The “Sabines”: A Study of Racial Hybrids in a Louisiana Coastal Parish

Posted in Articles, Louisiana, Media Archive, Social Science, Tri-Racial Isolates, United States on 2010-11-28 02:35Z by Steven

The “Sabines”: A Study of Racial Hybrids in a Louisiana Coastal Parish

Social Forces
Volume 29, Number 2 (December, 1950)
pages 148-154

Vernon J. Parenton

Roland J. Pellegrin

Read before the thirteenth annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Biloxi, Mississippi, April 15, 1950.

Historically, the position of the racial and  cultural  hybrid in rural American society has received but little attention from sociologists. Beginning with the twentieth century, however, and especially since 1930, a number of social scientists have centered their investigations on such marginal groups. The acculturative processes associated with the formation of hybrid groups are as difficult to analyze as they are sociologically interesting. Nevertheless the complexity of these processes may be viewed as a challenge rather than as a barrier to social investigations.

Among those areas of the United States where hybrid groups arc found, Louisiana constitutes an interesting socio-cultural laboratory for such research. Partly because of the heterogeneous racial and ethnic character of the state’s population, with its concomitant diversity of cultures, and partly because of its geographical position, Louisiana contains a number of racial and cultural “islands,” the inhabitants oi which range in color from brown to near white. This paper is a preliminary report on a tri-racial group, derisively called the “Sabines,” who inhabit the marshy fringe of a Louisiana parish bordering the Gulf of Mexico. These persons, of mixed white, Indian, and Negro ancestry, have a unique history.

Historical Background

The first white men to explore the Gulf Coast found several Indian tribes inhabiting the area. These tribes may be classified into five linguistic groups: the Muskhogean, Natchez, Tunican, Chitimachan, and Atakapan. In Louisiana the most important group was the Muskhogean, which was, composed of a variety of tribes, including the Houma, Washa, Chawasha, Bayogoula, Chakchiuma, and several others.  The Indian element present in the Sabines of today is derived from a variety of these Muskhogean tribes, but principally from the Houmas…

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The People of Frilot Cove: A Study of Racial Hybrids

Posted in Anthropology, Louisiana, Media Archive, Social Science, Tri-Racial Isolates, United States on 2010-11-24 03:57Z by Steven

The People of Frilot Cove: A Study of Racial Hybrids

The American Journal of Sociology
Volume 57, Number 2 (September 1951)
pages 145-149

J. Hardy Jones, Jr.

Vernon J. Parenton

Frilot Cove is a color-conscious, semi-isolated rural community of 302 persons with an ante bellum cultural background, who, though they approximate Nordic and Mediterranean types, are classified as Negroes. Criteria of upper-class status are light skin, income, and family background. Discrimination by whites draws them to the Negro, but their concern is not with their personal, but with their group, situation.

This paper summarizes certain findings of a more comprehensive studyI which analyzed some sociologically important elements of a hybrid racial community of St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. The purpose of that study was to analyze social organization and social change in a semi-isolated hybrid rural community: Its historical origin; its population characteristics; its social, cultural, and economic characteristics; and the attitudes of its inhabitants to race. The principal sources of data were schedules, interviews, informal conversation, personal observations, attitude inventories, written materials obtained directly from community members, microfilm copies of old United States census records, and pertinent published materials.

The history of this community, Frilot Cove, is part of the long and interesting history of the state of Louisiana. The first explorers in Louisiana were the Spaniards, who were seeking riches; but they failed to establish themselves permanently in the country of the great Mississippi. Francewas the first to succeed in establishing colonies. Through the efforts of such men as De la Salle, D’Iberville, and De Bienville, Louisiana became an important part of the New World, Although Louisiana was returned to Spain for about forty years (prior to 1803, when the territory became a part of the United States), the French culture was predominant and is still much in evidence in the southern parts of the state.

In 1765 a military and trading post was established at Opelousas. The fertile prairie land surrounding the post soon attracted many settlers. In 1807, St, Landry Parish was formed and Opelousas became the seat of parish government. According to the United States marshal of the Western District, which included St. Landry Parish, there were 532 free colored persons and 4,680 white persons in this area in 1840. The census shows that there were among the free colored only thirty-three males to fifty-nine females in the twenty-four- to thirty-six-year age group. On the other hand, in the white group from twenty to forty years of age there were 835 males to 295 females—an extreme shortage of females. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that some of the white men took their wives from the free colored class.

By the end of the nineteenth century the parish had a population of 52,170 inhabitants, slightly over half of whom were counted as Negroes. This increase of the Negro population came about largely as a result of the many cotton plantations throughout the area.

Among these Negroes were many mulattoes, primarily the descendants of white men and colored women. Of the parents of these people, many were “free men of color” during ante bellum days and owned plantation…

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