 In 1862, a café called Café du Monde opened up in the French Quarter of New Orleans. To this day, this café basically just sells beignets and coffee. Beignets are something that my mother used to make for us all the time growing up. A beignet is like a French doughnut. And to understand more about the people and some of its customs, in New Orleans, we have to talk about the heritage. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. As always, a very, very, very special thank you to all of our producers and our patrons. Without you, we seriously could not do what we do. And so we thank you from the bottom of our heart. If you would like to join the Patreon community, there is a link down in the description box below. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. And today on this fun bonus episode, we're going to be talking about the Cajun people and the Creole people of Louisiana. Now, from my understanding, many people who are not from New Orleans or from Louisiana tend to get the two groups of people confused. As if the Cajun people and the Creole people are the same, but they're not. The Creole people are a combination of many different heritages, where the Cajun people have one distinct lineage. Both the Cajun people and the Creole people have their own flags and understand their own heritage. Today in the state of Louisiana, about 6 to 10 percent of people still speak French. Now, according to my research, the Cajun French, that could be understood by a native French speaker. But with Creole, the heritage is so mixed up now that most French-speaking people would not understand Creole. The Cajun people were the Arcadians. The Arcadians were people of French descent that immigrated over to Northern Canada, mostly the area of Nova Scotia during the 17th century. This was an area called New French. These people came from an area called Pontu, which was a province in the southwestern part of France. On this channel, we've spoken a lot about the history of France, especially with the House of Bourbon and the religious wars. The Arcadians were people living originally in the Pontu region of southwest France, who were basically farmers and had enough with all the warring going on between the ruling classes. Once they knew that there was a new world to be discovered, they decided to pack up and move to this New France. Once they got to the area of New France, which again is today, modern day, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, that whole area, they arranged their own little culture and civilization. In fact, most of these peasant farmers that immigrated over for a new life came from the same neighborhood. They all knew each other, and so when they got to the new world, it wasn't like they were having to transverse this new area alone. They had each other, and with each other, they could keep the part of their French heritage and culture that they wanted to. It's also important to note that they gave themselves the name Arcadians. They were the first group here in this new continent to give themselves a name that showed no resemblance to their motherland over in Europe. A lot of the Americas today are taken from names over in England or other parts of Europe to signify where the people who settled there came from. But the Arcadians, they were vastly independent. They wanted their own world. They worked well with the natives to set up their own communities and kind of like their own little country. In fact, the Arcadians were pretty prosperous as a group, especially being in a new environment. They were pretty prosperous up until what we call the French Indian War. This was a war that lasted between 1754 and 1776. This was the British American colonies versus New France. Now many historians will tell you that this was just a theater, this war, for the Seven Years War that was happening over in Europe. But if you ask any Americans, they will tell you that this was a legitimate battle that happened. And as most Americans especially will tell you that if the English had not won the war, if France had won the war, then I would be speaking to you in French right now. The fact that I'm speaking to you in English as English being the American language is significant because the English won the French Indian War. Now it is said that after Great Britain won this war, they found out that the Arcadians were supporting New France. Now many people debate this though because it seems that the Arcadians literally wanted to be left alone. They didn't want anything to do with France or England, even though they spoke French as their native language. They just kind of wanted to do their own thing. And for a while they were just kind of left alone. But then something really sinister happened and this was called the Great Expulsion. As England now held the reins over most of North America, including present day United States and Canada, England decided that they would leave a part of Canada as French speaking. This is what we now know today as modern-day Quebec. But the Arab of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, they were going to create as an English speaking land and stronghold. Therefore they needed to get the Arcadians out. From 1755 to 1764, Great Britain forced the removal of about 11,000 people from this area. Some were forced into servitude almost like slavery while others were taken back to Europe. Once they were back in France, they were then recruited by the Spanish government who was now dominant in the area of New Orleans to come back into Louisiana to re-establish a homestead. The Arcadians that took the Spanish up on their offer are now what we call the Cajuns. They didn't decide on the name change. That just kind of happened over time. Arcadian, Arcadian turned into Cajun. In today, still in Louisiana, especially near Lafayette, which is an area of Louisiana we'll be covering on Friday in more detail in our part two of the Axemen, is where the Cajun people tended to migrate. Again, for many many many years, the Cajun people kept their own French language and as they were up in Canada, they were fiercely independent. They had their own pockets of community. Now in the early 19th century, Louisiana was sold to the United States of America from Napoleon during the Louisiana purchase. And it was about a hundred years later that the United States started embarking on public education through the Federal Reserve. At this point, they told the Cajun people that they needed to learn to speak English, that they were not allowed to speak French in school anymore. And so we had this kind of transference of language where children who have grown up in French-speaking families were now forced to learn English during their state-mandated education. Again, to this day, six to 10% of Louisiana still does speak French, although most speak both English and French. Even today on the Louisiana state sign, it says welcome to Louisiana in English, but also says it in French as well. Now as I said in the beginning, allegedly a native French speaker would be able to communicate with the Cajun person. The French hasn't changed that much, just like us Americans can still very easily communicate with English people. It's just our accents that are a little bit different now, but it's still the same language. However, the Creole people are different. Where the Cajun people are predominantly of European descent, the Creole people are mixed. The Creole population covers about 4% of the state of Louisiana. These are people that are mixed with West African, Spanish, French, and indigenous natives of the area. In fact, a lot of the Creole people have something in common with the low country that I grew up going to off the coast of South Carolina in Georgia, where my mom's family is from. A group of people that we've spoken about on this channel, these are the Gullah people. Both the Creole and the Gullah people still carry a lot of their African heritage, beliefs, and culture. Then of course, down in New Orleans, you mix that with French and Spanish and indigenous. Most of the cooking that New Orleans is known for comes from Creole persuasion. When New Orleans was a settlement of colonists, before it was even part of the United States, when slavery was allowed, many of the people cooking the dishes for the French and Spanish were doing so coming from West Africa. They were using spices that they understood. As I heard one person say you have a Spanish settler asking for paella, well, a slave would do the very best they could, creating what we have now as jambalaya. And as the Cajuns are more in the Lafayette area of the state of Louisiana, the Creole people are mostly found still in New Orleans. One person I heard explaining Creole said anybody, anybody who has mixed heritage is technically Creole. And if you look at it that way, that's a good word to describe most of America is Creole. We got a little bit of something everywhere. Now I do hope to go into more Creole dishes, moving forward as some fun little bonus episodes to explore. But the next bonus episode we do, we're going to go back to the beignet, because the beignet was brought again by the Cajuns. The Arcadians. The French doughnut. A treat again my mother used to make for us when we were growing up. And I'm hoping to once again be able to film with my mother and my niece and my nephew and make some beignets. All right guys, thank you so much for sitting through this little bonus episode. I wanted to explain the difference between Cajun and Creole before we moved forward with more bonus episodes, especially revolving around food. And especially as we get into our Voodoo section of where that's mostly found in the Creole population versus the Cajun population. Again, many people outside of New Orleans or outside of the Southeast often get Cajun and Creole mixed up when they are two very distinct different groups. Again, the Cajuns are of European descent. Again, they were from France first were up in Arcadia and then ended up down in Louisiana. Whereas the Creole are very, very mixed. You have some Creole people who are very black in their heritage and you have some Creole people that are very white. They're just mixed. So I hope that makes sense. Please leave me your thoughts and your opinions down in the comment section below. Is there a dish from New Orleans that you want me to try to do on a bonus episode? Let me know. I'm not much of a cook myself but it would either be my boyfriend or my mother trying to do it. I'm also not really one that's good with spices. So I won't probably be tasting a lot of the spicy, spicy food but then, yes, I can definitely handle. All right, guys. I hope you're all doing really, really well. Next video will be part two of The Axe Man and then we've got some other videos coming up this weekend and then we'll be back with our Monday Mystery on Monday. All right, guys. I hope you're having a wonderful day. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.