NEW FRANCE: LOUISIANA AND THE

GULF COASTThe Lower Mississippi Valley

SETTLING THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY In 1682, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, reached the

Mississippi river's mouth and proclaimed possession of the river and all the lands drained by it for France, naming this vast expanse "Louisiane," or “Louis' land.”In 1699, Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, sailed into the Gulf of Mexico. His party reached the mouth of the river on Shrove Tuesday and celebrated Mardi Gras with a mass and Te Deum. However, Iberville chose to establish a permanent settlement on the Gulf Coast rather than on the river because of the fear of large ships getting stuck coming into the mouth of the river.

LOUISIANAWhile Iberville returned to France for additional provisions and settlers, his brother, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, continued to explore the Mississippi River, but Iberville still insisted that the river was not navigable. Bienville had to delay creating a permanent settlement on the lower Mississippi River until 1718, when he founded the city of New Orleans on a crescent-shaped section of the river 100 miles from the mouth. He named France's newest settlement in honor of the ruling regent, the Duc d'Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS

TRADE WITH NATIVE AMERICANS

Through trade and gift-giving, Native Americans acquired a taste for such European items as sophisticated weapons, liquor, cloth, glass beads, and other trinkets. Europeans used their access to the supply of these goods to increase Native American dependency on them.

CULTURAL EXCHANGESNo one racial or ethnic group dominated during much of the colonial period. Native Americans made up the largest segment of Louisiana's population in the 1700s and shared food, medicines, material goods, and building and recreational practices with colonists.

Africans were also a powerful cultural force in Louisiana, mainly because they were introduced in large numbers during short time periods and came mostly from one region in West Africa and thus related more easily to one another.

NATCHEZ UPRISING

BLACK CODES, 1724Declares Catholicism the official religion of New France, expels Jews, and...

Forbids marriage of whites with slaves, manumitted Africans or free born African Americans. 

Children born from the marriages of slaves belong to the master of the mother.

Forbids gatherings, from holding public functions.Orders that slaves that hit their masters or commit any act of violence against a free person shall be put to death

BAMBARA CONSPIRACY

Indians and Africans occasionally worked together to oppose white rule, such as in the Bambara Conspiracy of 1731, when a plan to kill hundreds of white colonists was discovered, resulting in the execution of nine African slaves. 

RACE RELATIONS

In short, “the Louisiana elite pitted all of the races against one another, relying on blacks and natives to control lower-class whites, just as they employed Africans and Indians against one another.” Alan Taylor, American Colonies

LEGACIES

CONGO SQUARE

        Located in Tremé, historic Congo Square sits on Rampart Street in a corner of the Louis Armstrong Park Complex. The area was renamed many times, from Place Congo to Circus Square, then Beaureguard Square in the 18th and 19th centuries before it was finally changed to Louis Armstrong Park in the mid 20th century. Beginning in the earliest days of the city, it was one of several locations where enslaved Africans as well as some free people gathered for the purposes of dancing, merriment and recreation.  Beginning in 1817 as an effort to control such activities, the mayor restricted all such assemblies of enslaved people to this one location on Sunday afternoons.

Photo of Congo Square plaque.

CALAS VENDOR CALL

We sell it to the rich, we sell it to the poor,

We give it to the sweet brown-skin, peeping out the door.

Tout chaud, Madam, tout chaud!

Git ‘em while they’re hot! Hot cala! One cup of coffee, fifteen cents cala,

Make you smile the livelong day.

Cala, tout chaud, Madam, tout chaud! Get’em while they’re hot! Hot cala!

Calas Vendor

CALAS RECIPE

In 1940, during Federal Writers Project interviews, Remy Morand, who lived on St. Philip Street in Tremé, provided the following recipe for calas.

Creole Calas

4 cups flour 1 cup rice½ cup sugar ½ yeast cake

DIRECTIONS:

Cook rice to soft creamy mush, add sugar and stir well.Dilute yeast in lukewarm water, add to rice and sugar, then stir in flour.Let batter set to rise over night. Fry in deep fat oil (lard may be used).Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar. Serve hot with cocoa or coffee.

Madame Barbara Trevigne re-enacting a 19th century Praline Vendor

THE FRENCH AND THE SPANISH- 7 YEARS WAR

The Louisiana Territory, hand drawn map (left).  Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville statue in the French Quarter, known as the father of New Orleans (right). 

Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Viscount of Galveston and Count of Gálvez, statue in front of the World Trade Center, New Orleans, LA. Governor of Louisiana and Cuba in the 18th century and military leader during the American Revolution and their fight for independence

The French and the Spanish

GENS DE COULEUR LIBRE AND TREMÉ

        

Portrait of Esteban Miró

        

On December 20, 1803, France sold Louisiana to the Americans. On April 20, 1812, Louisiana entered the Union as the eighteenth state of the United States of America.

The Louisiana Purchase

The ceremony of the transfer of Louisiana to the U.S.

E. DEGAS, NEW ORLEANS COTTON EXCHANGE

BOIS DE FLECHE PLANTATION

Adrien Persac1861

BELLE ALLIANCE PLANTATION

Robert Tebbsc. 1927

CANE LOADING

George François Mugnierc. 1890

ETIENNE DE BORÉ

Rudolph Bohunekc. 1910

OAK ALLEY, NEW ORLEANS

SLAVE QUARTERS, C. 1860THIS SLAVE QUARTER COMPLEX WAS LOCATED ON A PLANTATION NEAR BUNKIE, LOUISIANA. IN THE BACKGROUND IS A LARGE SUGAR HOUSE.

NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI

CANE RIVER

OAKLAND PLANTATION, CANE RIVER

ST. AUGUSTINE CHURCH, CANE RIVER

MELROSE PLANTATION, CANE RIVER

Descendant of Marie Therese Coin Coin, gens de couleur libre, leading tour

FAMILY LIFE: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM CANE RIVER?

Servant of the Douglas Familyc. 1850

The Davidson FamilyWilliam Rumpler1858

THE NATCHEZ TRACE