The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Momentum seems to have gathered behind the keep view. Girth Summit _(blether) 17:44, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Marchande[edit]

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This unreferenced article was tagged for PROD few months ago by User:Rusf10 with "Does not pass WP:V". It was then deprodded by User:DGG with "First check for sources; then, only if not found, nominate for deletion at AfD.". Since Rusf10 didn't follow up on this, I did, but I failed to find any SIGCOV of this topic. It's not a hoax, but it does not appear to be notable, and what we have at present is an unreferenced WP:DICTDEF. Note there is no fr:Marchande either. If anyone can find any WP:SIGCOV, please share, otherwise this has to go. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of France-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Louisiana-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I just want to point out that Marchande is a feminine noun and that you can probably find it here on Wikipedia by using the masculine form of Marchand which simply means Merchant. The context of the article is Louisiana and New Orleans history and a quick search of Google books reveals dozens of potential sources. You could probably make a good argument that the word Marchande took on a slightly different meaning in Louisiana French.^[1] ^[2]^[3] ^[4] ^[5] ^[6] ^[7] ^[8] ^[9] DavidDelaune (talk) 07:57, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- DavidDelaune, Thank you for pointing out the 'e', but I still don't see any WP:SIGCOV, regardless of whether we look for the feminine or masculine version of the word? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:39, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Grace Elizabeth King (1895). New Orleans; the Place and the People,. Macmillan and Company. pp. 264–.
^ Abraham Oakey Hall (1851). The Manhattaner in New Orleans: Or, Phases of "Crescent City" Life. J. C. Morgan. pp. 70–.
^ Scott S. Ellis (3 October 2018). The Faubourg Marigny of New Orleans: A History. LSU Press. pp. 149–. ISBN 978-0-8071-7005-2.
^ Stephen J. Ochs (21 March 2006). A Black Patriot and a White Priest: André Cailloux and Claude Paschal Maistre in Civil War New Orleans. LSU Press. pp. 35–. ISBN 978-0-8071-3157-2.
^ Walter Stern (4 May 2018). Race and Education in New Orleans: Creating the Segregated City, 1764-1960. LSU Press. pp. 18–. ISBN 978-0-8071-6919-3.
^ Eliza Ripley (1912). Social Life in Old New Orleans: Being Recollections of My Girlhood. D. Appleton. pp. 25–. ISBN 978-0-598-42411-2.
^ Col. James R. Creecy (1860). Scenes in the South and Other Miscellaneous Pieces. pp. 39–.
^ Shirley Elizabeth Thompson; Thompson (2009). Exiles at Home: The Struggle to Become American in Creole New Orleans. Harvard University Press. pp. 196–. ISBN 978-0-674-02351-2.
^ Sherita L. Johnson (11 September 2009). Black Women in New South Literature and Culture. Routledge. pp. 84–. ISBN 978-1-135-24445-3.

Comment - I'm currently doing some work to address some of the issues in the article. It should be pointed out that while marchande might be a feminine noun (and can be seen used in French-language Louisianan legislation), the cultural phenomenon dealt with by this article would more typically be referred to as la marchande by Creole people. This specificity makes it difficult to differentiate between "merchant", "female merchant" and "this-particular-type-of-female-merchant-specific-to-this-location-at-this-time" (which is what the article is about). The specificity of this phenomenon also means it is unlikely to be found in French Wikipedia (being French-language in vernacular but culturally Louisianan and Creole). St★lwart¹¹¹ 05:25, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep - okay, I have completed some work to refocus the article and add some sources. Without someone who can sift through some Creole-French sources (if they exist), it probably won't get much bigger. I can certainly understand this nomination by Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus; it makes perfect sense for an article that is little more than a dictionary definition. But I think it has moved beyond a dictionary definition and now more accurately describes this particular cultural phenomenon. Given the initial lack of clarity, it may be worth procedurally closing this AfD in favour of a second AfD that discusses the merits (and notability, or not) of the subject as it is now defined. St★lwart¹¹¹ 07:50, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Stalwart111 I do appreciate your efforts. Were you able to find any source that discusses this in depth? The article still misses citations for definition of the concept, and the reliance on 1860 work for bulk of references (and content, what little we have) is not ideal. Still, it would be a shame to remove this in its entirety now that we can see a glimmer of hope. What do you think about a merger and redirect to History of slavery in Louisiana? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:43, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still working through other sources. There isn't a lot (in English) that discusses the concept in detail, for obvious reasons. While it is true that slaves and former slaves became la marchande I couldn't find anything to confirm this was exclusively the case. More accurately, they were typically black Creole women, and a significant portion of black Creole women were slaves or former slaves, not all. But I don't think redirecting a title about a concept not specifically about slavery to an article specifically about slavery is a good outcome. I would rather see it kept and improved (and I believe it can be), or sent to draft space. St★lwart¹¹¹ 12:25, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If this can be improved and rescued, of course this would be the best outcome. Unfortunately sometimes interesting topics like these have not yet been researched. That said, in general, race and slavery topics in US are quite well researched, so if we are not finding much about this it doesn't bode well. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:07, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 05:25, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep due to the improvements to the article and the sources brought to the discussion by Stalwart111. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 17:30, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I am sorry but where is the significant coverage which is required by our notability policy? See WP:SIGCOV - GizzyCatBella🍁 02:41, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep although I think it might be better to Merge this article into a new section within the History of slavery in Louisiana article. DavidDelaune (talk) 13:41, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep - This is an interesting one. Best source I found here.^[1] A passing but contextually-appropriate mention here.^[2] Term is used again here in the mid-1840s.^[3] Term used here referring circa 1800.^[4] Here is marchande discussed as a legal designation for merchants in Lousiana, presumably before the the word became used in the sense this article describes.^[5] Note: no discussion of marchandes in the "Beyond Bondage" book discussed in the cited thesis, in case anyone else was tempted. I'll note that I found other search engines I tried to be useless here, I didn't find anything at all relevant until I looked at JSTOR. User:Stalwart111 may be better positioned to evaluate the utility of the sources I found. In sum, I'm convinced the subject of the article exists and is notable (to be at least name-checked in a dozen historical academic sources), but I am a bit concerned about WP:NOTDIC and the lack of depth on the term itself in the sources (such that the subject may not meet WP:GNG; unclear if the coverage in the discussed sources should be considered "in-depth"). I would probably favor a Merge, perhaps to History of slavery in Louisiana as previously suggested, but really this topic is getting at a women's labor history topic; if an appropriate existing article to merge to exists, I don't know the title. Suriname0 (talk) 05:06, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Out of order edit to add useful ref.^[6] Suriname0 (talk) 20:13, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All things considered, this is a great topic for a grad student looking for a dissertation that can be turned into papers/books in those fields. I still think it's sadly WP:TOOSOON for it to be a stand-alone Wikipedia article, given we are still dealing with a DICTFEF and our sourcing is heavily WP:PRIMARY. Let's keep WP:NOR in mind. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:30, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I do think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say most of the sources are primary; I would be concerned if we were pulling the term from 18th and 19th century sources directly, but all of the sources I looked at are secondary historical coverage. I don't think it's "original research" to say that this was a labor phenomenon that existed in Louisiana, since that's what the sources say! My only real concern is depth of coverage, and as mentioned elsewhere I do think the additional sources uncovered are probably enough. Suriname0 (talk) 14:24, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ “Big Businesswoman” Eulalie Mandeville and the World of Female Free Black Entrepreneurs in Antebellum New Orleans, By this time, Mandeville also had many marchandes (sales-women) working for her. The court's witnesses stressed the number of these women, suggesting that it was quite unusual for a female free Black vendor to have so many of them selling in the streets. .... As Latrobe noticed, it was not the fashion for Creole ladies to go out in the streets to do their shopping. Thus, many of the marchandes provided a door-to-door service as well as selling in the market. He wrote: 'Women, chiefly black women, are met carrying baskets upon their heads and calling at the doors of houses. These baskets contain assortments of dry goods, sometimes, to appearance, to a considerable amount.' However, this was probably more applicable to the selling habits of Mandeville's marchandes. A few additional brief mentions of the role of marchandes in this woman's business.
^ Yorùbá Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo, However, the sheer demographic numbers of enslaved Africans in Louisiana are convincing in this context. They reveal that Louisiana, unlike Cuba and Haiti, received hardly any enslaved Yoruba or Dahomeyans (Hall, 1992). New Orleans's African population was Kongo dominated with a strong affinity with the spirits of the dead. Nago people arrived only during the Spanish colonial rule in a significant number, many of whom were females specifically "imported" to run the city's markets as vendeuses or marchandes (market women).
^ Sexual Labor in the Space Between Slavery and Freedom, But the story was more complex than a simple situation of long-term sexual liaison between two people. Lacaze was a peddler by trade, and he had officially purchased Carmélite as a marchande, a merchant woman, who would take care of his business affairs while he was away. He had, as the law prescribed, "put his slave in a shop" in his stead while he traveled to France. In this arrangement, Carmélite traded goods from a room in the Burgundy street house during his absence...
^ Paper Thin: Freedom and Re-enslavement in the Diaspora of the Haitian Revolution, Adelaide had left his household by 1801 to become a marchande (woman trader) in the town of Port de Paix, Saint-Domingue.
^ "A Baser Commerce": Retailing, Class, and Gender in French Colonial New Orleans, Marie Catherine Baudreau, Widow Gervais, was never once, in life or death, granted the designation of marchande. This title was only applied to a handful of female merchants in Louisiana from the early 1760s onward.
^ DuPlessis, Robert, What did Slaves Wear? Textile Regimes in the French Caribbean, Marketing was a long-standing slave activity. It is mentioned in decrees of 1664 and 1677 (Louis-Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, op. cit., vol. I, p. 120-21, 306-307), and the Code Noir, Art. XIX and XXIX, elaborated on these, seeking to regulate slave retailing, including settlement of debts. Typically, slave retailing was carried out on a master's orders or at least with his permission as embodied in a signed pass (cf. Art. XIX: « permission expresse de leurs maîtres par un billet ou par des marques connues »), but the Code foresaw slave selling even « en cas que leurs maîtres n'aient donné aucun ordre et ne les aient point préposés » (Art. XXIX). Many advertisements in Affiches Américaines boasted that a slave offered for sale was a « marchand » or « marchande », indicating that marketing skills were considered a valuable attribute among the enslaved. Cf. Affiches Américaines, 20 May 1767, p. 160: « Une Négresse, nommée Louison, très-bonne marchande… Cette Négresse a vendu des marchandises en pacotille, pendant toute la guerre & depuis la paix, tant dans la Plaine du Cap, que dans celle de l'Artibonite ».

That's a good summation, and is ultimately where I got to also. As above, I don't think redirecting a title about a concept not specifically about slavery to an article specifically about slavery is a good outcome. St★lwart¹¹¹ 05:13, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I left a note [1] on Women in Red, since I know there's folks there who may help with uncovering and evaluating sources. Suriname0 (talk) 05:30, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I think as it stands the article passes, but like others I do not think putting a redirect to an article about slavery is appropriate. Lajmmoore (talk) 08:04, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: As it stands, the article is incorrectly drafted with major grammatical errors which would startle French speakers. One easy way of correcting the problem would be to change the title of the article to the plural "Marchandes" (or perhaps even "Les marchandes") and use the plural form in the article itself. I suggest this as the group people concerned are invariably referred to in the plural. I would be happy to make the move and improve the article along these lines but perhaps it is better to wait until it has been decided whether the article should be kept or not. See also [2] which provides statistics.--Ipigott (talk) 08:46, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As explained above, the article references a phenomenon specific to Louisiana Creole culture and the difference in French linguistics is explained in the first reference (Albert Valdman's History, Society and Variation). He specifically gives la marchande as an example of non-gendered Creole French that defies normal French language conventions. So no, I don't believe a move would be appropriate without taking that into consideration. St★lwart¹¹¹ 10:47, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just noting that the pdf you link seems like a great source, and I have no trouble recommending Keep now. I agree with Stalwart about the proposed name change. Suriname0 (talk) 14:24, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ipigott, I believe I have fixed the grammar as explained on the article talk page. I hope you will be able to improve the article further. TSventon (talk) 11:04, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I think that the sources found so far establish notability. TSventon (talk) 11:04, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: the sources found during this AfD bring it up over notability requirements. -Yupik (talk) 15:33, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as TOOSOON. --KonsTomasz (talk) 08:19, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, as sources are enough for notability.Jackattack1597 (talk) 11:01, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.