Minorities playing major roles in New Orleans history and culture by Stephanie Moens

            Some major figures in this city’s history that belonged to minority groups I already covered in my other postings, such as a pirate and a slave revolt leader. However, I am going to focus on how certain minority groups helped shape New Orleans rather than individual persons.

Music and dancing is a part of culture. Because of Caribbean-imported slaves, New Orleans has the Calinda Dance. The history of this dance is as follows: the Africans had traditional stick fighting called Calinda, just like we call certain martial art forms names like Judo or Tae Kwan Do. This stick fighting tradition eventually morphed into a dance (French Creoles of America n.d.). There is also singing that goes along with the dancing. While the Calinda Dance eventually became more sensual and included both genders, the original Calinda dance had only male dancers who would incorporate the use of fighting sticks in their dance moves. This is showcased in the clip  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BbvtiNypNM . The dancers you see featured are from Trinidad.

Catholics can definitely be categorized as a minority group in the United States. Mardi Gras, although originally a pagan event, became associated with the Catholic Church as the celebration before Lent season. Without Catholics, there would be no Mardi Gras tradition in New Orleans, which is rather unimaginable to the U.S. populace nowadays as Mardi Gras is what most people think of when they think of New Orleans. According to History.com, historians think that the first Mardi Gras in the U.S. happened in 1699 close to New Orleans. Organized New Orleans Mardi Gras festivities were in existence by the 1800s.  

Mardi Gras hats worn by New Orleans socialite

A minority group that is not focused on in the city’s history is the original inhabitants of the New Orleans area, which was the Chitimacha tribe. New Orleans was all swamp originally. A city would have been impossible to build unless the land was first drained. After dominating the Chitimacha tribe, the Frenchmen made them dig the drainage ditches and levees. While the Frenchmen soon switched to using African slaves for that work, the Chitimachas did the original grunt work to make the existence of New Orleans possible (Thornton, “Native American Slaves”). 

Evidence of the swampy terrain, taken from train window near New Orleans

Works Cited

French Creoles of America.. Calinda Dance, n.d.. Web. Accessed 8 December 2015. http://www.frenchcreoles.com/ArtTheater/CalindaDance/calindadance.htm

History.com. Mardi Gras, 2015. Web. Accessed 8 December 2015. http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/mardi-gras

Thorton, Richard. “Native American slaves help build New Orleans.” Examiner.com. 30 October 2011. Accessed 8 December 2015. http://www.examiner.com/article/native-american-slaves-helped-build-new-orleans