re: Kouri-Vini: The return of the US' lost language

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In Acadiana, Creole means French speaking black people.

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Yep.

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You mean besides inventing it, preserving it, and playing it? Sorry, baw. Zydeco is the music of the Creoles of the Louisiana prairie.

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Nope. Zydeco is the blend of French Canadian (Cajun) folk music and folk music played by Creoles, with African roots, obviously. Zydeco music in its current form would not exist today without the influence of both cultures and both cultures have managed to preserve it better than much.

The large number of free blacks, usually creole, in south Louisiana actually interacted relatively well with the Cajun people and there was a great deal of cultural blending.

It helped that both were from economically modest means and frequently worked side by side farming and fishing. New Orleans had a large number of free blacks during slavery and the largest Slave owner in the city was a black woman. (Who, BTW, sold her husband to a neighbor after a fight. She later tried to buy him back but the neighbor refused to sell!)

I bring that up for context when reviewing the interactions between the Cajun and creole people. Very few Cajuns were wealthy enough to own slaves since they were forced to leave nearly everything behind when they escaped Nova Scotia during Le Grand Dérangement. That fact, when combined with the large number of free blacks in the area, made for much better racial relations than anywhere else in the south, debatably.