Ugly but Interesting

Toucoutou by Edward Larocque Tinker is not one of my pretty old books but very interesting. So interesting that it is still used in papers and classes as a reference in Creole studies. The Toucoutou Affair refers to a well-known lawsuit that took place in New Orleans shortly before the Civil War. This was not a politically correct time and the lawsuit ensued from a fight between two children when one called the other a negro. Persons who proved their civil status in court passed as white and enjoyed the rights and privileges accorded this standing. An adverse decision on the other hand proved disastrous, fatal, because it resulted in the loss of all prestige for the complainant, who never again could live under the same social conditions.
The definition of “Creole” is almost as varied as the population of Louisiana. “When Edward Larocque Tinker introduced his 1928 novel, he asserted that Creole ‘can mean only one thing and that is a pure white person born of European parents in Spanish or French colonies. But the quadroons and octoroons did not consider themselves black but Creoles of color, they spoke French, had French names and developed their own customs. Using this as a basis Tinker wrote a story of an octoroon mother"s efforts to rear her beautiful daughter as a white girl, her successful marriage, the scorn of the whites and the hatred of the blacks.