title: In Living Color

text: Reported cast members included Cooper Barnes, Jennifer Bartels, Sydney Castillo, Josh Duvendeck, Jermaine Fowler, Ayana Hampton, Kali Hawk, and Lil Rel Howery. In addition, featured cast members were Henry Cho, Melanie Minichino, and Chris Leidecker. Members of the new Fly Girls included Christina Chandler, Tera Perez, Lisa Rosenthal, Katee Shean, and Whitney Wiley.


title: In Living Color

text: Many of the cast members of the revival (Bartels, Fowler, and Howery) went on to create the TruTV sketch show "Friends of the People".


title: İzmir

text: Izmir ( , ; , ) is a metropolitan city in the western extremity of Anatolia, capital of the province of the same name. It is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara and the second largest urban agglomeration on the Aegean Sea after Athens.


title: İzmir

text: As of the last estimation, on 31 December 2019, the city of İzmir had a population of 2,965,900, while İzmir Province had a total population of 4,367,251. Its built-up (or metro) area was home to 3,209,179 inhabitants extending on 9 out of 11 urban districts (all but Urla and Guzelbahce not yet agglomerated) plus Menemen and Menderes largely conurbated. It extends along the outlying waters of the Gulf of İzmir and inland to the north across the Gediz River Delta; to the east along an alluvial plain created by several small streams; and to slightly more rugged terrain in the south.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir has more than 3,000 years of recorded urban history, and up to 8,500 years of history as a human settlement since the Neolithic period. In classical antiquity the city was known as Smyrna ( ; ) – a name which remained in use in English and various other languages until around 1930, when government efforts led the original Greek name to be gradually phased out internationally in favor of its Turkish counterpart . Lying on an advantageous location at the head of a gulf running down in a deep indentation, midway along the western Anatolian coast, İzmir has been one of the principal mercantile cities of the Mediterranean Sea for much of its history. It hosted the Mediterranean Games in 1971 and the World University Games (Universiade) in 2005. The city participated in Climathon in 2019.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir has over 3000 years of recorded urban history and up to 8500 years of history as a human settlement since the Neolithic period. Set in an advantageous location at the head of a gulf in a deep indentation midway along the western Anatolian coast, the city has been one of the principal mercantile ports of the Mediterranean Sea for much of its history. Modern İzmir also incorporates the nearby ancient cities of Ephesus, Pergamon, Sardis and Klazomenai, and centers of international tourism such as Kuşadası, Çeşme, Mordoğan and Foça. When the Ottomans took over İzmir in the 15th century, they did not inherit compelling historical memories, unlike the other key points of the Ottoman trade network, namely Constantinople (Istanbul), Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo.


title: İzmir

text: The emergence of İzmir as a major international port by the 17th century was largely a result of the attraction it exercised over foreigners and the city's European orientation. Politically, İzmir is considered a stronghold of Kemalism and the Republican People's Party (CHP).


title: İzmir

text: Izmir's port is Turkey's primary port for exports in terms of the freight handled and its free zone, a Turkish-U.S. joint-venture established in 1990, is the leader among the twenty in Turkey. The workforce, and particularly its rising class of young professionals, is concentrated either in the city or in its immediate vicinity (such as in Manisa and Turgutlu), and as either larger companies or SMEs, affirm their names with an increasingly wider global scale and intensity.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir hosted the Mediterranean Games in 1971 and the World University Games (Universiade) in 2005. In March 2008, İzmir submitted its bid to the BIE for hosting the Universal Expo 2015, but it was won by Milan, Italy.


title: İzmir

text: In ancient Anatolia, the name of a locality called "Ti-smurna" is mentioned in some of the Level II tablets from the Assyrian colony in Kültepe (first half of the 2nd millennium BC), with the prefix "ti-" identifying a proper name, although it is not established with certainty that this name refers to modern-day İzmir.


title: İzmir

text: The modern name "İzmir" is the Turkish rendering of the Greek name "Smyrna" and "Smyrne" (). In medieval times, Westerners used forms like "Smire", "Zmirra", "Esmira", "Ismira", which was rendered as "İzmir" into Turkish, originally written as with the Ottoman Turkish alphabet.


title: İzmir

text: The region of İzmir was situated on the southern fringes of the Yortan culture in Anatolia's prehistory, knowledge of which is almost entirely drawn from its cemeteries. In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, it was in the western end of the extension of the still largely obscure Arzawa Kingdom, an offshoot and usually a dependency of the Hittites, who themselves spread their direct rule as far as the coast during their Great Kingdom. That the realm of the 13th century BC local Luwian ruler, who is depicted in the Kemalpaşa Karabel rock carving at a distance of only from İzmir was called the "Kingdom of Myra" may also leave grounds for association with the city's name.


title: İzmir

text: The latest known rendering in Greek of the city's name is the Aeolic Greek "Mýrrha", corresponding to the later Ionian and Attic ("Smýrna") or ("Smýrnē"), both presumably descendants of a Proto-Greek form . Some would see in the city's name a reference to the name of an Amazon called Smyrna said to have seduced Theseus, leading him to name the city in her honor. Others link the name to the "Myrrha commifera" shrub, a plant producing the aromatic resin called "myrrh" that is indigenous to the Middle East and northeastern Africa, which was the city's chief export in antiquity. The Romans took over this name as "Smyrna", which is still the name used in English when referring to the city in pre-Turkish times. In Ottoman Turkish the town's name was "Izmīr".


title: İzmir

text: In English, the city was called Smyrna into the 20th century. "Izmir" (sometimes "İzmir") was adopted in English and most foreign languages after Turkey adopted the Latin alphabet in 1928 and urged other countries to use the city's Turkish name. However, the historic name "Smyrna" is still used today in some languages, such as Armenian (, "Zmyurnia"), Italian (), and Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish ().


title: İzmir

text: The city is one of the oldest settlements of the Mediterranean basin. The 2004 discovery of Yeşilova Höyük and the neighboring Yassıtepe, in the small delta of Meles River, now the Bornova plain, reset the starting date of the city's past further back than previously thought. Findings from two seasons of excavations carried out in the Yeşilova Höyük by a team of archaeologists from İzmir's Ege University indicate three levels, two of which are prehistoric. Level 2 bears traces of early to mid-Chalcolithic, and Level 3 of Neolithic settlements. These two levels would have been inhabited by the indigenous peoples of the area, very roughly, between the 7th millennium BC to 4th millennium BC. As the seashore receded with time, the site was later used as a cemetery. Several graves containing artifacts dating roughly from 3000 BC, and contemporary with the first city of Troy, were found.


title: İzmir

text: The first settlement to have commanded the Gulf of İzmir as a whole was established on top of Mount Yamanlar, to the northeast of the inner gulf. In connection with the silt brought by the streams which join the sea along the coastline, the settlement to form later the core of "Old Smyrna" was founded on the slopes of the same mountain, on a hill ("then a small peninsula connected to the mainland by a small isthmus") in the present-day neighborhood of Tepekule in Bayraklı. The Bayraklı settlement is thought to have stretched back in time as far as the 3rd millennium BC. Archaeological findings of the late Bronze Age show a certain decree of Mycenaean influence in the settlement and the surrounding region, though further excavations of Bronze Age layers are needed to propose Old Smyrna of that time as a Mycenaean settlement. In the 13th century BC, however, invasions from the Balkans (the so-called Sea Peoples) destroyed Troy VII, and Central and Western Anatolia as a whole fell into what is generally called the period of "Anatolian" and "Greek" Dark Ages of the Bronze Age collapse.


title: İzmir

text: At the dawn of İzmir's recorded history, Pausanias describes "evident tokens" such as "a port called after the name of Tantalus and a sepulcher of him by no means obscure", corresponding to the city's area and which have been tentatively located to date. The term "Old Smyrna" is used to describe the Archaic Period city located at Tepekule, Bayraklı, to make a distinction with the city of Smyrna rebuilt later on the slopes of Mount Pagos (present-day Kadifekale). The Greek settlement in Old Smyrna is attested by the presence of pottery dating from about 1000 BC onwards. The most ancient ruins preserved to our times date back to 725–700 BC. According to Herodotus the city was founded by Aeolians and later seized by Ionians. The oldest house discovered in Bayraklı has been dated to 925 and 900 BC. The walls of this well-preserved house (), consisting of one small room typical of the Iron Age, were made of sun-dried bricks and the roof of the house was made of reeds. A house found in Old Smyrna with two floors and five rooms with a courtyard, built in the second half of the 7th century BC, is the oldest known house having so many rooms under its roof. Around that time, people started to build thick, protective ramparts made of sun-dried bricks around the city. Smyrna was built on the Hippodamian system, in which streets run north-south and east-west and intersect at right angles, in a pattern familiar in the Near East but the earliest example in a western city. The houses all faced south. The most ancient paved streets in the Ionian civilization have also been discovered in ancient Smyrna.


title: İzmir

text: Homer, referred to as "Melesigenes" meaning "Child of the Meles Brook", is said to have been born in Smyrna in the 7th or 8th century BC. Combined with written evidence, it is generally admitted that Smyrna and Chios put forth the strongest arguments in claiming Homer and the main belief is that he was born in Ionia. A River Meles, still bearing the same name, is located within the city limits, although associations with the Homeric river is subject to controversy.


title: İzmir

text: From the 7th century onwards, Smyrna achieved the identity of a city-state. About a thousand people lived inside the city walls, with others living in nearby villages, where fields, olive trees, vineyards, and the workshops of potters and stonecutters were located. People generally made their living from agriculture and fishing. The most important sanctuary of Old Smyrna was the Temple of Athena, which dates back to 640–580 BC and is partially restored today. Smyrna, by this point, was no longer a small town, but an urban center taking part in the Mediterranean trade. The city eventually became one of the twelve Ionian cities and was well on its way to becoming a foremost cultural and commercial center in the Mediterranean basin of that period, reaching its peak between 650–545 BC.


title: İzmir

text: The city's port position near their capital drew the Lydians to Smyrna. The army of Lydia's Mermnad dynasty conquered the city sometime around 610–600 BC and is reported to have burned and destroyed parts of the city, although recent analyses on the remains in Bayraklı demonstrate that the temple had been in continuous use or was very quickly repaired under the Lydian rule.


title: İzmir

text: Soon afterwards, an invasion from outside Anatolia by the Persian Empire effectively ended Old Smyrna's history as an urban center of note. The Persian emperor Cyrus the Great attacked the coastal cities of the Aegean after conquering the capital of Lydia. As a result, Old Smyrna was destroyed in 545 BC.


title: İzmir

text: Alexander the Great re-founded the city at a new location beyond the Meles River around 340 BC. Alexander had defeated the Persians in several battles and finally the Emperor Darius III himself at Issus in 333 BC. Old Smyrna on a small hill by the sea was large enough only for a few thousand people. Therefore, the slopes of Mount Pagos (Kadifekale) were chosen for the foundation of the new city, for which Alexander is credited, and this act laid the ground for a resurgence in the city's population.


title: İzmir

text: In 133 BC, Eumenes III, the last king of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamum, was about to die without an heir. In his will, he bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman Republic, and this included Smyrna. The city thus came under Roman rule as a civil diocese within the Province of Asia and enjoyed a new period of prosperity. Towards the close of the 1st century AD, Smyrna appeared as one of the seven churches of Asia (Revelation 2:9). Apostle John urged his followers to remain Christians: "Be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10).


title: İzmir

text: Given the importance of the city, Roman emperors who came to Anatolia also visited Smyrna. In early AD 124, Emperor Hadrian visited Smyrna on his journeys across the Empire and possibly Caracalla came in 214–215. Smyrna was a fine city with stone-paved streets.


title: İzmir

text: In AD 178, the city was devastated by an earthquake. Emperor Marcus Aurelius contributed greatly to the rebuilding of the city. During this period the agora was restored. Many of the works of architecture from the city's pre-Turkish period date from this period.


title: İzmir

text: After the Roman Empire was divided into two distinct entities, Smyrna became a territory of the Eastern Roman Empire. The city kept its status as a notable religious center in the early Byzantine period, but never returned to the Roman levels of prosperity.


title: İzmir

text: The Turks first captured Smyrna under the Seljuk commander Çaka Bey in 1076, along with Klazomenai, Foça and a number of the Aegean Islands. Çaka Bey (known as "Tzachas" among the Byzantines) used İzmir as a base for his naval operations. In 1097, the Byzantine commander John Doukas recovered the city and the neighboring region. The port city was then captured by the Knights of St John when Constantinople was conquered by the Crusaders during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, but the Nicaean Empire would reclaim possession of the city soon afterwards, albeit by according vast concessions to their Genoese allies who kept one of the city's castles and the lordship of the towns of Old Phocaea and New Phocaea (now part of the İzmir Province) from 1275 to 1340.


title: İzmir

text: Smyrna was captured again by the Turks in the early 14th century. Umur Bey, the son of the founder of the Beylik of Aydın, took first the upper fort of Mount Pagos (thereafter called Kadifekale), and then the lower port castle of Neon Kastron (called St. Peter by the Genoese and as "Ok Kalesi" by the Turks). As Tzachas had done two centuries before, Umur Bey used the city as a base for naval raids. In 1344, a coalition of forces coordinated by Pope Clement VI took back the lower castle in a surprise attack in the Smyrniote crusades. A sixty-year period of uneasy cohabitation between the two powers, the Turks holding the upper castle and the Knights the lower, followed Umur Bey's death.


title: İzmir

text: The upper city of İzmir was captured from its Aydinid rulers by the Ottomans for the first time in 1389 during the reign of Bayezid I, who led his armies toward the five Western Anatolian Beyliks in the winter of the same year he had come to the throne. In 1402, however, Timur (Tamerlane) won the Battle of Ankara against the Ottomans, putting a serious check on the Ottoman state for the two following decades and handing back the territories of most of the Beyliks to their former ruling dynasties. Timur attacked and destroyed Smyrna and was responsible for the massacre of most of the Christian population, which constituted the vast majority in Smyrna. In 1415, Mehmet I took back İzmir for the Ottomans for the second time. With the death of the last bey of Aydın, İzmiroğlu Cüneyd Bey, in 1426 the city passed fully under Ottoman control. İzmir's first Ottoman governor was Alexander, a converted son of the Bulgarian Shishman dynasty. During the campaigns against Cüneyd, the Ottomans were assisted by the forces of the Knights Hospitaller who pressed the Sultan to return the port castle to them. However, the sultan refused to make this concession, despite the resulting tensions between the two camps, and he gave the Hospitallers permission to build a castle (the present-day Bodrum Castle) in Petronium (Bodrum) instead.


title: İzmir

text: In a landward-looking arrangement somewhat against its nature, the city and its present-day dependencies became an Ottoman sanjak ("sub-province") either inside the larger vilayet ("province") of Aydın part of the eyalet of Anatolia, with its capital in Kütahya or in "Cezayir" (i.e. ""Islands"" referring to "the Aegean Islands"). In the 15th century, two notable events for the city were a surprise Venetian raid in 1475 and the arrival of Sephardic Jews from Spain after 1492; they later made İzmir one of their principal urban centers in Ottoman lands. İzmir may have been a rather sparsely populated place in the 15th and 16th centuries, as indicated by the first extant Ottoman records describing the town and dating from 1528. In 1530, 304 adult males, both tax-paying and tax-exempt were on record, 42 of them Christians. There were five urban wards, one of these situated in the immediate vicinity of the port, rather active despite the town's small size and where the non-Muslim population was concentrated. By 1576, İzmir had grown to house 492 taxpayers in eight urban wards and had a number of dependent villages. This corresponded to a total population estimated between 3500 and 5000.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir's remarkable growth began in the late 16th century when cotton and other products of the region brought French, English, Dutch and Venetian traders here. With the privileged trading conditions accorded to foreigners in 1620 (these were the infamous "capitulations" that were later to cause a serious threat and setback for the Ottoman state in its decline), İzmir began to be one of the foremost trade centers of the Empire. Foreign consulates moved from Chios to the city by the early 17th century (1619 for the French Consulate, 1621 for the British), serving as trade centers for their nations. Each consulate had its own quay, where the ships under their flag would anchor. The long campaign for the conquest of Crete (22 years between 1648 and 1669) also considerably enhanced İzmir's position within the Ottoman realm since the city served as a port of dispatch and supply for the troops.


title: İzmir

text: Despite facing a plague in 1676, an earthquake in 1688, and a great fire in 1743, the city continued to grow. By the end of the 17th century, the population was estimated at around ninety thousand, the Turks forming the majority (about 60,000); there were also 15,000 Greeks, 8,000 Armenians and 6,000 to 7,000 Jews, as well as a considerable section made up of French, English, Dutch and Italian merchants. In the meantime, the Ottomans had allowed İzmir's inner bay dominated by the port castle to silt up progressively (the location of the present-day Kemeraltı bazaar zone) and the port castle ceased to be of use.


title: İzmir

text: In 1770, the Ottoman fleet was destroyed by Russian forces at the Battle of Çeşme, located near the city. This triggered fanatical Muslim groups to proceed to the massacre of c. 1,500 local Greeks. Later, in 1797 a riot resulting from the indiscipline of janissaries corps led to massive destruction of the Frankish merchant community and the killing of 1,500 members of the city's Greek community.


title: İzmir

text: The first railway lines to be built within the present-day territory of Turkey went from İzmir. A İzmir-Aydın railway was started in 1856 and finished in 1867, a year later than the Smyrna-Cassaba Railway, itself started in 1863. In 1865 the population was estimated by the British (Hyde Clark) at 180,000 with minorities of 80,000 Greeks, 8,000 Armenians and 10,000 Jews.The wide arc of the Smyrna-Cassaba line advancing in a wide arc to the north-west from İzmir, through the Karşıyaka suburb, contributed greatly to the development of the northern shores as urban areas. These new developments, typical of the industrial age and the way the city attracted merchants and middlemen gradually changed the demographic structure of the city, its culture and its Ottoman character. In 1867, İzmir finally became the center of its own vilayet, still called by neighboring Aydın's name but with its own administrative area covering a large part of Turkey's present-day Aegean Region.


title: İzmir

text: In the late 19th century, the port was threatened by a build-up of silt in the gulf and an initiative, unique in the history of the Ottoman Empire, was undertaken in 1886. In order to redirect the silt, the bed of the Gediz River was redirected to its present-day northern course, so that it no longer flowed into the gulf. The beginning of the 20th century saw İzmir take on the look of a global metropolis with a cosmopolitan city center. According to the 1893 Ottoman census, more than half of the population was Turkish, with 133,800 Greeks, 9,200 Armenians, 17,200 Jews, and 54,600 foreign nationals. According to author Katherine Flemming, by 1919, Smyrna's 150,000 Greeks made up just under half of the population, outnumbering the Turks in the city two to one, while the American Consul General, George Horton, records 165,000 Turks, 150,000 Greeks, 25,000 Jews, 25,000 Armenians, and 20,000 foreigners (Italians, French, British, Americans). According to Henry Morgenthau and Trudy Ring, before World War I, the Greeks alone numbered 130,000, out of a total population of 250,000. Moreover, according to various scholars, prior to the war, the city hosted more Greeks than Athens, the capital of Greece. The Ottoman ruling class of that era referred to the city as "Infidel Smyrna" (Gavur İzmir) due to its strong Greek presence.


title: İzmir

text: Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the victors had, for a time, intended to carve up large parts of Anatolia into respective zones of influence and offered the western regions of Turkey to Greece under the Treaty of Sèvres. On 15 May 1919, the Greek Army landed in Smyrna, but the Greek expedition towards central Anatolia was disastrous for both that country and for the local Greeks of Anatolia. By September 1922 the Greek army had been defeated and was in full retreat, the last Greek soldiers leaving Smyrna on 8 September 1922.


title: İzmir

text: The Turkish Army retook possession of the city on 9 September 1922, effectively ending the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). Four days later, on 13 September 1922, a great fire broke out in the city, lasting until . The fire completely destroyed the Greek and Armenian quarters, while the Muslim and Jewish quarters escaped damage. Estimated Greek and Armenians deaths resulting from the fire range from 10,000 to 100,000 Approximately 50,000 to 400,000 Greek and Armenian refugees crammed the waterfront to escape from the fire and were forced to remain there under harsh conditions for nearly two weeks. The systematic evacuation of Greeks on the quay started on 24 September when the first Greek ships entered the harbor under the supervision of Allied destroyers. Some 150,000 to 200,000 Greeks were evacuated in total. The remaining Greeks left for Greece in 1923, as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, a stipulation of the Treaty of Lausanne, which formally ended the Greco-Turkish War.


title: İzmir

text: The war, and especially the events that took place in İzmir, such as the fire, probably the greatest disaster the city has ever experienced, continue to influence the psyches of the two nations to this day. The Turks have claimed that the Greek army landing was marked from the very first day by the "first bullet" fired on Greek detachments by the journalist Hasan Tahsin and the bayonetting to death of Colonel Fethi Bey and his unarmed soldiers in the city's historic barracks ("Sarı Kışla — the Yellow Barracks"), for refusing to shout ""Zito o Venizelos" ("Long Live Venizelos"). The Greeks, on the other hand, have cited the numerous atrocities committed by the Turkish soldiers against the Greeks and Armenians (locals or hinterland refugees) in İzmir. These include the lynching of the Orthodox Metropolitan Chrysostomos following the recapture of the city on 9 September 1922 and the slaughter of Armenian and Greek males, who were then sent to the so-called labour battalions. The city was, once again, gradually rebuilt after the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923.


title: İzmir

text: In 2020, the city was damaged by the Aegean Sea earthquake and tsunami, which was the deadliest seismic event in that year. 117 people died and 1,034 more were injured in Turkey, all but one of whom were from the city of İzmir.


title: İzmir

text: Today, the city of İzmir is composed of several metropolitan districts. Of these, the district of Konak corresponds to historical İzmir, with this district's area having constituted the city's central "İzmir Municipality" () until 1984. With the formation of the "İzmir Metropolitan Municipality" (), the city of İzmir at first grouped together its eleven (initially nine) urban districts – namely Balçova, Bayraklı, Bornova, Buca, Çiğli, Gaziemir, Güzelbahçe, Karabağlar, Karşıyaka, Konak, and Narlıdere – and later consolidated them with an additional nine of the province's districts outside the city proper. In 2013, the passing of Act 6360 established all thirty of İzmir Province's districts as part of İzmir's metropolitan area.


title: İzmir

text: The period after the 1960s and the 1970s saw another blow to the fabric of İzmir, when local administrations tended to neglect İzmir's traditional values and landmarks. For many inhabitants, this was as serious as the 1922 fire. Some administrators were not always in tune with the central government in Ankara and regularly fell short of government subsidies, and the city absorbed huge waves of immigration from inland Anatolia, causing a population explosion. Today, it is not surprising that many inhabitants of İzmir (similar to residents of other prominent Turkish cities) look back with nostalgia to a cozier, more manageable city, which came to an end in the last few decades.


title: İzmir

text: The Floor Ownership Law of 1965 ("Kat Mülkiyeti Kanunu"), allowing and encouraging arrangements between house or land proprietors and building contractors by which each would share the benefits of renting out eight-floor apartment blocks built to replace former single-family houses, proved especially disastrous for the urban landscape.


title: İzmir

text: Modern İzmir is growing in several directions at the same time. The north-western corridor extending to Aliağa brings together both mass housing projects, including villa-type projects and intensive industrial area, including an oil refinery. In the southern corridor towards Gaziemir yet another important growth trend is observed, contributed to by the Aegean Free Zone, light industry, the airport and mass housing projects. The presence of the Tahtalı Dam, built to provide drinking water, and its protected zone did not check urban spread here, which has offshoots in cooperatives outside the metropolitan area as far south as the Ayrancılar–Torbalı axis.


title: İzmir

text: To the east and the north-east, urban development ends near the natural barriers constituted respectively by the Belkahve (Mount Nif) and Sabuncubeli (Mount Yamanlar-Mount Sipylus) passes. But the settlements both above Bornova, inside the metropolitan zone, and around Kemalpaşa and Ulucak, outside the metropolitan zone, see mass housing and secondary residences development.


title: İzmir

text: More recently, the metropolitan area displays growth, especially along the western corridor, encouraged by the Çeşme motorway and extending to districts outside the city of İzmir proper, such as Seferihisar and Urla.


title: İzmir

text: The population of the city is predominantly Muslim, but it was predominantly non-Muslim up to the earlier quarter of the 20th century.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir is also home to Turkey's second largest Jewish community after Istanbul, numbering about 2,500. The community is still concentrated in their traditional quarter of Karataş. Smyrniot Jews like Sabbatai Zevi and Darío Moreno were among famous figures in the city's Jewish community. Others include the Pallache family with three grand rabbis: Haim, Abraham, and Nissim.


title: İzmir

text: The Catholic Levantines of İzmir, who are mostly of Genoese and to a lesser degree of French and Venetian descent, live mainly in the districts of Bornova and Buca. One of the most prominent present-day figures of the community is Caroline Giraud Koç, wife of the renowned Turkish industrialist Mustafa Koç, whose company, Koç Holding, is one of the largest family-owned industrial conglomerates in the world.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir once had a large Greek and Armenian community, but after the great fire of 1922 and the end of the Greco-Turkish War, many of the Christians remaining in the city fled or were transferred to Greece under the terms of the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: "Csa", Trewartha climate classification: "Cs"), which is characterized by prolonged, hot, dry summers, and mild to cool, rainy winters. İzmir's average yearly precipitation is quite ample, at ; however, the vast majority of the city's rainfall occurs from November through March, and there is usually very little to no rainfall from June through August, with frequent summer droughts. The city received its greatest rainfall, , on September 29, 2006, while the highest wind speed of was recorded on March 29, 1970.


title: İzmir

text: Maximum temperatures during the winter months are mostly between . Although it is rare, snow can fall in İzmir from December to February, which usually stays for a few hours rather than a whole day or more. The record of snow depth was recorded on January 31, 1945. During summer, the air temperature can climb as high as from June to September; however, the high temperatures are usually between .


title: İzmir

text: Etesian winds (Turkish: "meltem", Greek: μελτέμι "meltemi") of the Aegean Sea occur regularly in the Gulf and city of İzmir.


title: İzmir

text: Standing on Mount Yamanlar, the tomb of Tantalus was excavated by Charles Texier in 1835 and is an example of the historic traces in the region prior to the Hellenistic Age, along with those found in nearby Kemalpaşa and Mount Sipylus.


title: İzmir

text: The Agora of Smyrna is well preserved, and is arranged into the Agora Open Air Museum of İzmir, although important parts buried under modern buildings wait to be brought to light. Serious consideration is also being given to uncovering the ancient theatre of Smyrna where St. Polycarp was martyred, buried under an urban zone on the slopes of Kadifekale. It was distinguishable until the 19th century, as evident by the sketches done at the time. At top of the same hill stands an ancient castle, one of İzmir's landmarks.


title: İzmir

text: One of the more pronounced elements of İzmir's harbor is the Clock Tower, a marble tower in the middle of the Konak district, standing in height. It was designed by Levantine French architect Raymond Charles Père in 1901 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the ascension of Abdülhamid II to the Ottoman throne in 1876. The tower features four fountains placed around the base in a circular pattern, and the columns are inspired by North African themes.


title: İzmir

text: The Kemeraltı bazaar zone set up by the Ottomans, combined with the Agora, rests near the slopes of Kadifekale. İzmir has had three castles historically – Kadifekale ("Pagos"), the portuary Ok Kalesi ("Neon Kastron, St. Peter"), and Sancakkale, which remained vital to İzmir's security for centuries. Sancakkale is situated in the present-day İnciraltı quarter between the Balçova and Narlıdere districts, on the southern shore of the Gulf of İzmir. It is at a key point where the strait allows entry into the innermost tip of the Gulf at its narrowest, and due to shallow waters through a large part of this strait, ships have sailed close to the castle.


title: İzmir

text: There are nine synagogues in İzmir, concentrated either in the traditional Jewish quarter of Karataş or in Havra Sokak ("Synagogue street") in Kemeraltı, and they all bear the signature of the 19th century when they were built or re-constructed in depth on the basis of former buildings.


title: İzmir

text: The "Atatürk Mask" () is a large concrete relief of the head of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, located to the south of Kadifekale the historical castle of İzmir.


title: İzmir

text: The İzmir Bird Paradise ("İzmir Kuş Cenneti") in Çiğli, a bird sanctuary near Karşıyaka, has 205 recorded species of birds, including 63 species that are resident year-round, 54 species of summer migratory birds, 43 species of winter migratory birds, and 30 transient species. 56 species of birds have bred in the park. The sanctuary, which covers 80 square kilometres, was registered as "the protected area for water birds and for their breeding" by the Turkish Ministry of Forestry in 1982. A large open-air zoo was established in the same district of Çiğli in 2008 under the name Sasalı Park of Natural Life.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir prides itself with its busy schedule of trade fairs, exhibitions and congresses. The fair and the festival are held in the compound of İzmir's vast inner city park named Kültürpark in the first days of September, and organized by İZFAŞ, a depending company of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality.


title: İzmir

text: The annual International İzmir Festival, which begins in mid-June and continues until mid-July, has been organized every year since 1987. During the festival, many world-class performers such as soloists and virtuosi, orchestras, dance companies, rock and jazz groups have given recitals and performances at various venues in the city and its surrounding areas; including the ancient theatres at Ephesus (near Selçuk) and Metropolis (an ancient Ionian city situated near the town of Torbalı.) The festival is a member of the European Festivals Association since 2003.


title: İzmir

text: The İzmir European Jazz Festival is among the numerous events organized every year by the İKSEV (İzmir Foundation for Culture, Arts and Education) since 1994. The festival aims to bring together masters and lovers of jazz with the aim to generate feelings of love, friendship and peace.


title: İzmir

text: The International İzmir Short Film Festival is organized since 1999 and is a member of the European Coordination of Film Festivals.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir Metropolitan Municipality has built the Ahmet Adnan Saygun Art Center on a 21,000 m land plot in the Güzelyalı district, in order to contribute to the city's culture and art life. The acoustics of the center have been prepared by ARUP which is a noted company in this field.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir's cuisine has largely been affected by its multicultural history, hence the large variety of food originating from the Aegean and Mediterranean regions. Population movement from Eastern and South East Anatolia regions has enriched the local cuisine. Another factor is the large and fertile area of land surrounding the region which grows a rich selection of vegetables. There is considerable culinary usage of green leaf vegetables and wild plants amongst the residents, especially those with insular heritage, such as the immigrants from Crete. Some of the common dishes found here are the tarhana soup (made from dried yoghurt and tomatoes), "İzmir" köfte, sulu köfte, keşkek (boiled wheat with meat), zerde (sweetened rice with saffron) and "mücver" (made from zucchine and eggs). A Sephardic contribution to the Turkish cuisine, boyoz and lokma are pastries associated with İzmir. Kumru is a special kind of sandwich that is associated particularly with the Çeşme district and features cheese and tomato in its basics, with sucuk also added sometimes.


title: İzmir

text: The port of Izmir is Turkey's main port for exports in terms of the freight handled and its free zone is the leader among the twenty in Turkey.


title: İzmir

text: Trade through the city's port had a determinant importance for the economy of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 19th century and the economic foundations of the early decades of Turkey's Republican era were also laid here during the İzmir Economic Congress.


title: İzmir

text: At present, İzmir area's economy is divided in value between various types of activities, as follows: 30.5% for industry, 22.9% for trade and related services, 13.5% for transportation and communication and 7.8% for agriculture. In 2008, İzmir provided 10.5% of all tax revenues collected by Turkey and its exports corresponded to 6% and its imports to 4% of Turkey's foreign trade.


title: İzmir

text: The province as a whole is Turkey's third largest exporter after Istanbul and Bursa, and the fifth largest importer. 85–90% of the region's exports and approximately one fifth of all Turkish exports are made through the Port of Alsancak with an annual container loading capacity of close to a million.


title: İzmir

text: The 51,295 capacity (all-seater) İzmir Atatürk Stadium regularly hosts, apart from Turkish Super League games of İzmir-based teams, many other Super League and Turkish Cup derby matches.


title: İzmir

text: The three big football clubs in İzmir are Altay (42 seasons in Süper Lig), Göztepe (30 seasons in Süper Lig), and Karşıyaka (16 seasons in Süper Lig). Other notable football clubs include: Altınordu, Menemenspor, , Ci Group Buca, Bucaspor, and İzmirspor. Bucaspor were relegated from the top tier, Turkish Super League, at the end of the 2010–11 season.


title: İzmir

text: Göztepe made sports history in Turkey by having played the semi-finals of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (which later became the UEFA Cup) in the 1968–69 season, and the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in the 1969–70 season; becoming the first ever Turkish football club to play a semi-final game in Europe and the only one for two decades, until Galatasaray reached the semi-finals of the 1988–89 European Cup.


title: İzmir

text: Göztepe and Altay have won the Turkish Cup twice for İzmir and all of İzmir's teams have periodically jumped in and out of Süper Lig. Historically, İzmir is also the birthplace of two Greek sports clubs, namely the multi-sport club Panionios and association football club Apollon Smyrni F.C. which were founded in the city and moved to Athens after 1922.


title: İzmir

text: Karşıyaka's basketball department Karşıyaka Basket won the Turkish Basketball League twice (in the 1986–87 and 2014–15 seasons), the Turkish Cup once (in the 2013–14 season) and the Presidential Cup twice (in 1987 and 2014). The team plays its games at the Karşıyaka Arena. The 10,000 capacity (all-seater) Halkapınar Sports Hall is currently İzmir's largest indoor sports arena and was among the venues of the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey.


title: İzmir

text: Arkas Spor is a successful volleyball club in the city, having won the Turkish Men's Volleyball League and the Turkish Cup several times, and the CEV Challenge Cup in the 2008–09 season. İzmir Atatürk Volleyball Hall regularly hosts the games of the city's volleyball teams.


title: İzmir

text: The city boasts of several sports legends, past and present. Already at the dawn of its history, notable natives such as the son of its first port's founder Pelops had attained fame and kingdom with a chariot race and Onomastus is one of history's first recorded sportspeople, having won the boxing contest in the Olympiad of 688 BC.


title: İzmir

text: Born in İzmir, and nicknamed "Taçsız Kral" (The Uncrowned King), 1960s football star Metin Oktay is a legend in Turkey. Oktay became the first notable Turkish footballer to play abroad, with Palermo in Italy's Serie A, during the 1961–1962 season. Two other notable football figures from İzmir are Alpay Özalan and Mustafa Denizli, the first having played for Aston Villa F.C. between 2000 and 2003 and the second, after a long playing career as the captain of İzmir's Altay S.K., still pursues a successful career as a coach, being the only manager in Turkish Super League history to win a championship title with each of Istanbul's "Big Three" clubs (Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe S.K., and Beşiktaş J.K.) and having guided the Turkish national football team to the UEFA Euro 2000 Quarter-Finals.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) Sports Club's ice hockey team began playing in the Turkish Ice Hockey Super League during the 2011–2012 season


title: İzmir

text: The current Mayor of the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality is Tunç Soyer from the Republican People's Party (CHP), in office since 2019. His predecessor, the previous mayor Aziz Kocaoğlu (CHP) was first elected in 2004, and he was re-elected in both 2009 and 2014.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir has traditionally been a stronghold for the CHP, the centre-left Kemalist political party which forms the main opposition in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Being the third largest city in Turkey, İzmir is viewed as the CHP's most prized electoral stronghold, since the party has a more limited support base in both Istanbul and Ankara. Since the right-wing Justice and Development Party (AKP) gained power in 2002, the electorate of İzmir has been notable for voting strongly in favour of the CHP in every general and local election. In the 2007 and 2010 and 2017 referendums, the İzmir electorate strongly rejected the AKP government's constitutional reform proposals. Almost all of the city's districts have returned strong pluralities or majorities for the CHP in past elections, although the party lost ground in the 2014 local elections.


title: İzmir

text: Due to the economic and historical importance of the city, İzmir has long been a strategic electoral target for the AKP, since beating the CHP in their most significant stronghold would be politically substantial. The majority of the citizens in İzmir have continued to vote for the centre-left political parties (in particular the CHP), despite large-scale pledges by the AKP promising investment and new infrastructure. For general elections, İzmir returns 28 members of parliament to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The province is split into two electoral districts which roughly divide the city into a northern and southern district, each electing 14 MPs. Anti-government protests in 2013 and 2014 against the AKP were particularly strong in İzmir.


title: İzmir

text: During the 2014 presidential election, 58.64% of the city's electorate voted for the CHP candidate Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu. In contrast, the AKP candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received 33.38% of the vote. The pro-Kurdish candidate Selahattin Demirtaş received 7.98%.


title: İzmir

text: Izmir has its own local media companies: there are 9 TV channels headquartered in İzmir and broadcasting in the Aegean Region, 26 local radio stations and 15 local newspapers. TRT Belgesel ("TRT Documentary") is a Turkish national TV channel broadcasting from the TRT building in Izmir.


title: İzmir

text: ▪Ege TV |Local TV ▪Kanal 35 |Local TV ▪Sky TV | Local TV ▪Kordon TV | Local TV ▪FRM TV | Online TV ▪Ege Üniversitesi TV |Local TV ▪Ben TV | Online TV Ben TV - Ege ve İzmir Haberleri, Güncel Haberler▪Yenigün TV | Online TV ▪TRT Belgesel | National TV


title: İzmir

text: ▪Radyo İzmir ▪Romantik Radyo ▪Romantik Türk ▪Radyo 35 ▪Kordon FM ▪İmbat FM ▪Radyo Kordelya ▪Radyo Efe ▪Oynak FM ▪Duygusal FM ▪Sky Radyo ▪Radyo Pause ▪Radyo Ege ▪Ege FM ▪Ege'nin Sesi Radyosu ▪Herkül FM ▪Can Radyo ▪Batı Radyo ▪Radyo Gökkuşağı ▪Yıldız FM ▪Buca FM ▪Radyo Ege Kampüs 100.8 ▪Rock City FM ▪öRT FM ▪Y.Tire FM ▪DEÜ FM


title: İzmir

text: ▪Ege Telgraf ▪Ekonomik Çözüm ▪Gözlem ▪Haber Ekspres ▪Ticaret ▪ Gazete Yenigün ▪Yeni Asır ▪Yeni Ekonomi ▪Yenigün Gazetesi ▪9 Eylül Gazetesi ▪Küçük Menderes Gazetesi ▪Büyük Tire ▪Ege Gazetesi Tüm adresleri tek adreste


title: İzmir

text: Air pollution in Turkey is a problem in the city, in part due to vehicle exhaust: a 2020 study of coal-fired residential heating estimated the cost of replacing it versus the reduction in illness and premature death. There are 21 public hospitals in Izmir. The healthcare system in Turkey consists of a mix of public and private hospitals. Turkey also has a universal health care insurance system (SGK) which provides medical treatment free of charge in public hospitals to residents registered with a Turkish identity card number. One of the largest hospitals in the Aegean Region is currently under construction in the Bayraklı district of İzmir, with a reported cost of 780 million Euros.


title: İzmir

text: There are a total of nine active universities in and near İzmir. The city is also home to well-rooted higher-education establishments that are renowned across Turkey, such as the İzmir Anatolian Vocational High School of Commerce ("İzmir Anadolu Ticaret Lisesi") established in 1854, and the American Collegiate Institute (ACI) which was established in 1878.


title: İzmir

text: Historically, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the city was an educational center of the Greek world, with a total of 67 male and 4 female schools. The most important Greek educational institution was the Evangelical School which operated from 1733 to 1922.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir is served by domestic and international flights through the Adnan Menderes International Airport and by modern rapid transit systems serving the entirety of İzmir's metropolitan area. The city has attracted investors through its strategic location and its relatively new and highly developed technological infrastructure in transportation, telecommunications, and energy.


title: İzmir

text: The Adnan Menderes International Airport (ADB) is well served with connections to Turkish and international destinations. It is located in the Gaziemir district of İzmir.


title: İzmir

text: A large bus terminal, the "Otogar" in the Pınarbaşı neighborhood of the city, has intercity buses to destinations across Turkey. Bus companies' shuttle services pick up customers from each of their branch offices scattered across the city at regular intervals, often free of charge. To facilitate easier access, a Halkapınar—Otogar metro line has long been deliberated but construction has never begun – though throughout his campaign and upon his election as mayor of İzmir in 2019, Tunç Soyer has outlined it as one of his priorities.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir has two historical rail terminals in the city center. Alsancak Terminal, built in 1858, and Basmane Terminal, built in 1866, are the two main railway stations of the city. The Turkish State Railways operates regional service to Ödemiş, Tire, Selçuk, Aydın, Söke, Nazilli, Denizli and Uşak, as well as longer-distance intercity service to Ankara, Afyon and Bandırma (and from there to Istanbul via İDO connection).


title: İzmir

text: Coordinated public transportation was introduced to İzmir in 1999. A body known as UKOME gives strategic direction to the Metro, the ESHOT bus division, ferry operations, utilities and road developments. İzmir has an electronic, integrated pre-pay ticket known as the "İzmirim Kart" ('My Izmir' Card). The card is valid on all metro and commuter rail lines, buses, ferries, trams, and in certain other municipal facilities. The İzmirim Kart allows for the use of multiple forms of transport within a 90-minute window, combining for a single fare price.


title: İzmir

text: All of İzmir's major districts are serviced by a dense, comprehensive municipal bus network under the name ESHOT. The acronym stands for "E "elektrik" (electricity); S "su" (water); H "havagazı" (gas); O "otobüs" (bus) and T "troleybüs" (trolleybus)." Electricity, water and gas are now supplied by separate undertakings, and İzmir's trolleybus system ceased to operate in 1992. However, the bus company has inherited the original name. ESHOT operates 322 lines with about 1,500 buses and a staff of 2,700. It has five garages at Karataş, Gümrük, Basmane, Yeşilyurt, and Konak. A privately owned company, İzulaş, operates 400 buses from two garages, running services under contract for ESHOT. These scheduled services are supplemented by the privately owned minibus or dolmuş services.


title: İzmir

text: Taken over by İzmir Metropolitan Municipality since 2000 and operated within the structure of their private subsidiary company (İzdeniz), İzmir's urban ferry services for passengers and vehicles are very much a part of the life of the city's inhabitants. 24 ferries shuttle between 9 quays (clockwise: Bostanlı, Karşıyaka, Bayraklı, Alsancak, Pasaport, Konak, Karantina, Göztepe and Üçkuyular.) Special lines to points further out in the gulf are also put in service during summer, transporting excursion or holiday makers. These services are cheap and it is not unusual to see natives or visitors taking a ferry ride simply as a pastime.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir has a metro network that is constantly being extended with new stations being put in service. The "İzmir Metro" network, currently consisting of one main line, starts from the Fahrettin Altay station in Balçova in the western portion of the metropolitan area and runs northeast through the city to Bornova. The line is long.


title: İzmir

text: İZBAN, formerly known as Egeray, is a commuter rail system connecting metropolitan and suburban area of İzmir. It is the busiest commuter railway in Turkey, serving about 150,000 passengers daily. İZBAN is a portmanteau of the words ""İz"mir" and ""Ban"liyö".


title: İzmir

text: Established in 2006, İZBAN was formed to revive commuter rail in İzmir. İZBAN began operations in 2010 and currently operates a long system with 40 stations, consisting of two lines: the Southern Line and the Northern Line.


title: İzmir

text: İZBAN A.Ş. operates the railway and is owned 50% by the Turkish State Railways and 50% by the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality.


title: İzmir

text: İzmir's latest tram system is owned by the metropolitan municipality and operated by İzmir Metro A.Ş. in two independent lines – one in Karşıyaka, opened in 2017, and the other in Konak, opened in 2018.


title: İzmir

text: The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in İzmir, for example to and from work on a weekday is 62 minutes, and 13% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 15 minutes, while 27% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 10.4 km, while 22% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.


title: Perennial plant

text: A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ("per-" + "-ennial", "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also widely used to distinguish plants with little or no woody growth (secondary growth in girth) from trees and shrubs, which are also technically perennials.


title: Perennial plant

text: Perennialsespecially small flowering plantsthat grow and bloom over the spring and summer, die back every autumn and winter, and then return in the spring from their rootstock or other overwintering structure, are known as herbaceous perennials. However, depending on the rigours of local climate (temperature, moisture, organic content in the soil, microorganisms), a plant that is a perennial in its native habitat, or in a milder garden, may be treated by a gardener as an annual and planted out every year, from seed, from cuttings, or from divisions. Tomato vines, for example, live several years in their natural tropical/subtropical habitat but are grown as annuals in temperate regions because their above-ground biomass doesn't survive the winter.


title: Perennial plant

text: There is also a class of evergreen perennials which lack woody stems, such as "Bergenia" which retain a mantle of leaves throughout the year. An intermediate class of plants is known as subshrubs, which retain a vestigial woody structure in winter, e.g. "Penstemon".


title: Perennial plant

text: The symbol for a perennial plant, based on "Species Plantarum" by Linnaeus, is represented by the symbol: , which is also the astronomical symbol for the planet Jupiter.


title: Perennial plant

text: They can be short-lived (only a few years) or long-lived. They include a wide assortment of plant groups from non-flowering plants like ferns and liverworts to the highly diverse flowering plants like orchids, grasses, and woody plants. Plants that flower and fruit only once and then die are termed monocarpic or semelparous, these species may live for many years before they flower, for example, century plant can live for 80 years and grow 30 meters tall before flowering and dying. However, most perennials are polycarpic (or iteroparous), flowering over many seasons in their lifetime. Perennials invest more resources than annuals into roots, crowns, and other structures that allow them to live from one year to the next. They often have a competitive advantage because they can commence their growth and leaf out earlier in the growing season, and can grow taller than annuals, in doing so they can better compete for space and collect more light.


title: Perennial plant

text: Perennials typically grow structures that allow them to adapt to living from one year to the next through a form of vegetative reproduction rather than seeding. These structures include bulbs, tubers, woody crowns, rhizomes, turions, woody stems, or crowns which allows them to survive periods of dormancy over cold or dry seasons; these structures typically store carbohydrates which are used once the dormancy period is over and new growth begins. In climates that are warm all year long, perennials may grow continuously. Annuals which complete their life cycle in one growing season, in contrast with perennials, produce seeds as the next generation and die; the seeds may survive cold or dry periods or germinate soon after dispersal depending on the climate.


title: Perennial plant

text: Some perennials retain their foliage year-round; these are evergreen perennials. Deciduous perennials shed all their leaves part of the year, they include herbaceous and woody plants; herbaceous plants have stems that lack hard, fibrous growth, while woody plants have stems with buds that survive above ground during dormancy, some perennials are semi-deciduous, meaning they lose some of their leaves in either winter or summer. Deciduous perennials shed their leaves when growing conditions are no longer suitable for photosynthesis, such as when it is too cold or dry. In many parts of the world, seasonality is expressed as wet and dry periods rather than warm and cold periods, and deciduous perennials lose their leaves in the dry season.


title: Perennial plant

text: Some perennial plants are protected from wildfires because they have underground roots that produce adventitious shoots, bulbs, crowns, or stems; other perennials like trees and shrubs may have thick cork layers that protect the stems. Herbaceous perennials from temperate and alpine regions of the world can tolerate the cold during winters.


title: Perennial plant

text: Perennial plants may remain dormant for long periods and then recommence growth and reproduction when the environment is more suitable, while most annual plants complete their life cycle during one growing period, and biennials have two growing periods.


title: Perennial plant

text: The meristem of perennial plants communicates with the hormones produced due to environmental situations (i.e., seasons), reproduction, and stage of development to begin and halt the ability to grow or flower. There is also a distinction between the ability to grow and the actual task of growth. For example, most trees regain the ability to grow during winter but do not initiate physical growth until the spring and summer months. The start of dormancy can be seen in perennials plants through withering flowers, loss of leaves on trees, and halting of reproduction in both flowering and budding plants.


title: Perennial plant

text: Perennials species may produce relatively large seeds that have the advantage of generating larger seedlings that can better compete with other plants. Perennials also produce seeds over many years.


title: Perennial plant

text: Perennials that are cultivated include: woody plants like fruit trees grown for their edible fruits; shrubs and trees grown as landscaping ornamentals; herbaceous food crops like asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries; and subtropical plants not hardy in colder areas such as tomatoes, eggplant, and coleus (which are treated as annuals in colder areas). Perennials also include plants grown for their flowering and other ornamental value including: bulbs (like tulips, narcissus, and gladiolus); and lawn grass, and other groundcovers, (such as periwinkle and "Dichondra").


title: Perennial plant

text: Each type of plant must be separated differently; for example, plants with fibrous root systems like daylilies, Siberian iris or grasses can be pried apart with two garden forks inserted back to back, or cut by knives. However, plants such as bearded irises have a root system of rhizomes; these root systems should be planted with the top of the rhizome just above ground level, with leaves from the following year showing. The point of dividing perennials is to increase the amount of a single breed of plant in your garden. In the United States more than 900 million dollars worth of potted herbaceous perennial plants were sold in 2019.


title: Perennial plant

text: Although most of humanity is fed by the re-sowing of the seeds of annual grain crops, (either naturally or by the manual efforts of man), perennial crops provide numerous benefits. Perennial plants often have deep, extensive root systems which can hold soil to prevent erosion, capture dissolved nitrogen before it can contaminate ground and surface water, and out-compete weeds (reducing the need for herbicides). These potential benefits of perennials have resulted in new attempts to increase the seed yield of perennial species, which could result in the creation of new perennial grain crops. Some examples of new perennial crops being developed are perennial rice and intermediate wheatgrass. The Land Institute estimates that profitable, productive perennial grain crops will take at least 25 years to achieve.


title: Perennial plant

text: Perennial plants dominate many natural ecosystems on land and in fresh water, with only a very few (e.g. "Zostera") occurring in shallow sea water. Herbaceous perennial plants are particularly dominant in conditions too fire-prone for trees and shrubs, e.g., most plants on prairies and steppes are perennials; they are also dominant on tundra too cold for tree growth. Nearly all forest plants are perennials, including the trees and shrubs.


title: Perennial plant

text: Perennial plants are usually better long-term competitors, especially under stable, resource-poor conditions. This is due to the development of larger root systems which can access water and soil nutrients deeper in the soil and to earlier emergence in the spring. Annual plants have an advantage in disturbed environments because of their faster growth and reproduction rates.


title: Perennial plant

text: Many vegetable plants can grow as perennials in tropical climates, but die in cold weather. Examples of some of the more completely perennial vegetables are:


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Louisiana Creoles (, , ) are people descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana before it became a part of the United States during the period of both French and Spanish rule. As an ethnic group, their ancestry is mainly of Louisiana French, West African, Spanish and Native American origin. Louisiana Creoles share cultural ties such as the traditional use of the French, Spanish, and Creole languages and predominant practice of Catholicism.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The term "Créole" was originally used by the Louisiana French to distinguish people born in Louisiana from those born elsewhere, thus drawing a distinction between Old-World Europeans and Africans from their Creole descendants born in the New World. The word is not a racial label and does not imply mixed racial origins—people of any race can and have identified as Louisiana Creoles.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: "Créole" was used as an identity in Louisiana from the 18th century onward. After the Sale of Louisiana, the term "Creole" took on a more political meaning and identity, especially for those people of Latinate culture. Whether white or black, these francophone Catholics had a culture that contrasted with the Anglo-Protestant culture of the new American settlers—and their slaves—from the Upper South and the North.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Creoles of French descent, including those of Québécois or Acadian lineage, have historically comprised the majority of white-identified Creoles in Louisiana. (Although Cajuns are often presented as being distinct from the Creoles, this distinction is not historically accurate and may be contested today; people of Cajun ancestry are often listed in historic documents as Creoles.) Today, some Louisianians identify exclusively as either Cajun or Creole, while others embrace both identities.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Later 19th-century immigrants to Louisiana, such as Irish, Germans and Italians, also married into the Creole group. Most of these immigrants were Catholic.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: New Orleans in particular has retained a significant historical population of Creoles of color, a group mostly consisting of free persons of mixed European, African, and Native American descent. With many Creoles of color having received superior rights and education under Spain than did their Anglo-American counterparts, some of the United States' earliest writers, poets and activists of color (e.g. Victor Séjour, Rodolphe Desdunes and Homère Plessy) were Louisiana Creoles. Today, many Creoles of color have assimilated into African-American culture, while others remain a separate yet inclusive subsection of the African-American ethnic group.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: In the twentieth century, the "gens de couleur libres" in Louisiana became increasingly associated with the term "Creole", in part because Anglo-Americans struggled with the idea of an ethno-cultural identity not founded in race"." One historian has described this period as the "Americanization of Creoles," including an acceptance of the American binary racial system that divided Creoles between white and black. (See Creoles of color for a detailed analysis of this event.) Concurrently, the number of white-identified Creoles has dwindled, with many adopting the Cajun label instead.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: While the sophisticated Creole society of New Orleans has historically received much attention, the Cane River area in northwest Louisiana—populated chiefly by Creoles of color—also developed its own strong Creole culture.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Today, most Creoles are found in the greater New Orleans region or in Acadiana. Louisiana is known as the Creole State.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The Louisiana Creole flag is based on four flags of different regions. The top left corner is a fleur-de-lis representing France, the top right is Senegal, the bottom right represents Castile (Spain), and the bottom left square is Mali.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The flag was created by Pete Bergeron of the non-profit organization C.R.E.O.L.E. INC in 1987 and celebrates the many cultures that influence contemporary Creole heritage.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Through both the French and Spanish (late 18th century) regimes, parochial and colonial governments used the term Creole for ethnic French and Spanish people born in the New World as opposed to Europe. Parisian French was the predominant language among colonists in early New Orleans.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Later the regional French evolved to contain local phrases and slang terms. The French Creoles spoke what became known as Colonial French. Because of isolation, the language in the colony developed differently from that in France. It was spoken by the ethnic French and Spanish and their Creole descendants.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The commonly accepted definition of Louisiana Creole today is a person descended from ancestors in Louisiana before the Louisiana Purchase by the United States in 1803. An estimated 7,000 European immigrants settled in Louisiana during the 18th century, one percent of the number of European colonists in the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic coast. Louisiana attracted considerably fewer French colonists than did its West Indian colonies.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: After the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, which lasted more than two months, the colonists had numerous challenges ahead of them in the Louisiana frontier. Their living conditions were difficult: uprooted, they had to face a new, often hostile, environment, with difficult climate and tropical diseases. Many of these immigrants died during the maritime crossing or soon after their arrival.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Hurricanes, unknown in France, periodically struck the coast, destroying whole villages. The Mississippi Delta was plagued with periodic yellow fever epidemics. Europeans also brought the Eurasian diseases of malaria and cholera, which flourished along with mosquitoes and poor sanitation. These conditions slowed colonization. Moreover, French villages and forts were not always sufficient to protect from enemy offensives. Attacks by Native Americans represented a real threat to the groups of isolated colonists.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The Natchez massacred 250 colonists in Lower Louisiana in retaliation for encroachment by French settlers. The Natchez warriors took Fort Rosalie (now Natchez, Mississippi) by surprise, killing many settlers. During the next two years, the French attacked the Natchez in return, causing them to flee or, when captured, be deported as slaves to their Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue (later Haiti).


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: In the colonial period of French and Spanish rule, men tended to marry later after becoming financially established. French settlers frequently took Native American women as their wives (see Marriage 'à la façon du pays'), and as slaves began to be imported into the colony, settlers also took African wives. Intermarriage between the different groups of Louisiana created a large multiracial Creole population.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Aside from French government representatives and soldiers, colonists included mostly young men who were recruited in French ports or in Paris. Some labored as "engagés" (indentured servants), i.e. "temporary semi-slaves"; they were required to remain in Louisiana for a length of time, fixed by the contract of service, to pay back the cost of passage and board. Engagés in Louisiana generally worked for seven years, and their masters provided them housing, food, and clothing. They were often housed in barns and performed hard labor.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Starting in 1698, French merchants were obliged to transport a number of men to the colonies in proportion to the ships' tonnage. Some of the men brought over were engaged on three-year indenture contracts under which the contract-holder would be responsible for their "vital needs" as well as provide a salary at the end of the contract term. Under John Law and the Compagnie du Mississippi, efforts to increase the use of "engagés" in the colony were made, notably including German settlers whose contracts were absolved when the company went bankrupt in 1731.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: During this time, to increase the colonial population, the government also recruited young Frenchwomen, known as "filles à la cassette" (in English, "casket girls", referring to the casket or case of belongings they brought with them) to go to the colony to be wed to colonial soldiers. The king financed dowries for each girl. (This practice was similar to events in 17th-century Quebec: about 800 "filles du roi" (daughters of the king) were recruited to immigrate to New France under the monetary sponsorship of Louis XIV.)


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: In addition, French authorities deported some female criminals to the colony. For example, in 1721, the ship "La Baleine" brought close to 90 women of childbearing age from the prison of La Salpêtrière in Paris to Louisiana. Most of the women quickly found husbands among the male residents of the colony. These women, many of whom were most likely prostitutes or felons, were known as "The Baleine Brides". Such events inspired "Manon Lescaut" (1731), a novel written by the Abbé Prévost, which was later adapted as an opera in the 19th century.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Historian Joan Martin maintains that there is little documentation that casket girls (considered among the ancestors of French Creoles) were transported to Louisiana. (The Ursuline order of nuns, who were said to chaperone the girls until they married, have denied the casket girl myth as well.) Martin suggests this account was mythical. The system of plaçage that continued into the 19th century resulted in many young white men having women of color as partners and mothers of their children, often before or even after their marriages to white women. French Louisiana also included communities of Swiss and German settlers; however, royal authorities did not refer to "Louisianans" but described the colonial population as "French" citizens.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: New France wished to make Native Americans subjects of the king and good Christians, but the distance from Metropolitan France and the sparseness of French settlement prevented this. In official rhetoric, the Native Americans were regarded as subjects of the Viceroyalty of New France, but in reality, they were largely autonomous due to their numerical superiority. The local authorities of New France (governors, officers) did not have the human resources to establish French law and customs, and instead often compromised with the Indians.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Indian tribes offered essential support for the French: they ensured the survival of the New France's colonists, participated with them in the fur trade, and acted as guides in expeditions. The French alliance with Indians also provided mutual protection from hostile non-allied tribes and incursions on French & Indian land from enemy European powers. The French & Indian alliance proved invaluable during the later French and Indian War against the New England colonies in 1753.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The French & Indians influenced each other in many fields: the French settlers learned the languages of the natives, such as Mobilian Jargon, a Choctaw-based Creole language that served as a trade language in use among the French and various Indian tribes in the region. The Indians bought European goods (fabric, alcohol, firearms, etc.), learned French, and sometimes adopted their religion.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The "coureurs des bois" and soldiers borrowed canoes and moccasins. Many of them ate native food such as wild rice and various meats, like bear and dog. The colonists were often dependent on the Native Americans for food. Creole cuisine is the heir of these mutual influences: thus, "sagamité", for example, is a mix of corn pulp, bear fat and bacon. Today jambalaya, a word of Seminole origin, refers to a multitude of recipes calling for meat and rice, all very spicy. Sometimes shamans succeeded in curing the colonists thanks to traditional remedies, such as the application of fir tree gum on wounds and Royal Fern on rattlesnake bites.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Many French colonists both admired and feared the military power of the Native Americans, though some governors from France scorned their culture and wanted to keep racial purity between the whites and Indians. In 1735, interracial marriages without the approval of the authorities were prohibited in Louisiana. However, by the 1750's in New France, the idea of the Native Americans became one of the "Noble Savage," that Indians were spiritually pure and played an important role in the natural purity of the New World. Native Americans did marry French settlers, with Indian women being consistently considered as good wives to foster trade and help create offspring. Their intermarriage created a large "métis" (mixed French Indian) population In New France.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: In spite of some disagreements (some Indians killed farmers' pigs, which devastated corn fields), and sometimes violent confrontations (Fox Wars, Natchez uprisings, and expeditions against the Chicachas), the relationship with the Native Americans was relatively good in Louisiana. French imperialism was expressed through some wars and the slavery of some Native Americans. But most of the time, the relationship was based on dialogue and negotiation.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Inability to find labor was the most pressing issue in Louisiana. In 1717, John Law, the French Comptroller General of Finances, decided to import African slaves into Louisiana. His objective was to develop the plantation economy of Lower Louisiana. The Royal Indies Company held a monopoly over the slave trade in the area. The colonists turned to sub-Saharan African slaves to make their investments in Louisiana profitable. In the late 1710s the transatlantic slave trade imported slaves into the colony. This led to the biggest shipment in 1716 where several trading ships appeared with slaves as cargo to the local residents in a one-year span.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Between 1723 and 1769, most slaves imported to Louisiana were from modern day Senegal, Mali and Congo. A large number of the imported slaves from the Senegambia region were members of the Wolof and Bambara ethnic groups.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: During the Spanish control of Louisiana, between 1770 and 1803, most of the slaves still came from the Congo and the Senegambia region but they also imported more slaves from modern day Benin. Many slaves imported during this period were members of the Nago people, a Yoruba subgroup.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Africans contributed to the creolization of Louisiana society. They brought okra from Africa, a plant common in the preparation of gumbo. While the "Code Noir" required that the slaves receive a Christian education, many practiced animism and often combined elements of the two faiths. The "Code Noir" also conferred "affranchis" (ex-slaves) full citizenship and gave complete civil equality with other French subjects.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Louisiana slave society generated its own distinct Afro-Creole culture that was present in religious beliefs and the Louisiana Creole language. The slaves brought with them their cultural practices, languages, and religious beliefs rooted in spirit and ancestor worship, as well as Roman Catholic Christianity—all of which were key elements of Louisiana Voodoo. In addition, in the early nineteenth century, many St. Dominicans also settled in Louisiana, both free people of color and slaves, following the Haitian Revolution on Saint-Domingue, contributing to the Voodoo tradition of the state. During the American period (1804-1820), almost half of the slaves came from the Congo.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: In the final stages of theFrench and Indian War with the New England colonies, New France ceded the Louisiana to Spain in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762). The Spanish were slow and reluctant to fully occupy the colony, however, and did not do so until 1769. That year, Spain abolished Native American slavery. In addition, Spanish liberal manumission policies contributed to the growth of the population of Creoles of color, particularly in New Orleans. Nearly all of the surviving 18th-century architecture of the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) dates from the Spanish period (the Ursuline Convent an exception). These buildings were designed by French architects, as there were no Spanish architects in Louisiana. The buildings of the French Quarter are of a Mediterranean style also found in southern France.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Spanish Louisiana's multiracial Creole descendants, which included "affranchis" (ex-slaves), free-born blacks, and mixed-race people, known as Creoles of color (gens de couleur libres), were strongly influenced by French Catholic culture. By the end of the 18th century, many Creoles of color were educated and tended to work in artisan or skilled trades; a relatively high number were property owners. Many Creoles of color were free-born, and their descendants often enjoyed many of the same privileges as whites while under Spanish rule, including (but not limited to) property ownership, formal education, and service in the militia. Indeed, Creoles of Color had been members of the militia for decades under both French and Spanish control of the colony of Louisiana. For example, around 80 Creoles of Color were recruited into the militia that participated in the Battle of Baton Rouge in 1779.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Throughout the Spanish period, most Creoles continued to speak French and remained strongly connected to French colonial culture. However, the sizeable Spanish Creole communities of Saint Bernard Parish and Galveztown spoke Spanish. The Malagueños of New Iberia spoke Spanish as well. (Since the mid-20th century, the number of Spanish-speaking Creoles has declined in favor of English speakers. Even today, however, the Isleños of St. Bernard Parish have maintained cultural traditions from the Canary Islands.)


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: In 1765, during Spanish rule, several thousand Acadians from the French colony of Acadia (now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island) made their way to Louisiana after having been expelled from Acadia by the British government after the French and Indian War. They settled chiefly in the southwestern Louisiana region now called Acadiana. The governor Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga, eager to gain more settlers, welcomed the Acadians, who became the ancestors of Louisiana's Cajuns.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Spanish Canary Islanders, called Isleños, emigrated from the Canary Islands of Spain to Louisiana under the Spanish crown between 1778 and 1783. In 1800, France's Napoleon Bonaparte reacquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso, an arrangement kept secret for two years.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Spain ceded Louisiana back to France in 1800 through the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, although it remained under nominal Spanish control until 1803. Weeks after reasserting full control over the territory, Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States in the wake of the defeat of his forces in Saint-Domingue, which Napoleon had been trying to regain control of Saint-Domingue following the St. Dominican Rebellion and subsequent Haitian Revolution.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: In the early 19th century, floods of St. Dominican refugees fled from Saint-Domingue and poured into New Orleans, nearly tripling the city's population. Indeed, more than half of the refugee population of Saint-Domingue settled in Louisiana. Thousands of St. Dominican refugees, both white and Creole of color, arrived in New Orleans, sometimes bringing slaves with them. While Governor Claiborne and other Anglo-American officials wanted to keep out additional free black men, the Louisiana Creoles wanted to increase the French-speaking Creole population. As more refugees were allowed in Louisiana, St. Dominican refugees who had first gone to Cuba also arrived. Officials in Cuba deported many of the St. Dominican refugees in retaliation for Bonapartist schemes in Spain. After the Purchase, many Americans also migrated to Louisiana. Later European immigrants included Irish, Germans, and Italians.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Nearly 90 percent of early 19th century immigrants to the territory settled in New Orleans. The 1809 deportation of St. Dominicans from Cuba brought 2,731 whites, 3,102 Creoles of color and 3,226 slaves, which, in total, doubled the city's population. The city became 63 percent black in population, a greater proportion than Charleston, South Carolina's 53 percent.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The Dominican Creoles' specialized population raised Louisiana's level of culture and industry, and was one of the reasons why Louisiana was able to gain statehood so quickly. Here is a quote from a Louisiana Creole who remarked on the rapid development of his homeland:


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: American authorities initially forbade access of slaves into Louisiana. However, some concessions were made to fleeing St. Dominican refugees, especially after the 1804 Haiti Massacre. In 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines decreed that all Creoles of color and freed slaves deemed traitors to the Haitian Empire should be put to death. He ordered that all whites in Haiti should also be exterminated, with few exceptions. Many of the slaves who accompanied St. Dominican refugees came willingly, as they feared the bloodshed, murder, pillaging, lawlessness, and economic collapse in Saint-Domingue. Here is a letter from a fleeing St. Dominican about his petition for asylum to the American government on behalf of his servants in Saint-Domingue:


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: When St. Dominican refugees arrived with slaves, they often followed the old Creole custom, "liberté des savanes" (savannah liberty), where the owner allowed their slaves to be free to find work at their own convenience in exchange for a flat weekly or monthly rate. They often became domestics, cooks, wig makers, and coachmen.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Although St. Dominicans remained concentrated in the city of New Orleans, about 10% of them very slowly scattered into surrounding parishes. There, manual labor for agriculture was in greatest demand. The scarcity of slaves made Creole planters turn to "petits habitants" (Creole peasants), and immigrant indentured servitude (engagés) to supply manual labor; they complimented paid labor with slave labor. On many plantations, free people of color and whites toiled side-by-side with slaves. This multi-class state of affairs converted many minds to the abolition of slavery.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The large, rich families of old Saint-Domingue were almost nowhere to be found in Louisiana. Indeed, the majority the St. Dominican refugees who made a mark on 19th century Louisiana and Louisiana Creole culture came from the lower classes of Saint-Domingue, such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk's and Rodolphe Desdunes' family.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Anglo-Americans harbored much hostility towards the St. Dominican refugees, as they would identify them with the St. Dominican Rebellion. Some St. Dominican refugees did attempt to perpetuate French Revolutionary ideas on their arrival into Louisiana, which American authorities feared.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: American fears were eventually confirmed; in 1805, Grandjean, a white St. Dominican, and his Dominican Creole accomplices attempted to incite a slave rebellion aimed at overthrowing the American government in Louisiana. The plan was foiled by New Orleanian Creoles of color who revealed the plot to American authorities. The Americans sentenced Grandjean and his accomplices to work on a slave chain-gang for the rest of their lives.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The transfer of the French colony to the United States and the arrival of Anglo Americans from New England and the South resulted in a cultural confrontation. Some Americans were reportedly shocked by aspects of the culture and French-speaking society of the newly acquired territory: the predominance of the French language and Roman Catholicism, the free class of Creoles of color and the strong African traditions of slaves. They pressured the United States' first governor of the Louisiana Territory, W.C.C. Claiborne, to change it.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: During the antebellum years, the major commodity crops were sugar and cotton, cultivated on large plantations along the Mississippi River outside the city with slave labor. Plantations were developed in the French style, with narrow waterfronts for access on the river, and long plots running back inland.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Particularly in the slave society of the Anglo-American South, slavery had become a racial caste. Since the late 17th century, children in the colonies took the status of their mothers at birth; therefore, all children of enslaved mothers were born into slavery, regardless of the race or status of their fathers. This produced many mixed-race slaves over the generations. Whites classified society into whites and blacks (the latter associated strongly with slaves).


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Although there was a growing population of free blacks, particularly in the Upper South, they generally did not have the same rights and freedoms as Creoles of color in Louisiana under French and Spanish rule, who held office and served in the militia. For example, around 80 free Creoles of color were recruited into the militia that fought in the Battle of Baton Rouge in 1779. And 353 free Creoles of color were recruited into the militia that fought in the Battle of New Orleans in 1812. Later on, some of the descendants of these Creole of color veterans of the Battle of New Orleans, like Caesar Antoine, went on to fight in the American Civil War.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: When Claiborne made English the official language of the territory, the French Creoles of New Orleans were outraged, and reportedly paraded in protest in the streets. They rejected the Americans' effort to transform them overnight. In addition, upper-class French Creoles thought that many of the arriving Americans were uncouth, especially the rough Kentucky boatmen (Kaintucks) who regularly visited the city, having maneuvered flatboats down the Mississippi River filled with goods for market.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Realizing that he needed local support, Claiborne restored French as an official language. In all forms of government, public forums and in the Catholic Church, French continued to be used. Most importantly, Louisiana French and Louisiana Creole remained the languages of the majority of the population of the state, leaving English and Spanish as minority languages.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Louisiana's development and growth was rapid after its admission as a member state of the American Union.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: By 1850, 1/3 of all Creoles of color owned over $100,000 worth of property. Creoles of color were wealthy businessmen, entrepreneurs, clothiers, real estate developers, doctors, and other respected professions; they owned estates and properties in French Louisiana. Aristocratic Creoles of Color were very wealthy, such as Aristide Mary who owned more than $1,500,000 of property in the State of Louisiana.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Nearly all boys of wealthy Creole families were sent to France where they received an excellent classical education.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Being a French, and later Spanish colony, Louisiana maintained a three-tiered society that was very similar to other Latin American and Caribbean countries, with the three tiers: aristocracy, bourgeoisie, and peasantry. The blending of cultures and races created a society unlike any other in America.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: During the Age of Discovery, native-born colonists were referred to as "Creoles" to distinguish them from the new arrivals of France, Spain, and Africa. Some Native Americans, such as the Choctaw people, also intermarried with Creoles.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Like "Cajun," the term "Creole" is a popular name used to describe cultures in the southern Louisiana area. "Creole" can be roughly defined as "native to a region," but its precise meaning varies according to the geographic area in which it is used. Generally, however, Creoles felt the need to distinguish themselves from the influx of American and European immigrants coming into the area after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. "Creole" is still used to describe the heritage and customs of the various people who settled Louisiana during the early French colonial times. In addition to the French Canadians, the amalgamated Creole culture in southern Louisiana includes influences from the Chitimacha, Houma and other native tribes, West Africans, Spanish-speaking Isleños (Canary Islanders) and French-speaking "Gens de couleur" from the Caribbean.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: As a group, mixed-race Creoles rapidly began to acquire education, skills (many in New Orleans worked as craftsmen and artisans), businesses and property. They were overwhelmingly Catholic, spoke Colonial French (although some also spoke Louisiana Creole), and maintained French social customs, modified by other parts of their ancestry and Louisiana culture. The Creoles of color often married among themselves to maintain their class and social culture.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Under the French and Spanish rulers, Louisiana developed a three-tiered society, similar to that of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), Cuba, Brazil, Saint Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe and other Latin colonies. This three-tiered society of multi-racial Creoles of European, African and Native American descent included an elite group of large landowners ("grands habitants"); a prosperous, educated urban group ("bourgeoisie"); and the far larger class of indentured servants (engagés), African slaves and Creole peasants ("petits habitants").


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The status of Creoles of color ("Gens de Couleur Libres") was one they guarded carefully. The American Union treated Creoles as a unique people due to the Louisiana Purchase Treaty of April 30, 1803. By law, Creoles of Color enjoyed most of the same rights and privileges as whites. They could and often did challenge the law in court and won cases against whites. They were property owners and created schools for their children.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Race did not play as central a role as it does in Anglo-American culture: oftentimes, race was not a concern, but instead, family standing and wealth were key distinguishing factors in New Orleans and beyond. The Creole civil rights activist Rodolphe Desdunes explained the difference between Creoles and Anglo-Americans, concerning the widespread belief in racialism by the latter, as follows:


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The groups (Latin and Anglo New Orleanians) had "two different schools of politics [and differed] radically ... in aspiration and method. One hopes [Latins], and the other doubts [Anglos]. Thus we often perceive that one makes every effort to acquire merits, the other to gain advantages. One aspires to equality, the other to identity. One will forget that he is a Negro to think that he is a man; the other will forget that he is a man to think that he is a Negro.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: After the United States acquired the area in the Louisiana Purchase, mixed-race Creoles of color resisted American attempts to impose their binary racial culture. In the American South, slavery provided a racialized lens through which people with any African descent were considered lower in status than whites, effectively erasing the long-established triracial distinction in Louisiana between whites, blacks, and Creoles of color.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: There was also a sizable German Creole group of full German descent, which centered on the parishes of St. Charles and St. John the Baptist. (It is for these settlers that the Côte des Allemands, "The German Coast," is named.) Over time, many of these groups assimilated into the dominant francophone Creole culture, often adopting the French language and customs.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: While the American Civil War promised rights and opportunities for slaves, many Creoles of color who had long been free before the war worried about losing their identity and position. The Anglo-Americans did not legally recognize a three-tiered society; nevertheless, some Creoles of color such as Thomy Lafon, Victor Séjour and others, used their position to support the abolitionist cause. One Creole of color, Francis E. Dumas, emancipated his slaves and organized them into a company in the Second Regiment of the Federal Louisiana Native Guards. Alexander Dimitry was one of the few people of color to take on a leadership role within the Confederate Government. His son, John Dimitry, fought with the Confederate Louisiana Native Guards to defend the Creole State.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Following the Union victory in the Civil War, the Louisiana three-tiered society was gradually overrun by more Anglo-Americans, who classified everyone by the South's binary division of "black" and "white". During the Reconstruction era, Democrats regained power in the Louisiana state legislature by using paramilitary groups like the White League to suppress black voting. The Democrats enforced white supremacy by passing Jim Crow laws and a constitution near the turn of the 20th century that effectively disenfranchised most blacks and Creoles of color through discriminatory application of voter registration and electoral laws.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Some Creoles, such as the ex-Confederate general Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard, advocated against racism, and became proponents of black civil rights and black suffrage, involving themselves in the creation of the Louisiana Unification Movement that called for equal rights for blacks, denounced discrimination, and opposed segregation.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in "Plessy v. Ferguson" in 1896 supported the binary society and the policy of "separate but equal" facilities (which were seldom achieved in fact) in the segregated South. Some white Creoles, heavily influenced by white American society, increasingly claimed that the term Creole applied to whites only. According to Virginia R. Domínguez:


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Charles Gayarré ... and Alcée Fortier ... led the outspoken though desperate defense of the Creole. As bright as these men clearly were, they still became engulfed in the reclassification process intent on salvaging white Creole status. Their speeches consequently read more like sympathetic eulogies than historical analysis.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Sybil Kein suggests that, because of the white Creoles struggle for redefinition, they were particularly hostile to the exploration by the writer George Washington Cable of the multi-racial Creole society in his stories and novels. She believes that in "The Grandissimes," Cable exposed white Creoles' preoccupation with covering up blood connections with Creoles of color. Kein writes:


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: There was a veritable explosion of defenses of Creole ancestry. The more novelist George Washington Cable engaged his characters in family feuds over inheritance, embroiled them in sexual unions with blacks and mulattoes and made them seem particularly defensive about their presumably pure Caucasian ancestry, the more vociferously the white Creoles responded, insisting on purity of white ancestry as a requirement for identification as Creole.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: In the 1930s, populist Governor Huey Long satirized such Creole claims, saying that you could feed all the "pure white" people in New Orleans with a cup of beans and a half a cup of rice, and still have food left over! The effort to impose Anglo-American binary racial classification on Creoles continued, however. In 1938, in "Sunseri v. Cassagne"—the Louisiana Supreme Court proclaimed traceability of African ancestry to be the only requirement for definition of colored. And during her time as Registrar of the Bureau of Vital Statistics for the City of New Orleans (1949–1965), Naomi Drake tried to impose these binary racial classifications. She unilaterally changed records to classify mixed-race individuals as black if she found they had any black (or African) ancestry, an application of hypodescent rules, and did not notify people of her actions.


title: Louisiana Creole people

text: Among the practices Drake directed was having her workers check obituaries. They were to assess whether the obituary of a person identified as white provided clues that might help show the individual was "really" black, such as having black relatives, services at a traditionally black funeral home, or burial at a traditionally black cemetery—evidence which she would use to ensure the death certificate classified the person as black. Not everyone accepted Drake's actions, and people filed thousands of cases against the office to have racial classifications changed and to protest her withholding legal documents of vital records. This caused much embarrassment and disruption, finally causing the city to fire her in 1965.