La Vente:
The Sale that Changed a Culture
first published in Louisiana Life 2003
"When the Americans arrived in Louisiana, they thought they were in a foreign country," says Joseph Dunn, director of sales and marketing at Laura Plantation in Vacherie, La. "They were."
Before the Louisiana Purchase or La Vente (the French word for sale), a culture known as Creole existed.
Creole is the non-Anglo-Saxon culture and life-style that flourished in Louisiana before it became part of the U.S. in 1803, according to Dunn. A Louisiana Creole person was a blending of three different ethnic influences (but not necessarily all three): the west European, west African, and Native American. Creole people spoke French and were Roman Catholic; their society was built upon elitist ideas of class, nobility, and wealth, rather than race or gender.
According to William Coble of Le Monde Creole, a tour company in New Orleans, slaves in Creole Louisiana were assured certain rights under the Code Noir, the Black Code of 1724. This code gave slaves permission to marry, gather socially, and have Sundays off. However, baptism was enforced. Slaves were also allowed to sell items and earn money. They could even buy their own freedom and join Les Gens de Couleur Libres(the Free People of Color). Some black Creoles owned plantations with numerous slaves.
In Creole society, women also enjoyed more rights than their American counterparts. Fifty years before the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, female Creole property owners were allowed to vote on property issues. For 84 years, it was women who ran the prosperous sugar plantation, Laura.
Pragmatism can be seen in Creole architecture with buildings erected high above the ground. This prevented flooding and kept the rooms cool and dry. Kent Plantation House in Alexandria, completed in 1800, is central Louisiana’s oldest standing structure and an example of a raised Creole house. Another is Laura Plantation. Laura, built in 1805 on an Indian village, is painted with vivid colors, a Creole custom identifying that it was a French-speaking household; American houses were generally painted white.
After the Louisiana Purchase, Creoles began to lose their standing in the new American society. By the 1830s, despite earlier resistance, most Creoles assimilated into the American way of life. By the 1870’s, according to historic research by Le Monde Creole, when American notions of race and color became paramount in Louisiana (and America) politics, "Creole" was transformed into a racial term.
Although Creoles assimilated, evidence of their enduring influence can still be found throughout the region in the extant Creole architecture, customs and cuisine that give our state its unique essence.
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"Laura Plantation" by Kristin Fouquet
©2003 Kristin Fouquet