Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Spring/105i/section007/Isaac Johnson

Isaac Johnson was a turpentine worker of Cajun descent who was interviewed for the Federal Writer's Project on November 29, 1938.

Biography

Early Life

Isaac Johnson was born in Washington County, Alabama, in an area of the state referred to as "Cajan Country". He was born to Cajun parents sometime during the first decade of the 1900s, though the exact year of his birth is unknown. His father was a turpentine and lumber worker who, at some point, owned 40 acres of land. As a result, Johnson had also worked in the turpentine and lumber industry "as long as he [could] remember" in order to help support his father. Due to beginning labor at a young age, he received a limited education; however, he knew how to read and was later taught how to write by his wife.

Adult Life

Johnson met his wife, Lucille Johnson, when she moved to Washington County in 1924. Lucille was a white woman, unlike Isaac who − as a Cajun − was classed as "colored". (Isaac could also be described as mixed-race, as he claimed that he was of "Spanish and Indian blood".) Therefore, their relationship was considered to be intermarriage, which was seen as socially unacceptable by many Southerners at the time. Isaac, Lucille and their two children lived together in Happy Hill, Alabama, in a house that Isaac built.

Johnson and his family faced poverty, which was quite a common problem during the Great Depression. However, as the local pine trees began producing less resin due to consistent lumbering, he and other turpentine workers began making much less money than they used to. Johnson admitted to his interviewer that he was having a hard time getting by, expressing that "A man, he can't a-live on fourteen cents a day, and that is all the turpentine brings a gallon. Resin, it brings only 'bout four cents a pound." Furthermore, Johnson was in debt, although it is not revealed to whom.

Lucille worked as a schoolteacher in Happy Hill's "Cajan school", in which the Johnsons' daughter, Norma, was in the fifth grade. Unfortunately, the Cajan school only taught students up to the seventh grade; in addition, Norma couldn't attend high school in Washington County, where "anyone with a trace of Cajan blood [was] forbidden to enter the white schools". Thus, the Johnsons expected that they would have to send Norma out of Alabama for her to continue her education. Isaac was well aware that the academic opportunities provided to his community were inadequate, and advocated for the creation of a Cajun high school in Washington County. He also hoped that there would eventually be a college for Cajuns to attend, noting that there were already colleges for black people in Alabama. Johnson stated: "The Negroes have their college up at Tuskegee. Why can't we have one?"

Social Context

Cajun History

Cajuns – also spelled ‘Cajans’ – are the descendants of French Canadians who originally settled in Acadia, a French colony that was located in modern-day Nova Scotia, Canada. However, when Acadia came under the rule of the British, French-speaking Acadians were exiled to southern Louisiana, an area that was already inhabited by Africans, Native Americans, and other European ethnic groups. As a result of this cultural diversity, creolization occurred, causing Cajun culture to emerge in Louisiana and spread across the Gulf Coast. (Creolization can be defined as the process of multiple cultures and ethnicities mixing together to create a new culture.) Thus, despite their French roots, many Cajun people are mixed-race.

Cajun people were often discriminated against by white, Anglo-Saxon Americans because they spoke French rather than English, practiced Catholicism rather than Protestantism, and because of their mixed ancestry. According to Shane K. Bernard, "Both the Cajuns and the Acadian exiles from whom they descended had been slandered as backward, ignorant, and un-American" because of the cultural and ethnic differences between them and Anglo-Saxons, as well as their socio-economic status. In fact, the term 'Cajun' originated as a pejorative label used to describe "the rural, poorest, and least educated" individuals of the Acadian population. Today, however, Cajun people do call themselves 'Cajun'. Therefore, one could argue that the discrimination the Cajuns experienced influenced the way they self-identify to some extent.

Turpentine Industry

Turpentine is a "volatile oil obtained from various species of the pine tree". It has been used for various reasons, such as to "preserve ropes and rigging on sailing ships" and to "wax bowstrings for musical instruments", but it's mainly used in varnish and paint thinners. According to a 1920 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 85 per cent of the turpentine being used in the U.S. at the time was used for the latter purpose. Turpentine is produced by distilling pine resin with water; to gather this resin, turpentine workers make chevron-shaped cuts into the bark of a pine tree and place a cup at the bottom of these cuts, allowing the resin to slowly flow into the cup.

At its height, the American turpentine industry was notorious for being exploitative of its workers. In most turpentine camps, there was a 'company store' where workers would buy essential goods, such as food and other supplies. However, turpentine workers were usually paid very low wages, and the store's prices were highly inflated above market prices. Thus, turpentiners often became indebted to their employers, giving them little choice but to keep working to pay off their debts. If an indebted worker was found trying to escape from the camp, they would often be punished in the form of beatings. Moreover, most turpentiners were black, and their employers white. In the words of Mark Andrews, "for many workers, conditions were little, if any, better than what their parents had experienced as slaves."

References

Kytle, Jack. “Isaac Johnson: Cajan Turpentiner.” Federal Writers Project, November 29, 1938. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/03709/id/659/rec/1.

Cleaver, Molly. “What's the Difference between Cajun and Creole-or Is There One?” The Historic New Orleans Collection, October 16, 2020. https://www.hnoc.org/publications/first-draft/whats-difference-between-cajun-and-creole-or-there-one.

Bernard, Shane K. The Cajuns: Americanization of a People. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2003. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb8053046.

Delano, Jack, photographer. "Pulling operation of a four-year face in a turpentine grove near Pembroke, Georgia." Photograph. From Library of Congress: Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives, April 1941. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017748996/.

Henry, Jacques M., and Carl L. Bankston. “Ethnic Self-Identification and Symbolic Stereotyping: The Portrayal of Louisiana Cajuns.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 24, no. 6 (2001): 1020–45. https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870120077959.

Veitch, F. P., and V. E. Grotlisch. Turpentine: Its Sources, Properties, Uses, Transportation, and Marketing, with Recommended Specifications. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1920. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb8708873.

Andrews, Mark. “For Decades, Turpentine Industry Sapped Florida Forests, Workers.” Orlando Sentinel, August 29, 1993. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1993-08-29-9308270659-story.html.