Alabama Cajans

Alabama Cajans

Cajans standing in front of one of their homes, near Calvert, Alabama
Total population
1930 (est.)	1800–2000
1950 (est.)	1928
1974 (est.)	2000–4500
Regions with significant populations
Alabama (Mobile, Washington, and Clarke counties)  Mississippi
Languages
English, Patois
Religion
Baptist, Methodism, Holiness movement, Catholicism, Conjure
Related ethnic groups
Dominickers, Redbones, Melungeons, Lumbee, Brandywine people, Carmelites, Chestnut Ridge people, Free Black people

The Alabama Cajans, sometimes spelled Cajuns, were a historic group of communities, described as having varying degrees of free Black, white, Alabama Creole, and possible Native American ancestries. They historically resided in the counties of Mobile, Washington, and Clarke within Alabama. They socially assorted apart from Black Alabamians but were classified as non-white and excluded from white schools.

The name Cajan was an exonym created by a local politician to distinguish them from other ethnic groups, such as the freedmen emancipated after the Civil War and the Alabama Creoles. They were unrelated to the Louisiana Cajuns. Members of these communities often considered the name pejorative, and sometimes referred to themselves as "a peculiar people" instead.

Their descendants variously integrated into white communities, began identifying as Black, expressed MOWA Choctaw identity, or reclaimed the Cajan identity for themselves.

History of settlement

Groups considered Cajan are described as having varying amounts of Black, white, and possible Native American ancestries. They are typically descended from free Black and Alabama Creole communities who intermarried with whites. The Reeds, Weavers, and Byrds were historic Cajan progenitor families. They inhabited a region straddling the counties of Mobile, Washington, and Clarke.

Official records of the Cajans describe them in different ways at different times. Until the middle of the 20th century, the progenitors and their three families were described in official documents as free Black, mulatto, or free persons of color, with certain individuals listed as white. They were culturally different from the nearby Alabama Creoles and Louisiana Cajuns. They often lived in backcountry areas such as woodlands or swamps, forming small isolated communities.

19th century

Though the Cajans were of poor economic status, they owned land in significant quantities. Much of their land was obtained via land grants after the Homestead Act of 1862. They obtained more land via expansions of the act from 1862 to the mid-1870s, which widened the settlement area of the Cajans to its 20th century boundaries. The land was initially used for cattle grazing, then as a source of lumber. Lumber from the area was used for logs, naval stores, and pulpwood later in the century.

Progenitor families

The Cajans are described to begin with the marriage of Daniel and Rose Reed. The Reed family initially settled near Tibbie in Washington County. Daniel Reed was locally described as a mixed-race man from Jamaica or Hispaniola. He emancipated his wife, Rose Reed, a slave born in Mississippi, in 1818. Later on, Daniel emancipated three of their children; they eventually had eight in total. In 1836, the family received 39.95 acres of land within Washington County. By 1849, they owned 117 acres via later purchases. The following generation obtained more land to the south and east via homestead grants, totaling 1700 acres by the 1880s-1890s. The Reeds were the only free family of color residing permanently in Washington County during the Antebellum era.

Scholars Eugene Griessman and Curtis Henson wrote the sons of Daniel and Rose Reed married mulatto women. The progenitor Lemuel Byrd migrated from North Carolina to fight in the Indian Wars under Andrew Jackson. Griessman and Henson suggested his wife Anna was related to two men surnamed Weaver claiming to be from Georgia, who were in Mobile County ten years before Byrd. They also suggested the Cajan surname Chestang alluded to Creole ancestry.

20th century

Tibbie

Citronelle

McIntosh

Calvert

Areas of historic Cajan settlement in Alabama, 1950. A few decades later in 1975, paved roads had been implemented throughout the settlement area.

Several communities had formed Cajan-only churches and schools by 1930. The following year, African-American historian Horace Mann Bond conducted the first academic report on the group, titled "Two Racial Islands in Alabama", wherein he performed a comparative study between them and Alabama Creoles living in Mobile. Later on, Carl Carmer visited Cajans settled near Citronelle when researching for his 1934 novel, Stars Fell on Alabama.

Midcentury census

On the 1950 United States census, enumerators were allowed to use local designations. In Washington County, one investigator found 734 people listed as Indian and 361 listed as Cajun. Using surnames and assumed family relationships, he estimated that 288 people listed as white and 449 listed as Black were also of Cajan lineage in the county. In Mobile County, using similar methods but not the term Cajan, enumerators estimated that the majority identified as white.

Land tenure system

Landholding rights in the community were kept intact by a specific system of land tenure. Landowners, rather than transferring titles, instead informed the tax assessor that they would take over payments for the land of their parents. Thus parcels were sometimes under the name of long deceased ancestors of a family. Cajans were 12% more likely to own their homes than other residents of Alabama, however the homes were of lower quality than those of whites on average.

Usage of genealogy to prevent integration

Historian Clement Eaton interviewed the state archivist of Alabama, who expressed her desire to research family lines near Mobile for Cajan ancestry. Decades later in the 1970s, several individuals had compiled records on the genealogy of major Cajan families, with four possessing records specifically on the Reeds. Scholars Curtis Henson and Eugene Griessman propose this was due to Jim Crow era laws mandating the societal exclusion of people with African ancestry. They suggest the ability of light-skinned Cajans to pass the color line led people to document them more carefully, to prevent their integration.

At one point, lumber industry interests near Cedar Creek had hired a white-passing Cajan from Mt. Vernon to keep genealogical records of the community's families via his personal contacts. He used these records to reveal Cajan children who attempted to enroll in white schools outside the community. Thereafter their families were forced to return to their isolated communities, preserving themselves as a guaranteed labor pool.

Increasing outmigration and assimilation

Skyline of Mobile, Alabama.

By 1974, Cajans were frequently emigrating to nearby cities such as Mobile, New Orleans, and Houston. They were not racialized as Black in these cities, and would marry into the dominant group of the area. Researcher Eugene Griessman says that this outmigration and assimilation was mitigated by the high birthrate of the Cajans, and new families marrying into their communities. Only 183 individuals in the Cajan area of settlement identified themselves as Indian on the 1970 census. One of the families descended from the Reeds had mostly gained social acceptance among the white families of the area, and were marked white on an earlier census. When given the option, some Cajans self-identified as Black on the census.

By 1977, both genetic and genealogical analysis suggested they had been outmarrying heavily compared to in the past. Some common surnames in the group at this time were Bryant, Cole, Daugherty, Patrick, Rivers, Snow, Taylor, and Young. Some individuals labelled Cajan emigrated, assimilating into the dominant populations of urban areas or nearby white communities, while others organized as the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians, retiring the term amongst themselves.

Reclamation of Cajan

While some younger members of the group attempted to reclaim the name in the 1970s, with slogans such as "Cajan Power", and "Cajans Are Beautiful", only a minority of the group had identified as Cajan on the 1950 census.

Carol W. Hill criticized G.H. Stopp for his belief that the "Cajans" would dissolve as a group due to career opportunities and school integration, reasoning that he did not provide an explanation as to why this would occur. Those identifying as Cajan were described to adhere to a specifically Cajan identity in 1972, as opposed to the Lumbee, who adhered to a Native American identity.

21st century

By the 2020s, some Cajans were observed to have immigrated to Mississippi, and others remained in the Alabamian backcountry. Renate Bartl writes the Cajans in southern Mississippi absorbed a group identifying as Redbones from Slidell, Louisiana. Recorded surnames present among the Cajans in 2021 were Cole, Johnson, Johnston, Smith, Taylor, White, and Williams.

Culture

William Harlen Gilbert Jr. described Cajans to have spoken a unique patois in 1946. Methodist missionary Laura Frances Murphy observed that Cajan boys were to not eat in the homes of others, or in front of girls from other settlements, sometimes not eating for multiple days as a result. She said older Cajan girls saved food for them to eat later as a result.

Writers for the Works Progress Administration reported women in the community wore bright colors, scarves around their hair, fashion jewelry, and more rouge than usual. Scholar G.H. Stopp described their society to be similar to those of the nearby whites of the Upland South. Stopp and scholar Carol W. Hill wrote that Cajan men preferred to marry mulatto women, while Cajan women preferred to marry white men.

Beliefs

Cajans were seen to be devout believers in conjure, and were observed to place objects on top of their graves, such as shards of fine china, broken pitchers, or empty bottles. Believing in signs and "ha'nts", they wore "tricks" to repel diseases and bad luck.

Cajans were mostly Baptists or Methodists, and by the 1970s many became involved in the Holiness movement, such that half of the pastors leading Holiness congregations in the area were locals, rather than whites. They were observed to sing spirituals. By 1975, 300–400 Cajans were attending St. Theressa's Church, a five-decade old Catholic mission near Chastang, and all but one of the pastors in Baptist churches attended by locals were of the community.

Identity

The name Cajan was an exonym, created by the Alabama State senator L.W. McRae. Considering the term pejorative, they referred to themselves simply as "Our people", a name also used by the Chestnut Ridge people. Very few Cajans identified with the exonym in a 1950 survey. Cajans were often reminded of their African ancestry when around white people, but had other identities within their own communities, such as Mexican and, less frequently, Indian. Some Cajans self-identified as Black in official records.

Timeline of segregation

Livelihood

Two unidentified men holding babies in Mobile County. They were labelled Cajans by the Alabama Historical Quarterly in 1930.

Cajans initially raised livestock, typically on small, unimproved tracts, then moved into the lumber, and later turpentine, industries. Successive researchers suggest they were concentrated in these industries. Scholar Gary B. Stopp suggests Cajans chose to become subject to the local lumber industry in exchange for isolation from the racial discrimination of Alabama society.

A series of life histories by the Federal Writer's Project documented Isaac Johnson, a Cajan in Washington County, later described as a poor white by scholar Wayne Flynt. Living along the Tombigbee River, he worked as a turpentiner in a secondary forest. His father was able to acquire 40 acres of farmland due to relying on old growth forest. The turpentine economy underwent depression during Isaac's career, and sawmills which used to employ him had closed. By the 1930s, his cabin lacked windowpanes, but his white wife was able to supplement his income by teaching in a Cajan school.

Broker system

Some Cajans were not wage-workers. They instead worked according to a broker system, meaning they could only cut trees if listed by brokers, who were local Cajan men appointed to the task. At the local railroad siding, the brokers received cutting schedules from logging company representatives. These brokers gave representatives lists of available workers, who would only be allowed to sell lumber at the nearest siding. The brokers received commission on lumber sold by their recommended workers.

Cajans had to buy all of their logging equipment on credit; company representatives sold them at noncompetitive prices. They subtracted payments on the equipment from the value of logs a worker delivered to the railroad siding.

As a form of social allegiance, Cajan workers often intentionally lived near the broker whose list they were on, and voted according to their broker's opinions. At times, the fencing of their local broker enclosed their own property. Brokers acted as local foremen in their precinct, and successfully guided their workers to vote for parties aligned with the interests of the local lumber companies.

Segregation

See also: One-drop rule § Legislation and practice

In 1925, defending himself against miscegenation charges, a Daniel Reed argued he was "Cajun", meaning a mix of "[Acadian], Indian, and Spanish" descent – although he did not have any Acadian heritage and was unrelated to the Louisiana Cajuns. Scholar Christophe Landry writes this was counterproductive, as the term "Cajun" was commonly associated with local population isolates of partial Black ancestry. Daniel was indicted for marrying a white woman.

Cajan attempts to enroll their children in white schools were viewed by local whites as attempts to desegregate schooling in the area. Thus whites enacted legal measures, via multiple court hearings against Cajans attempting to enroll. This created the precedent for defining Cajans as colored, and they were automatically rejected from white schools afterwards.

Separate school system

Newspaper excerpt spotlighting a missionary to the Cajans, 1922.

Cajans had their own missionary-founded school system by the 1930s, due to standard white schools excluding a portion of them. Some children attending white schools were expelled after school staff saw their non-passing relatives.

For a period before the institution of Cajan schools, many Cajans received little or no schooling due to refusing to attend Black schools. In areas not served by Cajan schools, some went to Black schools in the early 19th century if they could not pass as white. Later on, Cajans were recorded refusing to attend schools with Black teachers, although lighter-skinned Black women were accepted at least as late as 1931. One such case was recorded in 1920.

The schools were underfunded, and in some cases several grades would be taught in the same classroom. Over time, more locals were hired as teachers, as well as one African-American by 1974.

Social stratification

See also: Residential segregation in the United States

Cajan Weaver School in 1933.

Communities described as Cajan were described by successive researchers as mixed-race people socially delineated from Black Alabamians, but lacking acceptance from local whites. William S. Pollitzer et al. observed that status was centered on one's apparent degree of Black ancestry.

Local Cajan communities did not necessarily identify with other groups designated as Cajan. They identified with separate "neighborhoods" of extended families that surrounded a specific school and would sometimes not associate with Cajans attending other schools. Cajan school cohorts developed into unofficial "castes" over time, such that the attendees of different schools developed different ranked "sub-castes" relative to each other. Marriage between Cajans from different neighborhoods would be spoken of in terms of marrying "up" or "down" to a different sub-caste, depending on the relative status of the neighborhood in question.

Desegregation

Citronelle High School.

By 1969, most of the community went to desegregated schools. Only Reed Chapel and another school remained as Cajan schools, and both only served elementary students by 1974. By this time, most students instead went to desegregated schools in McIntosh, Mt. Vernon, or Citronelle, improving their schooling conditions. The student body of these schools was mostly Black in McIntosh and mostly white in Citronelle.

By 1974, local industries also began to hire Cajans, offering them prosperity and mobility previously denied to them in the lumber industry most had been employed in. Many younger Cajans emigrated to work in areas outside the zone of Cajan settlement for new job offerings. The number of Cajans living near brokers decreased as a result, lowering from 50% to 10% of newly married couples between 1969 and 1970. By 1971, the brokerage system had degraded heavily; it was dissolved later that decade. By 1975, women in the community had begun to enter the workforce.

Conditions relative to Black Americans

Local businessmen preferred to hire Cajans instead of Black people. Scholar G.H. Stopp suggested this was to "ease the shock of forced integration" after civil rights legislation, as whites would have preferred other non-whites to Black people. He stated they acted as de facto whites in the workplace, while satisfying the de jure requirement of hiring Black people. After learning about minority quotas in chemical plants they applied to, some Cajans felt their chances for employment would increase when listing themselves as Indian rather than white. The social status of the Cajans was stated to have surpassed that of local Black people post-desegregation, partially due to their improved schooling.

See also

• African Americans in Alabama
• Ascribed status
• Black Codes (United States)
• Brandywine people
• Brass Ankles
• Chestnut Ridge people
• Class: A Guide Through the American Status System
• Delaware Moors
• Dominickers
• Ethnic identity development
• Florida cracker
• Forest railway
• Free black people in Jamaica
• Free Black
• Geographical segregation
• Jim Crow laws
• Local history
• Melungeons
• Microhistory
• One-place study
• Peasant economics
• Piney Woods
• Racial segregation in the United States
• Redbones
• School segregation in the United States
• South Alabama
• Stars Fell on Alabama
• Stigma management
• The Moral Economy of the Peasant

Bibliography

• Griessman, B. Eugene Jr.; Henson, Curtis T. (1975). "The History and Social Topography of an Ethnic Island in Alabama". Phylon. 36 (2). Clark Atlanta University. doi:10.2307/274796.
• Stopp, G. Harry (July 1976). "Cultural Brokers and Social Change in an American Peasant Community". Peasant Studies. 5 (3). University of Pittsburgh: 18–22. ISSN 0149-1547.
• Minton, Gary; Griessman, B. Eugene (November 19, 1974). The Formation and Development of an Ethnic Group: The 'Cajuns' of Alabama. 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Anthropology Association. Mexico City, MX: American Anthropology Association – via Education Resources Information Center.
• Hill, Carol W. (May 19, 2003) [1995]. "Who is what? A preliminary enquiry into cultural and physical identity". In Shennan, Stephen J. (ed.). Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity. One World Archaeology (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203111147. ISBN 0-203-11114-1.
• Pollitzer, William S.; Namboodiri, Kadambari K.; Coleman, William H.; Finley, Wayne H.; Leyshon, Webster C.; Jennings, Gary C.; Brown, William H. (July 1977). "The Cajuns of Southern Alabama: Morphology and Serology". American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 47 (1). doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330470103.
• Price, Edward Thomas (1950). Mixed-blood Populations of Eastern United States as to Origins, Localizations, and Persistence. Berkeley, United States of America: University of California.
• Office of Federal Acknowledgement (December 15, 1994). Summary under the Criteria and Evidence for Proposed Finding against Federal Acknowledgment of the MOWA Band of Choctaw (PDF) (Report). Washington, D.C.: United States Department of the Interior.
• Miller, Mark Edwin (2013). Claiming Tribal Identity: The Five Tribes and the Politics of Federal Acknowledgment. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0806143781.
• Bartl, Renate (2021). American Tri-Racials: African-Native Contact, Multi-Ethnic Native American Nations, and the Ethnogenesis of Tri-Racial Groups in North America (PDF) (PhD thesis). Munich: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. doi:10.5282/edoc.26874 – via Electronic Theses of LMU Munich.
• Flynt, Wayne (February 2016). Poor but Proud: Alabama's Poor Whites (eBook ed.). Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0-8173-1150-5.
• Hobson, Archie, ed. (1985). "Some Special People". Remembering America: A Sampler of the WPA American Guide Series. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-06050-5.

Further reading

• Robinson, Charles Frank II (2003). "For the Sake of Racial Purity: The Anti-miscegenation Effort in the New Era". Dangerous Liasons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South. Fayetteville, AR: The University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 9781610751193.
• State of Segregation: America’s Freedom Rights Struggles as Told by Alabama