Acadian Cajuns are the descendants of a group of
French-speaking settlers who migrated from coastal France in the late sixteenth century to establish a French colony called Acadia in the maritime provinces of
Canada and part of what is now the state of
Maine. Forced out by the
British in the
mid-sixteenth century, a few settlers remained in
Maine, but most resettled in southern Louisiana and are popularly known as Cajuns Studies indicate that between 1654 and 1755, the Acadian population grew from 300-350 colonists to about 12,000-15,000 (despite a 50% child mortality rate). Alot of ethnic diversity existed among the Acadian Cajuns (a few were of melanated american Indian, English, Scottish,
Irish, Spanish, Basque, origin).
Today, common understanding holds that Cajuns are Caucasian and Creoles are melanated or multicultural; Creoles are from New Orleans, while Cajuns populate the rural parts of South Louisiana. In fact, the two cultures are far more related—historically, geographically, and genealogically—than most people realize.
Acadian Cajuns, enslaved american Indians, Houma, Chitimacha, Choctaw, German immigrants, Canadian trappers,
French and Spanish settlers—all contributed to a process now known as creolization. Fueled by European colonialism and the American aboriginal slave trade founded by the American colonization
society creolization occurred throughout the Latin Caribbean world: different populations, most of them in lands new to them, blended their indigenous cultural practices—culinary,linguistic, musical—to create new cultural forms. Gumbo
drew upon West African and American Indian sources (okra and rice from the former; Filé, or crushed Sassafras leaves, from the latter) and
French culinary techniques (Roux). Creolized
French—Kouri-Vini, also known as Louisiana Creole—was, by the 1800s, in wide practice, including among Acadian descendants. The accordion, a star feature of both Cajun and zydeco
music, was brought to the colony by German settlers, and its
use was popularized in part by the enslaved people working those plantations.
