Congo Square: Myth and Music

For many people in Congo Square, this is the place that inspires the strangest image of enslaved life in New Orleans. From the 1940s of 19 to the 1980s of 19, intellectuals and artists like George Washington Cable, Luis Gottchuck and Ralph Cadio Hearn brought Congo Square into the national imagination as an unusual and sexy abandoned place. This area, which is famous for African drums and dances, is now marked by louis armstrong Park, and is called "the birthplace of jazz". However, the history related to the actual location was covered by its myths, one of which was mainly written by white writers who had never even seen the enslaved people there.

From 1796 to1803,2800 enslaved people were baptized in St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square, and more than 700 of them had nearly Colombian backgrounds. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that the enslaved people who participated in the carnival on Sunday afternoon are integrating music and dance in West Africa.

18 17, the laws of New Orleans restricted enslaved people to Sunday afternoons in Congo Square (then known as Place Publique). As more and more people are worried about the threat of abolitionists invading the city and revolution, music and dance on Sunday afternoon were closed and resumed at 1835, and then closed again at 185 1. By 1856, people of African descent are no longer allowed to play the trumpet or drum in the city by law. Since then, the area has been mainly used for military exercises. However, as often happens in New Orleans, music and dance continue to circulate in the circles of enslaved people, if hidden in secrets.

When Benjamin Latrobe, a British-born architect, described the music scene of 18 19 in Place Public, he fell into what he thought was a "wild" display. The derogatory racial attitude of that era undoubtedly strengthened this view, but his paintings and specific descriptions of some dances were compared with Santo Domingo's musical life.

It is quite possible that in the past decades, many people who occupied the square on Sunday stayed in Santo Domingo and then Cuba to escape violence. They brought bambula drums, banjo, and the trend of imitating social customs with costumes and dances. For example, competitors laugh at their partners in high society. With African dance becoming more sensational and sexy, this contradiction not only appeared in latrobe, New Orleans, but also in Médéric Louis in Santo Domingo 20 years ago. In the testimony of lie Moreau de Saint-Méry, apart from dance and music,

During the colonial period and before the war, Publik was a place where enslaved people could sell their goods. Vendors also sell food and set up entertainment facilities, such as performances by Havana-born circus performers. In the early French colonial era, enslaved people and Native Americans even played lacrosse for the entertainment of the rich in France. Speaking of Congo Square, we only touched on its significance to the enslaved population of New Orleans in the past 300 years.