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The stories that history tells us: Afro-Créole literature from 19th Century Louisiana |
| This research project was funded by a grant from the Louisiana Independent College Foundation, sponsored by the following organizations: United Parcel Services Foundation; The Foundation for Independent Higher Education; Bank One, Louisiana; Louisiana Public Facilities Authority; Howard Computers. |
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Introduction |
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by Jennifer Gipson |
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Almost one hundred years before the Harlem Renaissance, a rich Afro-Creole literary tradition flourished in Louisiana. In antebellum New Orleans, a diverse and educated group of French-speaking “free persons of color” established their own cultural identity, generating a sizable literary corpus that continued even after the Civil War. Though little-known today, the nineteenth-century francophone writings of these free African-Americans represent a fascinating aspect of Louisiana history and American literary heritage. These works reflect the hardships their authors endured living in a society that enslaved their brothers and sister (sometimes literally) and forced them to add the initials “H.C.L.” to their signature to indicate their inferior social status as Hommes de Couleur Libres. These remarkable people published a their own newspapers and literary journal, fought bravely in the battle of New Orleans, educated black children, and even won literary acclaim in Europe. Their accomplishments and writings are as varied as their lives and backgrounds. Many free Afro-Creoles were staunch abolitionists although some owned slaves for various reasons or lengths of time. Often, French-speaking blacks from privileged families went to France in search of an education. Many chose to remain there in order to enjoy greater liberties. Victor Séjour, for instance, finished his days in Europe where he published numerous plays and became the personal secretary of Napeoleon III. However, even in New Orleans some free African-American children enjoyed educational opportunities thanks to the foresight of Mrs. Marie Couvent. This generous philanthropist, thought to have been born in Africa and sold into slavery in Louisiana, provided for a school for black orphans in her will. At L’Institution Couvent, orphans and other children benefited from the tutelage and friendship of teachers such as Armand Lanusse and “Monsieur Joanni,” their name for Joanni Questy a gifted writer and linguist. Interestingly, Louisiana’s free black Creoles, eighty percent of whom could read and write in 1850, boasted a higher literacy rate than the white population as James Cowan points out in La Marseillaise Noire. Nineteenth-century Afro-Creole literature focused not only on political and racial issues, but also included, among other things, love poems, prayers, and echoes of French romanticism. Due to an 1830 law that provided severe penalties for anyone inciting rebellion or racial tensions among African-Americans, there are few overt mentions of anti-slavery movement in antebellum works. The flourishing oral tradition of the black community, slave and free, included innumerable Creole tales. In 1845, seventeen free black Creoles published a collection of eighty-two poems, Les Cenelles, Choix de Poésies Indigènes, that is considered the first anthology of African-American poetry published in the United States. Amidst the federal occupation of New Orleans, francophone Afro-Creoles founded L’Union, a newspaper that, even from its first issue on September 27, 1862, made its political intentions clear. After the close of L’Union, La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans, journal politique, progressiste, et commericial, reaching a wider readership by including selections in English as well. It continued to support the interests of the free black community and published their poems and serialized fiction alongside the day’s most popular literature from France. La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans claimed the remarkable distinction of the first black daily newspaper published in the United States. Even after the civil war, Louisiana’s French-speaking African-Americans continued their active literary and social involvement. Many of them, like Homer Plessy who was actually a black Louisiana francophone, challenged segregation of public places and transportation. Yet, in 1896, when the United States Supreme Court established the infamous “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson, linguistic assimilation left few readers—of any race—in Louisiana who could appreciate the rich literary heritage of Louisiana’s francophone Afro-Creoles. Certainly, several surveys of Louisiana literature have touched on this intriguing literary tradition, most notably Les Ecrits Louisianais de Langue Française by Edward Laroque Tinker. Without a doubt, Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes’ Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire in Canada in 1911, stands as an important tribute to the history of his ancestors and a major source of information about their substantial literary, artistic, and scientific accomplishments. (Sister Dorothea Olga McCants’ translation, Our People and Our History, appeared in 1973.) While recent scholarship, especially Dr. Frans C. Amelinckx’s work with the writings of Michel Seligny and James Cowan’s anthology of poetry La Marseillaise Noire, has begun to delve into Afro-Creole literature, transcriptions of most writings are not easily accessible and translations are extraordinarily rare. Indeed, microfilm reels and archives, both in the United States and France, undoubtedly hold many unknown works. Today, nearly one hundred and fifty years after most of these works were penned, we still have much to learn from these extraordinary writings; they offer a new perspective on the diversity of our nation's literary heritage and the development of African-American and francophone literature. They are precious literary and cultural treasures that provide glimpses into the oppression, struggles, and victories of a unique group of people—a people whose voices finally deserve to be heard…and heeded. Selected Bibliography Amelinckx, Frans C., Ed. Michel Séligny: Homme
Libre de Couleur de la Nouvelle-Orléans. Les
Presses de L’Université Laval, 1998. |