Nathalie Dessens
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780813060200
- eISBN:
- 9780813050614
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813060200.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
The first half of the nineteenth century was, for New Orleans, a seminal period. Based on a voluminous correspondence, archived at The Historic New Orleans Collection, the present book draws a ...
More
The first half of the nineteenth century was, for New Orleans, a seminal period. Based on a voluminous correspondence, archived at The Historic New Orleans Collection, the present book draws a chronicle of the Crescent City in the 1820s and 1830s. Starting in 1818, six years after Louisiana became a state, the 1200-page correspondence of Jean Boze, a resident of New Orleans, to Henri de Sainte-Gême, a former inhabitant of the city returned to his hometown in Southwestern France, describes at length the extraordinary changes the city underwent during the early American period. A small provincial frontier town in the early nineteenth century, it was the third largest city in the United States in 1840. Over these three decades, the city grew and modernized, taking advantage of its strategic geographical position at the mouth of the Mississippi River to become a bustling crossroads of the Atlantic World, connecting the young American Republic, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. It also welcomed, in numbers unheard of until then, new migrants from the United States, Europe, and the former colony of Saint-Domingue, which became, in 1804, the Haitian republic. These migrants changed the face of the city and established with the Creole population complex relationships that eventually shaped the original identity of the city. The book, following Boze's eyes, draws an original chronicle of one of the most unusual cities in the United States, trying to understand and explain the process that turned the city into the Creole capital.Less
The first half of the nineteenth century was, for New Orleans, a seminal period. Based on a voluminous correspondence, archived at The Historic New Orleans Collection, the present book draws a chronicle of the Crescent City in the 1820s and 1830s. Starting in 1818, six years after Louisiana became a state, the 1200-page correspondence of Jean Boze, a resident of New Orleans, to Henri de Sainte-Gême, a former inhabitant of the city returned to his hometown in Southwestern France, describes at length the extraordinary changes the city underwent during the early American period. A small provincial frontier town in the early nineteenth century, it was the third largest city in the United States in 1840. Over these three decades, the city grew and modernized, taking advantage of its strategic geographical position at the mouth of the Mississippi River to become a bustling crossroads of the Atlantic World, connecting the young American Republic, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. It also welcomed, in numbers unheard of until then, new migrants from the United States, Europe, and the former colony of Saint-Domingue, which became, in 1804, the Haitian republic. These migrants changed the face of the city and established with the Creole population complex relationships that eventually shaped the original identity of the city. The book, following Boze's eyes, draws an original chronicle of one of the most unusual cities in the United States, trying to understand and explain the process that turned the city into the Creole capital.
Nathalie Dessens
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780813060200
- eISBN:
- 9780813050614
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813060200.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
The two decades in which Jean Boze wrote to Henri de Ste-Gême were a wonderfully ebullient period in New Orleans's history. Transitioning, in less than three decades, from a very provincial colonial ...
More
The two decades in which Jean Boze wrote to Henri de Ste-Gême were a wonderfully ebullient period in New Orleans's history. Transitioning, in less than three decades, from a very provincial colonial town to the largest metropolis of the American South was not easy for the Crescent City. The conclusion summarizes this transition as seen through Boze's eyes and suggests in what ways the book complements the most recent historiography by showing how, if New Orleans seems to have often been divided along linguistic lines and according to ethnic origins, the early American period shaped the city's identity in a way that was specific to it. The divisions and oppositions became more indistinct as time went by and the period seems to have been marked by a progressive cultural hybridization, each group adopting part of the other's traditions. They eventually inflected their cultural traditions to bring about a totally new culture, no longer African, or French, or Anglo-Saxon, or of any other origin, but a New Orleans culture, different from anything found in the rest of the United States, making New Orleans the “Creole Capital” of the young nation.Less
The two decades in which Jean Boze wrote to Henri de Ste-Gême were a wonderfully ebullient period in New Orleans's history. Transitioning, in less than three decades, from a very provincial colonial town to the largest metropolis of the American South was not easy for the Crescent City. The conclusion summarizes this transition as seen through Boze's eyes and suggests in what ways the book complements the most recent historiography by showing how, if New Orleans seems to have often been divided along linguistic lines and according to ethnic origins, the early American period shaped the city's identity in a way that was specific to it. The divisions and oppositions became more indistinct as time went by and the period seems to have been marked by a progressive cultural hybridization, each group adopting part of the other's traditions. They eventually inflected their cultural traditions to bring about a totally new culture, no longer African, or French, or Anglo-Saxon, or of any other origin, but a New Orleans culture, different from anything found in the rest of the United States, making New Orleans the “Creole Capital” of the young nation.
