A few things about Louisiana you may not have known.


Little Known Louisiana Facts ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just in case Hurricane Katrina causing the levees to break in New Orleans is the only thing you know aboutLouisiana, here are a few more interesting facts about the Bayou State: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Louisiana has the tallest state capitol building in the nation at 450 feet.

The Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans is the largest enclosed stadium in the world.

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is the longest over-water bridge in the world at 23.87 miles.

Louisiana's 6.5 million acres of wetlands are the greatest wetland area in America.

The oldest city in the Louisiana Purchase Territory is Natchitoches, Louisiana, founded in 1714.

The first bottler of Coca-Cola, Joseph Biedenharn, lived in Monroe, Louisiana.

Delta Air Lines got its start in Monroe, Louisiana. (But before it was named Delta, it was Chicago & Southern.)

Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is the largest predominantly black university in America.

Baton Rouge was the site of the only American Revolution battle outside the original 13 colonies.

The formal transfer of the Louisiana Purchase was made at the Cabildo building in New Orleans on December 20,1803.

The staircase at Chrétien Point, in Sunset, Louisiana was copied for Tara in "Gone with the Wind."

Louisiana is the No. 1 producer of crawfish, alligators, and shallots in America.

Louisiana produces 24 percent of the nation's salt, the most in America.

Much of the world's food, coffee and oil pass through the Port of New Orleans.

Tabasco, a Louisiana product, holds the second oldest food trademark in the U.S. Patent Office.

Steen's Syrup Mill is the world's largest syrup plant producing sugar cane syrup.

America's oldest rice mill is in New Iberia, Louisiana at KONRIKO Co.

The International Joke Telling Contest is held annually in Opelousas, Louisiana.

LSU "The Ole War Skule" in Baton Rouge has the distinction of contributing the most officers to WW II after the U.S. military academies.

The Louisiana Hayride radio show helped Hank Williams, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash achieve stardom. It was broadcast from KWKH Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana from 1948 to 1960. (I remember it well.)

The term Uncle Sam was coined on the wharfs of NewOrleans before Louisiana was a U.S. territory as goods labeled U.S. were from "Uncle Sam."

The game of craps was invented in New Orleans in 1813 as betting was common activity on the wharves.

When states had their own currency, the Louisiana Dix (French for ten) was a favored currency for trade. English speakers called them Dixies and coined the term Dixieland.

New Orleans is the home of the oldest pharmacy in America at 514 Chartres Street in the French Quarter. These early medical mixtures became known as cocktails (guess they were good for what ails ya?) coining yet another term.

New Orleans is the birthplace of Jazz the only true American art form. Jazz gave birth to the Blues and Rock and Roll music.

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Viva La Louisane!!!
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The Beginning of a Dynasty?

Another Voice Added to the Choir

LV Hayes, a respected elder of the Bearhead Creek Redbones has published his response to the blog posting by Jim Serra which he called "Mystery in our Midst." You will remember Mr. Serra once asked me to write a story about southwest Louisiana's Redbones, and when I didn't do it quickly enough for him, he did it himself. That was bad enough, but he relied on flaky sources, i.e., Marler's dimestore, self-published book and the raving maniacs at the Redbone Heritage Foundation (RHF) (which,by the way, is NOT Redbone, they have no Heritage, and with twenty members and no money, they're not much of a foundation). We all waded into that mud slinging free for all forcing Serra to close the discussion. That was fine with me. The white trash went back to their hovels leaving us Redbones alone.

LV was invited by Serra to give his point of view to the discussion. When LV wrote it, Serra refused to run it, saying it was too disparaging of the RHF. At my suggestion and urging, LV has decided to publish it himself on the Internet. He chose a blog format which keeps him as the editor of his own work, yet allows for conversation in the way of Comments.

Louisiana Redbones is LV's response to lies, damn lies, and unfounded myth. To those people who keep saying that Louisiana's Redbones are mysterious, I suggest you read LV's post entitled "If You Don't Tell Your Own Story." Maybe you don't know much about us, but we know who we are.

The Main Reason We Don't Believe We Have African Ancestry Is ...

Because our ancestors told us we didn't. It's like that ol' time religion, if it was good enough for grandma, it's good enough for me. Besides, no one has ever shown us any proof of it. I ain't saying there's anything wrong with having African ancestry, but just as it would pretentious for me to claim to be descended from Charlemagne without proof, it's ludicrous for anyone else to say I have African ancestry without proof. It's sort of like that Jerry Seinfeld line, "not that there's anything wrong with it."

Comments

Sbg77 has left several comments to posts on this blog. I published one. The others basically reiterate sbg77's point, and that she or he can see African in our ancestry. Okay, sbg77, you made your point. If you have anything else to say or wish to engage in a conversation, you need to identify yourself. I do not have conversations with anonymous commenters.

I would suggest to you that you go back and actually read the posts you commented on. It makes for a more interesting conversation.

Cheers.

Drums along the Bayou

Cousin Terry has a new blog which he calls My Redbone Roots. Today he takes aim at two of the most dispictable creeps ever to suck air from real humans, old (and near death) Tupperwear Two Feathers, who is known by more names than Carter has little pills, and Princess Pig Face, the president of that group of wannabe Redbones. You know those two, they're the thugs Don Marler uses to enforce his opinion on the Redbone debate. Marler's opinion, by the way, is that Louisiana's Redbones descend from Blacks. Any of you real Redbones out there just remember that little point. Marler and the RHF is painting you with an African brush. The three of them can eat shit and die.

Go read Terry's blog.

Nature or Nurture: What makes a Redbone

The nurture vs. nature debate is one the online Redbone-identified community dealt with ten years ago, at length. After vigorous research and debate, most of us concluded that there really isn't a cultural difference between people who might be called Redbones and their neighbors. There is no line separating the two.

This conclusion was met with stiff resistance by several writers in the Starks-DeQuincy area who repeatedly insisted that there was "something special" about the Redbone culture in that area. Because of my affection for those writers, I took them at their word on the subject. Later, in my several opportunities to visit in southwest Louisiana, I concluded that "something special" was more about family bonding than anything else. A lot of extended families still living in a more rural setting have that "something special."

I approach the conversation of nature and nurture in a more political context. Do the people who are likely to be called Redbones form a class? The answer is yes. Whether acknowledged or not, when you can be categorized by the population in an area with or without your awareness or consent, you belong to an identifiable class. In the case of our cousins in southwest Louisiana, that class is called Redbones.

In East Texas, there lives a huge number of potential Redbones who are not Redbones because they are not necessarily included in that class. My Droddy cousins in East Texas do not identify themselves as Redbones. They are adamant about it. No one assumes anything about them because of where they live or whether or not they are dark, or because of any association with a particular family name.

By genealogy, they are as Redbone as anyone in Starks, being descended from Redbone royalty: Ashworth, Perkins, Drake, Bunch and Dial/Doyle. So what? They have very few political, cultural, or social ties to southwest Louisiana. I do not consider them Redbones. And if it was so important to Austin and Owen not to be called Redbones that they were willing to shoot people, I am not going to push their great-grandsons and daughters in East Texas on the subject. They have a stronger argument as to why they're not than I do that they are.

So, that's why I don't think it's just a matter of bloodline. If you live in southwest Louisiana and are blood, you're going to be identified as a Redbone whether you participate in that decision or not. If you live anywhere else, being a Redbone is a personal choice of identity. I probably annoy a lot of people in the simplicity of my conclusion, but that's what I believe. No, where I annoy certain people is with my insistence that the class of Redbones who are likely to be identified as Redbones whether they think of themselves that way or not outweigh the interests of those Redbones who are self-identified Redbones who live in places not affected by the discussion.

There is a strong sense of community among our people in southwest Louisiana. I think it's based mostly on the interconnectedness of the various family clans which are continually reinforced through family reunions, weddings, funerals, and church and school activities. These ties have been continually reinforced for 200 years. Those people are as tight as any group that does not define itself separately from the surrounding culture can be.

Larry Keels gives Don Marler way too much credit when he says the movement towards claiming the word Redbone was started by him [Marler] to advance his own little point of view and sell books. I had embraced the word a long time before that. I've been calling myself a Redbone since the early 70s when I came to the conclusion that being part Indian was not in itself satisfactory. I wasn't just a native American in some abstract sense. I was born to a dark people who lived a very simple, subsistence life style, and who were rich in cultural warmth. They were an in-between people, born on this continent with no memory of a before. We didn't remember being Indian and we didn't remember Europe. I felt a very special pride in the idea of being a bridge group between the two. I was in Alaska about this time, and I was accepted completely by the Athapascans in the interior of Alaska as a Redbone, and they got it completely.

And a lot of other people born after WWII have come along the same path. I didn't need Marler to give me cover for calling myself a Redbone. My pride comes from my own experiences and memories of growing up in a special place being raised by special people.

So there, nature or nurture? It's a false choice and has nothing serious to add to the overall discussion, but is one of those personal meditating points which shapes a person's overall point of view.