Economics and Authenticity: A Collision of Interpretations ... · owned the historic core of the plantation and acted as its steward for 34 years. The society’s members obviously

For the last four years we have workedat Melrose and the other plantations ofMarie-Thérèse and her family as part of acollaborative archaeological and archivalproject between Northwestern StateUniversity of Louisiana (NSU) andUniversity College London (UCL). Duringthese years we have lived very much in theshadow of Coincoin’s legend (for the story

of the Maison de Marie-Thérèse, seeMacDonald, Morgan, and Handley 2002/2003; MacDonald, Morgan, and Handley,in press; MacDonald et al., in press). Littleby little our research has unraveled the linksbetween traditional narratives and certain-ties about the history of these properties,forcing us, as academics, to refine ourunderstanding of the plantation’s develop-

The George Wright Forum44

Economics and Authenticity:A Collision of Interpretations inCane River National Heritage Area, Louisiana

David W. Morgan, Kevin C. MacDonald, and Fiona J. L. Handley

Ed. note: A version of this paper was originally presented at The Alliance of Natural HeritageAreas 2nd International Heritage Development Conference, Nashville, Tennessee, June 2005.

IntroductionMelrose Plantation, a United States national historic landmark, is a focal point for culturaltourism in northern and central Louisiana (Figure 1). It is celebrated as a pre-LouisianaPurchase property, for the origins of Melrose may go back as far as 1796. In that year, legendhas it that a freed slave of African descent named Marie-Thérèse Coincoin acquired the landgrant for this property on behalf of her son, Louis Metoyer, who was then still a slave (Millsand Mills 1973:33–59). Louis Metoyer was a Creole of Color, which in central Louisianarefers to a distinct group of people of mixed European, Native American, and African ances-try. Cane River is home to the descendents of this original colonial-era community, and theCane River Creoles, as they call themselves, are a vibrant group of people who have experi-enced a strong cultural revitalization over the last decade. In the Cane River region, Marie-Thérèse herself is considered a founding figure of exceptional—almost mythic—importance,and most members of the Creole community trace their genealogical ties back to Marie-Thérèse and her ten children by the Frenchman, Jean Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer.Marie-Thérèse’s prominence in popular culture is due in no small part to the fact that theirdescendants became one of the South’s wealthiest antebellum families of African descent(Louisiana State Museum 2003). Her more global importance has been highlighted recent-ly by the attention given Cane River and Marie-Thérèse by Oprah Winfrey and two contem-porary novelists (Tademy 2001; Mills 2003).

ment. This has thrust us into a position wedid not anticipate, in which our findings aresometimes welcomed, but sometimes areseen as contesting, contradicting, or deny-ing accepted narrative “truths.”

There are three main parties who wishto stake a claim in the way in which Marie-Thérèse’s story is told. One, obviously, arethe individuals who self-identify as CaneRiver Creoles. A second party is theAssociation for the Preservation of HistoricNatchitoches (APHN), a not-for-profitpreservation group composed mostly ofaffluent Anglo women who currently incor-porate Marie-Thérèse and Creole heritageinto their interpretation of Melrose Planta-tion. Lastly, there are the outside academics,represented by us, as well as members of theNational Park Service’s Historic AmericanBuildings Survey program and, over theyears, an assortment of other social scien-tists.

In this paper we attempt to show howthese three corporate voices come togetherto relate the tale of the Cane River Creoles.Sometimes the voices are harmonious,

sometimes they are discordant. As such ournegotiations over the legend of Marie-Thérèse provide an interesting case studywith which to illustrate the tenets of thethird draft of the proposed Ename Charterfor the Interpretation of Cultural HeritageSites (see Silberman, this volume). Othersimilar charters have mentioned the needfor sensitive, effective interpretation, but theEname Charter, drafted under the auspicesof ICOMOS, the International Council onMonuments and Sites, attempts to “definethe basic objectives and principles of siteinterpretation in relation to authenticity,intellectual integrity, social responsibility,and respect for cultural significance andcontext” (ECPAHP 2005). It is particularlyappropriate here, for it begins with therecognition that interpretation can be con-tentious and should acknowledge conflict-ing perspectives. As an international stan-dard for all types of heritage sites, the char-ter is necessarily broad, but there are threeprinciples that are especially appropriate tothe case we present, because together theyaddress the need for interpretation through

The ICOMOS–Ename Charter

Volume 23 • Number 1 (2006) 45

Figure 1. Locations of sites discussed in thetext. Map by David Morgan.

scholarly methods and through living cul-tural traditions, the need for authenticity,and the need for fiscal sustainability.

APHN’s Melrose NarrativeMelrose Plantation is the only publicly

accessible cultural heritage site at which thehistory of Cane River Creoles is currentlypresented to the public. The APHN hasowned the historic core of the plantationand acted as its steward for 34 years. Thesociety’s members obviously govern in alarge measure how the tale of Marie-Thérèse and her family is interpreted there.Melrose, with its grand oaks and architec-ture, is certainly capable of attractingtourists for aesthetic reasons alone (Figure2). The real marketing and advertisingefforts of the APHN, however, are to conveyMelrose as embodying the tale of threeinfluential women: Marie-Thérèse Coin-coin, Carmelite “Cammie” Henry, (the

Anglo owner responsible for Melrose’s ren-aissance in the early twentieth century), andClementine Hunter (the celebrated African-American artist who lived and worked atMelrose during the Cammie Henry era).The APHN’s clear focus on strong-mind-ed, independent women, two of whom wereAfrican American, is unusual, if not unique,in historic house interpretation in thesouthern U.S., and is an extremely impor-tant and valid interpretive approach.

The interpretive tour explaining thesewomen’s histories is based around five key“original” buildings. Three are of particularimportance because they have been associ-ated directly with the Marie-Thérèse leg-end:

• Yucca House. It is presented as beingbuilt around 1796, and legend has itthat this was the original main house,built and lived in by Marie-Thérèse



Figure 2. Main house at Melrose Plantation. Photo by Jack Boucher, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey.

(Figure 3).• Africa House. It is also presented as

being built around 1796 as a grainstore, or, according to some accounts, aslave jail built in a Congolese style byMarie-Thérèse (Figure 4).

• Ghana House. A third supposedlyoriginal 1796 structure, this smallcabin is reported to have been built inan architectural style reflecting Marie-Thérèse’s African heritage (Figure 5).

The story of Marie-Thérèse is famousin Cane River country, and the APHN usesit to their advantage. For instance theMelrose Plantation tourist brochure (2002)proclaims, “The story of romantic MelrosePlantation begins with the legend of MarieThérése Coincoin.” It is accurate advertis-ing, for so too does a visitor’s trip to theplantation. Special tour groups are some-times greeted by Betty Metoyer, a descen-dent of Marie-Thérèse. Metoyer typicallyawaits her tour groups from the upstairsporch of the main house, dressed in period

costume, and from her dramatic perchdelivers the story of Marie-Thérèse and theplantation’s founding; she then sweepsdownstairs and across the lawn to com-mence the heart of the tour at Yucca andAfrica houses.

As another example, the APHN web-site’s main page leads visitors to twotourism sites, one of which is Melrose. Eachheritage site is linked to a text blurb intend-ed to draw a reader into a closer inspection,and Melrose’s lure is telling:

“According to the tradition preservedby her descendants, Marie ThereseCoincoin was the recipient of the grantof land known as Melrose Plantation.”

The legend of Marie Therese Coin-coin is not just the story of a womanbut the story of a family grounded inAfrican tradition, mellowed by Frenchculture, this family developed in thebriefest span of years into one of theunique societies in American history,a culture so distinct, so close-knit, thatthey have always termed themselves



Figure 3. Yucca House at Melrose Plantation. Photo by Jack Boucher, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey.



Figure 4. Africa House at Melrose Plantation. Photo by Philip Gould, reproduced with his permission and courtesy of the CaneRiver National Heritage Area.

Figure 5. Ghana House at Melrose Plantation. Photo by Jack Boucher, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey.

“The People.” According to legend, itwas here that the story began ....

By choosing and italicizing a quotationfrom the author François Mignon, whomwe discuss below, and invoking the word“legend” twice in their explanatory text, theAPHN brochure exploits the allure of theMarie-Thérèse mythos, while attempting toreinforce it using documented history. But,how academically reliable are the accountsthey have chosen to use?

APHN and Melrose’s link to Marie-Thérèse

Much of the legend of Marie-Thérèsetold by the APHN at Melrose grew fromCammie Henry and the artists’ colony thatshe created around her in the early 1900s(Figure 6). It was one of the members of theHenry community, the self-styled French-man François Mignon (Figure 7), who didthe most to embroider and popularize thetale of Marie-Thérèse, first as writer of aregionally syndicated column, “The CaneRiver Memo” (1961–1963) and then asauthor of a book on the topic (1972). Heinvented the name Yucca for the earliestplantation at the property, a name alsoapplied to what is supposedly the originalplantation home, and claimed that Marie-Thérèse, a free slave from the Congo,owned Yucca plantation from 1743 on-wards and built Yucca and Africa House in1750 (Mignon 1972:1–2). Mignon (1972:1–2) stated that Louis Metoyer inheritedYucca from his mother, and that Louis’ sonbuilt the main house in 1833, at whichpoint Yucca House was turned into a home“for indigent slaves.” Mignon (1972:5,30–31) also claimed that the two-storyAfrica House was “a replica of tribal houseson the Congo river in Africa” and that it

served simultaneously as both a jail forCoincoin’s recalcitrant slaves and as a store-room.

Local folk historian Louis Nardiniscornfully disputed Mignon’s claims thatsame year. Nardini (1972) asserted thatCoincoin never owned Melrose; did notbuild Yucca, Africa, or Ghana houses; andlived in her own plantation at Cedar Benduntil at least 1816. That her son alone wasinvolved with the construction of Yucca—and much later than had previously beenbelieved—became a point of heated debate,particularly as the dialogue took place in thepages of the local newspaper.



Figure 6. Folklorist Lyle Saxon and Cammie Henry at MelrosePlantation. Cammie G. Henry Research Center Collections,Lyle Saxon Album, #014pl., Northwestern State University,Louisiana.

The next year, amid growing contro-versy, the APHN hired the historians GaryMills and Elizabeth Mills to write a properaccount of the origins of Melrose plantation(1973). It later developed into the book TheForgotten People (Mills 1977) that nowdefines the conventional story of Melrose’sorigins. The Mills, with solid archival evi-dence, laid aside Mignon’s claim for the1750 establishment of the plantation. Theyfocused instead on a Melrose property dis-pute that raged in 1806–1807. Louis Met-oyer, Marie-Thérèse’s son, filed claim towhat is now Melrose in 1806. SylvestreBossier, the original 1789 grantee, contest-ed the claim. Louis Metoyer rebutted thatBossier’s right to the land had lapsed, sincehe had not made the required land improve-ments, and that the land had then beendeeded to him in 1796. Louis ultimatelywon. In hindsight the Mills saw one flaw inLouis Metoyer’s story: he was legally a slaveuntil May 1802, and slaves could not bedeeded land. To bridge this logical gap, theMills (1973:41) echoed Mignon by assert-

ing that Marie-Thérèse acquired the land in1796 for her son and settled in YuccaHouse as the plantation matriarch.

Cane River Creoles and Melrose’s linkto Marie-Thérèse

The story is intriguing, and relativelyuncomplicated, when told from only theAPHN’s perspective. The issue of tellingthe Marie-Thérèse tale at Melrose gets morecomplex when one listens to the secondvoice: that of the Cane River Creoles them-selves. For many years the Creoles on CaneRiver were aware of the narrative related atMelrose, but were content to shrug it off as“somebody else trying to tell what wealready know” (J. Colson, director, CreoleHeritage Center, personal communication,17 May 2005). As the Cane River Creolesbecame more invested in revitalization, theybegan to ask questions. Why should thelargely Anglo members of the APHN telltheir version of our story for the benefit oftheir organization? More to the point, whyare they telling our story inaccurately? Thatquery was the most problematic, for mostCreoles believe that Marie-Thérèse was notas firmly connected to Melrose as theAPHN claims. The Creoles, moreover,knew exactly where on the landscapeMarie-Thérèse’s story should be situated: aprivate residence several miles upriver.

According to the Cane River Creoles,what remains of Marie-Thérèse’s home is apink-painted, cypress-clad residence on apiece of property encompassing a portionof the 68-acre land grant given to Marie-Thérèse in 1786, when her long-term rela-tionship with Jean Claude Thomas PierreMetoyer ended (Figure 8). For many years itwas generally accepted by the Creoles thatthe extant house on this property (known asthe Coincoin-Prudhomme House) was the



Figure 7. François Mignon. Cammie G. Henry Research CenterCollections, Mignon Collection, #105-22, Northwestern StateUniversity, Louisiana.

original and only dwelling associated withMarie-Thérèse (Shaw 1983:6). This claimactually had more documentary backingthan the Mills’ Melrose claim, as there is atax map of 1794 that depicts the “maison deMarie-Thérèse negresse libre,” which isshown as occupying almost the exact spotas the standing structure. On the basis ofthe map and the discovery of 1700s Frenchpottery in the home owner’s flowerbed, thestructure was placed on the NationalRegister as the home of Marie-Thérèse andsubsequently featured in African AmericanHistoric Places (Savage 1994).

As far as the Creoles were concerned,the location of Marie-Thérèse’s home wasknown to them, it was not Melrose, and thedebate thus centered on issues of culturalappropriation. Who has the right to tell thisstory? They also began turning their atten-tion to the dilemma of using this house—well-known among the Creoles—as a vehi-

cle for reclaiming the Marie-Thérèse story.One possible solution a member of theCreole community broached with us was topossibly rehabilitate the structure into a bedand breakfast into which a museum displaycould be incorporated.

The academic voice on MelroseAt this point let us introduce the third

perspective on Creole heritage sites: theacademics’. Since 2001 we have activelybeen re-examining the archival documents,oral traditions, and material culture atMelrose Plantation and the Coincoin-Prudhomme property in hopes of learningabout the material culture process of cre-olization. Our work has particularly soughtto elucidate the role Africans and NativeAmericans played in the development ofCane River during the colonial and antebel-lum periods.

Turning first to Melrose, we found the



Figure 8. The Coincoin-Prudhomme House on the Whittington Archaeological Site (16NA591). Photo by David Morgan.

claims of APHN to be overstated, to say theleast. The Millses’ hypothesis that Marie-Thérèse founded and managed the planta-tion at Yucca House did not make muchlogical sense since Bossier’s challenge to theland claim would have been directed atMarie-Thérèse, not her enslaved son, andthe specter of Louis’ legal rights as a slavewould never have been raised. Thus theassociation of Marie-Thérèse with Melroseis founded upon gaps in the documentaryrecord, rather than any actual written proofof her presence. Furthermore, as Nardini(1972) already indicated, the documentsthat do exist place Marie-Thérèse on herown plantation in 1816.

Other academics found little veracity inthe supporting myth that Ghana House andAfrica House are examples of architectureinspired by Marie-Thérèse’s African expe-rience. For one thing, it is uncertainwhether Marie-Thérèse was born in Lou-isiana or Africa. For another, the Africaninfluence on the houses is a notion that doesnot hold up under close scrutiny. GhanaHouse is a simple log cabin, like many oth-ers along Cane River in the nineteenth cen-tury, and several local informants have toldus that it was re-located from another prop-erty along the river by Cammie Henry in the1920s. More attention has been given toAfrica House. In a recent study of Creolebuilding practice, Edwards (2002:66) ar-gues persuasively that “nothing about thisbuilding can be directly related to Africantradition. The builders of Africa Houseemployed no customary African methodsor design principles, but rather those ofFrance.” He goes on to supply illustrationsof French farm structures closely resem-bling Africa House (see Figure 44 inEdwards 2002).

Our initial findings and Edwards’

architectural conclusions cast doubt onmany of the “factual” constructs placingMarie-Thérèse at Melrose as its matriarch.The archaeology we subsequently conduct-ed in tandem with our documentary workshed further light on the plantation’s enig-matic founding at Yucca House. Withoutgoing into the details, which are publishedelsewhere (MacDonald et al., in press), acirca 1810 or later initial occupation datefor Yucca House seems reasonable based onthe associated material culture. Louis couldnot have built this structure in 1796. As ifthis were not enough, the artifacts are sup-ported by three recently discovered surveydocuments held in the Louisiana StateLand Office (MacDonald et al., in press).These three show, without doubt, thatLouis’ dwelling in 1814 was not YuccaHouse, and it is probable that Yucca Househad not yet even been built, as it is un-marked and unreferenced on these maps.Indeed, Louis’ residence, which was usedas a reference mark, was not even on thesame side of the river as Yucca House istoday.

It is apparent that François Mignon,the local writer-in-residence at Melrose inthe mid-1900s, created the backbone of theincreasingly dubious Melrose legend. Theirony is that Mignon’s biggest myth was infact himself. Rather than being French, ashe intimated, Mignon was actually born inCortland, New York, as Frank VerNooyMineah (Cammie G. Henry Research Cen-ter 2004). Mineah, a long-term guest ofCammie Henry’s at the plantation, inventedMelrose as the point of origin for Creoleculture by associating it with the story ofMarie-Thérèse. Thus, by rewriting localhistory Mignon secured both the impor-tance of his adopted home and made him-self the indispensable gatekeeper of knowl-



edge about the Creoles and Melrose (Figure9). In short, Marie-Thérèse has becomefirmly associated with the story of MelrosePlantation’s origins on the basis of no posi-tive evidence and in the face of a significantamount of contrary evidence (MacDonald,Morgan, and Handley 2002/2003; Mac-Donald et al., in press).

The academic voice on the Coincoin-Prudhomme House

After exploring Melrose, we turned ourattention to the oral tradition of the CaneRiver Creoles, hoping it could lead us to theplace where Marie-Thérèse lived her life.The Cane River Creoles really did notobject to our findings at Melrose, because itstrengthened their own convictions. Thistime, however, our archaeology was onancestral turf, and by searching for trashdeposits and slave homes at the Whitting-

ton site (16NA591) we again unwittinglyentered into a debate on authenticity, espe-cially regarding the Coincoin-PrudhommeHouse that the archaeological site sur-rounds. Conventional wisdom about theCoincoin-Prudhomme House’s tie to theCreole ancestress was academically chal-lenged for the first time immediately priorto our initial fieldwork in 2001, when workby the Historic American Buildings Survey(HABS) of the National Park Service castdoubt on the age of the standing structure.The HABS team dated this Creole cottageto no earlier than the 1830s on the basis ofnail chronology and a few stylistic features(National Park Service 2001).

Details of our work are published else-where (MacDonald, Morgan, and Handley2002/2003; MacDonald et al., in press), sosuffice it to say that copious earth movingon our part and re-inspection of excavations



Figure 9. François Mignon in Yucca House at Melrose Plantation. Cammie G. Henry Research Center Collections, Mignon Collection,#105-21, Northwestern State University, Louisiana.

from the 1970s failed to yield artifacts asso-ciated with the late 1700s or even the firstdecade or two of the 1800s, Marie-Thérèse’s intensive plantation period, whenshe accumulated some 16 slaves. We ulti-mately began from scratch, georeferencedthe original 1794 map, and discovered thatthe extant house’s location and the locationof the maison shown on the map were off byabout 50 m. We redirected our investiga-tions and, sure enough, some 50 m away, wefound a cluster of artifacts typical of the late1700s, as well as sub-surface features: themissing maison de Marie-Thérèse.

Stepping back, it was apparent that ourwork and HABS’s severed the myth ofMarie-Thérèse from the Coincoin-Prudhomme House, placing the latter firm-ly in the mid-1800s and associating it with adifferent family line entirely. That we wenton to locate the vicinity where Marie-Thérèse’s house actually stood probablywas not much of a sop to the Cane RiverCreoles. Before our work they had some-thing to look at, something to fire the imag-ination. We left them with an empty hayfield owned, no less, by a non-Creole fami-ly.

Melrose and the draft Ename CharterLet us move now from the concrete to

the more abstract in order to examine howthis case study reflects key aspects of thedraft Ename Charter. A core theme of thecharter’s provisions is how to ensure theauthenticity of interpretation, when nation-alism, economics, power dynamics, author-ity roles, and competing epistemologies alldetermine what we perceive and interpret as“true” and “accurate,” a conundrum dis-cussed in many of the academic disciplinescomprising heritage resource management(e.g., Shanks and Tilley 1987; Greenfield

1989; Handler 1991; Greaves 1994; Díaz-Andreu and Champion 1996; Posey andDutfield 1996; Haley and Wilcoxon 1997;Ziff and Rao 1997; Messenger 1999;Warren 1999; Whiteley 2002). In this case,we think our years of academic archival andarchaeological investigations embrace thefirst component of Principle 2, which statesinterpretation should be “based on system-atic and well-researched evidence gatheredthrough accepted scientific methods.” Butwhat about the second component, whichinsists that evidence also should come from“traditional sources of living cultures”?The Millses’ archival work overwrote inmany respects the myths Mignon createdfrom traditional stories and, presumably, ahealthy dollop of his own imagination. But,are our findings also not a partial refutationof the knowledge carried by members of theCane River Creole community and theAPHN? We outside academics advocatethat Melrose’s development be reconsid-ered in light of our “expert” findings, alongwith the identity of the Coincoin-Prudhomme House, and that the interpre-tations of these properties be revisedaccordingly. Should our claims trump thoseof the Cane River Creoles or the APHN?

Turning from the academics’ view tolook at authenticity in another fashion, theCreoles assert that the APHN is pickingand choosing select aspects of the Marie-Thérèse story to suit their own purposes,and thus tell an inauthentic story even asthey appropriate it. Marie-Thérèse isreferred to in the standard tour as an exam-ple of Melrose’s female residents, even as astrong, independent African Americanwoman, but not as the founder of what is anactive, thriving Creole community. In a tourgiven in May 2005 by a member of theAPHN, a Creole woman from Natchitoches



was rather dismayed to hear twice on thetour that the Cane River Creoles had been“wiped out by Jim Crow” (Michelle Pichon,personal communication, 17 May 2005).Will APHN’s tale be the accepted one, sim-ply because it is repeated to the greatestnumber of people, far more than the num-bers that make up the Creole community orwho will thumb through academic booksand journals?

Rather than enter discussions of whohas the right to speak for whom, whoseepistemology has greatest validity, andwhether one historic narrative is moreimportant than any other, the EnameCharter measures claims of legitimacyagainst the definition of “authenticity” theUnited Nations considered in its 1994 NaraDocument. This definition recognizes thatvalue judgments on cultural properties, aswell as the credibility of pertinent informa-tion sources related to them, differ cross-culturally and sometimes intra-culturally,making it impossible to establish fixed crite-ria of legitimacy. Instead, heritage sites mustbe considered and judged within their owncontexts. This is the tautology of relativism,apparently broken by the requirement ofinclusivity woven through both the Naraand Ename documents. Alternate viewsmust be heard, or, in the language ofPrinciple 6 of the charter: “Interpretation ofcultural heritage sites must actively involvethe participation of all stakeholders andassociated communities,” who must con-tribute to the planning process of the inter-pretive program and receive its benefits.

At this point it bears mentioning thatwe are in the enviable position where ouracademic information contests aspects ofthe APHN and the Cane River Creole’sinformation, while relations between thesethree corporate groups—Creoles, outside

academics, and the APHN—remainremarkably cordial considering the emo-tional and economic issues at stake. Wehave, for instance, worked closely with theAPHN and the Louisiana Creole HeritageCenter, an outreach and research unithoused at Northwestern State University ofLouisiana, as well as with many individualrepresentatives of the Creole heritage revi-talization effort. Part of the reason for theamiability is that all of the parties involvedshare, at some level, a fundamental ground-ing in Western epistemologies, so the prob-lematic fixed criteria of legitimacy dis-cussed in the Ename Charter is less an issuehere than in some other cultural contexts.Unlike traditional stakeholders contestinginterpretation at other sites, we do not facethe dilemma where one person’s body ofproof simply does not exist as a conceptual-ly valid measure of authenticity.

Accepting the value of the Creole tradi-tional narrative as the Ename Charter advo-cates has not been difficult for those of uson the academic side of the table. We recog-nize the importance of oral tradition bothfor the sociohistorical data it contains andfor its importance in the transmission ofcultural values and knowledge, so the dia-logue that develops from these personalinteractions is akin to an informationexchange between any set of researchers.The Creoles want to know what we havediscovered that they either did not know, orto which they can contribute a personal orfamilial perspective. We want to know whatpersonal or familial links we either willnever find in the archival or archaeologicalrecords or will simply have overlookedbecause of our own cultural or methodolog-ical blinders. We are not in oppositionbecause our work does not diminish theimportance of their past or present, and



indeed only serves to highlight them in pro-fessional, national forums. As part of theirdesire to no longer be lost between the colorlines, “the forgotten people” of America, asthey are sometimes described (Mills 1977;Sarpy interview in Rodman 2005), seekknowledge and information about their pastfrom whatever quarter it may derive, be itoral tradition or empirical testing.

Accommodating and presenting thetraditional or academic narratives may notbe quite as straightforward from the APHNperspective. By linking the Creoles toMarie-Thérèse and by linking Marie-Thérèse to Melrose, the Creoles’ heritagehas become pivotal to the economic successof the heritage site and the area at large, aconcept addressed by the Ename Charter’sfifth principle on economic sustainability.Central Louisiana is characterized bypoverty, geographic isolation, and low taxa-tion capacity. Heritage tourism is one of thefew local industries that exists outside oflumber and agriculture. In a region withpoverty levels nearly three times greaterthan the national average and with a medianhousehold income less than half that of thenational average (Sims 2005:4), the abilityof heritage tourism to generate tax dollarsfrom outside visitors cannot be overstated.

A survey in 2003 of 399 heritagetourists in the Cane River National HeritageArea, which encompasses Melrose, indicat-ed that 65% of the visitors to this area camefrom out of state and 4% were internationalvisitors (Stynes and Sun 2004:5, Table 2).Of the 399 visitors, 74% of them stayed anaverage of 2.4 nights in the area (Stynes andSun 2004:6, Table 3). This last figure isespecially important, because MichiganState University researchers calculate thatwhile the average day-trip travel partyspends about $100 on admissions, travel

costs, meals, and shopping, the averageovernight travel party brings $217 to $466dollars to the area, depending on whetheror not they stay overnight in a hotel or a bedand breakfast (Stynes and Sun 2004:9,Table 13). Melrose is one of the major cul-tural tourism sites within the NationalHeritage Area and central Louisiana. Ofthese 399 sampled visitors, for instance,Melrose was the heritage site visited by thegreatest number of people and was the her-itage site of which visitors rated themselvesmost aware (Figures10 and 11) (Stynes andSun 2004:8, and Figure 2 therein). To putthis in more concrete terms, last yearMelrose brought to the parish 13,564 visi-tors, not counting those who attended vari-ous festivals and the annual Tour of Homes(Iris Harper, Natchitoches Tourist Com-mission, personal communication, 6 May2005). At $7 per adult and $4 per child,these tourists represent a significant incomestream for the APHN and a hefty contribu-tion to the parish’s tax base. For example, in2003 and 2004 Melrose brought in fromadmission fees an average of $81,687, andvisitors in the first four months of 2005brought in $32,028, an increase of 173%over the amount brought in on average fromJanuary to April in the prior two years (SueWeaver, executive director, APHN, personalcommunication, 2 June 2005). Losing oneof the three women who form the narrativesequence at Melrose could diminish theheritage site’s appeal to many tourists,hence creating a significant economic im-pact and threatening Melrose’s long-termsustainability.

Melrose is a contested location formore than economic reasons. What makesthis particular situation unusual is that,although we academics have shed consider-able doubt on the validity of the traditional



Marie-Thérèse myth, and although theCreoles have their own origin location,Melrose remains the only place where thehistorically documented story of Marie-Thérèse can be told in an original historicsetting or landscape (Martin, n.d.:44)—animportant interpretive link recognized byEname Charter’s third principle. No otherstructures associated with her life, howeverremotely, still stand. So, what happens once

the link between the Creole progenitor andMelrose is pried apart by archival andarchaeological evidence, or when the ownerof the Coincoin-Prudhomme House suc-ceeds in his plans to develop a combinationmuseum/bed and breakfast?

The tenets of the Ename Charterwould direct us to continue telling the Cre-oles’ story at Melrose, for the Creoles areprimary components of the social context in



Figure 10. Visitor attendance at heritage tourism sites in Natchitoches Parish, 2004 (adapted from Figure 2 in Stynes and Sun2004, 8).

Figure 11. Visitor attendance at and awareness of Melrose Plantation (adapted from Figure 2 in Stynes and Sun 2004, 8).

which Melrose developed and operated. Itis simply impossible to comprehend whatMelrose represents without their story and,according to the charter, their direct inputon its interpretation. The point may bemoot, because Louis will become the vehi-cle by which his mother’s tale is told, andLouis and Melrose will come to symbolizethe prosperity of Marie-Thérèse’s descen-dents; however, for this to happen theAPHN would have to recognize the voicesof Creole oral tradition and academicarchival and archaeological research. TheCoincoin-Prudhomme property, if everdeveloped into a private commercial ven-ture, could serve as a visitor center for the(archaeological) Marie-Thérèse home sitenext door and be marketed in concert withMelrose, so that the two complement eachother and add yet another dimension to avisitor’s experience.

Collaborative input on the part of thestakeholders is in fact the avenue of resolu-tion currently being negotiated betweenthese various voices we have described. Forinstance, the negotiation of a mutually satis-factory narrative is still in progress. TheTour of Homes Committee has asked forassistance in telling the “alternate” historythe Creoles prefer (J. Colson, director,Creole Heritage Center, personal communi-cation, 17 May 2005), and the Creole Heri-tage Center currently is creating a travelingexhibit on the formation of the Cane RiverCreole community that will debut inOctober 2005 at Melrose during the Tourof Homes. The exhibit will explain the his-tory of the Metoyer family and their kin (J.Colson, director, Creole Heritage Center,personal communication, 17 May 2005).Brochures will supplement the exhibit andwill be distributed to visitors at Melroseafter the exhibit has moved elsewhere. The

APHN thus is not deprived of one of thethree women around whose lives their inter-pretive tours center, and has the addedincentive of being able to deliver a morerobust, authentic narrative to the public.

Once the APHN and the Creoles agreeon the manner in which the Marie-Thérèsenarrative is presented, cultural appropria-tion issues will lose much of their potency.Melrose, with its imposing main house,would come to serve the Creoles as animportant symbol of the Metoyer family’swealth, as is evidenced by its use as a back-drop in this context in a 2005 documentaryon Cane River Creoles aired on LouisianaPublic Broadcasting (Rodman 2005).Viewed in the context of Melrose planta-tion, it is easy to argue that America’s “for-gotten people” once were a very successful,prosperous part of the American past.

Meanwhile, the Cane River NationalHeritage Area has identified Cane RiverCreole culture as one of their primary inter-pretive themes. Their interpretive planurges that more research be conducted fo-cusing on the links between Marie-Thérèseand Melrose, but that her story should con-tinue to be told at the plantation in recogni-tion of her importance to visitors and thelocal community (Martin n.d.:44). Morebroadly, the challenges faced by the APHN,like other heritage organizations, are indeveloping well-researched interpretativethemes and delivering them through well-trained guides and up-to-date presenta-tions, while operating within a tight budgetand dealing with on-going conservationissues. In this sense, persuading the APHNto accept historic information from bothstakeholders and academics as valuablecontributions to Melrose’s interpretation iseasy; it is much harder to see a clear waythrough the remolding of the interpretation



of the site, from advertising pamphlets toretraining guides, especially when the statusquo of the site operates well from a financialpoint of view.

What this discussion reiterates howev-er, is that the Cane River has a rich resourceof material and social history to draw uponin developing heritage tourism. Eventually,the stories of Marie-Thérèse as an influen-tial African American woman, and as thehead of the Cane River Creoles, could betold. The more variety there is in interpret-ing these histories, whether through chang-ing presentations at Melrose to encouragerepeat local visits, or even through develop-ing new audience attractions aimed at theovernight visitor market, the more it will notonly add to the nuances of the stories told,but also alleviate the pressure on one loca-tion to present the definitive history.

As far as we academics are concerned,the process by which these different com-peting narratives formed, the myths theygenerated, and the way they became inte-grated into something deemed authentic

becomes yet another element of the story.We would like to think that we were able tolearn something about the structures, theirhistory, and their inhabitants that addedgreater depth and texture to the narrativestold by both competing voices, and thusprofited the APHN, Cane River Creoles,and the public at large. Even if we revealedmore questions than answers, or threatenedthe interpretive status quo, perhaps ourworth is measurable by the motion ourinquiries are beginning to lend to an other-wise static interpretation. When it comes tothe many daily interpretive tours atMelrose, or general conversations withinthe local community, how our voice ulti-mately is interpreted and incorporated iron-ically will be under the control of those whohave perpetuated Mignon’s legends.Through the Ename Charter, it may be pos-sible for all stakeholders to use and reinventcompeting Cane River Creole histories in away that fosters economically viable,informative, and balanced interpretations ofvaluable heritage resources.



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ADDENDUM

[Ed. note: In April 2008 the co-authors requested that the following addendum, which clarifies some of thekey conclusions of the article based on new evidence, be appended to the online (PDF) edition. Theaddendum was accepted and posted in May 2008.]

Since writing both this article and a chapter which appeared in the edited volume A Future for the Past, wehave entered into correspondence with Elizabeth Shown Mills of Samford University Institute of Genealogyand Historical Research, and the widow of the late historian, Gary B. Mills. Through this correspondence wehave learned that our assertions concerning her and G.B. Mills’s conclusions regarding the involvement ofMarie-Thérèse Coincoin with the foundation of Melrose do not represent the views expressed in their morerecent publications on the subject (cf. Mills and Mills 1982:177; G.B. Mills 1984:101; E.S. Mills, in press).Indeed, we have been informed by Elizabeth Mills that their original Melrose booklet, which remains in use atthe heritage property and from which our assertions were principally derived, had in fact been nuanced by theproperty’s proprietors—without the authors’ consent—in order to reflect a stronger link between Marie-Thérèse Coincoin and that property (E.S. Mills. pers. comm., 13 December 2007). We (the co-authors)request that this addendum be published to make clear that our own views and the published views ofElizabeth Mills concerning the relationship of Marie-Thérèse Coincoin and the Melrose property are in factlargely in agreement, and that it was not our intention to in any way to diminish the outstanding scholarlyreputation of E.S. Mills and the late G.B. Mills, for whom we have the greatest respect.

ReferencesMills, Elizabeth S. In press. Marie Thérèze Coincoin (1742–1816): Black Creole touchstone and paradox. In

Louisiana Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Mills, Elizabeth S., and Gary B. Mills. 1982. Slaves and masters: The Louisiana Metoyers. National

Genealogical Society Quarterly 70:3, 163–189.Mills, Gary B. 1984. Liberté, fraternité, and everything but égalitié: Cane River’s Citoyens de Couleur. In

North Louisiana: Essays on the Region and Its History, vol. 1. B.H. Gilley, ed. Ruston, La.: McGintyTrust Fund Publications, 93–112.

David W. MorganKevin C. MacDonald

Fiona J. L. Handley

Documents

Economics and Authenticity: A Collision of Interpretations ... · owned the historic core of the plantation and acted as its steward for 34 years. The society’s members obviously