Congo Square

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Dance in Congo Sqare in the late 1700s, artist's conception by E. W. Kemble from a century later.

Congo Square is an open space within Louis Armstrong Park, which is located in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, just across Rampart Street from the French Quarter. The Treme neighborhood is famous for its history of African American music.

In Louisiana's French and Spanish colonial era of the 18th century, slaves were commonly allowed Sundays off from their work, and were allowed to gather in the "Place de Negres", "Place Publique", later "Circus Square" or informally "Place Congo" ^[1] at the "back of town" (across Rampart Street from the French Quarter) where the slaves would set up a market, sing, dance, and play music.

The tradition continued after the city became part of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase. As African music had commonly been suppressed in the Protestant colonies and states, the weekly gatherings at Congo Square became a famous site for visitors from elsewhere in the U.S. Many visitors were amazed at the African style dancing and music.

Observers heard the beat of the bamboulas, the wail of the banzas and saw the multitude of African dances that had survived through the years.

Townsfolk would gather around the square on Sunday afternoons to witness what went on inside the square. In 1819, a visitor to the city, Benjamin Latrobe, wrote about the celebrations in his journal. Although he found them "savage"^[2], he was amazed at the sight of five or six hundred unsupervised slaves that had assembled for dancing. He described them as ornamented with a number of tails of the smaller wild beasts, with fringes, ribbons, little bells, and shells and balls, jingling and flirting about the performers' legs and arms. The women, one onlooker reported, wore, each according to her means, the newest fashions in silk, gauze, muslin, and percale dresses. The males covered themselves in oriental and Indian dress and covered themselves only with a sash of the same sort wrapped around the body. Except for that, they went naked.

Congo Square today

One witness from the time pointed out that several clusters of onlookers, musicians, and dancers represented tribal groupings with each nation taking their place in different parts of the square. In addition to drums, gourds, banjo-like instruments, and quillpipes made from reeds strung together like pan flutes, marimbas and European instruments like the violin, tambourines, and triangles were also used.

White Creole composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk incorporated some rhythms and tunes he heard in Congo Square into some of his compositions, like his famous "Bamboula".

As harsher United States practices of slavery gradually replaced the slightly more lenient French colonial style, the slave gatherings declined. Although no recorded date of the last slave dances in the square has been recorded, the practice seems to have already stopped more than a decade before the end of slavery with the American Civil War.

In the late 19th century, the square again became a famous musical venue, this time for the series of brass band concerts by orchestras of the area's "creole of color" community.

Toward the end of the century, the city of New Orleans officially renamed the square "Beauregard Square" in honor of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard. While this name appeared on maps, most locals continued to call it "Congo Square".

In the 1920s an area just in back of the Square was leveled and the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium was constructed there.

In the 1960s a controversial "urban renewal" project leveled a substantial portion of the Treme neighborhood around the Square. After a decade of debate over what to do with the land, it was turned into Louis Armstrong Park, which incorporates old Congo Square. The official city designation returned Bearegard Square to the traditional name of "Congo Square".

Starting in 1970, the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals were held in Congo Square until it was moved to the much larger New Orleans Fairgrounds.

In the late 20th century and early 21st century, Congo Square has continued to be an important venue for music festivals and gathering place for brass band parades, protest marches, and drum circles.

[edit] In music

The history of Congo Square inspired later generations of New Orleanians. Johnny Wiggs wrote and recorded a piece called "Congo Square" early in the New Orleans jazz revival which became the theme song for the New Orleans Jazz Club radio show. Congo Square is also the title of an African-themed jazz score by Wynton Marsalis and Yacub Addy. It consists of swing arrangements for big band as well as traditional African drum groups. Another famous version is that of Louisiana slide guitarist Sonny Landreth on the 1985 album Down in Louisiana. The American hard rock act Great White released a song called 'Congo Square' on their 1991 release, Hooked. Younger generation African-American artist Amel Larrieux also wrote a song based on the Congo Square called "Congo" on her "Bravebird" album.