Pre-Civil War New Orleans
New Orleans is a city in southern Louisiana, located on the Mississippi
River. Most of the city is situated on the east bank,
between the river and Lake Pontchartrain to the north. Because it was built on a great
turn of the river, it is known as the
Crescent City. New Orleans, with a population of 496,938 (1990 census), is the largest
city in Louisiana and one of the
principal cities of the South. It was established on the high ground nearest the mouth of
the Mississippi, which is 177 km (110
mi) downstream. Elevations range from 3.65 m (12 ft) above sea level to 2 m (6.5 ft)
below; as a result, an ingenious system of
water pumps, drainage canals, and levees has been built to protect the city from flooding.
New Orleans was founded in 1718
by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, sieur de Bienville, and named for the regent of France,
Philippe II, duc d'Orleans. It remained a
French colony until 1763, when it was transferred to the Spanish. In 1800, Spain ceded it
back to France; in 1803, New
Orleans, along with the entire Louisiana Purchase, was sold by Napoleon I to the United
States. It was the site of the Battle of
New Orleans (1815) in the War of 1812. During the Civil War the city was besieged by Union
ships under Adm. David
Farragut; it fell on Apr. 25, 1862. And that's what it say's in the books, a bit more, but
nothing else of interest. This is too bad,
New Orleans , as a city, has a wide and diverse history that reads as if it were a utopian
society built to survive the troubles of
the future. New Orleans is a place where Africans, Indians and European settlers shared
their cultures and intermingled.
Encouraged by the French government, this strategy for producing a durable culture in a
difficult place marked New Orleans as
different and special from its inception and continues to distinguish the city today. Like
the early American settlements along
Massachusetts Bay and Chesapeake Bay, New Orleans served as a distinctive cultural gateway
to North America, where
peoples from Europe and Africa initially intertwined their lives and customs with those of
the native inhabitants of the New
World. The resulting way of life differed dramatically from the culture than was spawned
in the English colonies of North
America. New Orleans Creole population (those with ancestry rooted in the city's colonial
era) ensured not only that English
was not the prevailing language but also that Protestantism was scorned, public education
unheralded, and democratic
government untried. Isolation helped to nourish the differences. From its founding in 1718
until the early nineteenth century,
New Orleans remained far removed from the patterns of living in early Massachusetts or
Virginia. Established a century after
those seminal Anglo- Saxon places, it remained for the next hundred years an outpost for
the French and Spanish until
Napoleon sold it to the United States with the rest of the Louisiana purchase in 1803.
Even though steamboats and sailing ships
connected French Louisiana to the rest of the country, New Orleans guarded its own way of
life. True, it became Dixie's chief
cotton and slave market, but it always remained a strange place in the American South.
American newcomers from the South
as well as the North recoiled when they encountered the prevailing French language of the
city, its dominant Catholicism, its
bawdy sensual delights, or its proud free black and slave inhabitants; In short, its
deeply rooted Creole population and their
peculiar traditions. Rapid influxes of non-southern population compounded the peculiarity
of its Creole past. Until the
mid-nineteenth century, a greater number of migrants arrived in the boomtown from northern
states such as New York and
Pennsylvania than from the Old South. And to complicate its social makeup further, more
foreign immigrants than Americans
came to take up residence in the city almost to the beginning of the twentieth century.
The largest waves of immigrants came
from Ireland and Germany. In certain neighborhoods, their descendants' dialects would make
visitors feel like they were back
in Brooklyn or Chicago. From 1820 to 1870, the Irish and Germans made New Orleans one of
the main immigration ports in
the nation, second only to New York, but ahead of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. New
Orleans also was the first city in
America to host a significant settlement of Italians, Greeks, Croatians, and Filipinos.
THE AFRICANS: African Americans
compile about half of the city of New Orleans population to date. How did this come about?
Well, during the eighteenth
century, Africans came to the city directly from West Africa. The majority passed neither
through the West Indies nor South
America, so they developed complicated relations with both the Indian and Europeans. Their
descendants born in the colony
were also called Creoles. The Spanish rulers (1765-1802) reached out to the black
population for support against the French
settlers; in doing so, they allowed many to buy their own freedom. These free black
settlers along with Creole slaves formed
the earliest black urban settlement in North America. Black American immigrants found them
to be quite exotic, for the black
Creoles were Catholic, French or Creole speakers, and accustomed to an entirely different
lifestyle. The native Creole
population and the American newcomers resolved some of their conflicts by living in
different areas of the city. Eventually, the
Americans concentrated their numbers in new uptown neighborhoods. For a certain period
(1836-1852), they even ran
separate municipal governments to avoid severe political, economic, and cultural clashes.
Evidence of this early cleavage still
survives in the city's oldest quarters. During the infamous Atlantic slave trade,
thousands of Muslims from the Senegambia and
Sudan were kidnapped or captured in local wars and sold into slavery. In America, these
same Muslims converted other
Africans and Amerindians to Islam. As the great Port of New Orleans was a major point of
entry for merchant ships, holds
bursting with human, African cargo, the Port was also, unbeknownst to many, a major point
of entry for captured Muslims
(most often prisoners of local wars) who certainly brought with them their only possession
unable to be stripped from them by
their captors, their religion, Islamic. The historical record of shipping manifests
attests to the fact that the majority of slaving
merchant vessels that deposited their goods at the mouth of the Mississippi took on their
cargoes from those areas of West
Africa with significant Muslim population. As the Islamic belief system forbids suicide
and encourages patient perseverance, the
middle-passage survival rate of captured African Muslims was quite high. For example, one
such courageous survivor was
Ibrahima Abdur Rahman, son of the king of the Fulani people of the Senegambia region,
named "The Prince" by his master
Thomas Foster of Natchez, Mississippi. Abdur Rahman came through the Port of New Orleans,
was sold at auction and
became a man of renown on the Foster Plantation. He eventually petitioned his freedom via
President John Quincy Adams and
returned to Africa after 46 years of enslavement. Free People of Color (f.p.c.) were
Africans, Creoles of Color (New
World-Born People of African descent), and persons of mixed African, European, and or
Native American descent. In
Louisiana, the first f.p.c. came from France or its Colonies in the Caribbean and in West
Africa. During the French Colonial
period in Louisiana, f.p.c. were a rather small and insignificant group. During French
rule from 1702-1769, there are records
for only 150 emancipations of slaves. The majority of slaves freed in Louisiana's Colonial
period was during the Spanish reign
from 1769-1803, with approximately 2,500 slaves being freed. The majority of these slaves
were Africans and unmixed
Blacks who bought their freedom. Later on this initial group would be augmented by Haitian
refugees and other f.p.c. from the
Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America, other parts of the United States, and from
around the world. Besides
self-purchase and donation of freedom, slaves sometimes earned freedom for meritorious
service in battle or saving the life of
their masters. A significant amount of slaves became free because they were the children
of white native born and European
fathers who sometimes openly acknowledged their mixed offspring and who also usually freed
the mother of their children. It
would be several generations before mulatto, quadroon, and octoroon women would become the
common-law wives and
mistresses of white men. The reason for the high number of f.p.c. in New Orleans was
largely due to the influx of Haitian
Refugees into the city in 1809. Approximately 10,000 people arrived in New Orleans with
roughly a third being f.p.c., another
third slaves, and the remaining were white. By the eve of the Civil War in 1860, the
reported total population for f.p.c. in
Louisiana was 18,647 people with the majority being in New Orleans with a census tally of
10,689 people. Free People of
Color were highly skilled craftsmen, business people, educators, writers, planters, and
musicians. Many free women of color
were highly skilled seamstresses, hairdressers, and cooks while some owned property and
kept boarding houses. Some f.p.c.
were planters before and after the Civil War and owned slaves. Although shocking and
incomprehensible to many people
today, the fact that some f.p.c. owned slaves must come to light.
CROLEAN SOCIETY: In eighteenth century Louisiana, the term Creole referred to locally born
persons, regardless of status
or race, and was used to distinguish American-born slaves from African-born slaves when
they testified in court and on
inventory lists of slaves. They were identified simply as Creoles if they were locally
born, or Creoles of another region or
colony if they had been born elsewhere in the Americas of non-American ancestry, whether
African or European. However,
due to the racial and cultural complexity of colonial Louisiana, native Americans who were
born into slavery were sometimes
described as "Creoles" or "born in country." After the United States
took over Louisiana, the Creole cultural identity became a
means of distinguishing who was truly native to Louisiana from those that were Anglo.
Creole has to come mean the language
and folk culture which native to the southern part of Louisiana where African, French, and
Spanish influence were most deeply
rooted historically and culturally. The language too, represents these traits, whereas the
vocabulary of Louisiana Creole is
overwhelmingly French in origin, its grammatical structure is largely African. The early
creation of the Louisiana Creole
language and its widespread use among whites as well as blacks up until World War II is
strong evidence for the strength of the
African ingredient in Louisiana Creole culture. The widespread survival of Louisiana
Creole until very recent times and its use
by whites of various social positions as well as by blacks and mixed-bloods had, no doubt,
a great impact upon Africanizing
Louisiana culture. The Louisiana Creole language became an important part of the identity,
not only of African-Creoles, but of
many whites of all classes who, seduced by its rhythm, intoxicating accent, humor and
imagination, adopted it as their preferred
means of communication. There is still a significant number of whites who only speak
Louisiana Creole. MARDI GRAS: Many
locals begin with a party on January 6 that includes a King Cake, a cake baked in the
shape of a large doughnut, covered with
icing and colored sugar of green, gold, and purple, the traditional Mardi Gras colors.
Purple represents justice, green
representing faith, and gold representing power. Inside the cake is a tiny plastic baby,
meant to represent the Baby Jesus.
Whoever gets the piece with the baby is crowned King or Queen ... and is expected to throw
a party on the following
weekend. Parties with King Cake continue each weekend until Mardi Gras itself finally
arrives. The name Mardi Gras means
Fat Tuesday in French. The day is known as Fat Tuesday, since it is the last day before
Lent. Lent is the season of prayer and
fasting observed by the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian denominations during the
forty days and seven Sundays
before Easter Sunday. Easter can be on any Sunday from March 23 to April 25, since the
exact day is set to coincide with the
first Sunday after the full moon following the Spring Equinox. Mardi Gras occurs on any
Tuesday from February 3 through
March 9. The Gregorian calendar, setup by the Catholic Church, determines the exact day
for Mardi Gras. The celebration
started in New Orleans around the seventeenth century, when Jean Baptiste LeMoyne, Sieur
de Bienville, and Pierre
LeMoyne, Sieur de Iberville founded the city. In 1699, the group set up camp 60 miles
south of the present location of New
Orleans on the river's West Bank. They named the site Point du Mardi Gras in recognition
of the major French holiday
happening on that day, March 3. The late 1700's, saw pre-Lenten balls and fetes in the
infant New Orleans. The masked balls
continued until the Spanish government took over and banned the events. The ban even
continued after New Orleans became
an American city in 1803. Eventually, the predominant Creole population revitalized the
balls by 1823. Within the next four
years, street masking was legalized. But it must be remembered that although costumes are
worn for both, Mardi Gras is not
Halloween. Gore and mayhem may work for All Hallow's Eve, but for Mardi Gras, glamour is
de rigour. Feathers, beads,
glitter, spangles -- all work well on Mardi Gras. Tuxedoes, ball gowns, and boas work.
Fake blood and Freddie Krueger
gloves do not. The early Mardi Gras consisted of citizens wearing masks on foot, in
carriages, and on horseback. The first
documented parade in 1837 was made of a costumed revelers. The Carnival season eventually
became so wild that the
authorities banned street masking by the late 1830's. This was an attempt to control the
civil disorder arising from this annual
celebration. This ban didn't stop the hard core celebrators. By the 1840's, a strong
desire to ban all public celebrations was
growing. Luckly, six young men from Mobile saved Mardi Gras. These men had been members of
the Cowbellians, a group
that performed New Years Eve parades in Mobile since 1831. The six men established the
Mystick Krewe of Comus, which
put together the first New Orleans Carnival parade on the evening of Mardi Gras in 1857.
The parade consisted of two
mule-driven floats. This promoted others to join in on this new addition to Mardi Gras.
Unfortunately, the Civil War caused the
celebration to loose some of its magic and public observance. The magic returned along
with several other new krewes after
the war. Rituals and traditions have also evolved with non-krewe members as well. Those in
the heart of Carnival often begin
their celebrating on January 6, and don't let up until Ash Wednesday , remember, Mardi
Gras is the peak of the Carnival
Season, but it 's only one day. Therefore, New Orleans has officially established Lundi
Gras on the Monday before Fat
Tuesday because no one can get any work done as of the Friday before anyway. NEAT FACT:
Senegambia, where I noted
earlier that a lot of the original blacks had come from, had long been a crossroads of the
world where peoples and cultures
were assimilated in warfare and the rise and fall of great empires. An essential feature
of the cultural materials brought from
Senegambia as well as from other parts of Africa was a willingness to add and incorporate
useful aspects of new cultures
encountered.
This attitude was highly functional in a dangerous and chaotic world. New Orleans became
another crossroads where the river,
the bayous and the sea were open roads; where various nations ruled but the folk continued
to reign. They turned inhospitable
swamplands into a refuge for the independent, the defiant, and the creative
"unimportant" people who tore down all the barriers
of language and culture among peoples throughout the world and continue to sing to them of
joy and the triumph of the human
spirit.