Sunday, December 28, 2008

 

The Westport Fight in the Neutral Strip

Here's a right fine historical read, from late-19th-century west Louisiana, courtesy of Doc Bill.

--ER

Comments:
The story reminds me of my mother almost whispering to me once that her grandfather Dugan's people were Black Irish from Eastern Tennessee. They moved to East Texas, where family was, and then eventually took a ranch along the Red River.

"Black Irish" meant to her a mixture of the races: Indian, Black, and White. She noted, of course, that the Dugans "didn't have no Negro in them."

Now there is a seldom touched area of American History and Geography, the "Outliers", the exclaves of peoples out of the mainstream that are found all over America. Those people inhabiting the "lands between" where they were just left alone.
 
Thanks fer the referential Rudy.

Doc Lobo-- Redbones is a real stew. My peoples joined on with a Choctaw clan a lil' north of there.
They bred out some of the Redbone, but ever now & then, the curly hair & the darker skin a showup in one'a the lil'uns.
 
If we take DNA tests, 2 or 3 of 4 of us would have Africa present.

The Irish and Indians were a step up from slave blood and used to cover not a multitude just a sin... or two.
 
My boss lady is a black gal from Trinidad. She bristles when someone refers to her, or introduces her, as "African American." She told me once that after she spoke somewhere, and had corrected her introducer, that an elderly black woman came up to her and allowed as to how "we're all from Africa, honey." When the boss lady told me that, I said, "We'll, we might dang near all of us be from Africa, depending on who you ask, 'cradle of life' and all."

I also tease her about bein' more Southern than *I* am even, Trinidad bein' way the heck down there. :-)
 
Has she ever brought you roti?
 
No, but she brought me back some rum once! :-)
 
Offer her hoppin' john, cornbread and greens in exchange for goat roti, spicy.
 
Ha! That would be a real culinary cultural exchange!
 
For the record, I once was a judge for the annual Electra Goat Barbecue.

Electra, Texas.

Cabrito!
 
Do you know Sivell's Bend? With Valley View and Electra, you'd have the trifecta.
 
Ha! I *do* know of Sivell's Bend. I *did* dart off I-35 to Muenster and back on the way (to buy a raspberry cream strudel at Bayer's and some bulk sausage and cheese at "the store" downtown!

And I have stood in the sand at Doan's Crossing, in the chiggers at Red River Station, and ... wrote stories about the Taovayas Bridge at Spanish Fort before there *was* a bridge. :-)
 
My uncle Joyce and Aunt Jimmy lived in Svell's Bend.
 
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