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"Our People"[1] | |
|---|---|
 Cajan Weaver School, Washington County, Alabama | |
| Total population | |
| 1930 (est.) | 1800-2000[2] |
| 1950 (est.) | 1928[3] |
| 1974 (est.) | 4500[1] |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Mobile,Washington, andBaldwin Counties, Alabama, eastern United States | |
| Languages | |
| English | |
| Religion | |
| Baptist,Methodist,Holiness movement[1],Hoodoo[4] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Dominickers,Redbones,Melungeons,Lumbee,Wesorts,Carmelites,Chestnut Ridge people,Free Black people | |
TheAlabama Cajans were an ethnic group of mixed-race descent, originating from free black people, whites, and Native Americans in colonial Alabama.[5][4] They resided mostly in the counties ofMobile,Washington, andBaldwin. They socially assorted apart from local whites and Black people, as apopulation isolate in the racial hierarchy of Alabama. "Cajan" was an exonym which members of these communities often considered perjorative.[6] They instead preferred the name "Our People".[1]
The Cajans were given their label by a local politician, but were unrelated to theLouisiana Cajuns, due to not being of Acadian origin. TheMOWA Band of Choctaw Indians consists of a portion of their descendants.[6]
In 1810, the initial reported spread of settlement in Alabama was along the lowerTombigbee andMobile rivers, consisting of 500 whites and 250 black people, 59 of whom were free.[7][8] Free Black people never made up more than 1% of Alabamans, and their proportion shrunk over time.[9] Gary B. Miller notes that 67 percent of the "free people of color" who were able to pass as white in Alabama had some degree of Indian heritage.[9]
The Reed family ancestral to the Cajans initially settled nearTibbie. Daniel Reed was recorded to be a mixed man from the West Indies, identified as afree Negro on census documents, and his wife Rose Reed was recorded to be a former slave ofmulatto descent, emancipated from a white master in 1818. She listed her birthplace as Mississippi.[10][1] The Reeds were initially some of the only people listed as mulatto or colored on the 1840-1850 censuses in the Washington and Mobile counties.[11]
The sons of the Reed family married the daughters of Jim and Dave Weaver, who were themselves recorded as free people of color on the 1830Mobile County census, while their daughters were identified as mulatto.[12][1] They were documented to have migrated to Alabama from Georgia, with the Byrd family, also ancestral to the Cajans.[12]
Lemuel Byrd was reported to have initially migrated from North Carolina to fight in theIndian Wars under Andrew Jackson. Byrd appeared on the 1840 Mobile County census report as a free person of color, and married Anne Weaver.[1]
These families intermarried and rapidly expanded in number of individuals and households over the generations, according to census records, which typically labelled them as Black, mulatto, or free colored.[11] The Cajans were noted to not be related in origin to the Cajuns, who are of Acadian descent.[13][4]
Alabama Cajans inhabited a region straddling the Counties of Mobile and Washington, it reached the hills ofMount Vernon andCitronelle; to the east, to Tibbie andMctintosh in the north.[14] They were noted to be starkly different from the nearby Alabama Creoles and Louisiana Cajuns, given that they were mostly Protestant and had English names.[15] They were seen to often live in inaccessible areas, forming small isolated communities.[4][13] Genealogical analysis suggests many of them emigrated from their initial tracts and assimilated into other populations.[16]
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They initially raised livestock, typically on small, unimproved tracts, then moved into the lumber industry.[17] They were also prevalent in theturpentine industry.[4] Like the nearbyRedbones andDominickers, they were noted for distilling alcohol.[18] Cajan boys were observed to not eat in the homes of others, or in front of girls from other settlements, sometimes not eating for multiple days. Due to this, older Cajan girls saved food for them to eat later.[2] Cajan women were seen wearing bright colors, scarves around their hair,fashion jewelry, and morerouge than usual.[4][19]
They received the name "Cajan" from the Alabama State senator, L.W. McRae.[20] Being sensitive to the term "Cajan", they were observed to prefer referring to themselves simply as "Our people", a name also used by theChestnut Ridge people.[1][21]
Cajans, like African-Americans in the South, were seen to be devout believers inConjure, and were observed to place objects ontop of their graves, such as shards of fine china, broken pitchers, or empty bottles, a commonpractice carried down from African antecedents.[4][19][22][23]
They wore "tricks" to repel diseases and bad luck.[4] They were mostly Baptists or Methodists, and by the 1970s many became involved in theHoliness movement, such that half of the pastors leading Holiness congregations in the area were Cajan, rather than white.[1][19] They were observed to singspirituals.[24]
Cajans had their own school system by the 1930s, as "special" white schools, due to normal ones sometimes not allowing them in.[25] In areas not served by Cajan schools, they went to black schools if they could not pass as white.[26] Cajans refused to allow black teachers in their schools, sometimes refusing to attend school if a black teacher was sent by the school board, but were known to have previously allowed lighter skinned women to teach.[19][1]
Cajan school cohorts developed into unofficial "castes" over time, such that the attendees of different schools developed different ranked subgroupings relative to each other.[1] A white local stated "You know, there is a low caste of Cajuns that really works only three days a week. They're a lot like colored people in that respect."[1]
By 1969, most Cajans went to desegregated schools, with only Reed Chapel school remaining as a Cajan school.[1]
![Areas of historic Alabama Cajan settlement, 1950[14]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aAreas_of_historic_Alabama_Cajan_settlement%2c_1950.svg)
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)It is also worth noting that 67 percent of the 'free people of color' who moved in and out of white ranks in Anglo Alabama possessed some degree of Indian as well as Negro ancestry, and many who sought to escape racial discrimination (like the previously cited Chavis and Patrick Davis) admitted only their Indian heritage.
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