The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans. Lawrence N. Powell,

Harvard University Press, 2012

In reading this book, I was particularly interested in what new insights the author was bringing to the table historically! The book provides special treatment on subjects like John Law’s role in developing the LA Colony, the difficulties of the journey sailing up the Mississippi River’s 125 miles from the Gulf to New Orleans, de Pauger and Blond de la Tour’s engineering of the design of the city, as well as what was going on in colonial designs for cities. Whereas, European cities grew up from crab claw-like networks of rural roads, in the new world colonial powers could start with a clean slate. Hence, New Orleans took on a checkerboard like design with god, government and military in the central place.  It was probably a page out of New Spain’s colonial designs.

The importing of slaves at Bienville’s behest from Senegal and Gambia resulted in 6,000 being imported in little more than a decade. On the east coast the colonies had grown slowly with slaves in contrast to Louisiana where there was an explosion of slavery suddenly, brought to create a tobacco based economy to compete with the English’s Chesapeake tobacco production. The Africans brought West African skills in agriculture, water craft, craftsmanship and construction. And they were fast learners of cooperage, cabinet making, carpentering, brick making, blacksmithing, and metal working.

Bienville granted himself huge land holdings. One extended for six miles upriver from the village of New Orleans and the other was directly across the river in what became Algiers. He filled his administration with relatives and friends from Canada, did sloppy bookkeeping, and alienated reps of the Company of the Indies. His moving of the capital to the riverine site of Nouvelle Orleans galled many. His enemies undermined his leadership. Eventually, he lost his properties through government intervention (p 77ff) and was recalled to Paris in 1723, but not before selling to the Jesuits a large track where he had built his home next to the city.

When Commandant Chepart ordered the Natchez Indians off of their home site so he could have a tobacco plantation, they retaliated when 700-800 warriors entered Fort Rosalie at 8 AM, asked to borrow arms for a hunt, then they shot and axed 145 men, 90 women and children, capturing 50 women and children and 300 African slaves. By 10 AM the slaughter was over. Gov. Perier responded the next year with a campaign of brutal repression, breaking leaders on the wheel and burning others at the stake. Five hundred Natches women and children were sold into Caribbean slavery. Pages 84-86.

Taverns and caberets prospered with wines and brandies. When not available, a beer brewed from corn by the Pierre Dreux , a friend of Bienville’s below the city, and local rum known as tafia satisfied the pallets. The entire colony was steeped in smuggling. Four-fifths of thefts before the Superior Counsel were over clothes, a commodity hard to come by. Contraband from Illinois and Spanish colonies flowed freely through the colony. New Orleans itself was a minor port. La Balize near the mouth of the river was where most maritime activity took place. The oft stylized fortress walls of the city were cartographers’ imaginations, not existing till the end of the French colony, when palisaded walls encircled by a ditch were thrown up.

The Jesuits, Bienville’s favorite order, took the land purchased from the founder and built a profitable indigo plantation, with tannery and other improvements. The Crown came down on them, charging the order with the pursuit of riches. Their lands were confiscated, chapels torn down, and they were ordered out of the colony. On the other hand, the Ursuline nuns succeeded enormously in their mission. The prime focus was on the education of women in preparation for Catholic motherhood. Women rose to a high literacy rate, influencing the government, commerce and courts. The Ursulines enter a contract for managing the hospital.

But the failures of the colony to become a tobacco producer, its penchant for contraband and the costs of its maintenance, soured governing officials in France.  A deal was in the air. Louis XV of France secretly gave Louisiana to his cousin, Charles III of Spain. The culprit was the Seven Years War, known in America as the French Indian War. Spain suffered severe losses as it allied with the French in fighting the English. Louisiana west of the Mississippi and the Isle of Orleans went to Spain to compensate for losses. (One might call it a consolation prize!) Don Antonio de Ulloa, an academic and scientist whose name still appears on a crater he identified on the moon, arrived in NOLA with ninety soldiers. His orders were to cooperate with the local French government, leaving French institutions intact.

Zealous French patriots began a campaign to prevent the transfer of LA to Spain. They increased the heat on Ulloa by 1768, sending reps to Paris to plea their case. All to no effect. Even the aged Bienville joined their effort. Spain send Alexandro O’Reilly with 2000 troops to put down the revolt. Arriving with great fanfare in the Plac d’Armes, he investigated the ring leaders, ordering five of them, La Freneire, Noyan, Caresse, Marquis and Joseph Milhet, to be executed “by ordinary pain of the gallows.” (Villere had died aboard a Spanish ship from a bayonet.)

Bienville had grown old in comfort in Paris. He died in 1767. Spain never developed the industrial capacity to manufacture the raw products from their colonies. That flaw was exploited by England, Holland and France. Thus, the Spanish bullion shipped from South America went to the palms of those with industrial capacity. Spain’s empire days were waning. After O’Reilly in 1770 sailed back to Cuba with most of his troops, his second in command, Luis de Unzaga, placed in charge, winked at the English merchants who moved back into the Spanish colony. Bayou Manchac, the British port of entry on the river, supplied their contraband. Oliver Pollock delivered urgently need flour to Unzaga and gained trading authorization in the Colony. Galvez came to LA intent on driving the British out of West Florida. The Spanish supplied gun power and medical supplies to George Washington’s rebels with Oliver Pollock providing money and leadership. Pollock alas became the aid-de-camp to Galvez for the West Florida campaign. Baton Rouge, Natchez, Mobile and Pensacola fell to the Spanish

Indigo and tobacco became major LA crops… the blue indigo dye was in demand by Germany, Russia and Sweden to color their uniforms.  Smuggling continued with LA as the sieve.

The character of the city was one of indulgence. There was money to burn with the new found sugar craze in the booming port. Dice rolled. Wine, rum in the form of low quality tafia, and whiskey flowed. Taverns, bawdier houses, dance halls, cafes and billiard parlors were crowded. Gov. Carondelet shut down several of the bars which reopened as soon as he left for duties in Ecuador! (p. 219) Dancing was the rage. In the winter they danced to stay warm and in the summer they danced to stay cool. The ballrooms were segregated by age and race, one night for adults, one for children, and a third for free people of color.

The importing of Africans as slaves resulted in 3000 in French LA by 1731. With the demise of the Company of the Indies, the traffic waned. The Spanish turned that around, importing large numbers from Africa to increase the growth of indigo and tobacco. Leading planters and government officials trafficked in black bodies to enrich themselves. Oliver Pollock, Evan Jones, two Daniel Clarks, the Beauregards, the Dupuys, the Labatuts, Jean-Francois Merieult (whose grand home is the HNOC in the French Quarter) and Pierre Maspero who founded the famous coffee house and slave market, all trafficked in slaves. Imports of slaves increased the population from 5600 to 30,000 during the Spanish Colonial Period (1763-1803). After originally liberalizing the Code Noir, the Spanish modified it later to curtail slave liberties. The explosion of LA as a sugar empire following Etienne de Bore’ innovation in granulating sugar extended the importing of slaves.

Marronnage was the episodes of runaway slaves that fostered about fifty maroon colonies in America over two centuries. They ran for the hills, forests, and swamps to eke out lives for themselves by planting, hunting, trapping and fishing. They grew commerce by trading with plantation slaves and making products for sale. Barrels, squared lumber for saw mills, bowls, boats, pirogues and other tradable goods brought in money for gunpowder and other necessities. Juan St. Malo was a celebrated leader of Ville Gaillarde in Bas de Fleuve (current day St. Bernard Parish) where up to a hundred cimarrons lived south of Lake Bourgne. He was hunted down in a land and lake search of the area. Upon wounding and capture he was sentenced to death with others from the village. In subsequent generations the Dirge of San Malo was heard in song in St. Bernard Parish.

Similarities between European religion and that of Africa resulted in a blending of beliefs where they met in LA. Catholic pantheon of saints and angels aligned easily with the deities and ancestors to whom Africans called on to intercede. (p. 265). Voudou in LA evolved in such an environment.

Women gravitated to commercial enterprises as traders in reed baskets, fruits & vegetables. Bright appareled slave women came alive in the plaza on Sundays. Congo Square evolved as the cultural center of Africans with their polyrhythms upon which the city’s musical genius would one day be built. (p. 271)

Manumission was a safety valve to avoid the best and brightest rebelling in hopelessness. The prospect of freedom was an incentive to stay with the system. The Spanish introduced coartacion’, the right of self-purchase, believing that Africans were as human as they were, and were deserving of the opportunity to earn their freedom. Both approaches were used for freedom, creating a large community of free people of color (FPC) in LA. The FPC struggled to expand their freedoms to equality with those of whites. Pedro Bailly promoted equal rights until he was sent to prison in Cuba, after which he returned, living under the existing restrictions.

The Louisiana Purchase clearly resulted from Napoleon’s thorough defeat by the slave rebellion in Haiti, leading to his decision to sell LA for $15 M to use in a war with England. The funds were diverted to other battles. Jefferson faced the task of bringing the multicultural city and the vast territory into the Union.

With the influx of immigrants, both farmers and artisans, into the part of Louisiana east of the Mississippi, particularly Kentucky & Tennessee, the flow of goods down the river poised New Orleans for a major role. “Through an accident in history, New Orleans had become that place, a strategic strait suddenly poised to command the commerce of a fabulously fruitful continent.” (p. 315) After the LA Purchase New Orleans became more French with the arrival of Haiti refugees and French from the old country. Then Jean and Pierre Lafitte from Bordeaux gained influence with a brigand of privateers in Barataria by developing Grand Terre and an inland site known as “The Temple” into commercial bazaars with contraband for plantation and city buyers.

The volume concludes with the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815, noting that not only was the city an accident, so was the American victory over10,000 crack British troops. The Brits chose the wrong direction for the invasion through the lakes, bayous, swamps and wetlands, giving the Americans their greatest advantages.

This book adds a lot of new and fresh perspectives to understanding the history of the City.

Bill Norris

5/17/12

Click to download the Delgado Community College Summer 2012 Course Schedule

PROFESSIONAL TOUR GUIDING
XXVV704

Instructor: Dr. William Norris

Sect 101 Mondays 6pm – 9pm
10 Theory Sessions: June 4 – August 6
City Park Bldg 2
Room 221

5 Field Experience Sessions: Saturdays

45 Contact Hrs. (4.5 CEU)
This course is designed to train and prepare students for the city tour guide test. It also is a great way to gain skills in the tourism industry as well as detailed knowledge of the city of New Orleans.

Registration:
CITY PARK
Mon.-Thurs. 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.
Fri. 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
Delgado Community College
615 City Park Avenue
Building 2, Room 219
New Orleans, LA 70119
(504) 671-6474
(504) 671-5496
(504) 671-6113
(504) 671-6366 (FAX)

Butler had grown up in Lowell, Massachusetts the famous textile mill town. His mother was a poor widow who ran a boarding house for female textile mill working women. Growing up in this hard scrabble life he chose law for his profession. Not getting clients from the prominent white shoe attorneys, he had to do it his own way. He mastered the law to the point that he could pull a thread out of any case and make it fall to pieces.

He was making a princely income of $18K and had developed a political career as a state legislator, a leader in the Democratic Party and a candidate for governor in 1860. Having led a volunteer militia was his only qualification for an appointment as Major General by Lincoln. Butler had voted for Jefferson Davis as the party’s nominee and opposed Negroes being enrolled in the militia. His peers said he was less a major general than a politician. He was assigned to Fortress Monroe on the Chesapeake at the James River, a Federal installation deep in the Confederacy’s territory.

Within a day of his arrival at the Fortress three runaway slaves arrived at the facility seeking asylum. Shortly after, their owners came to retrieve them. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Act required their return to their owners. But, Butler reasoned, confiscating the property of Confederates, whether a rifle or a slave, was a necessary part of the conflict. He refused to release them. Within days the issue reached Lincoln. Newspapers deplored the idea of returning the slaves to the South.

Within a week the issue came to Lincoln’s desk. He issued no order to Butler. Meanwhile, “contraband” as they were called, by the hundreds arrived at the fort for freedom. Soon there were a thousand under his command. Butler took them in. He declared that when they reached the fort they became free. It would be fourteen months before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, resolving the issue upon which Butler, with his keen legal mind, had taken a stand.

For the capture of New Orleans, Butler was sent out with Captain Farragut to take the city. He became the senior military official in charge of the surrendered city. Thousands of blacks streamed into city from the surrounding plantations. He was one of the first Union commanders to enlist Negro troops, which he did without authorization from the Lincoln Administration. They served in the bayou country and most honorably in the Union battle for the Mississippi River Confederate position at Port Gibson. He fought to secure equal treatment, including equal pay for black soldiers (at which he was unsuccessful) as well as to protect them from being re-enslaved. Butler’s legal background served him well in the issue of fugitive slaves.

After the war Butler reentered politics as a radical Republican. He was instrumental in passing the federal Civil Rights Act of 1875, which mandated equal treatment for blacks in the public accommodations, including restaurants, hotels and trains. The law was never enforced in the South, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1883. Not until the 1960 were those right reinstated. 7/25/11

1632 – 1654 French colonists crossed the Atlantic to a Canadian colony operated by the Company of New France.  They were from 7 provinces in the west central region ofFrance, due south ofNormandy. La Rochellewas the port nearby.  Seeking to escape the religious Protestant/Catholic wars and the famines and epidemics that followed, they chose to immigrate.

 By 1755 the British in the French & Indian War were taking over Acadia, the region around Nova Scotia.  They imported English sympathizers, rounding up the French for deportation.  The men were told to appear at the fort.  Four hundred appeared and were arrested, to their surprise, then deported.  This began the deportations to the east coast of America, San Domingue and by 1765 192 Acadians had immigrated to Louisiana.  The first in 1764 settled on the AcadianCoastin St. James and St. Johnparishes.  Among them were carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths, fishermen, shipbuilders, trappers, and sealers, as well as farmers and herders.  They grew wheat, rye, corn, oats, peas, potatoes, cabbages, apples, flax and hemp.  Pigs, sheep and cattle were raised.  Welcomed and assisted by the Spanish, they established farms and vacheries (cattle ranches) along the MS River and bayous Lafourche, Teche and Vermillion, spreading west into the grassland prairies ofsouthwest LA.  Oysters, shrimp, crabs and many fish were part of the diet.  Waterfowl, alligators, turtles, frogs and crawfish were prized.  An old saying, “If it walks, crawls, swims or flies, it ends up in the Cajun’s pot!”  CC, p. 30.

 Concessions of land based on arpents (192’) were provided where they built and farmed along the streams.  Transport was by bayou in a pirogue, bateaux or sailboat. Later, horse drawn carriages and wagons were added as roads developed along the streams.

The culture that grew up involved the Acadian cabin with its garconniere, fenced farm, fais-do-do, Acadian music with the Balfour brothers with accordian, guitar, violin, and triangle, zydeco by Clifton Chenier,  la boucherie,  weddings, crawfishing, the Catholic Church, courier Mardi Gras, festivals, and its legendary cuisine made world famous by Paul Prudomme.

 CAJUN COUNTRY. BJ Ancelet, JD Edwards, & G Pitre.Jackson:University Press of Ms. 1991. pps 256.

 Evangeline by HenryWadsworth Longfellow. LB Semple, ed.London: Macmillian, 1905, 137 pps. The poem tells of the idyllic time inAcadia when Evangeline, beautiful daughter of wealthy farmer Benedict Bellafontaine was engaged to marry her love, Gabriel, the blacksmith’s son.  On the night of the wedding the British announced the deportation, burned thevillage ofGrande Pre, shipping the exiles to other shores.  Separated, the lovers search for each other, Evangeline traveling by boat down theMississippi to the Bayou Plaquemines,Atchafalaya and finally the Teche at St. Martinville.  There she learns from his father that her love has just left to go west, so they set out in search of him, always a few days behind him. She winters at a mission in the west, to no avail.  Rumors of Gabriel inMichigan send her to find an empty cabin.  Finally, she reachesPhiladelphia where she joins a cloister. There she ministers to the poor in almshouses.  Near death herself, she stares at a man, dying in an almshouse, her Gabriel.  They embrace later to be buried in graves together with stone tablets to tell their story.

Bill Norris, Ph.D.     6/14/2010

 1682    LaSalle claims the center of the continent for Louis XIV

1699    Iberville and Bienville arrive to start the French Colony

1718    Bienville founds New Orleans

 1719    Slaves begin arriving; 3,000 over the next twelve years

1722    Adrien de Pauger lays out the city, now the French Quarter

1727    Ursuline nuns arrive for education and improvement of the city

 1729    Natchez Indians revolt

1763    Louis XV gives LA to King Charles III of Spain in settling the Seven Years War

1769    General O’Reilly arrives with 2,000 soldiers to take over the colony

 1788    A fire burns down 850 buildings of 1,000 in French Quarter

1794    Etienne de Bore successfully granulates sugar

1795    Eli Whitney invents his cotton engine, hence the “cotton gin”

 1803    Louisiana Purchase: New Orleans & territory west of Ms River for $15 M

1812    First steamboat arrives; Nicholas Roosevelt & wife as the investors

            Louisiana statehood; 15 states in whole or part were carved out of LA

1815    Battle of New Orleans at Chalmette; Gen. Andrew Jackson, the hero

 1834    City of Lafayette (Garden District) founded by Samuel Peters

1861-65  Civil War; New Orleans surrenders in 1862; occupied by Union

1884    Cotton Centennial held on the site of Audubon Park

 1897    Plessy vs Ferguson decision by U.S. Supreme Court: “Separate but Equal”

1897 – 1917   Storyville, a red light district, flourished on lakeside of Basin Street

1936    The State est.Vieux Carre Commission after crusade by Elizabeth Werlein

 1954    Brown vs Board of Education decision

1964    Ruby Bridges integrates white city school    

Native Americans
French Colony
Ursulines
Madeliene Hachard
Spanish Colony
LA Purchase
Sugar/Cotton/Steam
Battle of NO
Garden District
NO-Carrollton RR
Architecture
Michaela Pontalba
John McDonogh
French Quarter
VCC – Eliz Werlein
City Park

John Jas Audubon
Wetlands
Katrina
MRGO
Coastal Erosion
Ms Riv levee system
Ead’s jetties
Diversion Canals
Lake Ponchartrain
Flood of 1927
Baldwin Woods
Creole/Cajun
Cuisine & chefs
Mardi Gras
Cultural Differences
billnorristours.com

This book presents the story of human origins over the past 6 million years, combining archaeological, artifact and genetic data to reveal the saga. It is a companion book with the exhibit of the same name at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. Here is a list of human developments:

6 M years ago – Walking upright on short legs

5 M

4 M

3.6       Early human foot print trails

3 M

2.6       Tool making & eating meats from large animals; sharing tools & foods

2 M

1.8       Travel to new regions on longer legs

1.6       Hand axes made of stone served hominins for 1 M years

1 M     Beginning of a millennia of dramatic climate fluctuations that challenge survival

800 K  Gathering at the hearths

500 K  Rapid increase of brain size; longer childhood and adolescence corresponded with increased socialization and environmental changes between wet & dry and hot & cold

250 K Communicating with symbols

195 K  Homo sapiens first evolve

100 K  Tools for capturing fast and dangerous prey

90 K  Special fishing tools

60 K  Homo sapiens begin worldwide dispersal out of Africa

50 K  Lighter built bodies

40 K  Creating paintings, figurines and cave art

35 K  Music is created with flutes made of mammoth and swan bones

17 K  The last of our hominin cousins dies out leaving only homo sapiens

16 K  Domestication of dogs from the wolf; used in hunting

10,500 Plant and animal domestication appears; goats first, then cattle

Cereal grains followed with wheat, barley, peas and lentils

8,000  Using symbols to represent words and concepts

7,000  Sumerians in Mesopotamia develop city-states and large-scale societies

TODAY

H sapiens survived because of strategies of adaptation for climate, competition, foods, environments and conditions

One thousand years ago humans numbered about 10 million. Today we are 7 billion!

Upcoming Discovery Channel History Research Program

Born Dec. 29, 1779; son of John & Elizabeth Wilkins McDonogh; a Scotsman and Revolutionary War veteran who owned a brickyard is South Baltimore.  His parents raised him in strict Calvinistic principles. He apprenticed to a wealthy Baltimore merchant, William Taylor, at age 17; visited New Orleans as a young man; in 1800 Taylor sent JM to Liverpool to establish a branch of John & William Taylor. From there he was sent to NO as Taylor’s agent at 21 in September of 1800. By 1805 he had amassed a small fortune for himself and owned a full warehouse!

 How did he do it?  Based on 67 volumes of Wm Taylor’s business correspondence, 13 letters from Rezin D. Shepherd detailed JM’s activities. “Those remarkable letters portray McDonogh as a secretive, opportunistic, ungrateful, aggressive man who used his former employer as a stepping stone to success. While Taylor pleaded for cash remittances to avert financial disaster, McDonogh made heavy drafts, as much as $30,000 at a time, on Taylor’s firm and used this money to speculate in sugar which he shipped to New York and Philadelphia. He purchased fine quality, dry sugar for his own account and send bad sugar to Taylor. At the same time he speculated in lands and traded in Negro slaves.  Nor would  he allow Taylor to share in his successful ventures. Rather, he tried to keep his dealings secret” (Nuhrah,  p. 10).  Taylor severed relationship with McDonogh. And when Taylor suffered bankruptcy in 1815-1816, McDonogh invited the old man to make his home with McDonogh and he did so in 1817! (p. 11)

He began acquiring vast real estate holdings  in La. & Florida. He was elected Director of La. State Bank in 1806 at 27 yrs old; lived in his home at Chartres & Toulouse (dwn riv/lakeside) (Nuhrah said JM had an uptown house); volunteered with Beale’s Rifles in Battle of New Orleans. He remained a bachelor all his life.  Ciravolo wrote Bill Norris that JM was a founding member of Christ Episcopal Church in 1805.

He was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1818, withdrawing from society and moving to his plantation overlooking the city from the west bank  in 1818, called McDonoghville. He owned brick yards & plantations; made most of his money in real estate speculation, as a merchant and as a factor for other planters.  He pioneered farm machinery, flood control and “scientific” farming. He was regarded as a miser and an eccentric; criticized for renting his houses to prostitutes in city.

JM rarely stayed at home more than a few weeks at a time, making hundreds of trips to every part of the state, looking after property, visiting friends, advising lawyers and inspecting lands for sale. Some of his travels was purely social.  He delighted  in dining with Andrew Durnford FMC whose son, Thomas, was JM’s godchild. Thomas studied medicine and assisted JM in his real estate holdings, often staying at McDonogh’s house. (Nuhrah p.14)

JM’s brother William, “Billy,” came to stay with him, to JM’s delight.  Unfortunately, in 1832 Billy died of cholera, greatly affecting JM, strengthening his resolve to make himself useful to others. He was generous in many of his actions, but could demand a pound of flesh in other business dealings.

Rumors of him being a miser are misplaced.  He dined on a mahogany table set with imported porcelain on Irish linen, using heavy sterling silver tableware, while his liquor cabinet was abundant in fine imported liquors.  He preferred fine meats and excellent foods, as receipts have documented.  He subscribed to at least five newspapers, reading tax sales, auction notices and criticism hurled at him by contemporaries. He gave generously to charities and sent two slave children to Pennsylvania for educations. Walking was his exercise of choice for a sound body. (ibid, p. 13)

He had title to about 700,000 acres, for the most part, swamp lands around New Orleans.  He proposed the concept of the Bonne Carre Spillway 116 years before it was finally built.

McDonogh pursued the welfare of his slaves, their educational and moral training. His slaves were trained to be managers, leasing his property and collecting rents. He financed Andrew Durnford’s purchase of one of his plantations down river from New Orleans. He developed a profit sharing plan for his slaves whereby they could buy their freedom, assisting 300 slaves in obtaining freedom. He founded the NO chapter of American Colonization Society to aid slaves in returning to Africa. Two decades before Civil War he helped 80 of his slaves start anew in Africa with tools, skills, clothes and money.

He strongly advocated public schools for the children of the city.  He bought the Allard Plantation at auction and willed it to the city providing land for City Park. When he died on Oct. 26^th, 1850 he had accumulated 610,000 acres of land; he bequeathed $3,000,000 to Baltimore and New Orleans to be used for education. After a legal battle and extensive legal fees, his estate was settled, providing an orphan society & Am. Colonization Soc $100,000 each. Baltimore started McDonogh Institute for boys in 1873. New Orleans used funds to build public schools naming many of them after McDonogh

McDonogh’s old  home on Homer Street in Algiers slipped into the river. His tomb is in the Old McDonoghville Cemetery, but is empty. He was reinterred in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore in 1860 by his own request to lie with his parents. McDonogh’s statue is in Lafayette Sq. on St. Charles Ave. across from Gallier Hall.

In all 35 schools were built with all or part McDonogh funds until those funds were used up in 2002.  The City Government raided the McDonogh endowment for $500,000 to promote the Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil War.  McDonogh #15 is a magnet school for the Arts in the public school system located in 700 block of St. Philip Street. It has about 300 students. The site was formerly the St. Philip Theatre, site of early plays, operas and quadroon balls.

John McDonogh: His Life and Work Wm T Childs, Baltimore:1939

Dictionary of Louisiana Biography NO:La Hist Assoc., 1988

Life and Work of John McDonogh  (Pamphlet) 1983 reprint. See THNOC Williams Library

Legacy of John McDonogh, G. Leighton Ciravolo, Lafayette LA:Univ of LA, 2002. p. 70.

See also, La Hist Quarterly Vol 26, page 143-150 for additional articles; Vol. 33, No 1 Jan 1950 “John McDonogh:Man of Many Facets La Hist Qtrly, vol 33, No 1; Jan 1950. (this article goes into his business deals, source of capital, & his slaves).

NO City Guide WPA, pp 361-362.  Beautiful Crescent, pp 98, 203. .” 

Arthur G. Nuhrah, “John McDonogh: Man of Many Facets” (La Historical Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 1, Jan 1950,  pps. 5-144)

LINCOLN IN NEW ORLEANS: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History, Richard Campanella, University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press, 2010, 381 pps.  BOOK NOTES by Bill Norris    1/1/11

 Allen Gentry and Abraham Lincoln poled out of Rockport, Indiana into the Ohio River on Friday or Saturday, April 18 or 19 of 1828 for the purpose of delivering a cargo to the New Orleans market. The flatboat, made of course cut timbers, measured about 15′ by 40′ had a flat bottom and canopy or roof over whole or part for protection of the crew and cargo. These boats were navigated by long paddles on each side often called “broad horns.” Owned by Gentry’s father, it carried a cargo of “barrel pork” often used to feed slaves. They planned to drift in the currents by day and tie up at night to get a early start before daylight the next day. Spring was the prime floating time for flatboats with the snow melt and spring rains raising the river waters and increasing the current flow. Their boat moved at about 5.5 miles per hour.

Appreciating this book best begins by reading Appendix A – Western River Commerce in the Early 1800′s and Appendix B – New Orleans in the 1820′s and 1830′s where Campanella presents an overview of those two dimensions of the culture that affected life in New Orleans. With the settings described the reader can better understand the account of Lincoln’s entrepreneurial voyages of 1828 and 1831. I have taken the liberty of rearranging it here. BN

RIVER COMMERCE – Campanella describes the types of commercial boats on the River in that period, specifically the raft, flatboat, keelboat and the steamboat. The raft was the earliest and cheapest, made of logs cobbled together to float on the surface became more sophisticated by 1780′s as carpentry evolved. The flatboat that evolved could be up to 20′ wide by 40′ to 80′ long with raised sides and a roof over the deck, manhandled with long paddles as it drifted in the current. The keelboat, used for other purposes, could be 15′ wide by 40′ long in the shape of a canoe with a center board made of a large beam forming a keel in the center at the bottom of the hull. It, too, would have a cover over the deck. Carrying 30 tons originally, they grew to ten times that in later versions. The keelboat was favored for a return trip up river, being pushed, paddled, and pulled upriver against the current with an occasional wind being caught by a single sail to help. New Orleans to St. Louis could take three months. Flatboats outnumbered keel boats by twenty-to-one. During Lincoln’s voyages, over one-thousand flatboats registered in New Orleans.

Then came steam. As early as 1786 John Fitch propelled a large skiff with steam on the Delaware River. Robert Fulton brought design skills in both the U.S. and France to improve boats and engines. Teaming up with Robert Livingston they were joined by Nicholas Roosevelt as investor in building the New Orleans in Pittsburgh to serve in a monopoly for transportation in the Louisiana section of the Mississippi River. The maiden voyage to New Orleans in 1811 was legendary. The New Orleans served for three years before a snag pierced its hull and it sank. By then it had proven its technology. Keelboats died with the advent of steamboats, but flatboats continued in use until the 1880′s though reduced in numbers.

Loads often included pork, flour, whiskey, tobacco, bagging and bale rope. Tennesseans carried cotton. Foodstuffs included corn, apples, cider, dried fruit, lard, beef, venison and whiskey. Others transported steers, chickens, turkeys cows and horses. Some provided shops for extended stays in river towns with tinners, blacksmiths, toolmakers and dry-goods stores. Thieves and bandits preyed at night on boats tied up on the shore.

NEW ORLEANS IN 1820s–1830s – New Orleans was characterized by opportunity in the early 19^th Century. Etienne de Bore’ with his process for granulating sugar, Eli Whitney with his cotton gin and Fulton’s steamboat combined to create a mega trend for opportunity at the lower end of the Mississippi River. The 1803 Louisiana Purchase followed in 1812 by statehood created a fertile environment for prosperity. A fortune could be created rapidly with certainty in the river city. Banks swarmed to the city. The creole populous of French, Spanish, and Germans were split between Catholics, Protestants and Jews with Catholics predominating. The financial heyday demanded a continual flow of slaves with auction houses selling them for an average of $500 each from pens above Canal St. and below Esplanade Ave. The largest population of free people of color in America resided in the city, often wealthy and slave owners. In the 1830′s railroads arrived with the Ponchartrain Railroad pulled by horses out Elysian Fields from the river to the lake followed by the New Orleans to Carrollton line that still runs on St. Charles Ave. Faubergs, or suburbs, grew above and below the old, creole French Quarter. The city teeming with energy was a magnet to thousands wanting a part of the American dream.

LINCOLN’S 1828 VOYAGE – Allen Gentry’s father hired Abe Lincoln to assist his son in getting the flatboat to New Orleans. Their cargo is best believed to have been “barrel pork” a product widely used to feed slaves. At the spring flow rate they drifted at about 5.5 miles an hour, very likely tying up at night for rest and to avoid night time hazards. Neither man left a journal of the voyage. Describing the trip requires reasoning from sources, including Lincoln’s own comments in later years, and studying similar experiences. Their trip took them down the Ohio River to its confluence with the Mississippi, then down river past numerous historic river towns. Memphis, Walnut Hills (Vicksburg), Rodney, Natchez, Fort Adams, Bayou Sara (St. Francisville), Baton Rouge, Donaldsonville, and Convent. The sugar plantations above New Orleans would have provided sights and stops. Abe was in the heart of the southern slave society based on cotton and sugar cane. Often boatmen marketed their wares to the plantations as they passed. Many other flatboats were working their ways down the river at the same time. Some provided special services to the river men such as banking, food, entertainers, innkeepers, and prostitutes. Tying up a night, often with groups of other boats for security, afforded them occasions for interaction with other flatboat river men. On shore were a veritable industry of vice on the riverside of sandbars with taverns, dance halls, grog shops, boarding houses and brothels, catering to flatboat men. Continually, steamboats going up and down the river dodged the flatboats drifting with the current while both struggled to avoid sandbars and snags.

One memorable experience was a raid on their vessel while tied up at night. Seven Blacks, probably runaways seeking provisions, jumped aboard and attacked the two boatmen. Evidence suggests the area of Convent LA in St. James Parish as the location of the battle. Gentry and Lincoln fought with the stick bearing men, Gentry calling to Lincoln to get the guns and shoot. With that the men fled, indicating they understood English, being American slaves imported from the east coast, rather than Creole French speaking natives slaves of south Louisiana. There were no guns aboard. Both men were injured in the struggle. They weighed anchor and floated downriver for safety.

After a 1276 mile journey from Rockport, Indiana Gentry and Lincoln arrived in the bustling port of New Orleans. Steamboats, flatboats and sailing vessels jammed the port on the east bank. The dates were likely May 14th or 17th for their arrival. They paid their $6 landing fee to the city. Vessels crowded the piers, levees and wharfs from the lower Garden District, passed the French Quarter to the Bywater downriver. Sailing vessels tied up from the French Quarter to the Bywater. Steamboat docked in a section above and below Canal Street. The flatboats moored in the Warehouse District. The first task was to market their goods. Many shipments arrived as consignments to certain brokers, traders and factors. Once unloaded the flatboats had about 48 hours to disassemble and sell the boards to builders, lumber yards, and the city. Demand for lumber was strong. Boards were often used to deck the waterfront over the mud. The shifting river added land to the east bank batture by means of alluvial deposition, extending hundreds of yards from the original levee. Where the boats tied up in 1828 is now located under Convention Blvd and Tchoupitoulas Street. One riverboat hull was found buried at a constructionsite on land.

When the produce was sold and the boat disassembled it was time for vituals, drink, entertainment and shelter. The scene was one of chaos in the streets with boatmen, steamboat crews, sailors, immigrants, slaves, free-people-of-color, French, Spanish, German, and the Irish overwhelming the city, plus hoards of Americans flocking to the waiting pots of gold. Inns, bars, taverns, coffee houses, oyster houses, cafe’s and restaurants invited passerby to join the fun, food and beverages. They may have visited the Chalmette battlefield, celebrating its 13th anniversary in 1828. Years later Lincoln sponsored a bill in the Illinois legislature to honor Andrew Jackson and the American victory at New Orleans over the British.

Slavery was everywhere in this city, the largest slave market in America. Brought there by steamboats, flatboats and coffles, walking overland from the east coast. The slaves were sold by advertisements, direct sales and auction house. The grim scenes of slavery were everywhere. Auctions placed families up to be sold individually to distant parts of the South as the victims wept. Northern observers could not believe the hardness of those handling the auctions. Slaves were lined up to be examined by prospective buyers for condition of teeth, feet, hands, limbs and joints. A slave with whelps from beatings or scars from branding was a warning of a trouble maker. Later, in 1841 Lincoln commented on his past observations of slavery, indicating his appalling awareness of the inhumanity of slavery, and to his amazement, the slaves resolve to tolerate the system with music, dancing, joking, and card playing. He said of slaves he had seen in chains, “The site was a continual torment to me.”

The return trip to Rockport by steamboat must have intrigued Lincoln, especially while making a swift trip upriver, to see all the flatboat men struggling in the current to get to New Orleans. If they left June 8th, they would have reached Natchez by June 11 and Vicksburg the next day. They would have made the 1276 mile return trip to Rockport by June 21, a thirteen day to two week trip, compared to their four week trip downstream. On return Lincoln’s earning were probably given to his father for family expenses and the lanky river man returned to work on the family farm much more knowledgeable of the world about him.

His family was induced to sell their farm in Indiana and move 200 miles to a site on the Sangamon River in Ohio, ten miles west of Decatur. There the Lincolns constructed a log cabin and began a new life. Shortly after, a political candidate came to town, making a bad speech, so a friend turned a box on its side, ushering Abe up to make a better speech re navigating the Sangamon River. Some credit this as his first political speech, nevertheless it was his first public audience for a speech on public issues.

LINCOLN’S 1831 VOYAGE -

On March 1, 1831 Lincoln and John Hanks set off to meet Denton Offutt in Springfield to take Denton’s flatboat with loaded cargo down river to New Orleans. When they got there Denton was having drinks at his favorite watering hole. No preparations had been made, neither boat construction nor cargo. They met John D. Johnston, the third crew member. Offutt offered to pay them fair wages to build a flatboat, felling trees, sizing logs, floatings them down river to a water powered saw mill for cutting into lumber, sawing lumber, designing and building the vessel. Measuring 18′ by 50′, it was considerably larger than the 1828 vessel. On April 19 the crew with Offutt poled out into the Sangamon River loaded with Offutt’s sacks of corn, sides of bacon, barrels of pork and some live hogs. More hogs were picked up downstream. The boat became stuck while passing by a mill dam threatening the venture. Abe came up with the solution, using another boat to unload the cargo which lightened the vessel, allowing the men to push it loose. Then it was reloaded. The voyage was saved from disaster.

The boat cruised in the slower current at about 4.75 mph or 66.5 miles per day. They entered the more turbulent Missouri River. At St. Louis, John Hanks returned to his home. Capt. Henry Shreve’s engineering work was succeeding in removing snags and sawyers, making the trip faster and safer. On this trip there is no indication that they stopped for sales to plantations, rather they delivered the cargo directly to New Orleans. They arrived May 12, 1831 after 1627 miles from New Salem. There were about 400 vessels in the harbor…tall ships, steamboats, flatboats, schooners, sloops and brigs. They completed the sales, unloading and disassembling in three weeks. Then they were free to see the city.

They were immersed in a sea of slavery seen from the pier to the streets to the auction houses. Hewett’s Exchange on the downriver lakeside of the intersection of Chartres and St. Louis streets sold seven per day, six days a week. Slave pens and brokers sold others. The abhorrence he felt regarding slavery never left him.

Coinciding with their visit the Ponchartrain R.R. had completed tracks (now Elysian Fields Blvd.) and held an Inaugural horse-drawn excursion from the French Quarter to Lake Ponchartrain. There lots were for sale in a new subdivision, named Milneburg for its founder, Alexander Milne. Lincoln very likely took in this new mode of transportation as well as a display of a steam train engine that showed off its potential for future steam powered transportation. Lincoln would later become a railroad attorney. Lincoln, Offutt and Johnston returned to New Salem by late June. Lincoln continued captaining flatboats to St. Louis in 1834-1835.

In Campanella’s lengthy conclusion the essence of his perspective is – Geographically, environmentally, culturally, racially, religiously, linguistically and economically, Lincoln’s trip to New Orleans informed and expanded his world view. p. 233