Alabama Cajans

Scholars generally consider the Cajans to have been an Alabama ethnic group of free Black, white, Creole, and possible Native American ancestry.^[7][4][1] The Reeds, Weavers, and Byrds were notable Cajan progenitor families.^[11][12]

The Reed family initially settled near Tibbie. Daniel Reed was locally described as a mixed-race man from the West Indies. He emancipated his wife, Rose Reed, a slave born in Mississippi, in 1818.^[1][9] Later on, Daniel emancipated three of their children.^[9][4] 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.^[13]

The sons of Daniel and Rose Reed married the daughters of Jim and Dave Weaver.^[1] They were documented to have migrated to Alabama from the Putnam and Greene counties in Georgia, where they lived from 1810 to 1820.^[9] They migrated with Lemuel Byrd, who served in Putnam County and married their sister Anne Weaver.^[14][9] Byrd was recorded to have migrated from North Carolina to fight in the Indian Wars under Andrew Jackson.^[1][9] By the first half of the 20th century, census records indicate that these families had intermarried and rapidly expanded in number over the region.^[13]

Official records of the Cajans describe them in different ways at different times. Until the middle of the 20th century, the three families ancestral to the Cajans were described in official documents as free Black, mulatto, or free persons of color, with certain individuals listed as white.^[4][1]

In 1920, it was noted that the Weavers and Reeds had intermarried with four local white families, with one testimony claiming they had blood or marital connections with two-thirds of the local county.^[15]

In 1950, census enumerators were allowed to use local designations. In Washington County, one investigator found 734 people listed as Indian and 361 listed as "Cajun". Using surnames and assumed family relationships, he estimated that 288 people listed as white and 449 listed as Black were also of Cajan lineage in the county. In Mobile County, using similar methods but not the terms Cajan or Cajun, enumerators estimated that the majority identified as white. 737 people of Cajan heritage were listed as white, 137 as Black, and eighty-six as Indian.^[4]

By 1974, one of the families descended from the Reeds had mostly gained social acceptance among the white families of the area, and were marked white on an earlier census.^[4] By 1977, genetic and genealogical analysis suggested they had been outmarrying heavily compared to in the past.^[8] Others organized as the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians or emigrated, assimilating into the dominant populations of urban areas.^[9][4]

Tibbie

Citronelle

Mt. Vernon

McIntosh

Areas of historic Cajan settlement in Alabama, 1950^[16]

The Cajans inhabited a region straddling the Counties of Mobile and Washington, it reached the hills of Mount Vernon and Citronelle to the south, and Tibbie and Mctintosh in the north.^[16][4] 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.^[17] They were seen to often live in inaccessible areas, forming small isolated communities.^[6][18]

Genealogical analysis suggests many of them emigrated from their initial tracts and assimilated into other populations by 1950.^[10] At one point, lumber industry interests near Cedar Creek had hired a white man, of Cajan ancestry, to keep genealogical records of the community's families via his personal contacts, which he used to expose Cajan children who attempted to enroll in white schools outside the community. Thereafter their families were forced to return to their isolated communities, preserving themselves as a labor pool.^[19]

By 1974, they were observed to have been frequently emigrating to nearby cities such as Mobile, New Orleans, and Houston. They were not seen as Black in these cities, and would marry into the dominant group of the area. Researcher Eugene Griessman notes that this outmigration and assimilation was mitigated by the high birthrate of the Cajans, and new families marrying into the isolate.^[4]

In 1920, Percy Reed, great-grandson of Rose Reed, was accused of miscegenation due to his marriage to a white woman. He denied having any black heritage.^[9][15] Percy said Rose had been Native American, and Reuben Reed said Rose's husband Daniel Reed had been Spanish. The judge had also described Percy as having Spanish and Native American heritage.^[9][15] Reed pointed out his sister's children went to white schools, but this did not convince the jury. Leslie Tucker noted this showed the difference in how race was defined by the community depending on the context.^[20]

The prosecution initially charged Reed based on descriptions of Rose, but this was later dismissed as hearsay on an appeal, and Reed's conviction was quashed.^[9][15] Political scientist Julie Novkov noted some Black Alabamans had attempted to escape segregation by claiming to have Native American ancestors rather than Black ones, giving Reed as an example.^[21]

In 1925, defending himself against miscegenation charges, Daniel Reed argued he was "Cajun", meaning a mix of "[Acadian], Indian, and Spanish" descent – although he did not have any Acadian heritage and was unrelated to the Louisiana Cajuns. This claim backfired, as the term "Cajun" was commonly associated with local population isolates of partial Black ancestry, and he was instead indicted for marrying a white woman.^[22] His conviction was later reversed on appeal.^[20]

While the cousins Daniel and Percy won their cases, their more distant relative Jim Weaver's conviction was upheld.^[20] In Weaver v. State, the Alabama court developed methodology to determine if a defendant was legally Black, via physical characteristics and social relations. This methodology observed whether they attended Black churches, sent their children to Black schools, and "voluntarily" lived in equality with Black people.^[15] Weaver had also claimed Native American heritage, but the court decided Weaver was guilty due to his relatives having appearances indicating Black ancestry.^[15]

Novkov stated that Weaver v. State set the guidelines for determining blackness in Alabama, and effectively removed the category of mulatto from the state, creating a binary racial system of white and Black.^[15]

By the 1930s, there were several similar mixed race communities – that identified more as Native American than Black, and were also usually identified as such by their neighbors – that were also impacted by the "one-drop rule" across the South, East and Midwest.^[15] By 1950, Census enumerators estimated that people of Cajan lineage in Washington County had marked themselves down as "Indian" more often than as the "Cajan", "White" or "Negro" categories individually, but in Mobile County the majority were classified as white.^[4]