[Grammar] Can I use "~was native to some place" even though subject is not animal or plant?

[eggcracker]

Can I use "~was native to some place" even though subject is not animal or plant?

I learned I can use "a native of~" when referring to "person".
But I learned that I should use "native to~" when I refer to "animal or plant".
By the way, I found quite confusing sentence from my book which doesn't correspond to what I schooled.
Please give me some explanation about this sentence below.
"After United States took over Louisiana, the Creole cultural identity became a means of distinguishing who was truly native to Louisiana."
The word "who" in the above sentence is not "plant or animal". And I looked up the word "native" again in my dictionary, it says "Plants or animal that are native to a particular region live or grow there naturally and were not brought there."
I'm really confusing now. Is the sentence "After United States took over Louisiana, the Creole cultural identity became a means of distinguishing who was truly native to Louisiana." grammatical?

 

[SoothingDave]

Re: Can I use "~was native to some place" even though subject is not animal or plant?

People can also be "native" to an area. This is speaking of the settlers in Louisiana who were "originally" there from when it was a French territory and how their culture differentiated them from later settlers who came after the territory became part of the US.