Indians at the bottom in New Orleans

Some people have argued that because Indians and blacks have a shared history at the bottom of New Orleans society, it's okay for them to appropriate each other's culture. Neither group was in a position to lord it over the other, so this appropriation is a respectful kind of homage.

For some reason this appropriation goes only one way: blacks imitate Indians but Indians don't imitate blacks. I suspect that's because blacks and Indians weren't truly equal in this environment. Blacks had a superior social position, so their "homage" was no homage. It was more of the usual stereotyping: "As Indians we can pretend to be wild and free, even though we're staid members of civilized society."

A posting on the Choctaw shows how Indians were marginalized even in the multicultural gumbo of Louisiana. I believe the first (indented) comes from Joey Dillard, a "recognized authority on black English." "Red Bones" is a pejorative term for Indians who migrated from the Carolinas and Georgia.Both Indians and Red Bones long have been marginal to the plantation areas of Louisiana. The Indian settlements were in the swamps, pine woods, and marshes, and their closest non-Indian neighbors most often were white yeoman farmers, Acadians, and Scotch-Irish, who owned no slaves. If Indians lived near a plantation, the owner became their patron, offering them credit and protection from exploitation, at least by others. In exchange, they were required to hunt, entertain guests with ball games and dances, make baskets, tan hides, and perform other services that might, on occasion, include the recovery of runaway slaves."Half savages and half civilized"

The posting continues:Dominique Rouquette, a friend of the Louisiana Choctaw, has left a lively description of the situations in 1850.

The Choctaw obstinately refuse to abandon the different parishes of Louisiana, where they are grouped in small family tribes, and live in rough huts in the vicinity of plantations, and hunt for the planters, who trade for the games they kill all they need: powder, lead, corn, woolen covers, etc. Their huts are generally [surrounded] by a fence. In this enclosure their families plant corn, pumpkins and potatoes, and raise chickens.
Rosa Jackson Pierite, a Choctaw-Biloxi from Indian Creek, has described how, in the 1920s, her mother and sisters put their baskets in a sheet, bundled it over a pole, and walked twelve miles from their homes near Indian Creek to Alexandria: "We spread them on street corners and sold them to passers-by." Rouquette has described a similar scene from nineteenth-century New Orleans.

Nothing is more interesting to the tourists than to see them [the Choctaw] wandering along the streets of La Reine du Sud (the Queen of the South), La Cite du Croissant (Crescent City) with their pauvres pacotilles (small, cheap wares), in their picturesque costumes, half savages and half civilized, followed by a number of children of all ages, half naked, and carrying on their backs a papoose snugly wrapped in the blanket, with which they envelope themselves, like a squirrel in moss.

Sometimes they squat in a circle, at the big market place, on the banks of the old river, patiently waiting with downcast eyes, for the chalandes [customers] who buy what they offer, more for the sake of charity than from necessity.
Artists such as basket makers were considered to be peddling, a low-status occupation in the eyes of non-Indians. Hunters were considered unreliable, almost objects of ridicule. Social contacts with non-Indians were largely restricted to practically momentary encounters, so the ball games, dances, and the sacred rituals of religion became matters of curiosity and sources of entertainment for white planters' families and friends.

(A Choctaw Belle, 1850, painted by P. Romer.)

Sounds to me like Indians were considered the dregs of society, equivalent to black slaves. They were considered half-savage, with large broods of children, exotic and colorful. They lives in rough huts in the woods and swamps beyond the plantations and didn't interact much with others except to sell their goods.

"Free people of color"

In contrast, here's how the free blacks and mixed-race Creoles lived:

Louisiana Creole peopleAs a group, the mixed-race Créoles rapidly began to acquire education, skills (many in New Orleans worked as craftsmen and artisans), businesses and property. They were overwhelmingly Catholic, spoke Colonial French (although some also spoke Louisiana Creole French), and kept up many French social customs, modified by other parts of their ancestry and Louisiana culture. With enough numbers, the free people of color also married among themselves to maintain their class and social culture. The French-speaking mixed-race or mulatto population came to be called Black Créoles and Créoles of color. "New Orleans persons of color were far wealthier, more secure, and more established than blacks elsewhere in Louisiana."And:Under the French and Spanish, Louisiana was a three-tiered society, similar to that of Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, St.Lucia, Mexico, and other Latin colonies. This three-tiered society allowed for the emergence of a wealthy and educated group of mixed-race Créoles. Their identity as free people of color, or Gens de couleur libres or personnes de couleur libre was one they had worked diligently towards and guarded with an iron fist. By law they enjoyed most of the same rights and privileges as whites. They could and often did challenge the law in court of law and won cases against whites (Hirsch; Brasseaux; Mills; Kein etc.). There were some free blacks, but in Louisiana most free people of color were of mixed race, descended initially from the children of planters and wealthier merchants. They acquired education, property and power within the colony, and later, state.

(Creole woman of color with maid, from a watercolor series by Édouard Marquis, New Orleans, 1867.)

So blacks and Indians apparently weren't equivalent in New Orleans. Blacks enjoyed more status and power, especially if they had mixed blood.

Given this, I can imagine the origin of the Mardi Gras Indians. Just like white college students, Boy Scouts, and Y-Indian Guides, blacks and Creoles started "playing Indian" to assert their identity. "We're a clan, we're tribal, we're connected to this place and its inhabitants. We're stronger, more unified, more authentic than you."

I conclude the Mardi Gras Indians are a form of exploitation, just as I thought. They're pretending to be Indians for the same reason everyone pretends to be Indians: "It feels good to be a wild savage."

For more on the Mardi Gras Indians, see Mardi Gras Indians in Treme and Mardi Gras Indian Stereotypes. For more on the subject in general, see Indian Wannabes and The Political Uses of Stereotyping.