Out of colonial Natchitoches, in northwestern Louisiana, emerged a
 sophisticated and affluent community founded by a family of freed 
slaves. Their plantations eventually encompassed 18,000 fertile acres, 
which they tilled alongside hundreds of their own bondsmen. Furnishings 
of quality and taste graced their homes, and private tutors educated 
their children. Cultured, deeply religious, and highly capable, Cane 
River's Creoles of color enjoyed economic privileges but led politically
 constricted lives. Like their white neighbors, they publicly supported 
the Confederacy and suffered the same depredations of war and political 
and social uncertainties of Reconstruction. Unlike white Creoles, 
however, they did not recover amid cycles of Redeemer and Jim Crow 
politics. First published in 1977, The Forgotten People offers a socioeconomic history of this widely publicized but also highly romanticized community -- a minority group that fit no stereotypes, refused all outside labels, and still struggles to explain its identity in a world mystified by Creolism.

The Forgotten People: Cane River's Creoles of Color PDF

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