dredge," The Petite Anse Amateur (Avery Island, La.), April 1879, pp. 25-26.

 

"Il est impossible de relire les pages émues de l'exode des Acadiens, ou plutôt des Cadiens, car tel est le nom véritable de cette vaillante population. . . ." [Translation: "It’s impossible to read over the emotional pages about the exodus of the Acadians, or rather the Cadiens, for such is the true name of this valiant population. . . ." ~ "Bibliographie," The Opelousas Courier, 17 November 1877, p. 1.

The Opelousas Courier, 17 November 1877.

"The Cajan [sic] was as prolific as his Canadian cousin." ~ "Our People: Where They Came from Originally, the Source of the Population of Louisiana," The New Orleans Daily Democrat, 4 March 1877, p. 2.

 

"The Acadians — abbreviated to ‘Cajens’ by our laconic race — form a small portion of the Creole population." ~ Albert Rhodes, "The Louisiana Creoles," The Galaxy 16 (August 1873), p. 254; cited in Carl A. Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a People, 1803-1877 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992), p. 102.

 

"[Q]uite a lot of them ["French habitans" from Canada] came to Louisiana. Here they took the name of ‘Cadiens,’ a contraction of Canadians or of Arcadians [sic]. . . . [T]he Cadiens are scarcely the people to comprehend, or indeed to execute, the laws of a republic. . . . [They are] a sort of semi-Creole race. . . ." ~ "The Posse of Red River," New Orleans Republican, 27 May 1873, p. 2.

 

"Il entendait certains ignorants dire autour de lui: ‘Damned Cadians! — Les Acadiens ne sont pas Américans — Les Acadians sont des demi-créoles, etc.'" [Translation: "He heard some ignorant people say around him: ‘Damned Cadiens! — The Acadians aren’t Americans — The Acadians are half-Creoles, etc.'"] ~ "Acadiens," Le Louisianais (St. James Parish, La.), 2 November 1867, p. 1.

Le Louisianais, 2 November 1867.

Notes

 

(1) See my book Shane K. Bernard, The Cajuns: Americanization of a People (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), pp. 86-88, 93-94, 101-09, 136-37, 147. For more on the history of the word Cajun, including its variants, see Jacques Henry, "From Acadien to Cajun to Cadien: Ethnic Labelization and Construction of Identity," Journal of American Ethnic History 17 (Summer, 1998): 29-62. Henry’s article remains important to understanding the development of Cajun ethnic labels, though it should be noted the article is somewhat out-of-date: working without today’s Internet search capacities, Henry traced the word Cajun only as early as 1879 and found primarily negative references — though references are now known to extend back as early as 1862 and to include not only negative, but neutral and positive occurrences.

At the risk of seeming to construct a “straw man” argument,  I choose neither to identify nor quote the sources to which I take exception and that prompted me to write this essay. Although that practice would be requisite for an academic publication, and would in some ways strengthen my assertions, I nevertheless do not wish this discussion to involve personalities, but, rather, only issues of substance and actual historical evidence.

 

(2) “Cajun Chefs Help Prepare U.S. Army Mess in London,” The Troy (N.Y.) Record, 21 July 1943, p. 4.

(3) Images of the Cajun Queen and Cajun Coonass can be found in my blog article: Shane K. Bernard, "My Oddball Collection of Cajun Warplane Photos," Bayou Teche Dispatches, 31 May 2012. The original Cajun Coonass photograph is in the National Archives and Records Administration and is photograph #342-FH-3A-32507-79171a.c. It is dated "April, 1943" on verso; and "rec'd 7 Jan. 1944" on recto.

 

(4) “The ‘Cajuns’ of Louisiana,” Dallas (Tex.) News, reprinted in The Indianapolis Journal, 28 January 1898, p. 7.

 

(5) “A Boston Criticism of Cable,” New Orleans Picayune, reprinted in The Ouachita Telegraph (Monroe, La.), 28 April 1888, p. 1.

 

(6) “The Acadians: A Picturesque People Unchanged by Time,” San Francisco Chronicle, reprinted in The Abbeville (S.C.) Press and Banner, 29 June 1887, p. 7.

 

(7) “The Louisiana Cajuns,” Cincinnati Commercial, reprinted in The Delaware (Ohio) Gazette, 12 December 1862, p. 1.

(8) “La Negresse du Diable,” Le Pionnier de l'Assomption (Napoleonville, La.), 7 September 1851, p. 1.

Thoughts on Cajuns and "Whiteness"

This essay is one of four in which I address current issues in Cajun and Creole studies. The other essays can be found here.

I wrote these works not only as a historian, but as someone who identifies as both a Cajun and a Creole. As I note in one of these essays, “[M]any of my ancestors were Creoles of French heritage. My own family tree abounds with tell-tale Creole surnames: de la Morandière, Soileau, de la Pointe, Fuselier de la Claire, Brignac, Bordelon, de Livaudais, and others. . . . As such, I could, if I chose to do so (and sometimes I do), identify as Creole — doubly so because Cajuns themselves are to begin with a kind of Creole.”

I trust those with whom I express disagreement will accept this critique in the collegial spirit it is intended.

I thank Dr. Barry Jean Ancelet, Dr. David Cheramie, Dr. Phebe Hayes, independent researcher Don Arceneaux, and former CODOFIL president Warren A. Perrin for proofing the below essay. Thanks also to Dr. John Mack Faragher for proofing endnote six.

❧

In a recent essay I noted the understandable trend among some scholars and activists to reclaim what is Creole from the overweening, often misapplied blanket term Cajun. In another recent essay I examined the much less explicable trend of asserting, despite evidence to the contrary, that the word Cajun — and indeed the entire Cajun ethnic group — appeared only in the late 20th century.

"Cajun sugarcane farmer with daughter,
near New Iberia, Louisiana,"
Russell Lee, photographer (1938)
(Source: Library of Congress)

Another questionable claim, found recently in both academic and more journalistic or bloggish sources, concerns the "whiteness"(1) of the Cajun people. In short, some writers claim that Cajuns were not considered "white" until the 20th century and even, according to some, until the late 20th century.(2)

Historical evidence, however, does not bear out this statement, which is often presented axiomatically, with little or no primary-source documentation, as if a self-evident truth.

Granted, the historical record does contain at least a few references suggesting a certain non-white quality to the Cajun people. In 1860, for example, a widely printed newspaper article noted of the Cajuns (called "Acadians" in the piece), "[They] are a strange clannish people, resembling much in appearance and habits, the race of Gipsies [sic]." Then, in 1922, a Cajun surnamed Pitre sued a man for slander who supposedly called him "a damned dirty low-down 'Cadian' — pronouncing it 'Cajan' — and a damned half-breed n*****." This, however, is not so strong an example as it may at first seem, because the defendant convinced a judge that he had not hurled the racial epithet at the Cajun plaintiff — who described himself in court as "of the Caucasian race, of Acadian descent" — but rather at a black messenger sent on behalf of the Cajun plaintive.(3)

Pitre v. Sacker,
in The Southern Reporter (1922)

Another questionable example dates from 1945, when a book reviewer described a novel's fictional characters as "a poverty-stricken population of poor whites and cajuns [sic]" — arguably suggesting Cajuns were something other than "poor whites." (Perhaps poor non-whites?) There is also the occasional reference to Cajuns as non-whites that can be traced to a simple lack of cultural understanding. For instance, in 1897 an Iowan visiting south Louisiana noted, "[T]he natives, a mixture of Negro and Mexican, are called 'Cajuns' (Acadians)." (Even so, this is not so egregious an error as one by a mid-20th-century author who traced the Cajuns' ethnicity to Christian disciples in first-century Armenia!)(4)

Decorah (Iowa) 
Public Opinion (1897)

Found more frequently, however, are references to Cajuns as separated from the mass of white people not by race, but by class. In 1866, for instance, a writer for Harper's described Cajuns as "the descendants of Canadian French settlers in Louisiana; and by dint of intermarriage [with each other] they have succeeded in getting pretty well down in the social scale. Without energy, education, or ambition, they are good representatives of the white trash." This negative classist view persisted into the modern era, when, for example, United Artists re-released a 1956 motion picture set among hostile Cajuns under the new title Poor White Trash. Again, this trend reflects a perceived class distinction, not a racial one, between Cajuns and other whites.(5)

Ad for the Cajun-themed movie Poor White Trash,
originally released under the title Bayou (1956 & 1961).

Turning from class back to the original issue of race: despite rare and iffy exceptions, the general trend is that others have overwhelmingly viewed Cajuns as "white." In fact, the historical record indicates that Cajuns have been considered "white" since well into the 19th-century, when their Acadian ancestors and other ethnic groups coalesced in south Louisiana to become the Cajuns.(6)

I find this unsurprising because the Cajuns' ancestors hailed primarily from Europe (mainly France, but also Germany, Spain, and elsewhere on the continent) and because Cajuns — according to commonly held standards persisting over time — "looked white" and, for all practical purposes, were "white." (At this point it is worth noting that race is increasingly viewed as an outmoded concept, one unsupported by biology or other scientific fields. This is, however, problematic for historians because, even if the idea of race is bankrupt, the concept nevertheless remains an extremely strong catalyst in historical events.)(7)

I base my assertions about Cajun "whiteness" on evidence like that found in the below list of historical references. This list makes no pretense of completeness: there are no doubt many more historical references to Cajuns as "white" remaining to be found.

Some of the below sources express negative views of Cajuns as well as overtly racist sentiments about African Americans. This unpleasant fact, however, has no bearing on the issue at hand: those benighted sources, like the more innocuous ones, nonetheless viewed Cajuns as "white." Indeed, I find it interesting that the racist sources, instead of rejecting the perhaps suspect Roman Catholic, French-speaking Cajuns as something other than "white," actually embraced them as "white." (Likewise, I believe it speaks volumes that, as historian Carl A. Brasseaux has noted of the racist White League chapters formed in postbellum south Louisiana, "Acadians [Cajuns] constituted a disproportionately large percentage of their memberships." This prompts the question, "If Cajuns were not viewed as 'white' until recently, why, then, did so many belong to this 19th-century white supremacist group?")(8)

Brasseaux's 
Acadian to Cajun (1992)

Here is the list of supporting evidence for Cajun "whiteness":

❧

"They proposed to hang the whole settlement because a colored man living there once killed a white Acadian [Cajun]." ~ "The Vigilantes of Vermilion," New Orleans Republican, reprinted in The Opelousas Journal, 21 November 1873, p. 2.

Clarksville (Tenn.)
Weekly Chronicle (1884)

"The Acadians are all white . . . [and] are still a strong reminder of the old Norman stock of which they come. . . ." ~ "The Acadians," New York Telegram, reprinted in Clarksville (Tenn.) Weekly Chronicle, 3 May 1884, p. 4.

Albert, The House of Bondage (1890).

"Who were these 'Cadien patrollers, Uncle Stephen?' 'Why, child, they were the meanest things in creation; they were poor, low down white folks. . . .'" ~ Octavia Victoria Rogers Albert, The House of Bondage; Or, Charlotte Brooks and Other Slaves [fictional work] (New York: Hunt & Eaton, 1890), p. 106. 

"Nearly all the white folks who trudged along the highway were Acadians. . . . and it is strange indeed to hear that we must not call them 'Cajuns to their faces. . . ." ~ Julian Ralph, "Acadians at Home," Harper's Magazine, reprinted in The Indianapolis Journal, 3 November 1893, p. 2.

Ralph, "Acadians at Home," 
Harper's (1893)

"It is a race war rather than a political fight that is now waging in St. Landry Parish in Louisiana. It is between the Acadians . . . and the negro [sic]. . . . [N]ine-tenths of the white people are Acadians, descendants of the unfortunate French settlers of Nova Scotia. They have no use for the negro, and the national [natural?] antipathy between the two races is very strong." ~ No title, Waterbury (Conn.) Evening Democrat, 17 April 1896, p. 2.

Waterbury (Conn.)
Evening Democrat (1896)

"[A]mong these white men, and forming a large portion of them, are the descendants of the Acadians who were transported from Nova Scotia to Louisiana. . . ." ~ The Sunday at Home 45 (1897), p. 408.

"But many of the best white families in Louisiana, especially the descendants of the old Acadians, keep their ancient simplicity and are unable to read." ~ "The Negro's Ballot," The (Phoenix) Arizona Republican, 22 January 1898, p. 2.

"The third class of white colonists were the Acadians, or, as they are popularly called in Louisiana today, 'Cagans.'" ~ "Whites in the Majority," The (Washington, D.C.) Times, 12 August 1901, p. 3. [Note: by "third class" the author does not mean "inferior"; he means Cajuns are by chance the third group of white Louisianians discussed in his article.]

"[T]he Acadians in Louisiana are about the most prolific white people on the globe." ~ No title, The Colfax (Wash.) Gazette, 13 September 1901, p. 4.

Colfax (Wash.) Gazette (1901)

"[Y]our Cajan will give a lazy ha ha, where any other white man would swear. . . ." ~ E. H. Lancaster, "The Wooing of Angela" [fictional work], The Coalville (Utah) Times, 5 December 1902, p. 3.

"[T]he negroes [sic] are being crowded out of work on the sugar plantations by white labor, such as Acadians. . . ." ~ "Negro's Critical Position in the Industrial World," The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer, 7 December 1902, Section One, p. 11.

"Then there are the 'Cajuns,' white people, the descendants of the Acadians. . . ." ~ "Louisiana Sugar: Statement of Joe B. Chaffe, Representing the American Cane Growers' Association," Senate Documents, 67th Congress, 2nd Session, 1921-1922, Vol. 5, Part 3 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1922), p. 2308.

Senate Documents (1922)

"The whites, transported by separate barges, were Acadian farming families, chattering among themselves in a thick, unfamiliar French dialect." ~ Will Irwin, "Except for War, America Knows No Destruction Equal to That of Flood, Writes Noted Author," New Britain (Conn.) Herald, 17 May 1927, Sec. 2, p. 21.

"A majority of the white tenants are 'Cajuns.' These Cajuns are trustworthy, but as a rule are illiterate." ~ Sherrod De Floy Morehead, Merchant Credit to Farmers in Louisiana (Russellville, [Ark.?]: privately printed, 1929), p. 16.

"One of the films in the making is a story of the Cajuns, a little known group of primitive whites." ~ "Out Where the Movies Begin," (Washington, D.C.) Evening Star, 24 May 1933, p. B-12.

(Washington, D.C.) Evening Star (1933)

"[The Creoles] often had a word for the poorer Cajuns: 'Canaille!' — that was their way of saying poor-white trash." ~ Shields McIlwaine, The Southern Poor-White from Lubberland to Tobacco Road (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939), p. 143.

"[T]he Cajuns, the Louisiana poor white descendants of Longfellow's Acadians. . . ." ~ The Journal of Negro History 34 (1949), p. 123.

Notes

(1) In this essay I use the term "whiteness" to mean "a set of characteristics and experiences generally associated with being a member of the white race and having white skin." Although I am primarily interested in this basic definition, the term "whiteness" can also refer, for example, to "the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups are compared" and "a historically contingent and socially constructed racial category, once defined . . . by privilege and power. . . ." among other, similar definitions. Nicki Lisa Cole, "The Definition of Whiteness in American Society," ThoughtCo.com, 8 November 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/whiteness-definition-3026743, accessed 22 November 2020; "Whiteness," National Museum of African American History and Culture/Smithsonian Institution, https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/whiteness, accessed 22 November 2020; Teresa J. Guess, "The Social Construction of Whiteness: Racism by Intent, Racism by Consequence," Critical Sociology 32 (July 2006), p. 667, per https://www.cwu.edu/diversity/sites/cts.cwu.edu.diversity/files/documents/constructingwhiteness.pdf, accessed 22 November 2020.

At the risk of seeming to construct a “straw man” argument, I choose neither to identify nor quote the sources to which I take exception and that prompted me to write this essay. Although that practice would be requisite for an academic publication, and would in some ways strengthen my assertions, I nevertheless do not wish this discussion to involve personalities, but, rather, only issues of substance and actual historical evidence.

(2) The word Cajun is used in this essay to refer solely to the so-named people of south Louisiana and a small portion of east Texas, not to the identically named persons of different heritage who inhabit part of Alabama and who have been described in modern scholarship as "not entirely White, Black, or Indian but [who] constitute a triracial community somewhat reproductively isolated and inbred." See W. S. Pollitzer et al., "The Cajuns of Southern Alabama: Morphology and Serology," American Journal of Physical Anthropology 47 (July 1977): pp. 1-6; the quote is from the abstract of this article found on the website of the National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/888930/, accessed 19 November 2020.

(3) "Acadians in Louisiana," The [Baltimore, Md.] Daily Exchange, 19 October 1860, p. 1; Pitre v. Sacker, 23 June 1922, Louisiana Supreme Court, No. 23387 (151 La. 1079, 92 So. 705 [1922]), cited in Louisiana Reports, Vol. 151 (St. Paul: West Publishing, 1922), p. 1079.

(4) "A Lion in the Streets" [book review], (Washington, D.C.) Evening Star, 10 June 1945, p. C-3; Mrs. Geo. P. Bent, "From Sunny Climes," Decorah (Iowa) Public Opinion, 16 March 1897, p. 1; André Cajun [pseudonym], Why Louisiana Has. . . (New Orleans: Harmanson, 1947), pp. 16-21. This volume reads, "The story of the class, or group of people in Louisiana known as 'Cajuns'[,] began the hour St. Bartholomew, a disciple [of Jesus], gave up the ghost. The location of this sad event was the ancient land of Armenia. . . ." The author goes on to state that over roughly 1,700 years a group of persecuted Christians migrated from Armenia to France, Nova Scotia, and, finally, Louisiana, where they became the Cajuns.

André Cajun's
Why Louisiana Has. . . (1947)

(5) Shane K. Bernard, The Cajuns: Americanization of a People (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), pp. xvii, 121. In this 2003 book I note that Cajuns were known to be reviled by local blacks as "Acadian n*****s," which would appear to be a prime example of labeling Cajuns as non-whites. On closer examination, however, I see that the original 19th-century quote states, "the n******, when they want to express contempt for one of their own race, call him [a fellow black person] an Acadian n*****." In other words, this pejorative was used as a black-on-black insult, not as an expression of Cajun non-whiteness. See A. R. W. [Alfred Rudolph Waud], "Acadians of Louisiana," Harper's Weekly, 20 October 1866, p. 670.

(6) One researcher has questioned the "whiteness" of the original Acadian exiles arriving in Louisiana, noting esteemed Yale historian John Mack Faragher's examination, in his 2006 book A Great and Noble Scheme, of "métissage" — the intermarriage of French settlers in Acadie with the indigenous Míkmaq. While it is true that Acadians and Míkmaq often produced métis offspring, it is important to avoid exaggerating the extent of this interracial mixing. Métissage played a more important role in Acadia's early history, when French male colonists turned to Native American women for companionship because of a lack of female colonists. This trend, however, became less common with the arrival of additional French women and entire French families, as well as with the coming of French priests who discouraged interracial dalliances. As Faragher himself notes, "métissage declined as colonists spent more time farming and less time trading [with Native Americans]. It was replaced by the recruitment of wayfaring Europeans." Faragher also states that while in some ways the Acadians and Míkmaq were "brothers," it was nonetheless the case that "Acadians and Míkmaq maintained separate identities and separate communities. . . ." By the 1730s, Faragher observes, "Acadians and Míkmaq were no longer as close as they once had been. Métissage was increasingly rare, and the [Roman Catholic] missionary Pierre Maillard pursued a course that kept natives separate from [colonial] inhabitants." In short, while Acadians and Míkmaq were interrelated, Faragher does not go so far as to assert that the Acadians had ceased to be primarily of European extract or, for that matter, ceased to be considered by others as "white." As a French-language Louisiana newspaper, Le Louisianais, therefore stated in 1873, "Rappellons nous donc les Acadiens. Ils étaient blancs, pauvres, honnêtes et robustes. . . ." — "Let us thus remember the Acadians. They were white, poor, honest and robust" [emphasis added]. See John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006), pp. 63, 160, 203; "Local," Le Louisianais (Covent, La.), 15 February 1873, p. 1.

Faragher's A Great
and Noble Scheme (2006)

(7) See for example Elizabeth Kolbert, "There's No Scientific Basis for Race — It's a Made-Up Label," National Geographic, 12 March 2018, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-genetics-science-africa/#clos, accessed 19 November 2020; Megan Gannon, "Race Is a Social Construct, Scientists Argue," Scientific American, 5 February 2016, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/, accessed 19 November 2020; Melissa Rice, "Evolution and Race: Biologically, Race is No Longer an Issue, Scientific Panel Agrees," Cornell Chronicle, 11 February 2009, https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2009/02/experts-biologically-race-no-longer-issue, accessed 19 November 2020; "Executive Summary: AAPA Statement on Race and Racism," American Association of Physical Anthropologists, ca. 27 March 2019, https://physanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/, accessed 19 November 2020.

(8) Carl A. Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a People, 1803-1877 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992), 144.