Page 19 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - New Orleans
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INTRODUCING NE W ORLEANS 17
THE HISTORY OF
NEW ORLEANS
In 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto discovered the Mississippi River, but
it was the Frenchman Robert de La Salle who sailed down the river for the first time
in 1682. He erected a cross somewhere near the location of modern New Orleans,
claiming it and the whole of Louisiana for his king, Louis XIV.
French Colony colony diminished, criminals and
The first French settlements were prostitutes were deported from France
established on the Gulf Coast at to New Orleans, the first 88 women
Biloxi in 1709. It took another 19 years arriving from La Salpêtrière, a Paris
before Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de house of correction, in 1721. The first
Bienville, established a settlement on slaves had arrived a year earlier, and in
the Lower Mississippi at New Orleans. 1727, the Ursuline Sisters arrived and
In 1721, the engineer Adrien founded their convent. The Company
de Pauger laid out the French Quarter of the West speculative bubble
behind the levees that had been eventually burst and Law’s company
constructed. Two years later, the collapsed. In 1731, the king resumed
capital of the colony was moved control and sent Bienville back to
from Biloxi to New Orleans. govern and to quash the rebelling
However, the colony did not prosper, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians.
and the French Regent, Philippe Commerce began to grow, despite the
d’Orléans, turned over control to a restrictions that the French had imposed
private financier and speculator, on trade with England, Spain, Mexico,
Scotsman John Law, who floated Florida, and the West Indies. Much of it
stock in his Company of the West was illegal. By 1763, river traffic had
and promoted Louisiana as a utopia, grown so prodigiously that exports
which it was not. The natives were (indigo, sugar, rum, skins, and fur)
hostile, the land was a swamp, and totaled $304,000.
the climate pestilential, but, lured by By that time, the contest for the
Law’s advertisements, thousands of control of North America had begun
Germans and Swiss left for Louisiana in earnest; in 1755, the Seven Years’
and, if they survived the perilous ocean War had broken out between Britain
crossing, settled along the Mississippi. and France, Spain, and other
Whenever immigration to the new European powers.
1682 La Salle explores the 1720 The first 1727 The Ursuline 1763 Exports top
Mississippi and claims shipment of slaves Sisters arrive in $300,000
Louisiana for Louis XIV arrives on July 7 New Orleans
1550 1650 1750
1541 Spanish explorer 1718 Jean Baptiste Le 1721 88 women arrive from a
Hernando de Soto Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, house of correction. Adrien de
discovers the establishes a settlement Pauger lays out the Vieux Carré
Mississippi River
C. de la Motte, an aristocrat of the French colony
Americans take control of the city after the Louisiana Purchase
016-017_EW_New_Orl.indd 17 05/08/16 3:56 pm
