After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands . . . (Revelation 7:9)
Scholars generally agree that the Mardi Gras Indian tradition is linked to early encounters between the region’s Native and Black communities. Founded by the French in 1718, the city of New Orleans stands on land originally inhabited by the Chitimacha Tribe. As early as 1719, European colonizers brought enslaved people from the western coast of Africa to the nascent port city, which eventually became a hub of the United States slave trade.
While Africans made up the majority of enslaved people in Louisiana, research conducted by Leila K. Blackbird, a historian at the University of Chicago, found that Native and mixed-race people of Black and Native heritage constituted 20 percent of the state’s enslaved population during the antebellum period.
the two marginalized groups found ways of supporting each other, with local tribes such as the Choctaw, the Seminole and the Chickasaw helping enslaved Africans escape from plantations and live off the land. Some of these fugitives from slavery took refuge in maroon camps (makeshift settlements in Louisiana’s swamps and bayous), while others sought shelter with Native communities, which then assimilated the Africans into their tribes. https://youtu.be/VsOxxz4h1rU?si=1Ac4Lhe6FzJcABzu
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