The Creole Village

A SKETCH FROM A STEAMBOAT

First published in 1887

In traveling about our motley country, I am often reminded of Ariosto's
account of the moon, in which the good paladin Astolpho found everything
garnered up that had been lost on earth. So I am apt to imagine, that many
things lost in the old world are treasured up in the new; having been
handed down from generation to generation, since the early days of the
colonies. A European antiquary, therefore, curious in his researches after
the ancient and almost obliterated customs and usages of his country, would
do well to put himself upon the track of some early band of emigrants,
follow them across the Atlantic, and rummage among their descendants on our
shores.

In the phraseology of New England might be found many an old English
provincial phrase, long since obsolete in the parent country; with some
quaint relics of the roundheads; while Virginia cherishes peculiarities
characteristic of the days of Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh.

In the same way the sturdy yeomanry of New Jersey and Pennsylvania keep up
many usages fading away in ancient Germany; while many an honest,
broad-bottomed custom, nearly extinct in venerable Holland, may be found
flourishing in pristine vigor and luxuriance in Dutch villages, on the
banks of the Mohawk and the Hudson.

In no part of our country, however, are the customs and peculiarities,
imported from the old world by the earlier settlers, kept up with more
fidelity than in the little, poverty-stricken villages of Spanish and
French origin, which border the rivers of ancient Louisiana. Their
population is generally made up of the descendants of those nations,
married and interwoven together, and occasionally crossed with a slight
dash of the Indian. The French character, however, floats on top, as, from
its buoyant qualities, it is sure to do, whenever it forms a particle,
however small, of an intermixture.

In these serene and dilapidated villages, art and nature stand still, and
the world forgets to turn round. The revolutions that distract other parts
of this mutable planet reach not here, or pass over without leaving any
trace. The fortunate inhabitants have none of that public spirit which
extends its cares beyond its horizon, and imports trouble and perplexity
from all quarters in newspapers. In fact, newspapers are almost unknown in
these villages, and as French is the current language, the inhabitants have
little community of opinion with their republican neighbors. They retain,
therefore, their old habits of passive obedience to the decrees of
government, as though they still lived under the absolute sway of colonial
commandants, instead of being part and parcel of the sovereign people, and