Africans in Colonial Louisiana

Although a number of important studies of American slavery have explored the formation of slave cultures in the English colonies, few books have undertaken a comprehensive assessment of the development of the distinctive African-Creole culture of colonial Louisiana. This culture, based upon a separate language community with its own folklore, musical, religious and historical traditions, was created by slaves brought directly from Africa to Louisiana before 1731. It still survives as the acknowledged cultural heritage of tens of thousands of people of all races in the southern part of the state. In this work, Gwendolyn Hall studies Louisiana's Creole slave community during the 18th century, focusing on the slaves' African origins, the evolution of their own language and culture, and the role they played in the formation of the broader society, economy and culture of the region. Hall bases her study on research in a wide range of archival sources in Louisiana, France and Spain and employs several disciplines - history, anthropology, linguistics and folklore - in her analysis.
Among the topics she considers are the slave trade from France to Africa to Louisiana, the ethnic origins of the slaves, and relations between African slaves and native Indians. She gives special consideration to race mixture between Africans, Indians and whites; to the role of slaves in the Natchez Uprising of 1729; to slave unrest and conspiracies, including the Pointe Coupee conspiracies of 1791 and 1795; and to the development of communities of runaway slaves in the cypress swamps around New Orleans.