New Orleans

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NEW ORLEANS

NEW ORLEANS is located along a crescent-shaped portion of the Mississippi River, 120 miles from where it flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Bounded on the north by Lake Pontchartrain, much of the city lies below sea-level and is protected from flooding by natural and human-made levees. Between 1699 and 1762 the French who colonized Louisiana struggled with many problems and received only limited support from their government. However, they left an enduring imprint, reinforced by later French-speaking immigrants from Acadia and Saint Domingue. That legacy has remained evident in New Orleans. In 1718 Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, founded La Nouvelle Orléans. His assistant laid out streets in a gridiron pattern for the initial site, later known as the Vieux Carré. New Orleans became the capital of French Louisiana in 1722. French architecture, language, customs, and identity as well as the dominance of Roman Catholicism persisted across time. African slaves formed a large part of the colonial population and also shaped the city's culture.

By treaties in 1762 and 1763, the French government transferred most of Louisiana to Spain. Spanish governors generally proved to be effective administrators and operated in association with members of the city's government, the Cabildo. Spanish policies fostered an increase in the city's population of free people of color. During the latter part of the American Revolution, Governor Bernardo de Gálvez used New Orleans as a base for successful

military campaigns against British forts along the Gulf Coast. As farmers living in the western United States began shipping their produce down the Mississippi River, the port of New Orleans became vital to the new nation's economy. Alarmed by reports that Spain had ceded Louisiana back to France, U.S. president Thomas Jefferson sent ministers to Europe to engage in negotiations that led to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. At the Battle of New Orleans on 8 January 1815, General Andrew Jackson decisively defeated the British in the final military contest of the War of 1812, gaining national fame for himself and the city.

During the antebellum period, New Orleans thrived economically. Steamboat navigation and cotton production from Deep South plantations helped to make the city an entrepôt that briefly ranked as the nation's greatest export center. The New Orleans slave market became the country's largest. Slaves and free people of color sustained their own culture, particularly evident in gatherings at Congo Square. In addition to an influx of Anglo-Americans, Irish and German immigrants swelled the population. Repeated epidemics of yellow fever and cholera, however, killed thousands of residents. With traditions dating to the colonial period, Mardi Gras became an increasingly elaborate celebration. Friction between citizens of French ancestry and Anglo-Americans gave way to the combative nativism manifested by the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s.

Despite a large Unionist vote in the presidential election of 1860, New Orleans succumbed to secessionist hysteria following the victory of Abraham Lincoln. After an inept military defense of the Confederacy's largest port, the city was occupied by Union admiral David Farragut on 29 April 1862. Thereafter, General Benjamin Butler

earned local enmity for his forceful but effective management of the city. During Reconstruction, racial and political conflict erupted in a deadly race riot on 30 July 1866 and in the Battle of Liberty Place fought between the White League and city police on 14 September 1874.

In the late nineteenth century, New Orleans permitted its port facilities to deteriorate and its economy stagnated. The corrupt political leaders of the New Orleans Ring neglected basic public services. The completion of jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1879, however, enabled larger oceangoing vessels to dock at the city. Large numbers of Italian immigrants arrived, between 1890 and 1920, and the early twentieth century brought a resurgence of trade, particularly with South America. A community with a richand complex musical heritage, New Orleans promoted and nurtured early jazz. The city also housed the nation's most famous legalized vice district, Storyville. In the 1920s the Vieux Carré became a magnet for artists and writers, and a significant historic preservation movement began to emerge in the 1930s. As mayor from 1904 to 1920 and as boss of a powerful political machine, Martin Behrman brought many improvements in municipal services. His successors became ensnarled in political wars with governors Huey P. Long and Earl K. Long, periodically costing the city its powers of self-government.

World War II brought a surge in population and a booming economy, thanks to war-related industries, particularly shipbuilding. After the war, Mayor deLesseps Morrison initiated an ambitious building program, attracted new industries, and successfully promoted the city as an international port. Statewide support for segregation and weak local leadership produced the New Orleans school desegregation crisis of 1960, which branded the city as a stronghold of racism. In subsequent years whites in particular relocated to the suburbs, and by 2000 the city's population had shrunk to 484,674. In 1977 voters elected the city's first African American mayor, Ernest F. Morial. The completion of the Superdome in 1975, the hosting of a world's fair in 1984, and the opening of the Riverwalk shopping mall in 1986 and the Aquarium of the Americas in 1990 reflected a renewed vitality as well as an emphasis on tourism. Celebrated restaurants, medical facilities, and educational institutions also constitute important attractions of the Crescent City.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Din, Gilbert C., and John E. Harkins. The New Orleans Cabildo: Colonial Louisiana's First City Government, 1769–1803. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996.

Haas, Edward F. DeLesseps S. Morrison and the Image of Reform: New Orleans Politics, 1946–1961. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974.

Hirsch, Arnold R., and Joseph Logsdon, eds. Creole New Orleans: Race and and Americanization. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.

Ingersoll, Thomas N. Mammon and Manon in Early New Orleans: The First Slave Society in the Deep South, 1718–1819. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999.

Jackson, Joy J. New Orleans in the Gilded Age: Politics and Urban Progress, 1880–1896. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

Tyler, Pamela. Silk Stockings and Ballot Boxes: Women and Politics in New Orleans, 1920–1963. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996.

Samuel C.ShepherdJr.