Louisiana Creole refers to people of various racial backgrounds who are descended from the colonial French/Spanish settlers, African Americans, and Native Americans from the time before the Louisiana territory became a possession of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase (1803). Unlike many other ethnic groups in the United States who are immigrants, Creoles are a group that originated in North America and descended from native-born peoples. Historically, the term Creole was documented by Garcilaso de la Vega.

In the "The Inca", writing in the early 1600s, he said: "The name was invented by the Negroes...They use it to mean a Negro born in the Indies, and they devised it to distinguish those who come from this side and were born in Guinea from those born in the New World....Another version states that the term Creole (Spanish -- Criollo) was introduced in 1590.

It derived from the Latin word “crear”, which meant, “create.” In 1590, Father J. de Acosta decided that the mixed breeds born in the New World were neither Spanish, African, Indian, but various mixtures of all three, thus a created race. So he identified them as "Criollos".

The Spanish copied them by introducing this word to describe those born in the New World, and in this way both Spaniards and Guinea Negroes are called criollo if they were born in the New World." In Louisiana, créole was first used to refer to colonists of [France|French]]/Spanish descent who had been born there and were thus native to the territory, as opposed to new immigrants from the US, the West Indies, or from parts of Europe other than the colonial powers, France and Spain. In its early connotations, the word, créole, was applied exclusively to people of European descent. Later, the term was also used for enslaved blacks who were born in Louisiana, as opposed to those born in West Africa and transported from there.

French Creole was then the term reserved for people of exclusively French/Spanish descent, who usually spoke French as their primary language and practiced Catholicism.

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