Louisiana holds most unique Black history

Louisiana may well have the most distinctive African American history in the nation. For the average person, the notion of black history conjures up images of newly-freed slaves following General Sherman on his march through Georgia, a sit-in at a North Carolina Woolworth’s, or perhaps the eloquence of Martin Luther King Jr. before a massive crowd on the Mall of our nation’s capital. What few outside our state realize is how progressive Louisiana was in the early years of black experience in America.

During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, slave traders brought thousands of captives across the Atlantic up the Mississippi to fill Louisiana’s demand for plantation labor. Though far from willing immigrants, these Africans came from a proud heritage. In the days when the French controlled the Mississippi River Valley, many of the bondsmen hailed from the Mandingo and Bamana peoples, each of which had once ruled a vast West Africa empire. Others came from the Kingdom of Dahomey, an aggressively expansionist warrior nation that occupied roughly the same territory as modern Benin. As time passed and the Spanish took over as the power in the region, the vast majority of Africans arrived from West Central Africa, whose people had fallen prey to social and political instability. Included among the late arrivals were citizens of the once-mighty Kingdom of the Kongo, a heavily-populated Christian state that had fallen on hard times after a disastrous conflict with Portugal.

In a situation unique to our area, many people of African descent arrived in Louisiana as free people and would never experience life as slaves. These were refugees from Haiti who had fled a 1791 slave uprising that would eventually establish the western hemisphere’s second oldest nation. The newcomers—often of mixed race—sometimes owned slaves themselves. So numerous were the immigrants that they approximately doubled the population of New Orleans.

The Haitian immigrants contributed to the growth of Louisiana’s uniquely important mixed-race population, known as Creoles of Color. Unlike elsewhere in the United States, Louisiana’s Creoles were often leaders. Several were plantation owners, a notable community of which was founded in Natchitoches Parish along the banks of Cane River by the family of Marie Thérèse Metoyer, also as known as Coincoin. In South Louisiana, the Creoles played a significant role in the protection of New Orleans. They saw action in the War of 1812, earning praise from General Andrew Jackson for their bravery. Later they would serve in the Civil War, initially supporting the Confederacy but switching to the Union after the fall of the city. Others would serve as religious leaders like Marie Laveau, musicians like Edmund Dédé, or members of the large Creole business sector.

Louisiana was also home to some of the earliest civil rights pioneers. P.B.S. Pinchback, for instance, became the first person of African descent to serve as governor of a U.S. state in 1872. Twenty years later, New Orleanian Homer Plessy challenged Jim Crow laws in their infancy when he boarded a whites-only car on a South Louisiana commuter train. Though the Supreme Court of the United States would ultimately rule against Plessy and his supporters, his courage, like many who came before and after was profound.

The state’s black community enriched the entire nation. The descendants of Kongo captives and Haitian refugees would work alongside African Americans from across the country to achieve the resounding success of the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-twentieth century. Their contributions have gone well beyond politics, however. Louisianans—and others throughout the nation—imbibe Louisiana’s African American culture whenever they listen to Jazz or eat gumbo.