Acadians were French settlers in the maritime areas along the Atlantic, at one time stretching from present day Nova Scotia to Maine. Many of them came from Brittany. These were subsistence fishermen, farmers and fur trappers, barely eking out a living in this harsh environment.
At the same time, their enemies the British were making headway at colonizing North America not only in the thirteen colonies to the south, but also to the north, from Hudson’s Bay and westward.
From Acadians to Cajuns 1755-1765
After the French and Indian Wars, the British wrested control of most of what today is French Canada. The Catholic French Acadians who remained were suspect, however, especially as ongoing wars with the French raged elsewhere. The British demanded that Acadians swear allegiance to the British crown. The Acadians refused, offering to swear neutrality instead. This mollified the British for a while, but eventually doubts of their loyalty led to renewed demands that the Acadian French swear allegiance to Britain. When they again refused, the Lieutenant Governor ordered the Acadian French deported to various locations throughout the thirteen British North American colonies, France, Louisiana, and Britain.
The Acadian Diaspora – Le Grande Derangement
Approximately 7,000 Acadians were deported during 1755. The deportees were held on prison ships for several weeks before being moved to their destinations, leading to the deaths of hundreds. An estimated 2,700 deportees died before reaching their destination. An additional 10,000 are estimated to have died from displacement during the winter of 1755–1756.
Over the next several decades, many Acadians moved down the Atlantic seaboard, eventually settling in Louisiana, then controlled by Spain. The aristocratic Creoles who were already there did not welcome their poor French cousins when they arrived in New Orleans, waving them past out into the swampy bayou areas west and northwest of the Crescent City, a region that later came to be known as Acadiana.
One has only to listen to the vibrant zydeco music to know that Cajun culture has remained distinct, and still thrives in the Bayou country bordering New Orleans. The Cajuns were and, to a large degree, still are country peasants, their cooking more rustic than the comparatively refined Creole preparations.
Creoles from Haiti to the French Quarter of New Orleans
By contrast to the peasant Cajuns, the refugees from Haiti were rich White sugar planters with more refined tastes leaning toward the Parisian style of French cooking. They had fled from a slave uprising on the island nation of Haiti. They found kindred souls in the French Quarter Of New Orleans, though many of the wealthiest started their own plantations along the Mississippi River.
The term “Creole” came to also be applied to immigrants of a certain class from France or some other French colonies, as well as Spanish and Italians. In fact, when the Cajuns arrived in New Orleans, the Creoles did not welcome them and were forced to settle in the bayou instead.
Unlike the isolated Cajuns, Creoles as a cultural group assimilated for the most part into the American melting pot over the last one hundred years or so. Creole cuisine survives, less from cultural Creoles than from restaurants, most of them in New Orleans, that continue the traditions.
For the ways that the history of these two groups shaped their cuisines, see “Cajun and Creole French Cooking Compared”.
For more tasty New Orleans history, including the pirate Jean Lafitte, see "French Quarter's Cafe Brulot".
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