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74-493: Louisiana Creole is a French-based creole language spoken by fewer than 10,000 people, mostly in the U.S. state of Louisiana . Also known as Kouri-Vini , it is spoken today by people who may racially identify as white , black , mixed , and Native American , as well as Cajun and Creole . It should not be confused with its sister language, Louisiana French , a dialect of the French language . Many Louisiana Creoles do not speak

148-474: A nasal palatal approximant when between vowels, which results in the preceding vowel becoming nasalized. At the end of a word, it typically is replaced by /n/ or /ŋ/ . The table above shows the oral and nasal vowels of Louisiana Creole as identified by linguists. Speakers of the language may use rounded vowels [y] , [ø] and [œ] where they occur in French. This is subject to a high degree of variation with

222-624: A chief, sufficiently courageous, to lead them on to vengeance and slaughter." Raynal's Enlightenment philosophy went deeper than a prediction and reflected many similar philosophies, including those of Rousseau and Diderot . Raynal's admonition was written thirteen years before the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen , which highlighted freedom and liberty but did not abolish slavery. In addition to Raynal's influence, Toussaint Louverture ,

296-420: A commodity crop from cultivation of sugarcane , which required extensive labor. The colony of Saint-Domingue also had extensive coffee , cocoa , and indigo plantations, but these were smaller and less profitable than the sugar plantations. The commodity crops were traded for European goods. Starting in the 1730s, French engineers constructed complex irrigation systems to increase sugarcane production. By

370-407: A connection to Enlightenment scholars through the style, language, and accent of this text. Like Louverture, Jean-Baptiste Belley was an active participant in the insurrection. The portrait of Belley by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson depicts a man who encompasses the French view of its colonies, creating a stark dichotomy between the refinement of Enlightenment thought and the reality of

444-488: A contributor to Louisiana Creole's lexical base. Over the centuries, Louisiana Creole's negative associations with slavery stigmatized the language to the point where many speakers are reluctant to use it for fear of ridicule. In this way, the assignment of "high" variety (or H language) was allotted to standard Louisiana French and that of "low" variety (or L language) was given to Louisiana Creole and to Louisiana French. The social status of Louisiana Creole further declined as

518-579: A creole music festival in 2012 called the "Creole Renaissance Festival", which acts a celebration of Creole culture. A small number of community organizations focus on promoting Louisiana Creole, for example CREOLE, Inc. and the "Creole Table" founded by Velma Johnson. Northwestern State University developed the Creole Heritage Centre, designed to bring people of Louisiana Creole heritage together, as well as preserve Louisiana Creole through their Creole Language Documentation Project. In addition, there

592-541: A creole, the precursor was considered a pidgin language. The social situation that gave rise to the Louisiana Creole language was unique, in that the lexifier language was the language found at the contact site. More often the lexifier is the language that arrives at the contact site belonging to the substrate / adstrate languages. Neither the French, the French-Canadians, nor the enslaved Africans were native to

666-488: A document from a murder trial in the colonial period that acknowledges the existence of Louisiana Creole. The documentation does not include any examples of orthography or structure. In an 1807 document, a grammatical description of the language is included in the experiences of an enslaved woman recorded by C.C. Robin. This was prior to arrival in Louisiana of French-speaking colonists and enslaved Africans from Saint-Domingue;

740-466: A free black who was familiar with Enlightenment ideas within the context of European colonialism, would become a key "enlightened actor" in the Haitian Revolution. Enlightened thought divided the world into "enlightened leaders" and "ignorant masses." Louverture sought to bridge this divide between the popular masses and the enlightened few by striking a balance between Western Enlightened thought as

814-629: A margin of almost eight to one. Two-thirds of the slaves were African born, and they tended to be less submissive than those born in the Americas and raised in slave societies. The death rate in the Caribbean exceeded the birth rate, so imports of enslaved Africans were necessary to maintain the numbers required to work the plantations. The slave population declined at an annual rate of two to five percent, due to overwork, inadequate food and shelter, insufficient clothing and medical care, and an imbalance between

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888-495: A nasal consonant are nasalized, e.g. [kɔ̃nɛ̃] 'know'. Louisiana Creole exhibits subject-verb-object (SVO) word order. In 19th-century sources, determiners in Louisiana Creole appear related to specificity . Bare nouns are non-specific. As for specific nouns, if the noun is presupposed it took a definite determiner ( -la , singular; -la-ye , plural) or by an indefinite determiner ( en, singular; de or -ye , plural). Today, definite articles in Louisiana Creole vary between

962-685: A necessary means of winning liberation, and not propagating the notion that it was morally superior to the experiences and knowledge of people of color on Saint-Domingue. Louverture wrote a constitution for a new society in Saint-Domingue that abolished slavery . The existence of slavery in Enlightened society was an incongruity that had been left unaddressed by European scholars prior to the French Revolution . Louverture took on this inconsistency directly in his constitution. In addition, he exhibited

1036-590: A result of the Louisiana Purchase . Americans and their government made it illegal for Francophones to speak their language. In 1921, the State of Louisiana mandated that public education take place in English only. Children and adults were often punished by corporal punishment, fines, and social degradation. By the 21st century, other methods were enforced. The promise of upward socioeconomic mobility and public shaming did

1110-586: A rigid caste system was defined. Most historians classify the people of the era into three groups: The first group were white colonists, or les blancs . This group was generally subdivided into the plantation owners and a lower class of whites who often served as overseers or day laborers, as well as artisans and shopkeepers. The second group were free people of color , or gens de couleur libres , who were usually mixed-race (sometimes referred to as mulattoes ), being of both African and French descent. These gens de couleur tended to be educated and literate, and

1184-455: A warning for other slaves. King Louis XIV of France passed the Code Noir in 1685 in an attempt to regulate such violence and the treatment of slaves in general in the colony, but masters openly and consistently broke the code. During the 18th century, local legislation reversed parts of it. In 1758, the planters began passing legislation restricting the rights of other groups of people until

1258-448: Is an active online community of language-learners and activists engaged in language revitalization, led by language activist Christophe Landry. These efforts have resulted in the creation of a popular orthography, a digitalized version of Valdman et al.'s Louisiana Creole Dictionary , and a free spaced repetition course for learning vocabulary hosted on Memrise created by a team led by Adrien Guillory-Chatman. A first language primer

1332-496: Is controversial. Some speakers of that variety display a highly variable system of number and gender agreement , as evidenced in possessive pronouns . Possession is shown by noun-noun possessum-possessor constructions (e.g. lamézon mô papa 'house (of) my grandfather') or with the preposition a (e.g. lamézon a mô papa 'house of my grandfather'). Older forms of Louisiana Creole featured only one form of each verb without any inflection , e.g. [mɑ̃ʒe] 'to eat'. Today,

1406-643: Is likely that no speakers remain in these areas. The phonology of Louisiana Creole has much in common with those of other French-based creole languages . In comparison to most of these languages, however, Louisiana Creole diverges less from the phonology of French in general and Louisiana French in particular. Affricate The table above shows the consonant sounds of Louisiana Creole, not including semivowels /j/ and /w/ . In common with Louisiana French , Louisiana Creole features postalveolar affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ , as in /tʃololo/ ‘weak coffee’ and /dʒɛl/ ‘mouth’. The nasal palatal /ɲ/ usually becomes

1480-520: Is now Benin , and Kongo from the Kingdom of Kongo in what is now modern northern Angola and the western Congo . The Kongolese at 40% were the largest of the African ethnic groups represented amongst the slaves. The slaves developed their own religion, a syncretic mixture of Catholicism and West African religions known as Vodou , usually called "voodoo" in English. This belief system implicitly rejected

1554-518: Is spoken by fewer than 6,000 people. Though national census data includes figures on language usage, these are often unreliable in Louisiana due to respondents' tendencies to identify their language in line with their ethnic identity. For example, speakers of Louisiana Creole who identify as Cajuns often label their language 'Cajun French', though on linguistic grounds their language would be considered Louisiana Creole. Efforts to revitalize French in Louisiana have placed emphasis on Cajun French , to

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1628-410: Is the most spoken creole languages in the world, with over 12 million speakers. Throughout the 17th century, French Creoles became established as a unique ethnicity originating from the mix of French, Indian, and African cultures. These French Creoles held a distinct ethno-cultural identity, a shared antique language, Creole French , and their civilization owed its existence to the overseas expansion of

1702-945: The ISO basic Latin alphabet (not including c , q , or x ) and several special letters and diacritics . Catholic prayers are recited in French by speakers of Louisiana Creole. Today, some language activists and learners are leading efforts to translate the prayers. Nouzòt Popá, ki dan syèl-la Tokin nom, li sinkifyè, N'ap spéré pou to rwayonm arivé, é n'a fé ça t'olé dan syèl; parèy si latær Donné-nou jordi dipin tou-lé-jou, é pardon nouzòt péshé paréy nou pardon lê moun ki fé nouzòt sikombé tentasyon-la, Mé délivré nou depi mal. French-based creole languages These contact languages are not to be confused with creolized varieties of French outside of Europe that date to colonial times, such as Acadian , Louisiana , New England or Quebec French . There are over 15.5 million speakers of some form of French-based creole languages. Haitian Creole

1776-709: The Malinke . Also, the monopoly held by the Company of Indies in both Senegal and Louisiana may also have contributed to the Africans' relative ancestral homogeneity. Because of this homogeneity, retention of the Africans' indigenous languages may have hindered the development of a Creole in Louisiana. In fact, the Pointe Coupee slave revolt in 1731 was organized by the Bambara who were purportedly speaking their ancestral languages to plan

1850-529: The Thirteen Colonies to Great Britain. The livelihood of 1 million of the approximately 25 million people who lived in France in 1789 depended directly upon the agricultural imports from Saint-Domingue, and several million indirectly depended upon trade from the colony to maintain their standard of living. Saint-Domingue was the most profitable French colony in the world, indeed one of the most profitable of all

1924-707: The abolition of slavery in the former colony was followed by a successful defense of the freedoms the former slaves had won, and with the collaboration of already free people of color , of their independence from white Europeans. The revolution was the largest slave uprising since Spartacus ' unsuccessful revolt against the Roman Republic nearly 1,900 years earlier, and challenged long-held European beliefs about alleged black inferiority and about slaves' ability to achieve and maintain their own freedom. The rebels' organizational capacity and tenacity under pressure inspired stories that shocked and frightened slave owners in

1998-512: The le , la and lê , placed before the noun as in Louisiana French , and post-positional definite determiners - la for the singular, and - yé for the plural. This variation is but one example of the influence of Louisiana French on Louisiana Creole, especially in the variety spoken along the Bayou Têche which has been characterized by some linguists as decreolized , though this notion

2072-473: The 1740s, Saint-Domingue, together with the British colony of Jamaica , had become the main suppliers of the world's sugar. Production of sugar depended on extensive manual labor provided by enslaved Africans . An average of 600 ships engaged every year in shipping products from Saint-Domingue to Bordeaux , and the value of the colony's crops and goods was almost equal in value to all of the products shipped from

2146-587: The 1780s. Raimond used the French Revolution to make this the major colonial issue before the National Assembly. In October 1790, another wealthy free man of color, Vincent Ogé , demanded the right to vote under the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. When the colonial governor refused, Ogé led a brief 300-man insurgency in the area around Le Cap, fighting to end racial discrimination in

2220-413: The Africans' status as slaves. Saint-Domingue was a society seething with hatred, with white colonists and black slaves frequently coming into violent conflict. The French historian Paul Fregosi wrote: "Whites, mulattos and blacks loathed each other. The poor whites couldn't stand the rich whites, the rich whites despised the poor whites, the middle-class whites were jealous of the aristocratic whites,

2294-1159: The Baptist parishes. There once were Creolophones in Natchitoches Parish on Cane River and sizable communities of Louisiana Creole-speakers in adjacent Southeast Texas ( Beaumont , Houston , Port Arthur , Galveston ) and the Chicago area. Natchitoches, being the oldest colonial settlement in Louisiana, proved to be predominantly creole since its inception. Native inhabitants of the local area Louisiana Creole speakers in California reside in Los Angeles , San Diego and San Bernardino counties and in Northern California ( San Francisco Bay Area , Sacramento County , Plumas County , Tehama County , Mono County , and Yuba County ). Historically, there were Creole-speaking communities in Mississippi and Alabama (on Mon Louis Island ); however, it

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2368-552: The European colonies in the 18th century. Slavery sustained sugar production under harsh conditions; diseases such as malaria (brought from Africa) and yellow fever caused high mortality, thriving in the tropical Caribbean climate. In 1787 alone, the French imported about 20,000 slaves from Africa into Saint-Domingue, while the British imported about 38,000 slaves total to all of their Caribbean colonies. The death rate from yellow fever

2442-449: The European settlers, including those white Creoles born in the colony. In the case of Louisiana Creole, a diglossia resulted between Louisiana Creole and Louisiana French. Michael Picone, a lexicographer, proposed the term "Plantation Society French" to describe a version of French which he associated with plantation owners, plantation overseers, small landowners, military officers/soldiers and bilingual, free people of color , as being

2516-765: The French Empire. In the eighteenth century, Creole French was the first and native language of many different peoples including those of European origin in the West Indies . French-based creole languages today are spoken natively by millions of people worldwide, primarily in the Americas and on archipelagos throughout the Indian Ocean. Haitian Revolution The Haitian Revolution ( French : Révolution haïtienne [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ a.isjɛn] or Guerre de l'indépendance ; Haitian Creole : Lagè d Lendependans )

2590-507: The French needed laborers, as they found the climate very harsh. They began to import enslaved Africans, as they had done in their Caribbean island colonies. Two-thirds of the slaves brought to Louisiana originated in the Senegambian region, speaking Malinke , Sereer , Wolof , Pulaar , and Bambara . The largest group from Senegambia was the Bambara , who spoke mutually intelligible dialects of

2664-502: The French, then, in statehood after 1812, took on its modern form. By the time of the Louisiana Purchase by the U.S in 1803, the boundaries came to include most of the Central United States, ranging from present-day Montana; parts of North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado; all of South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas; part of Southeast Texas; all of Oklahoma; most of Missouri and Arkansas; as well as Louisiana. In 1978, researchers located

2738-434: The Louisiana Creole language and may instead use French or English as their everyday languages. Due to the rapidly shrinking number of speakers, Louisiana Creole is considered an endangered language . Louisiana was colonized by the French beginning in 1699, as well as Acadians who were forced out of Acadia around the mid-18th century. Colonists were large-scale planters, small-scale homesteaders, and cattle ranchers;

2812-492: The area. He was captured in early 1791, and brutally executed by being "broken on the wheel " before being beheaded. While Ogé was not fighting against slavery, his treatment was cited by later slave rebels as one of the factors in their decision to rise up in August 1791 and resist treaties with the colonists. The conflict up to this point was between factions of whites, and between whites and free blacks. Enslaved blacks watched from

2886-536: The area; this fact categorizes Louisiana Creole as a contact language that arose between exogenous ethnicities. Once the pidgin tongue was transmitted to the next generation as a lingua franca (who were considered the first native speakers of the new grammar), it could effectively be classified as a creole language . No standard name for the language has existed historically. In the language, community members in various areas of Louisiana and elsewhere have referred to it by many expressions, though Kréyol/Kréyòl has been

2960-732: The colony by the high mountain range known as the Massif du Nord . The Western province, however, grew significantly after the colonial capital was moved to Port-au-Prince in 1751, becoming increasingly wealthy in the second half of the 18th century. The Southern province lagged in population and wealth because it was geographically separated from the rest of the colony. However, this isolation allowed freed slaves to find profit in trade with Jamaica, and they gained power and wealth here. In addition to these interregional tensions, there were conflicts between proponents of independence, those loyal to France, and allies of Britain and Spain —who coveted control of

3034-403: The colony), who already had kin networks and often had more prestigious roles on plantations and more opportunities for emancipation. Most slaves spoke a patois of the French language known as Haitian Creole , which was also used by island-born mulattoes and whites for communication with the workers. The majority of the slaves were Yoruba from what is now modern Nigeria , Fon from what

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3108-427: The coup. Ultimately, Louisiana Creole did develop, with West African languages becoming the substrates to a varied French lexifier. The importation of enslaved people by the French regime continued until 1743. The language developed in 18th-century Louisiana from interactions among speakers of the lexifier language of Standard French and several substrate or adstrate languages from Africa. Prior to its establishment as

3182-399: The desire to undermine the colony's attempts at independent legitimacy, as citizens of the colonies were not able to access the elite class of French Revolutionaries because of their race. In 1789, Saint-Domingue produced 60% of the world's coffee and 40% of the sugar imported by France and Britain. The colony was not only the most profitable possession of the French colonial empire , but it

3256-404: The domains folklore and Voodoo , the language has a small number of vocabulary items from west and central African languages. Much of this non-French vocabulary is shared with other French-based creole languages of North America, and Louisiana Creole shares all but a handful of its vocabulary with Louisiana French . The current Louisiana Creole alphabet consists of twenty-three letters of

3330-657: The dreaded yellow fever, which regularly swept the colony. The lower-class whites, petits blancs (literally "small whites"), included artisans, shopkeepers, slave dealers, overseers, and day laborers. Saint-Domingue's free people of color, or gens de couleur libres , numbered more than 28,000. Around that time, colonial legislations, concerned with this growing and strengthening population, passed discriminatory laws that required these freedmen to wear distinctive clothing and limited where they could live. These laws also barred them from occupying many public offices. Many freedmen were also artisans and overseers, or domestic servants in

3404-542: The exclusion of Creole. Zydeco musician Keith Frank has made efforts through the use of social media not only to promote his music, but preserve his Creole heritage and language as well, most notably through the use of Twitter. Additionally, Frank developed a mobile application in 2012 titled the "ZydecoBoss App", which acts as a miniature social network linked to a user's Facebook and Twitter accounts, allowing users to provide commentary in real time amongst multiple platforms. Aside from social media activism, Frank also created

3478-463: The former colony's independence. It involved black, biracial, French, Spanish, British, and Polish participants—with the ex-slave Toussaint Louverture emerging as Haiti's most prominent general. The successful revolution was a defining moment in the history of the Atlantic World and the revolution's effects on the institution of slavery were felt throughout the Americas. The end of French rule and

3552-498: The hemisphere. Compared to other Atlantic revolutions , the events in Haiti have received comparatively little public attention in retrospect: historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot characterizes the historiography of the Haitian Revolution as being "silenced" by that of the French Revolution . Much of Caribbean economic development in the 18th century was contingent on Europeans' demand for sugar . Plantation owners produced sugar as

3626-476: The hillside woods away from white control often conducted violent raids on the island's sugar and coffee plantations. Although the numbers in these bands grew large (sometimes into the thousands), they generally lacked the leadership and strategy to accomplish large-scale objectives. The first effective maroon leader to emerge was the charismatic Haitian Vodou priest François Mackandal , who inspired his people by drawing on African traditions and religions. He united

3700-436: The island and create trade regulations that would further their own wealth and power. However, the Haitian Revolution quickly became a test of the new French republic, as it radicalized the slavery question and forced French leaders to recognize the full meaning of their stated ideology. The African population on the island began to hear of the agitation for independence by the planters, who had resented France's limitations on

3774-568: The island's foreign trade. The Africans mostly allied with the royalists and the British, as they understood that if Saint-Domingue's independence were to be led by white slave masters, it would probably mean even harsher treatment and increased injustice for the African population. The planters would be free to operate slavery as they pleased without the existing minimal accountability to their French peers. Saint-Domingue's free people of color, most notably Julien Raimond , had been actively appealing to France for full civil equality with whites since

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3848-539: The language stated that it was used among enslaved people and whites. The importation of enslaved Africans increased after France ceded the colony to Spain, in 1763, following France's defeat by Great Britain in the Seven Years' War in Europe. Some Spaniards immigrated to the colony, but it was dominated by French language and culture. Like South Carolina, Louisiana had a "minority" population of Africans that greatly outnumbered

3922-503: The language typically features two verb classes: verbs with only a single form ( [bwɑ] 'to drink') and verbs with a 'long' or 'short' form ( [mɑ̃ʒe] , [mɑ̃ʒ] 'to eat'). Like other creole languages, Louisiana Creole features preverbal markers of tense, aspect and mood as listed in the table below The vocabulary of Louisiana Creole is primarily of French origin, as French is the language's lexifier . Some local vocabulary, such as topography, animals, plants are of Amerindian origin. In

3996-422: The maroon bands and established a network of secret organizations among plantation slaves, leading a rebellion from 1751 through 1757. Although Mackandal was captured by the French and burned at the stake in 1758, large armed maroon bands persisted in raids and harassment after his death. French writer Guillaume Raynal attacked slavery in his history of European colonization. He warned, "the Africans only want

4070-498: The men often served in the army or as administrators on plantations. Many were children of white planters and enslaved mothers, or free women of color. Others had purchased their freedom from their owners through the sale of their own produce or artistic works. They often received education or artisan training, and sometimes inherited freedom or property from their fathers. Some gens de couleur owned and operated their own plantations and became slave owners. The third group, outnumbering

4144-535: The most widespread. Until the rise of Cajunism in the 1970s and 1980s, many Louisiana Francophones also identified their language as Créole, since they self-identified as Louisiana Creoles. In Louisiana's case, self-identity has determined how locals identify the language they speak. This leads to linguistic confusion. To remedy this, language activists beginning in the 2010s began promoting the term Kouri-Vini, to avoid any linguistic ambiguity with Louisiana French. The boundaries of historical Louisiana were first shaped by

4218-535: The others by a ratio of ten to one, was made up of mostly African-born slaves. A high rate of mortality among them meant that planters continually had to import new slaves. This kept their culture more African and separate from other people on the island. Many plantations had large concentrations of slaves from a particular region of Africa, and it was therefore somewhat easier for these groups to maintain elements of their culture, religion, and language. This also separated new slaves from Africa from creoles (slaves born in

4292-417: The plantation houses. Le Cap Français (Le Cap), a northern port, had a large population of free people of color, including freed slaves. These men would become important leaders in the slave rebellion and later revolution. Saint-Domingue's Northern province was the center of shipping and trading, and had the largest population of grands blancs . The Plaine-du-Nord on the northern shore of Saint-Domingue

4366-538: The plantations. Many runaway slaves—called maroons—hid on the margins of large plantations, living off the land and what they could steal from their former masters. Others fled to towns, to blend in with urban slaves and freed blacks who often migrated to those areas for work. If caught, these runaway slaves would be severely and violently punished. However, some masters tolerated petit marronages, or short-term absences from plantations, knowing these allowed release of tensions. The larger groups of runaway slaves who lived in

4440-776: The population of Creolophones is distributed across the region. St. Martin Parish forms the heart of the Creole-speaking region. Other sizeable communities exist along Bayou Têche in St. Landry , Avoyelles , Iberia , and St. Mary Parishes. There are smaller communities on False River in Pointe-Coupée Parish , in Terrebonne Parish , and along the lower Mississippi River in Ascension , St. Charles Parish , and St. James and St. John

4514-538: The rest of the work, prompting many speakers of Louisiana Creole to abandon their stigmatised language in favor of English. Additionally, the development of industry, technology and infrastructure in Louisiana reduced the isolation of Louisiana Creolophone communities and resulted in the arrival of more English-speakers, resulting in further exposure to English. Because of this, Louisiana Creole exhibits more recent influence from English, including loanwords , code-switching and syntactic calquing . Today, Louisiana Creole

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4588-507: The same region, sociolinguistic group, and even within the same speaker. Examples of this process include: The open-mid vowel [ɛ] may lowered to the near-open vowel [æ] when followed by [ɾ] , e.g. [fɾɛ]~[fɾæɾ] 'brother'. In common with Louisiana French , Louisiana Creole vowels are nasalized where they precede a nasal consonant , e.g. [ʒɛ̃n] 'young', [pɔ̃m] 'apple'. Unlike most varieties of Louisiana French, Louisiana Creole also exhibits progressive nasalization: vowels following

4662-672: The sexes, with more men than women. Some slaves were of a creole elite class of urban slaves and domestics, who worked as cooks, personal servants and artisans around the plantation house. This relatively privileged class was chiefly born in the Americas, while the under-class born in Africa labored hard, and often under abusive and brutal conditions. Among Saint-Domingue's 40,000 white colonists, European-born Frenchmen monopolized administrative posts. The sugar planters, or grands blancs (literally, "big whites"), were chiefly minor aristocrats. Most returned to France as soon as possible, hoping to avoid

4736-415: The situation in Saint-Domingue, through the bust of Raynal and the figure of Belley, respectively. While distinguished, the portrait still portrays a man trapped by the confines of race. Girodet's portrayal of the former National Convention deputy is telling of the French opinion of colonial citizens by emphasizing the subject's sexuality and including an earring. Both of these racially charged symbols reveal

4810-411: The standards of the Caribbean, French slave masters were extremely cruel in their treatment of slaves. They used the threat and acts of physical violence to maintain control and suppress efforts at rebellion. When slaves left the plantations or disobeyed their masters, they were subject to whipping or to more extreme torture such as castration or burning, the punishment being both a personal lesson and

4884-691: The valuable colony. After the establishment of the French First Republic , the National Assembly made radical changes to French laws and, on 26 August 1789, published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen , declaring all men free and equal. The Declaration was ambiguous as to whether this equality applied to women, slaves, or citizens of the colonies, and thus influenced the desire for freedom and equality in Saint-Domingue. White planters saw it as an opportunity to gain independence from France, which would allow them to take control of

4958-525: The whites and free people of color (also French speaking) were refugees from the Haitian Revolution , which had established the first empire in the western hemisphere. The statements collected from Robin showed linguistic features that are now known to be typical of Louisiana Creole. The term "Criollo" appears in legal court documents during the Spanish colonial period (1762–1803); the Spanish reference to

5032-462: The whites born in France looked down upon the locally born whites, mulattoes envied the whites, despised the blacks and were despised by the whites; free Negroes brutalized those who were still slaves, Haitian born blacks regarded those from Africa as savages. Everyone—quite rightly—lived in terror of everyone else. Haiti was hell, but Haiti was rich." Many of these conflicts involved slaves who had escaped

5106-485: Was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue , now the sovereign state of Haiti . The revolution was the only known slave uprising in human history that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery (though not from forced labour ) and ruled by non-whites and former captives. The revolt began on 22 August 1791, and ended in 1804 with

5180-623: Was released in 2017 and revised into a full-length language guide and accompanying website in 2020. 2022 saw the publication of an anthology of contemporary poetry in Louisiana Creole, the first book written completely in the language. A December 2023 article in The Economist highlighted revitalization efforts with the headline "Louisiana Creole is enjoying a modest revival," focusing in particular on language activists Jourdan Thibodeaux and Taalib Pierre-Auguste. Speakers of Louisiana Creole are mainly concentrated in south and southwest Louisiana, where

5254-425: Was so high that polyandry —one woman being married to several men at the same time—developed as a common form of marriage among the slaves. As slaves had no legal rights, rape by planters, their unmarried sons, or overseers was a common occurrence on the plantations. The largest sugar plantations and concentrations of slaves were in the north of the island, and whites lived in fear of slave rebellion . Even by

5328-410: Was such that at least 50% of the slaves from Africa died within a year of arriving, so while the white planters preferred to work their slaves as hard as possible, providing them only the bare minimum of food and shelter, they calculated that it was better to get the most work out of their slaves with the lowest expense possible, since they were probably going to die of yellow fever anyway. The death rate

5402-406: Was the most fertile area, having the largest sugar plantations and therefore the most slaves. It was the area of greatest economic importance, especially as most of the colony's trade went through these ports. The largest and busiest port was Le Cap, the former capital of Saint-Domingue. Enslaved Africans in this region lived in large groups of workers in relative isolation, separated from the rest of

5476-406: Was the wealthiest and most prosperous colony in the Caribbean. The colony's white population numbered 40,000; mulattoes and free blacks, 28,000; and black slaves, an estimated 452,000. This was almost half the total slave population in the Caribbean, estimated at one million that year. Enslaved blacks, regarded as the lowest class of colonial society, outnumbered whites and free people of color by

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