Canary Islanders of Louisiana

The Canary Islanders, or Isleños, of Louisiana, like some of the state's other ethnic groups, have received little scholarly attention. Although they are a people who have remained largely unknown both inside and outside of Louisiana, the Isleños constitute a sizable portion of the state's present Spanish-surname population. Utilizing a wide range of source materials, from Spanish colonial documents to oral interviews, Gilbert C. Din's The Canary Islanders of Louisiana provides the first book-length study of the Isleños and a definitive history of their presence in the state.The few thousand Canary Islanders brought to Louisiana by Spanish governors in the eighteenth century came from a group of islands that, although ostensibly Spanish, had evolved its own distinctive culture and folkways. Settled in frontier areas considered strategic for the defense of the Louisiana colony, the Isleños suffered deprivation, neglect, and eventually abandonment. Living for the most part in remote back-country and delta communities, the Isleños remained isolated from their French and American neighbors. In the twentieth century, pressures to assimilate with the mainstream of Louisiana society have threatened their culture with extinction, though a few Canarians still retain much of their Isleño heritage.Gilbert C. Din's study of the Isleños covers the entire range of their association with Louisiana. He begins with a brief survey of Canarian history and folkways and concludes with a discussion of the likely ethnic future of the increasingly assimilated Isleño descendants. Din provides a detailed history of the Isleño migration and colonial settlement; post-colonial community development; economic, social, educational, and political patterns; and the course of Isleño assimilation with the general Louisiana population. Offering his own skillfully argued answers to long-standing debates about early Isleño settlements, Din also corrects a number of factual errors on the part of previous historians who did not have access to the same range of archival sources.The Canary Islanders of Louisiana is a strong piece of historical scholarship. It makes an original and much-needed contribution to the history of a people, of Louisiana, and of the American South.

"An important work that fills a significant void in Louisiana and Gulf Coast historiography. Din has laid another stone in the foundation on which comparative, intercultural, and comprehensive transdisciplinary histories of the early Mississippi Valley can now be built."-- "American Historical Review", "Genealogists will find this book to be a must for research on Isleño families in Louisiana. Anthropologists will take delight in the account of the rapidly passing antique culture still preserved by some Spanish-speaking Isleños in remote localities. An important minority group that has become part of Louisiana's mainstream has now received the recognition for its history that it deserves."-- "Louisiana History", "In this volume Gilbert C. Din rescues the Isleños from obscurity with a sound historical survey of their presence in the state."-- "Journal of American History", "This study encompasses a complete history of Louisiana's Isleño community from the Spanish era to the present. It is well conceived, interesting, and thoroughly researched."-- "Journal of Southern History"

Gilbert C. Din is the author of several books, including Francisco Bouligny: A Bourbon Soldier in Spanish Louisiana and, with John E. Harkins, The New Orleans Cabildo: Colonial Louisiana's First City Government, 1769-1803.