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historical fiction, and political simplifications
One New Orleans during the War of 1812 was a really complicated place. More complicated than any other city of an equal size, primarily because the way race and society intersected. There was a huge population of Free People of Color (in official documents, such a person's name was followed by FMC or FWC) who build the beginnings of what we would call a middle or working class. There were slaves from all over the continent of Africa and the islands from Jamaica to Haiti. There were the remnants of various Indian nations, and of course there were large groups of people who intersected all these racial groups, for which there was a whole vocabulary of terms like quadroon and octaroon and redbone.
The white population included poor immigrants from all over Europe, Creoles (middle and upper class people who were the results of the early settlement by French colonists), the backwoods whites, also Francophone, the remnants of the Spanish who ruled for a few years, villages of fishermen and sailors and pirates, and the encroaching Yankee whites, who began to come to New Orleans as soon as the ink was dry on the Louisiana purchase in order to pursue business.
This all sounds complicated enough, but it gets worse. It would be easy and comfortable to assume that internally at least the subgroups got along, but it wasn't like that at all. Within the community of people with origins in Africa (slave or free) there was a very strict social order, with the newest arrived from Africa at the bottom. The black population was in general not enamored of the Indian tribes, because some of the tribes had been enthusiastic blackbirders -- going after runaway slaves and returning them for the reward. The whites did what they could to encourage the animosity, because of course they would have been in trouble if the non-whites had got together with uprising on their minds. Among the Indian tribes there was huge disagreement about how to handle the war, and ongoing white encroachment. Things got to the point where Indians fought Indians and the result? More land for the whites, less for the Indians, and the push westward.
And if you think you know about the way rich white men interacted with Free Women of Color, my guess is that you got that information from novels and movies, most of which simplified or romanticized the situation. The historical work I've read on this social phenomenon is far different from the usual portrayal of Creole Balls. The problem is that if you read something often enough, you begin to believe it. As is the case with what people think they know about voodoo (or voudou, or vodou, as the religion is more usually called as it is practiced in southern Louisiana).
So here I sit trying to tell the story, aware that my readers bring certain preconceptions (many of which are wrong in whole or part) to this novel. And aware that I am going to have to challenge many of those closely held assumptions and that some people won't like it, no matter how carefully I tread.
October 24, 2005 01:40 PM
Comments
This is fascinating. It makes me wiggle my toes with glee in anticipation of your next book.
Posted by: Danielle at October 24, 2005 08:53 PM