Cane River is a 35-mile long lake formed from a portion of the Red River that is located in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it has been best known as the site of a historic Creole de couleur [1] (multiracial) culture that has centers upon the National Historic Landmark Melrose Plantation and nearby St. Augustine Church St. Augustine Parish (Isle Brevelle) Church.
Cane River Lake was widely publicized between 1966 and 1979 by the nationally known outdoorsman Grits Gresham, host (with Curt Gowdy) of ABC's The American Sportsman and author of numerous books and columns on hunting, fishing, and guns.
'Cane River' (2001, ISBN 0-446-67845-7) is also the name of a historical novel by Lalita Tademy that was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection. In this blend of fact and fiction, Tademy tells the story of four generations of her slave-born female ancestors—Elisabeth, Suzette, Philomene, and Emily—following their trajectories from the 1830s to the 1930s. The culture she explores, that of slaves who remained in bondage until after the Civil War, bears some core similarities but radical dissimilarities to that of Cane River's Melrose-St. Augustine society, whose families had lived as free from the late Spanish period of Louisiana history.
References
- ^ The term of multiracial background creole was applied to all individuals born in the colony of parents from another continent, regardless of color, and to their offspring. Free Creole citizens of multiracial origins were classed Creoles of color, gens de couleur libre, or free people of color. Today, the term Creole, when applied to Louisianians, usually references its historically distinct multiracial culture.
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