Art & Identity in New Orleans

  Screen Capture from How To Make Lemonade that depicts paintings of free women of color in tignons

Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas makes it a point very early on to highlight the unique ways in which the city and its residents are at once separated by distinct cultural and geographical markers and pushed together due to lack of land and the very human tendency to commune and exchange culture. In the 1700s, racial, religious, and economic segregation stemming from early immigration, slavery, and the ever-present class divides of an ever-evolving city created a society that simultaneously seems cavalier in its racial mixing and archaic in it its laws and resulting subjugation of the products of it. Gens de couleur libres (free people of color) occupied a space between privilege and extreme oppression that meant they adhered to a unique set of laws made, in some cases, to distinguish them from the enslaved Africans they had seemingly transcended and the white New Orleanians that still viewed them as being distinctly “other.” One of these such laws meant to prevent those of African descent, specifically women, from transcending blackness completely were the Tignon laws.

 Historic New Orleans Collection.

The tignon laws were a set of sumptuary laws (those meant to essentially criminalize decadence and consumption), that were put in place in 1786 under Spanish colonial rule by Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró. These laws were created to indicate the class status of women of African descent as well as to separate creole woman of color who had achieved a certain economic status and, in some cases, become almost physically indistinguishable from white women. The blurring of class and racial divides not only angered men in power but European women as well, who began to see the highly exoticised Afro-Creole women begin to ascend social strata by marrying into white society or, in other cases, forging economic success of their own. Tignon laws dictated that women of “pure or mixed” African descent could no longer wear their hair uncovered or adorned in public; instead, they must wrap their heads in scarves to prevent “passing” as white or receiving treatment deemed above them. The law also dictated that Creole women of color could not show “excessive attention to dress” in public. The word Tignon itself is a derivative of the French word chignon that translates to “hair bun.” Historian Virginia Gould is quoted in the book Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color, written by Sybil Klein, as stating that the laws were meant to force free women of color to visually “reestablish their ties to slavery.”

        A West Indian Flower Girl and Two Other Free Women of Color
Agostino Brunias
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

These laws, and the scarves themselves, though meant to subjugate, degrade, and continue the nation’s sordid history of policing black femininity and presentation, were reinterpreted by women of color in extraordinary ways that can still be seen in African-American culture today. Creole women of color who had previously decorated their hair with feathers and jewels did the same with lushly colored scarves that became more of a statement of beauty than a punishment. This form of aesthetic protest became not only a declaration of pride but a positive marker of a culture unique unto itself. In recent years, various interpretations of tignons have experienced a cultural resurgence as women of the African diaspora continue to look to the past and find strength in this unique historical example of ingenuity in the face of institutional debasement.

Screen captures from How to Make Lemonade by Beyoncé

To find out more about the history of the tignon law and Louisiana’s free people of color, click here.

To see a modern interpretation of the tignon, click here.

Many people have watched the popular TV series American Horror Story. Each season has a different theme and an abundance of characters based on real people. During the show’s third season, American Horror Story Coven, the story takes place in modern-day New Orleans. That season featured a few popular New Orleans figures such as Marie Leveau, The Axe man of New Orleans, and Papa Legba. Many fans were disturbed to find out that the show’s most vile character was in fact a real person. Delphine Lalaurie is most infamously known for her unbelievably cruel treatment of slaves.  Being a white woman of significant wealth in New Orleans, she was naturally of high class and had many social connections. Lalaurie appeared to be kind and clean in public, but her private life was very different. Guests of Lalaurie reported her to be seemingly empathetic and concerned for the well-being of her slaves, while other reports of Lalaurie’s slaves suggested that they were mistreated. As time went on, more rumors spread of the poor treatment of Lalaurie’s slaves. These reports attracted so much attention that her home was visited by a judge to inspect the conditions of the slaves, but nothing was found. Not long after, a neighbor of Lalaurie reported seeing a twelve-year-old slave girl falling from the roof of the Lalaurie home. The neighbor later told a judge that the young girl was running to avoid punishment from Lalaurie. The death of the girl resulted in the Lalaurie family being guilty of illegal cruelty, their punishment being they had to give up nine slaves. Following this, more speculations about what was happening behind the closed doors of the Lalaurie home were made, but no one could possibly imagine what was really going on.

On April 10, 1834, the Lalaurie home caught fire and officials arrived to handle it. Inside the home, officials found out the fire was started intentionally by Lalaurie’s slave cook who was chained to the stove. The enslaved woman told officials it was her suicide attempt to avoid cruel punishment. Because of that woman, officials found out about an upstairs torture room where seven slaves were being held captive. In the room, they found some slaves suspended by their necks, all mutilated. One elderly slave woman suffered a deep wound on her head while others had their limbs stretched and torn, the wounds filled with worms. As a result of the fire, a large crowd had developed outside the Lalaurie home and once it was made known what was in the upstairs room the public demanded the Lalaurie family be arrested. Unfortunately, officials did nothing and they were able to escape. Infuriated by this, the public destroyed the home, leaving it unrecognizable. Empty for many years and later used for various purposes, today the Lalaurie home serves as a historical reminder of the cruel treatment of slaves.

Over time the stories of the ways Lalaurie tortured her slaves became greatly embellished, but it is important to note that we do not know the full extent to which the slaves were tortured. Some of these embellished stories included the slaves having their eyes gouged out, lips sewn together,  and intestines pulled out and wrapped around their bodies. Although the most horrific story was Lalaurie’s caterpillar woman where the officials that rescued the slaves found a woman who’s arms were removed and skin peeled off in a pattern to resemble a caterpillar. The horrible reality of Delphine Lalaurie in addition to the intense stories that followed her provided to creators of American Horror Story with a plethora of disturbing material for the show, which they had no issue depicting in the most unimaginable way. http://http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZQFrB_cJvE

What many people don’t know about New Orleans, including myself, is that there is a Native American tribe (numerous actually) that are in the city right now, and they have been there for centuries. In an essay written by Monique Verdin, “Southward Into the Vanishing Land,” Verdin tells the untold stories of the tribes that were once living in the city and others that are still present.

Verdin is a descendant of the Houma tribe. Over centuries, the Houma tribe has been pushed to migrate to the south. The land in which the tribe has lived for hundreds of years is disappearing more and more every day.

There were many other Native tribes in the area but they have been forgotten. Some include Bayougoula (bayou people), Mugulash (people of the other side), Chitimacha (those living on the grand river/those who have pots), Houma (red), Tangipahoa (corn gatherers), Quinapisa (those who see), Biloxi (first peoples), Acolapissa (those who look out for people), Washa (wandering people of the seacoast/hunting place), and Atakapa (man-eaters).

The Bayougoula was a Muskhogean tribe which lived on the west bank of the Mississippi, about 30 leagues below the Huma town. By 1721 not a family was known to exist because the Bayougoula tried to get rid of the Mugulasha after a dispute between the chiefs of the tribes, and after this attempt, the Bayougoula fell victims of a similar event.

The Houma, meaning “red,” migrated toward the floodplains of the Mississippi River where they were able to live peacefully. Houma children could not attend school until the 1940s, however, a quality education was unavailable to them. The Houma people started moving to the outskirts of New Orleans because they wanted a proper education for their children. This lead to a larger, urban settlement that still exists today.

“Oral stories were forgotten when the native languages died, leaving it to imaginations to ponder blurred legacies and lore. Much remains a mystery, lost in translation and left out of historical texts.” (22, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas)

The Irish Channel is deceptive. While its name suggests a majority Irish population, it is actually home to a large African American community. In its early days, however, this was not the case. Back then, the community living in the Irish Channel corresponded much more closely with its name.

In the early 1800s, the potato famine was taking a heavy toll on the people of Ireland. Thousands of people left to make a better life for themselves elsewhere, because otherwise they would starve. Many came to the United States. Because New Orleans was a port city, a large number of ships landed there, and the occupants often stayed. Not wandering far, much of the new immigrant population worked at the ports, and thus, the Irish Channel was born on the Mississippi River.  Not far from the French Quarter, it was majority Irish, but also home to some immigrants from Germany and Italy.

This was very much a working class neighborhood, and therefore was home to architecture like shotgun houses and small cottages, which were more available to the lower classes. Though the Irish had left the impoverished living conditions of their home country, many still died due to disease and dangerous work, such as the New Basin Canal. It was far from easy for these newcomers to build up their new lives, but they endured.

Today, the Irish Channel is still a center for the culture of the Irish, and has also influenced other parts of the city. An annual St. Patrick’s Day parade takes place there every year, and until 2005, Hibernia Bank (using an old name for Ireland) was one of the largest in Louisiana because of its many Irish patrons. The accent of the city takes traces from the Irish brogue, not unlike that of Brooklyn, where other Irish immigrants landed and settled. One of the churches that remains in the district (St Alphonsus) was built for the Irish.

St Alphonsus church

The residents of this neighborhood are tight-knit, and though it is no longer Irish in population, it still retains its identity and roots. It has just adapted to accommodate residents from every place and social status.

As the trade and population in New Orleans began to increase, the need for healthcare in the city increased as well. The diversity of the population beginning to settle in the city made it so that practitioners of various backgrounds who spoke different languages were necessary to aid the community. In turn, medical societies were formed. The societies were fairly unsuccessful, as practitioners struggled to communicate due to language barriers. Cultural differences led to varying medical opinions on courses of treatment, adding to the difficulty of creating a medical society of practitioners who shared similar ideologies. One of the more successful societies was called The West Feliciana Medical Society. These societies did things similar to that of the current-day American Medical Association, such as establish general standards for ethics, ettiequte, and health. A larger state-wide society was created later in 1878  that led to further advances in medicine, ethics, and ettiequte in the state of Louisiana, replacing the smaller societies mentioned above. This society, the Louisiana State Medical Society, is still in action today.

Information about these societies can be found here. General information about medical societies throughout time in New Orleans can be found here.

There is a common myth told about 19th-century New Orleans. It goes something like this: Imagine you’re in an elegant dance hall in New Orleans in the early 1800s. Looking around, you see a large group of white men and free women of color, who were at the time called quadroons, meaning they supposedly had ¼ African ancestry. The mothers play matchmakers, and introduce their daughters to these white men, who then ask their hand in a dance.

— Tripod MythBusters on WWNO 89.9 New Orleans Public Radio

This radio story offers some conclusions from the research of Tulane University Professor Emily Clark, which she presents in more detail in her book The Strange History of the American Quadroon: Free Women of Color in the Revolutionary Atlantic World. Clark is also the author of  Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834, in which Clark “explores the transformations required of the Ursulines as their distinctive female piety collided with slave society, Spanish colonial rule, and Protestant hostility.”

English: Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants in a Landscape, oil on canvas painting by Agostino Brunias, ca. 1764-1796

(Edward Windsor Kimble. The Historic New Orleans Collection)

Congo Square, located in New Orleans within Louis Armstrong Park in Tremé, is a cultural landmark known for its deeply rooted significance to African- American and New Orleans culture. The square first came to be widely known during the 1800s when both free and enslaved Africans were permitted to worship and sing songs native to their homeland under the Spanish and French colonial rule. Congo Square was designated as one of the only places blacks were allowed to gather freely every Sunday afternoon without fear of being reprimanded. This rare allowance attracted hundreds of people, varying in class, from different parts of the city, and the gatherings were said to have been so large that thousands of people were amassed at times.

This tradition, originally populated almost entirely by Africans, soon became an attraction for white New Orleans citizens who saw these happenings as a glimpse of Africa and exoticised the intricate drum patterns, dances, religious practices and vocal stylings. Voodoo practitioners such as Marie Laveau often performed altered versions of ceremonies that celebrated African culture although the more closed ceremonies were held privately elsewhere. Congo Square also began to act as a marketplace, allowing the enslaved to experience the economic freedom they hadn’t previously been able to employ. The market gave enslaved Africans the hope of one day being able to buy their freedom in order to the escape the harsh conditions they lived in.

Congo Square is thought by some music historians to be the birthplace of many musical artforms, most notably, jazz. The unique blend of African customs from countries such as Senegal and Mozambique blended with American and European culture to create the unique artforms and styles people of African descent pioneered. Quotes from onlookers during the time describe “tribal groupings” throughout the square which each had attire and songs unique to their own cultural roots. This unique cultural exchange led to amazing creative outcomes.

(From the book Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford)

Throughout its history, Congo Square has been known by many names including Place Publique, Place des Nègres, and Place Congo as well as others. The tradition of using the space to honor African culture continues to this day as efforts are made to preserve this unique facet of African-American history. Festivals, community meetings, and social justice events still occur in the square. Groups of people such as the Congo Square Preservation Society, spearheaded by activist Luther Gray, gather to sing traditional songs and educate those who may not know the long history and significance of a seemingly ordinary place.

Due to my strong interest in Wicca and eclectic witchcraft, I found the popularity of Voodoo in New Orleans fascinating. Voodoo queens such as Marie Laveau used skills such as clairvoyance and healing to do her spiritual work.  Something I never knew was that Voodoo has strong ties to Catholic beliefs and practices. While some forms of witchcraft can have biblical ties, Wicca does not. Voodoo is the first religion I have seen with similarity to witchcraft and Wicca to have biblical ties. The deep history behind Voodoo and its origin is something I knew vaguely about before doing more research. I knew it had roots in Western Africa and made its way to the Caribbean through the slave trade, but I did not know how strongly it influenced culture. It is popular for Wiccans to have covens but not to the degree that Voodoo believes in group rituals. Over one million people practice Voodoo, and some rituals alone can attract thousands of people.  Similar to certain parts of Wicca, Voodoo is based deeply on spirit and ancestor worship, in addition to work with herbs, charms, and protection of oneself or others. Both Wicca and Voodoo are demonized religions by the general public’s opinion. Voodoo, unfortunately, was seen as another way to dehumanize and degrade African Americans as primitives, viewing their beliefs as purely superstitious and condemned mostly by Christianity.

There are 17 wards within New Orleans. Originally, these wards were created for political reasons. But while they have been replaced by council districts, the wards still hold a lot of meaning for neighborhood identity within the city.

When researching the wards in New Orleans, I found that many of the links were to articles about the devastation from Hurricane Katrina in the Lower 9th Ward. Greg Allen, in a report for NPR in 2015, pointed out that the Lower 9th Ward was still shattered by the storm a decade later. “Today, there’s a feeling of desolation on nearly every block of the predominantly African-American neighborhood. One of the first things you notice is the many empty lots, several on every street. Instead of houses, they now hold weeds and tall grass.” He accompanied this statement with images of the broken houses and overgrown lots.

The wards are divided by those that are “uptown” and those that are “downtown,” and the members of the different wards may use them as a cultural identifier. With the uprise of bounce music in the 1980’s, there was a rise in the use of wards as a means of identification. This also is believed to have led to violence between those from different wards.

Another interesting aspect of the wards are the different dialects connected to them. In the documentary Yeah, You Rite, many people described being called out about their ward by their accent. While the wards may not be directly connected to social class within New Orleans, it seems that the participants in the documentary believed that those belonging to the “uptown” wards were better off than those from “downtown” wards.

Here, by the way, is a map of the “official” neighborhoods of New Orleans:

But Richard Campanella, a Tulane University School of Architecture geographer, has pointed out that New Orleanians don’t use these official designations. They use a variety of means to identify where they live: street names, cardinal directions, and historical and natural landmarks.

Here is an interactive map that allows residents to identify their address and designate what they call their neighborhood. And here is another fascinating interactive map that suggests the different ways the city’s different sections can be divided and described.

  One of the first things that comes to my mind when I think of New Orleans is Mardi Gras. I think of the purple, gold, and green that are shown everywhere. I think of the food and the parades.

Mardi Gras means “Fat Tuesday” in French. The origins of this holiday can be traced back to the 17th century in Rome and the 18th century in French cultures. In 1703, Mardi Gras was celebrated for the first time on American soil at the settlement of Fort Louis de la Mobile, which was established in 1702.

Many people know that Mardi Gras is a big thing in New Orleans and that they have huge parades on the day to celebrate. The earliest date that is believed to be the start of the “Carnival” was in 1781. It was in a report to the Spanish colonial governing body during that time. The Preservence Benevolent & Mutual Aid Association was one of the hundreds of clubs and carnival associations in New Orleans.

In 1875, Governor Henry C. Warmoth signed the “Mardi Gras Act,” declaring that Fat Tuesday was a legal holiday in the state of Louisiana, and it still is.

Many other cities across the world celebrate Mardi Gras. When I was in high school, my French class would always celebrate Mardi Gras. Each student would have to dress up in costumes for the whole day, and at the end of the day, the class would enjoy all different kinds of food and games together. We would make food that was known for being from Louisana, like jambalaya, King Cake, and gumbo.

For more information on the holiday, you can look here.

One interesting subject for further exploration is the evolving role of women in the krewes that host balls and stage parades throughout New Orleans during the Carnival season. For example, in 1941 the Krewe of Venus — the first all-female Mardi Gras crew — organized a parade. (“It’s undignified, women riding on floats. They do not belong.”) There are now many all-female krewes, including Iris, Helios, Diana, Pandora, Cleopatra, Nyx, Femme Fatale, and Athena.

Different cultures have various means to honor the dead and lay their bodies to rest. In Bali, dead bodies are disposed of through fire burials; in Egypt, bodies are disposed of in tombs; and in many Western cultures, the deceased are either cremated or buried in cemeteries. Most cemeteries are similar in appearance; however, those present throughout New Orleans break the typical mold. Due to the below-sea-level status of the city, mausoleums in this area have a unique appearance. Tombs are built above ground, showcasing various forms of artwork such as sculptures. These forms of art are so unique, the cemeteries draw tourists from all around the world.

Follow this link or this link to explore New Orleans’ “Cities of the Dead.”

And you can go here to take a look at burial ceremonies from around the world.

Edgar Degas (French, 1834 – 1917), Madame René de Gas, 1872/1873, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection 1963.10.124

This is one of my favorite Degas paintings — a portrait of his brother Achille’s wife René, who was nearly blind, that Degas painted while visiting New Orleans. The work hangs in the National Gallery of Art. “Posture, gesture, accessories, and activities were often used by Degas to characterize the models in his portraits,” the National Gallery’s entry on this painting states. “Such incidental details were deliberately omitted here, a similarly informative decision. The soft focus of the painting, subdued and nearly monochromatic color harmonies, and Estelle’s unfocused gaze parallel her limited visual capacity and indicate the artist’s respect for Estelle and compassionate understanding of her situation.”

Cotton Exchange in New Orleans *oil on canvas *73 x 92 cm *1873

Edgar Degas is known for his dancers. His stark imagery of young ballerinas in motion and at rest made him famous. Because he was a native Frenchman, one might think that he would have no connection to the American city of New Orleans, but that conception is false. In fact, Degas actually had family in New Orleans, which is what led to an extended visit on his part to a city, and a country, that had recently been torn apart by the American Civil War. In visiting New Orleans at this time, Degas was escaping a separate conflict in his home country: the reign of the Paris Commune. Instead, he experienced the contentious Reconstruction era in a New Orleans that was politically unstable. This was also an important time for Degas and many other artists, as they used the war-torn landscape of Louisiana and New Orleans to fuel their creativity. Degas’ presence was particularly interesting though, because he was the only French painter from the impressionist movement to paint New Orleans, and his stay in the city took place early enough in his career that it was a formative experience for him that established major elements of his style. In this way, it was an inspiration for his later work, and established his place as one of the creative minds (such as Kate Chopin) who was captivated by New Orleans.

Degas’ works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York can be found here. His works at the National Gallery of Art can be found here.

Go to Spotify to listen to the Art & Identity in New Orleans Playlist.