Question

The Creole in history

Answer 1

Like many other U.S. ethnic groups, Creoles hasn't migrated from a native nation. In the seventeenth century , the term Creole was first used to describe descendants of French , Spanish, or Portuguese immigrants residing in the West Indies and Latin America. It is widely accepted that the term "Creole" comes from the Portuguese word crioulo, meaning a slave raised in the household of a master. A single description sufficed in the early days of European colonial expansion, but the term acquired various definitions as the Creole communities developed divergent social, political , and economic identities. Creole in the West Indies refers to a descendant of any European settler;

This recognizes Francophone communities of French or Spanish origin in Louisiana. Throughout the French and Spanish colonial periods their ancestors were whites of the upper class, many of whom were plantation owners or officials. They developed a separate caste that used French during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were Catholics and maintained in France the traditional cultural features of similar social classes, but they were the first French group to be absorbed by Anglo-American citizens. They had essentially ceased to exist as a separate party in the late twentieth century. Creoles of color, descendants of free mulattos and free blacks, are another group in Louisiana that is considered Creole.

According to Virginia A. Dominguez in White By Design, much of Creoles' written record comes from accounts of individuals in Catholic Churches in Mobile (Alabama) and New Orleans, two large French outposts on the Gulf Coast, in the baptismal, marriage and death registry. The earliest reference is a 1745 death record, in which a man was identified as the colony's first Creole. The term also appears during a New Orleans slave court in 1748.