N.O. [New Orleans?] My mother
came from the state of LA
[Louisiana?] & was a
native of the City of N.O.
[New Orleans?] After her
marriage she never
went back to America, but
for a very long time - perhaps
some 20 years I had always
wished to see the place from
which my family originated
or as it says in the Bible
- the pit from which I was
digged.
Unexpectedly the way
opened up for me to go
last summer; so I went
after crossing the Atlantic
on the Queen Mary. I spent
10 days in Canada,- a few
days in NY [New York?]. Then
flew south. Of recent years
NO [New Orleans?] and LA
[Louisiana?] has been
a place that many novelists
have written about. You
have the books of [Francis?]
[Parkenson?] Keyes, Lyle Saxon,
& Robert Tallent & of course
"Gone with the Wind". The
later book was about Georgia
not LA [Louisiana?] but you
have a good picture there of the
old Plantation Life & the
devotion of the old family
servants.
The state of which NO [New
Orleans?] was the capital
LA [Louisiana?] was of course
the property of France having
been named after Louis 14th.
Its' size at the time of Frances
acquisition was approx 1/3 of
the USA & eventually 13 states
accrued to the Union from it.
In 1697 Iberville was sent
from France to colonize L.A.
[Louisiana?] & founded his
first colony on the Bay of
Biloxi, which was an Indian
stronghold. The mouth of the
Miss [Missisippi?] where
these first Frenchmen landed was
completely flat land.
The early LA [Louisiana?]
which Iberville was put to colonize
was approx. « size of the U.S.
[United States?] 13 states.
an interminable
marshland breeding malaria,
yellow fever & cholera. The
great difficulty was to procure
land high enough on which to
build a city. [Roads there are not
excavated.] It is small
wonder then that for 24 years
they remained in Biloxi. At
the end of that time an
expedition was [fitted?] out to
explore the Miss [Mississippi?]
and a portage used by the Indians
was discovered some thirty
leagues from the mouth.
Explain Bayou.
The land
was comparatively high here
& so upon this spot was
founded in 1777 the city of Nouvelle
Orleans [New Orleans?] named in honour
of his Highness - the then regent
of France. Louis Phillipe
Duc d'Orleans. When exactly
Nouvelle Orleans became New
Orleans I don't know, but I
have in my possession a watch
which is about 100 years
old given by my "great grandfather
gave to my great grandmother
as an engagement present it
is inscribed - Nouvelle
Orleans.
LA remained for 45 yrs in
the possession of France, but
there we reach a [spot?] when
LA [Louisiana?] history became world
history - the 7 years war &
as we know from our school
days that war aided [discostroud?]
for France. Indeed in Nov.
1762 The King of Spain
accepted by secret treaty the
gift which the King of France made
to him of LA. [Loiuisiana?] It was
a year before the news reached LA
[Louisiana?] & 2 years after that
before a Gov. arrived. During this
period LA [Louisiana?] thought of
making herself a republic & the Gov.
was received with such hostility
that it was necessary to send 3000
picked soldiers from Sp. [Spain] to
quell the revolutionists. My great
grandfather was one of those
- and glad to say he was successful
[Zovo!?] It was he who raised
in the Place D'Armes the flag
of Charles III of Spain.
LA [Louisiana?] was well governed by the
Spanish. Fr. [French] & Spanish settlers
came quite happily together
& the races intermarried. It
was a time also of great
prosperity. Stories of the
Golden Age of Spanish Society.
Planters, Marquis of [Vandreuil?]
still persists for it was in
1798 that the Duke of Orleans
visited LA [Louisiana?]
& was entertained most
[extravagantly?]. Fortunes were
spent in lavish balls & dinners
given in his honour. He was
the guest of the Marquis de
[Moligny?] whose plantation
ajoined [adjoined?] that of
the Boulignys.
In 1830 he became King of France.
Another 50 years went by.
In 1800 by the Treaty of San
[Ildefauso?] N.O. [New Orleans?]
became along with the rest of the
colony French once more & exactly
20 days later France sold the colony
to the U.S. at the rate of 5 cents
per acre. It doubled as I have said
the size of the United States & in time
added 13 states to the Union. This
sale became known as the LA [Louisiana?]
purchase the 150th anniversary of which
is being celebrated [all?] [this?] year
in N.O. [New Orleans?] (Memoirs of
Pierre de Laureat) For over a century
then N.O. [New Orleans?] was French &
Spanish. The colonists were either
sugar planters or cotton planters. A
plantation might well [comprise?] the
size of a county in NI [Northern
Ireland?]. LA was governed directly
from Fr. [France?] or Spain by a
governor. They only traded with
the mother countries.
LA might have been on [another?]
for all the notice they took of
all [amena] damned yankies.
The Creoles of N.O. [New Orleans?] far
from being persons of
coloured blood as some
think were the product
of the most exclusive
strata of society. Their
pedigrees were long &
carefully guarded &
creole girls were chaperoned
to within an inch of their lives,
fair flowers of Southern womanhood
and of course had no truck with the
Americans whom they considered boorish [till?]
- that is why for such a very long time
even after the LA [Louisiana?] purchase
that the [reire] was in
America a state
more French than Fr. [France?] itself.
Civil [War] spelt [Ruin]
[for?] [with?] the freeing of the states.
The plantation the planters & the NO
[New Orleans?] today is an American city
fortunes there is [still?] that a
[cleavage?] of East [West] exemplified
by the Mardi Gras
celebrations, their love of good food
& a society within a society & by their
attitude to the coloured races.
