CREOLE POEMS
AIRED: Season 7, Episode 2
THE DETECTIVE: Gwen Wright
THE PLACE: New Orleans
THE CASE:
A History Detectives fan from Chicago recently unearthed a French manuscript rolled in a cardboard tube.
The surname "Duplessis," the name of his great-grandmother's mother-in-law, is jotted in a margin and "Rouzan,” his grandmother's maiden name, appears at the bottom of another page.
No one in the family knows anything about it, but our contributor, who reads a little French, thinks he has a collection of love poems, possibly written to one of his relatives. What is this? And why has his family kept it for 160 years?
History Detectives ventures into the little known world of the Creoles of Color to unlock a family mystery.
Feature: Creole Poems from the manuscript
View two transcribed and translated and poems from the manuscript, Jalousie and Le Négrier (Le Pauvre Nègre).
Read an article about Louisiana's 19th Century Afro-Creole Literature
Selected poems and writings in English
Think you have a case for the History Detectives? Send us your mystery here. 