59 (D-3) What have I forgotten? / weather / Dixie / Congo Square again / Homework: A Bale of Cotton!

What have I forgotten?  Maybe we should take a look at the weather now that it is time to start packing our bags:
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/l/New+Orleans+LA+70130:4:US

Fingers crossed....
The official Song of Louisiana-->  You Are My SUNSHINE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC6kVoYBYHM
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Back to the plantations.

1.  The Plantation Era was also called Antebellum era (1781-1860).  Then came The Civil War, 1861-1865.  I only have time to present it with two other songs about Dixie, a word which means The South...Dixieland.  
I Wish I Was in Dixie :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prBXNwxjU4I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQmO-WfEkk4
The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down (Joan Baez):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnS9M03F-fA
Google the name of the song and the word "lyrics" and you can find the words to each song.


2.  During (and after) the time of slavery, work on the Southern plantation was often made more lively and more bearable by the singing of work songs. We've already looked at Negro spirituals.  Singing made the work go faster and made the physical labor and drudgery a little easier to bear.  A bale of cotton weighs 500 pounds (227 kilos), which is more than anyone could really pick during just one day.

Here's your homework.
Learn this easy song.  Everyone.  It's easy.  We can sing it on the coach and in the classroom!
This is not disrespectful nor racist, as some people wrongly consider this song to be.  It is a part of history, not to be forgotten.

Listen first:
Pick a bale of cotton ... So many have sung this song.
You choose, but please listen to the first and second one on this long list.  And do you remember Leadbelly? (Post 1 on March 9th!)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ILbUduwBkg 
https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=XkMfjZ7v9NQ  Lonnie Donegan, with lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiJUQvyr-iQ  Derek Ryan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdC3-LSacH4     Joe Dassin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkHGRI0uUvo  ABBA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_s01hE4yFs  Johnny Cash
and Leadbelly, the first one:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChYeb8ACjqw
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Now, it's your turn to sing these verses:

CHORUS: 
Oh, Lordy, pick a bale o' cotton
Oh, Lordy, pick a bale o' day

VERSES:
Jump down, turn around
Pick a bale o' cotton 
Jump down, turn around
Pick a bale a day.                

(CHORUS)

Me an' my buddy gonna
Pick a bale o' cotton
Me an' my buddy 
Gonna pick a bale a day.         

(CHORUS)

I b'lieve to my soul I can
Pick a bale o' cotton
I b'lieve to my soul I can
Pick a bale a day.                (CHORUS)

Can you sing as fast as Leadbelly?
...................................
Singing and dancing.  Do you remember Congo Square in New Orleans? (Post 20) Thanks go to my student, Françoise, (a dance teacher) who has been dancing for more than 60 years, for this additional information: 

CONGO SQUARE

From about 1786 to the 1880's, Blacks used to get together every Sunday for singing and dancing.  One could hear African drums accompanying the dances : bamboula (jawbones scraped by a stick) and banjo.  They danced: bamboula, calenda, coonjaille, jig and breakdance. Most dances originated from the Caribbean.

The dancers formed a circle and a couple entered inside and did a basic step, the flat-footed shuffle. All around the spectators greeted the performance by acclamations and the clapping of hands: the Patting Juba.

The excitation rose, the dance became more and more frenetic to the point of ecstacy, the couple would fall and then they would be replaced by another couple.

It was a tourist attraction for the Whites.   An  observant wrote: "These dances are a frenzy ; they were furious, frantic and wild… madness. »

« The assemblies of slaves for the purpose of dancing or other merriment, shall take place only on Sundays and solely in such open or public  places as shall be appointed  by the Mayor and no such assembly shall continue

later than sunset. »   (1817 the New Orleans City Council, art.6 )

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http://historywired.si.edu/detail.cfm?ID=210

Jane
________________
- back to = returning to
- bearable = supportable
- drudgery = http://www.wordreference.com/definition/drudgery
- pick a bale "a" cotton = pick a bale "of" cotton
- buddy = friend

58 (D-4) Houmas House Plantation / Oak Alley Plantation / Marie-Thérèse Coincoin

While it was largely French as we have seen, Southeast Louisiana also saw the arrival of many English planters.  Plantation owners in Southeast Louisiana influenced the region in several ways: first, they were more likely to teach English rather than French to their Africans slaves. Secondly, they were less isolated than people in Southwest Louisiana, because they were so close to New Orleans, and because they were on major transportation routes.

We have this last day, before heading to the airport, to visit the plantations. 

We'll be visiting Houmas House Plantation and Oak Alley Plantation. Houmas House Plantation was called "The Crown Jewel of Louisiana's River Road" or "The Sugar Palace."  At one time during the 19th century, Houmas House farmed sugarcane on tens of thousands of acres and became the largest producer of sugar in the country.

Houmas House Plantatation

http://www.houmashouse.com/recipes.htm recipes from the restaurant at the plantation. Looks good!  Get away from your computer and go to your kitchen!  

Oak Alley Plantation

A picture says 1000 words.  Here are 2000 words.

Oak Alley Plantation

This famous plantation is on the Mississippi River in the community of Vacherie, Louisiana.  It's well-known for its beautiful double row of live oaks.  They are called "live" oaks or evergreen oaks because they never loose their leaves. They were planted in the early 18th century, long before the present house was built (1837).  The plantation was originally called Bon Séjour Plantation and was established to grow sugarcane.

Don't these plantations make you think of...

GONE WITH THE WIND
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2oX0zQA67U  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgF-rcHcPqE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlBc_nlA2so
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmljrj_autant-en-emporte-le-vent-extrait_shortfilms

Scarlett O'Hara and...Marie-Thérèse Coincoin!  
Who was Marie-Thérèse Coincoin?  
Quite a story: Born a slave in 1742 in Natchitoches, a Louisiana French outpost, she learned pharmacology and nursing.  After having 4 children with an American Indian slave (though we have no written proof), in 1765 she caught the eye of a young French merchant, Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer and she became his concubine. Metoyer gave her her freedom in 1778...and he also "gave" her ten children!  She went on to become a business woman.  She manufactured medicine, planted tobacco and trapped wild game to sell the meat and furs, as well as cured tobacco.  She became a landowner, a taxpayer and...the owner of slaves. She spent most of her money to buy freedom for the children she had when she was herself a young slave.  Before her death she was able to buy the freedom of three of those children and three grandchildren.
St. Augustine Parish Church was built in 1829 by one of her sons on land donated by another son.  It is the oldest church in America built for free people of color for their own use.  Melrose Plantation was started and run by her sons and descendants. It was one of the largest plantations in the United States built by and for free blacks.  It is a National Historic Landmark.  
Marie-Thérèse Metoyer (she had taken the name of her master) died in 1816.

Jane
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- 1 acre = 4087 m2
- Natchitoches = for pronunciation: 
http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=natchitoches 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeR7Ljv_tPc
- quite a story = http://www.linguee.fr/anglais-francais/traduction/it's+quite+a+story.html
- outpost = http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/anglais-francais/outpost/599499
- wild game = gibier sauvage
- cured tobacco = dried tobacco

57 (D-5) Slavery in Louisiana / Le Code Noir / Quiz 10

Slavery in Louisiana was different than in the other states.  It was the French colonists who introduced chattel slaves (chattel= personal property that is moveable) in Louisiana, first in 1706 when the Native American women and children were captured and became slaves.  In 1710 African chattel slaves were taken from the Spanish and then, during the years 1717-1721, the French transported more than 2000 slaves from Africa to New Orleans. (It was organized by John Law, the same man who tricked Germans into coming to live in Louisiana.  See Post 34)
Louisiana's slave trade was governed by Le Code Noir, a document inspired by the French politician Jean Baptiste Colbert. Wikipedia tells us:

The Code noir (The Black Code) was a decree originally passed by France's King Louis XIV in 1685. The Code Noir defined the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire, restricted the activities of free Negroes, forbade the exercise of any religion other than Roman Catholicism, and ordered all Jews out of France's colonies.

The Code Noir gave unparalleled rights to slaves. It includes the right to marry, to gather publicly or to take Sundays off. Although the Code Noir authorized and codified cruel corporal punishment against slaves under certain conditions, it forbade slave owners to torture them or to separate families. It also forced the owners to instruct them in the Catholic faith, implying that Africans were human beings endowed with a soul.

It resulted in a far higher percentage of blacks being free people of color (13.2% in Louisiana compared to 0.8% in Mississippi.) They were on average exceptionally literate, with a significant number of them owning businesses, properties and even slaves.

The code has been described by Tyler Stovall as "one of the most extensive official documents on race, slavery, and freedom ever drawn up in Europe".

There are 60 articles in the document, which are summarized in wikipedia.  You might find it interesting to look at them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Noir

And, when you have time, here is another interesting article you can listen to at the VOA site:
VOA English: Slavery in the American South
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/transcript/1532857.html

There is so much more I could develop from here...
...The Civil War  
...from slavery to emancipation
...Reconstruction
...segregation, which I remember as a child
...violence, lynchings...  
...The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) 
.... desegregation
....civil rights....  
But, I'm running out of time.

And because there is music at every corner, here is still another song I love.
Strange Fruit, sung by Billie Holiday, a song and an intrepretation of that song which will make your heart cry.
PLEASE listen.  French students will have no difficulties understanding.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17hbu_strange-fruit-b-holiday-sous-titree_music

Jane 
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QUIZ 10  (Posts 49-56, not too long ago)
1.  What is a "fais do-do"?
2.  What are the musical instruments used in Cajun music?
3.  Why shouldn't Boudreaux have eaten the parrot???
4.  What is a possible origin of the word "zydeco"?  (I forgot to tell you that the word "zydeco" evolved from the word "zarico" which had been used as a name for this music.)
5.  What is the unusual instrument used in this music? And if you don't remember the music, you can go back to Post 51 again to listen to Clifton Chenier and Queen Ida.
6.  How much do you remember about Jean Lafitte? What was the name of the island where he set up his "business"?  Why should Americans be grateful (reconnaissant) to him?
7.  Why are the trees in the bayous called "bald" cypress trees?
8.  Who runs the Rural Life Museum in the Baton Rouge area?
9.  The politician Huey Long  (1893 - 1935) died so young because  
a.  he had a heart attack. 
b.  he was killed in a train-car accident. 
c.  he was assassinated.

10.  Have you enjoyed doing these quizzes?  Congratulations!  You've just finished the last one!

56 (D-6) Huey Long, "The Kingfish" (1893-1935) famous Louisiana politician / Quiz 9

Huey Long: "I'm for the poor man -- all poor men, black and white, they all gotta have a chance.  They gotta have a home, a job, and a decent education for their children.  'Every man a king' -- that's my slogan."

Click and listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbyMeMApC3U *
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hphgHi6FD8k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV_Yad1i36w  2006 film with Sean Penn

Too difficult to understand these videos?  I agree, it isn't easy, but could you understand a little?  Did you learn when, where and how he died?  Find the answers by going to written information.

You can read here:
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long  short version and in English


Or here:  http://www.history.com/topics/huey-long  longer text with more information.  (There is a mistake: He became Senator in 1932, not 1935.)

Or here... wikipedia in French: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Pierce_Long


And here's another video about his death.  Click subtitles, but remember that computer transcriptions are not very good.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0C4pt7X6HI

Jane
_________________________________________
* Huey Long addressing the Senate in the first video:
"How many men ever went to a barbecue and would let one man take off the table what they intended for 9/10 of the people to eat?  The only way you'll ever be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and to bring back some of that grub he got no business with."
grub = slang for food (= bouffe)
-he got no business with = http://dictionnaire.reverso.net/anglais-francais/to%20have%20no%20business%20doing%20sth

_______________________________
-they all gotta have a chance = they all have to have a chance
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QUIZ 9
1.  Why did the "Cajuns" come to settle in Louisiana?
2.  How many Acadians were deported?
3.  Do you remember the Cajun expressions: Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler and La Joie de Vivre?  I forgot to tell you this one, Lâche Pas La Patate.  Go to google for the meaning.
4.  What city, named after a famous French General, is considered to be the center of Acadiana?
5.  What city, so special for Jane, is twinned with Ploermel in Britanny?
6.  What is the name of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem which tells the story of a young woman separated from her love when the Acadians were chased from their homeland?
7. Louisiana French: do you know the meaning of these words? -->  asteur, un cocodri, une machine à herbes, itou, lagniappe?
8. When was it forbidden to speak French in Louisiana and why?

55 (D-7) Baton Rouge / Baton Rouge Capitol Building / Quiz 8

Our last day will be in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana.
But first, why that name "Baton Rouge"? (We don't call it "Red Stick!"*)  The European-American history of Baton Rouges starts back in 1699 when French explorer Sieur d'Iberville leading an exploration group up the Mississippi River saw a reddish cypress pole marking the boundary between the Houma and Bayou Goula tribal hunting grounds.  They called the pole and the place le baton rouge. (The local Native Americans called the place Istrouma.  Do you remember that Houma means "red"?)  
The settlement of Baton Rouge by Europeans began in 1719 when a military post was established by French colonists.  It was about the the same time when d'Iberville's brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, sieur de Bienville, founded the city of New Orleans (1718).  Look back at the map of New Orleans (Post 11) and you can see that both brothers have a street named after them in the French Quarter.
After New Orleans (1722), Baton Rouge became the capital in 1849.

A little information about population.  Baton Rouge's population temporarily exploded after Hurricane Katrina because it accepted as many as 200,000 displaced residents.  Metropolitan Baton Rouge is one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States (under 1 million) with 602,894 in 2000 and 802,484 in 2010.
The city itself has a 2014 population of 230,000, compared to New Orleans 344,000.  Baton Rouge has a population that is 54% Black or African American and 39% White.

The Capitol Building:

It dates back to 1932.  We'll visit the building and discover its Art Deco style.

The Louisiana Capitol Building is often thought of as "Huey Long's Monument."

Who was Huey Long?  

Come back tomorrow to learn about this famous Louisiana politician.

Jane

_______________________________________________________

Do you know this site...a break from so much English!
http://www.office-tourisme-usa.com/etat/louisiane/baton-rouge
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MINI-QUIZ 8
1.  How many tribal citizens of the United Houma Nation are there living in the 6 parishes around the city of Houma?
2.  What French city is twinned with Houma?
3.  What is a crawfish boil?
4.  On the bayous: do you remember how many wild alligators there are in Louisiana? (Post 37)
5.  What sauce made in Avery Island can you put on your omelette (for example) to make it spicy?
6.  What's the name of the white birds with beautiful feathers that in the past were killed by the thousands so that women could wear fashionable hats?
7.  Where in Spain did the group of 500 colonists come from back in 1779 to settle in New Iberia, Louisiana?

It's at Posts 35 - 40 where you'll find the answers to these questions...if you have forgotten or if you didn't read these posts.
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*And for history buffs: 
Red Sticks is the English language term for a traditionalist group of Muscogee Creek people in the American Southeast in the early 19th century.  They led a resistance movement to European-American presence on their land and assimilation; the tensions led to the Creek War in 1813.  Initially a civil war among the Creek Indians, the conflict brought in United States state forces, when the nation was at the same time already engaged in the War of 1812 against the British. The term "red sticks" was derived from their red-colored war clubs and the ceremonial red sticks used by Creek medicine men.  These people were defeated by General Andrew Jackson (Do you remember him?)  The Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama on March 27, 1814 resulted in the largest number of deaths of Native American in a single battle throughout all of the Indian Wars (557 + ...some sources say more than 800 of the 1000 Indians were killed.)  The battle established Andrew Jackson's reputation as a military leader and an Indian fighter.  After he was elected President in 1828, he signed the Indian Removal Bill that forced the southeastern tribes and their allies to move west in the journey known to the Cherokee as the "Trail of Tears".  (Wikipedia)

54 (D-8) LSU / Rural Life Museum / Quiz 7

Next visit: Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College (LSU).

It is the largest institution of higher education in Louisiana with 24,000 undergraduate students and 5000 graduate students in 2011.
However, it isn't my Alma Mater.  I was no longer living in Louisiana when I did my studies.

LSU also runs four museums in the Baton Rouge area:
LSU Museum of Art, LSU Museum of Natural Science, LSU Museum of Natural History and the museum we'll visit, LSU Rural Life Museum.  There we'll discover the day-to-day life of the early Americans here in Louisiana.  We've seen their origins already: Native Americans, French and Spanish settlers, Anglo-Americans, Germans, Africans and Acadians.  There is also a recreated "working plantation" which consists of several buildings authentically furnished to reconstruct all the major activities of life on a typical 19th century plantation.

Jane 
___________________________________________
-undergraduates = http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/undergraduate
-graduate students =  étudiant(e) de deuxième, troisième cycle
-Alma Mater = http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_mater 
Mjy Alma Mater was Ohio State University.
The term can also mean the song or hymn associated with the school.
LSU's Alma Mater, for example:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxJ7WuwYE_s
which begins: 
"Where stately oaks and broad magnolias shade inspiring halls, 
There stands our dear Old Alma Mater who to us recalls..."

-run = here the verb 'run" means faire fonctionner

QUIZ 7
1.  How long is the Causeway, the bridge which crosses over Lake Pontchartrain?
2.  How many people died in Louisiana because of Hurricane
Katrina in 2005?
3.  Who wrote A Streetcar Named Desire, the play which takes place in New Orleans?
4.  What's the name of Jane's school where she went to kindergarten?  
5.  What's the name of New Orleans' oldest streetcar line?
6.  How did the writer choose his pen name, Mark Twain? (Return to Post 33 for the answer and at the same time you can listen again to the song "The City of New Orleans".)
7.  What's the country of origin of the people who came in the early part of the 18th century to settle in the area to the east of the Mississippi river?  There's even a lake here which has their name. (Post 34)

53 (D-9) Breaux Bridge, Henderson / bayous again / Quiz 6

On our way to Baton Rouge we first stop to visit the towns of Breaux Bridge and Henderson.

Breaux Bridge
1. "The Crawfish Capital of the World"
2.  The city of 8,139 (2014) is 49% White and 47% Black or African American.
3.  The city gets its name from the first footbridge crossing the Bayou Teche, built by Firmin Breaux, an Acadian pioneer, in 1799.
4.  Hunter Hayes, the 4-year-old boy who sings Jambalaya, (Blog, Day 49  D-13) is from Breaux Bridge.  Today that 4-year-old is 23 years old!
5. My great-aunt Gerty (Marie Gertrude Thomas), born (Sept. 21,1915), was a school teacher in Breaux Bridge. (We share the same birthday...the same day, not the same year!)

Henderson
Henderson, a great place for freshwater fishing (bass, sac-au-lait or crappie, bream and other species.)  Local cuisine is some of the finest Cajun cooking anywhere.  A population of 1600, about 49% are English-speakers, 39% French-speakers, and 13% speak...Vietnamese!
We'll have the possibility for another airboat tour here, to see the beauty of the moss-filled cypress forest and the primitive habitat of wild alligators.

Cypress trees: they are bald cypress trees.  Why bald?  Because unlike other cypress trees, these are deciduous trees and loose their leaves...so, bald!

Jane
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Do you know the song Blue Bayou?
Linda Ronstadt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_lzeHYNngE
Roy Orbison  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ZSAe5uPME
-bass (fish) = le bar
-sac-au-lait, crappie = North American fish, le crapet
-bream = la brème

QUIZ 6
1.  What is Storyville? (Post 24...with a lot of Louis Armstrong music you can listen to also)
2.  Where is Sidney Bechet buried?
3.  What are the colors of Mardi Gras in Louisiana?
4.  What are Higgins boats?  (Post 28)
5.  Do you remember the amazing story of the sinking of the SS Robert E. Lee and the German submarine U-166 on July 30, 1942 in the Gulf of Mexico?  And Captain Claudius?  (Post 29) 

If by chance you can't come up with the answers without a little help, return to Posts 24 - 29.
by chance -->  http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/by%20chance
-come up with -->  http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/come%20up%20with