The Big Easy: Literary New Orleans and Intangible Heritage

Les Cenelles

Even at the apex of their existence, this caste of residents, neither black nor white, but somewhere on shaky, middle ground, occupied a place of privilege while simultaneously being forced to exist within the bizarre dichotomy of the freedom that their lighter skin color afforded them, and the restrictions they faced because they were not white enough. The well-educated and affluent Afro-Creole elite of New Orleans, influenced by French intellectual, literary, and political movements, voiced their social criticism of the time in their literary works. They did this to protest against the contempt in which their race was held and to prove that even in an era of slavery, there were men of color capable of cultural development and refinement. ²⁸ Most people are astonished to learn that African Americans were publishing French poetry before the Civil War. "Negros publish poetry! Such a thing was ridiculous, impossible, even impertinent." ²⁹ I am certain that my students will be enthralled as I share with them the often untold story of the eloquent struggle for equality on behalf of the free men of color who produced New Orleanian literature during this time. Here, they will discover the historical and literary importance of Armand Lanusse and all of the French-speaking poets who contributed to Les Cenelles, the first African American poetry anthology. It should come as no surprise that the francophone free black Creoles of New Orleans were ultimately the driving force behind racial equality under Louisiana's constitution of 1868. ³⁰

Although the social critique in these eighty-five poems was more subdued in tone than in other literary works of the time, the seventeen authors made reference to many highly politicized French Romantic writers like Victor Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartine and Alexandre Dumas. ³¹ The authors of Les Cenelles were living within the social incongruity of antebellum New Orleans, and they had something to say about it. The editor, Armand Lanusse, was born in New Orleans in 1812, and he was among the privileged to receive a formidable education in Paris, France. The richest among the Creoles of color were able to send their children to the most reputable universities in Paris, but they likely did so because no money was allotted for the education of black or biracial children, and few wanted to face the stigma of educating them in New Orleans.

It was a serious criminal offense to instruct slaves and although to teach free people of color was not an infraction of the law, public opinion was strongly opposed to it on the ground that the education of any Negroes only served to increase the possibility of insurrection. ³²

Men such as Lanusse experienced the contrast of two different worlds. "After riding in a fiacre to the theatres in Paris and sitting in the best seats, he found it hard to travel in the black-starred mule car reserved for Negroes and sit in the highest gallery of the New Orleans playhouses." ³³ Among his motives for undertaking the publishing of this anthology, in his introduction, Lanusse states: «On commence à comprendre que, dans quelque position que le sort nous ait placés, une bonne éducation est une égide contre laquelle viennent s'émousser les traits lancés contre nous par le dédain ou par la calomnie.» ³⁴ Lanusse felt that no matter what position fate had placed them in, a good education would provide a shield against which the arrows being launched at them by disdain or by slander would be dulled.

One of the most poisonous of these arrows, according to Lanusse, was plaçage; though most of society regarded the placées as having attained a certain prestige in these arrangements. It was commonplace for mulatto women to become the concubines of white colonists through the social practice known as plaçage, yet they were not allowed to marry them, so they had no legal rights as wives. As such, they often found themselves abandoned, and without any legal recourse. "As portrayed in Creole literary works of the 1840s, plaçage agreements reduced young women of color to the status of prostitutes; these Creole writers saw the practice as a threat to the social fabric of their community." ³⁵ A placée would be taken care of financially, as would her family – for as long as it befitted the whimsy of her suitor, for it was not unheard of for these men to take on more than one mistress, and to abandon whomever he wanted to at will. Caucasian men often had both a white wife, whom they were legally married to, and their white family, as well as a black concubine, and a black family. "White fathers referred to their white children by marriage as legitimate and their duly acknowledged children of color as their natural children." ³⁶ This occurred in complete defiance of Louisiana's growing number of laws meant to prohibit interracial commitments. We will examine the criticisms of Lanusse and other poets regarding plaçage, as well as some of the other paradoxes of their time in a subsequent section titled Les Cenelles: Littérature, Langue, et la Critique Sociale.