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The Spirit of a Culture: Cane River Creoles

In a story that pre-dates America, the multi-cultural Creoles of Cane River, Louisiana see themselves as somewhere between black and white. The Spirit of a Culture: Cane River Creoles recounts the Cane River Creole identity struggle from colonial French Louisiana to today’s Creole led multicultural renaissance – against the notion of race as a deciding feature of a population.

The documentary was produced by Emmy-winning filmmaker Bill Rodman (Atchafalaya Swamp Revisited) and Executive Producer Flo R. Ulmer in association with Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

The Creole Community

In order to understand the culture of the Creole community of Cane River, you have to understand their development as a people. This program takes viewers through the historical events that helped shaped them into who they are today. One of the most important facts that provides insight about the Cane River Creoles is that their ancestors, who were French, Spanish, African and Indian, always held onto the fact that they were citizens of France, long after the sale of the Louisiana Territory to America in 1803.

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Louisiana Creole Heritage Center

With guidance from the Louisiana Creole Heritage Center at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Rodman and Ulmer were able to secure the help of four scholars to help guide the project. Those scholars were Dr. Pete Gregory, Dr. Dayna Bowker Lee, Dr. Susan Dollar and Dr. Kathleen Byrd. Other advice came from the Cane River National Heritage Area.

“As producers, we felt that members from the Cane River Creole community should tell their own story,” Ulmer said. “Five Cane River Creoles were chosen to explain the nuances of their culture and to relate where their future lies. Though their words you begin to understand why they do not consider themselves black or African-American, even though they have color, but rather Creole.”

Creoles

Cane River Creoles who participated included Terrel Delphin; Chairperson of the Advisory Council for the Louisiana Creole Heritage Center; author John Sarpy, Louis Metoyer, Cane River California Creole and publisher of Bayou Talk, Lair LaCour, whose MaMan dolls were designated by the state as the Bi-Centennial Doll, and Tracey Colson-Fontenot, a mother of four young Creole boys.

Sponsors

This film was funded in part by grants from

• The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
• The Cane River Heritage Area Commission
• The Louisiana State Arts Council through the Louisiana Division of the Arts
• The National Endowment for the Arts

For more information, contact Bill Rodman at (225) 346-1761 or LPB Programming at 1-800-272-8161.