What's the history of the Mardi Gras Indians?

The short answer is no one is completely sure of the history of these African American groups and their intricate dances, songs, and costumes. The "Indians" who parade down New Orleans' back streets on Mardi Gras day (not actually Indians, although some may have Native American descent) can trace their history back to at least the 1880s. According to Michael Smith, the Creole Wild West tribe formed around 1885 and is among the first to engage in practices similar to those that continue today. Smith finds evidence that Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show influenced the genesis of the early Mardi Gras Indians, as can be seen in the headdresses which resemble the costumes of the Plains Indians featured in that show.

The traditions, however, much like those of other New Orleans Krewes and Social Clubs, probably have roots going back to the colonial period. Smith notes that during that time blacks often fled into the bayous of the Mississippi delta, interacting with Native Americans and forming "powerful family and economic networks [that] united Maroon communities with slaves in the city and on surrounding plantations."

The diverse set of stories that tell the history of the Indians may each contain a grain of truth, according to Joseph Roach:

The tangle of creation narratives - the romantic reaching back to the extracolonial encounters between black and red men and women, the Afro-Caribbean ties to Trinidad, Cuba and Haiti, the links to West African dance and musical forms, the social hypothesis stressing fraternal African-American bonds in the face of oppression, the presence of a strong spirit-world subculture, and the catalyst of the Wild West Show – does not exhaust the possibilities.

Ned Sublette agrees that the traditions likely reach back much more than a century or two:

Black men wearing feathers and horns goes back to Africa, and Africans dressing as Indians at carnivals is as old as slavery in the hemisphere. From Brazil to Trinidad to Haiti to New Orleans, the image of the indigenous person turns up in black iconography. Dressing as Native Americans is not merely homage; it's a statement about how Africans survived and how cultures mixed, especially in Louisiana. Mardi Gras Indians I have talked to are emphatic that elements of their practice go back farther than Creole Wild West. Their oral tradition stresses the connection to Congo Square.

According to Sublette, "the Indians embody resistance. You can sum it up in four words: 'We won't bow down.'"

Happy Mardi Gras!

Sources:

• Roach, Joseph. Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance (1996)
• Smith, Michael P. Mardi Gras Indians (1994)
• Sublette, Ned. The World that Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square (2008)

It was to rainy/cold for me to go out and celebrate one of my favorite all time holidays, I did have quite a ruckus weekend though.

What everyone said about Mardi Gras Indians is spot on, this is what I know about the rest:

Mardi Gras celebrations were brought over from France (namely masked balls) but most of the contempary celebrations we have all come to think of as Mardi Gras (Big parades, king cakes, etc) were introduced by wealthy American industrialists in the mid 19th century. Mardi Gras was never very formal or organized city wide holiday until this became an American city. If you know or understand New Orleans Geography you would know most of the major parades orginate in Uptown which was the American part of town. The way to think about it is an American Spin on a French/Catholic holiday.

Sources: The World That Made New Orleans Bienvilles Dilema, Richard Campenalla The Garden District of New Orleans Jim Frasier and this Lousiana History Text book I can't seem to find right now