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

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If they came from French or Spanish colonies prior to Louisiana being a US state, they were simply French or Spanish.

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Creole is a specific group of black, French speaking people, usually from island slave background.

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The term "Creole" has long generated confusion and controversy. The word invites debate because it possesses several meanings, some of which concern the innately sensitive subjects of race and ethnicity.

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Nineteenth-Century Creoles In the antebellum nineteenth century, black, white, and mixed-race Louisiana natives continued to use Creole in reference to themselves. The term distinguished native-born persons from increasing numbers of immigrants hailing from overseas and, after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Anglo-American newcomers. But with the coming of the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the subsequent collapse of the South’s economy, white Louisianans gradually took away the privileged status that set Creoles of color apart from formerly enslaved black Creoles. By the 1890s, no middle ground remained for the mixed-race ethnic group. As one historian has observed, Creoles of color “were left with nothing but their sense of group identity and a nostalgia for halcyon times.” Although they now occupied the same social stratum as former slaves, Creoles of color continued to hold themselves apart as distinct from blacks. They did so, for example, through the practice of endogamy (marriage within the ethnic group).

As mentioned, many whites in antebellum Louisiana also referred to themselves as Creoles. Among whites, the term generally referred to persons of upper-class French or Spanish ancestry, and even German ancestry (though all eventually spoke French as their primarily language). The term has even been applied persons of Italian ancestry in New Orleans. Indeed, many white Creoles could be found in New Orleans, as well as in parishes such as Avoyelles and Evangeline, which, while incorrectly regarded today as historically Acadian, were actually populated by white Creoles. Politically, Louisiana’s aristocratic white Creoles stood in contrast to the more democratic Américains who flooded the state after the Louisiana Purchase. For example, white Creoles in the early nineteenth century used their influence in state government to grant voting rights only to males who paid taxes and owned property, thereby denying the vote to many poor white males. Like the Creoles of color, white Creoles experienced dramatic economic decline after the Civil War. While some managed to retain their sense of identity, many white Creoles—particularly in rural and small-town southern Louisiana—began to intermarry with the region’s large Acadian population.

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