AFRICAN AMERICANS IN NATCHITOCHE, LOUISIANA: AN ORAL REMEMBRANCE

In 1999, through funding from the Lower Mississippi Delta and the National Park Service an oral history project began concerning African American history in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. As a result of that project, an ethnographic study was commissioned to examine the history of Africans in the area and African Americans in Natchitoches Parish. Through oral histories and analysis of primary and secondary sources, investigation of the history, development, and culture of African Americans from 1722 through the present was conducted. The analysis investigated the cultures of enslaved workers and Free Negroes, as well as providing insights into the role of these groups’ presence in Natchitoches and Louisiana history. The bulk of this report focuses on the in-depth analysis and content from the oral histories. Themes addressed in the analysis include: plantation life, making a living, education, politics and race relations, religious life, health and disease, traditional medicines, leisure time, and out migration patterns.

Natchitoches is one of the longest-settled areas in Louisiana. It is located along the Cane River in the western part of the state. Prior to the 1760s Cane River and Red River intersected at Natchitoches. In the 1830s Cane River was the main channel of the Red River (Nardini, 1963). Changes in the course of the Red River in the 1760s and 1830s resulted in abandonment of the Red River at the Natchitoches juncture and the larger of the courses was renamed Cane River. Later, in the 1930s the river was dammed and is now known as Cane River Lake (Mills, 1977).

Cane River National Heritage Area created and Cane River Creole National Historical Park were established on November 2, 1994 (Keel, 1999). The park and National Heritage Area provide examples of plantation life and the African American experience. For instance, the area provides examples of farmsteads and townhouses, a reconstructed colonial fort and numerous plantations that are administered by the National Park Service, the State of Louisiana, the Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches, the St. Augustine Historical Foundation, and individual property owners. The Natchitoches National Historic Landmark District includes houses formerly owned by large plantation owners, as well as civic and commercial structures. This includes the reconstructed French settlement of Fort St. Jean Baptiste, farther west are the Spanish mission post and the Caddoan Indian settlement of Los Adaes (MacDonald et al. 2002).

Cane River people distinguish between hill people in the area around Kisatchie National Forest and those in lower-lying Cane River areas. They differ in terms of speech, ethnic heritage, occupations, resources used and ecology. The hill area is home to the Clifton Choctaw Community, Creoles of Color, African Americans and Europeans, some descended from the French while others are a mixture. Some came in the 1930s, before the national forest was established, as part of the timber and sawmill companies. Creoles and blacks had kin in the hill towns and depended on them economically for sassafras leaves for teas and gumbo seasoning (Crespi, 2002).

This volume focuses on those in the lower-lying areas such as Natchitoches. In particular, the aim of the study is to examine the context for life among African Americans in Natchitoches Parish from an historical perspective. African Americans of Cane River have a rich history and culture. This history and culture is rooted in their African origins. Africans were taken to Natchitoches Parish in the early 1700s. Because they came from a common area in West Africa, slaves were able to maintain a sense of community, culture, and language. As they adapted to the New World, they transmitted this sense of community from one generation to the next. As discussed in the historical section, blacks always constituted a large part of the population in Natchitoches and therefore were always integral to theeconomy and social life of the area. It was their labor, free and cheap, that formed the basis for life in the Cane River area.

Unlike other regions of the United States, under French and later Spanish rule laws governing slaves and free people of color were more flexible and lenient compared to the English colonies. Entries in plantation journals suggest that slaves were not treated as harsh as in other parts of the south. Also, the Code Noir allowed for easier manumission of slaves and once freed, they were able to have a lifestyle similar to whites in the area. That is, they were able to own land and found their own communities. As such, a free people of color, Creole, population existed in the 1700s and 1800s alongside free blacks and black slaves.

Distinctions between blacks and Creoles can be seen early in the genesis of the two groups. With the founding of communities of color such as Isle Brevelle, education and land inherited or given to the children and black mistresses of French and Spanish men, Creoles were able to attain a better way of life. Consequently, there was an economic divide between blacks and Creoles which became a social divide.

The relationship between blacks and Creoles has always been distant. That is, since the time of Marie Thereze, they have been separate communities. Through interviews, it is clear that they did not socialize together and intermarriage results in strained relations between the families (although intermarriage is also bridging the distance between the two groups). This distance relaxed after the civil rights period when blacks had access to education and opportunity. However, to some extent this distance still remains. Cultural differences symbolized by differences in physical features seem to maintain the separateness between the two groups.

While Creoles were better off than blacks, like many living in the rural south in the early twentieth century, poverty was the equalizer. To put it bluntly, blacks in Natchitoches were poor. They lived in dilapidated houses, had little money and lived under a racial caste system that subjugated them. This subjugation was inherent in the sharecrop system. The land has always been an integral part of the lives of African descendents since the transatlantic slave trade. First as slaves and later as farmers (sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and day laborers) blacks were tied to the land. Consequently, their everyday life revolved around farm life. This is shown by their remembrance of typical days and social life.

Blacks were sharecroppers, tenant farmers and cheap laborers. As such, it was their labor that provided the basis for the wealth of the area. As poor people, on a certain economic level, they were barely surviving. But, on a social level, this poverty, and historical connections, created a cohesive community that was a large village. While poverty and discrimination were a fact of daily life, they found ways to maintain a sense of African American identity and community.

Sharing and helping one another were a way of life among these residents. They worked together, played together and prayed together. Their culture centered on community, school, and church. Sharing was an integral part of community and survival of the community. People helped one another not only in terms of food and work but caring for and taking care of children. All adults were parents to children and children respected adults. In this environment, people respected their elders and were expected to be respectful to all adults. Teachers were the role models for children and adults. They were respected and went beyond teaching the basics to ‘forming’ the total person. As such, teachers were central to the community. The church provided spiritual support but also was a center for identifying those in need of other types of support, e.g. food, medical, and emotional support. Through all of the hardships blacks in the early 1900s in Natchitoches were supportive of one another, respected one another and had a strong sense of “us.”

Simultaneously, they found numerous ways to enjoy themselves. Poverty did not stop them from having fun. They had baseball teams, attended horse races, had boxing, juke joints, and live entertainers such as the Sereanaders. Children played games typical for their age, especially in the south. While they had to sit upstairs in theatres and could not eat in white-owner restaurants, as elsewhere in this country, they had their own establishments.

Segregation and integration were extremely important periods for the country and for Cane River residents. Politics revolved around these periods. As elsewhere in the United States, institutions were manipulated to make blacks submissive and to discriminate against them in education, employment, and in the political process. Segregation and discrimination fueled the “us” as it did for blacks all over the United States. Segregation infiltrated every aspect of daily life from where you could live, work, enjoy entertainment, school, church to marriage and family life. Blacks were harassed by the very people who were supposed to protect them, “the Black rock.” They were denied equal education, jobs and prevented from voting to make their lives better. Like blacks all over the United States, the early to mid-twentieth century were fraught with intimidation and violence to keep blacks in their place. “The Good Darky Statue” was symbolic of that era.

In the black community, however, people used their citizenship to end segregation and bring about integration. This required registering to vote and actually voting. Blacks in Natchitoches organized for this with help from national organizations such as the NAACP. And, like Birmingham and Atlanta, they had a central location, First Baptist North, which served as the base for clandestine meetings to bring about integration. On an individual and group basis they organized their communities and had individuals willing to stand up to the established social order to say ‘no you will follow the law here and we will be treated as equal citizens.’ In the end, of course, blacks succeeded in their efforts. But, it was a struggle and blacks today are continuing that struggle.

Blacks in Natchitoches lived in a rural environment. Like others living in the rural south, many were poor farmers. And, like other poor southerners they built upon their history by maintaining their sense of community that was created by their ancestors. Also like rural dwellers in the early twentieth century south, church and community were central to their existence as a people. That is, the lives of blacks in Natchitoches revolved around the land, church and “village life.” As one participant stated, if you are from Natchitoches, you usually return home. It seems that fond remembrance of community, as opposed to segregation, form the backbone of life for African Americans in Natchitoches. Through a rich cultural history, church, community, and family, African Americans in Natchitoches maintain a strong sense of identity, ethnicity, and group cohesion.