The devastation of cholera resumed in New Orleans on January 13, 1849 when the Medical Board pronounced that the disease had made its way into the levee. As was the case in the cholera epidemic of 1833, no one could explain why it had suddenly sprouted up again. There had not been many records indicating that ships from Europe had brought any cases of the disease in the most recent months. Theodore...
The article "U.S. Court Orders New Orleans To Start Pupil Integration in Fall: Outlines Grade-a-Year Plan After Board's Refusal to Present Own Proposal INTEGRATION SET IN NEW ORLEANS was written by Claude Sittons and published on the New York Times on May 17, 1960. The article states thaton May 16, 1960 Federal District Judge J. Skelly Wright set September as the deadline for New Orleans to start desegregating...
On a typical day in a New Orleans slave pen, John Brown got called up to the flogging room—a room dedicated to punishment for slaves who misbehaved on the auction block. Here, slaves were beaten repeatedly with a long leather paddle, known as a “flog”. The “flog” delivered punishment equivalent to the whip, but did not leave wounds that could jeopardize the price of a slave. When his name...
In January of 1857, a slave trader purchased an “enslaved” woman named Jane Morrison who was “of fair complexion, blue eyes, and flaxen hair.” After her escape, the next time he’d see her was in a Jefferson Parish courtoom where Alexina Morrison had filed suit against him. The suit declared that Alexina –not Jane— was white, mistakenly identified and mistakenly enslaved. In her petition,...
After a sixteen-year hiatus, cholera was once again on the doorstep of New Orleans. On December 30, 1848, reports from Pittsburgh began circling that cholera was the responsible agent for thirteen deaths aboard steamships known as the Diadem, the Watkins, and the Savannah; all of which had docked in the New Orleans harbor. A message from Cincinnati stated that fourteen people aboard the Peytona, which...
The smell of rotting, maggot infested corpses, stomach acid, and feces filled the humid air in New Orleans for years. The look on the animal’s faces as they met their violent death was heartbreaking. This butchering began what is now known as the controversial “Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873.” Racial tension, public health issues, and a corrupt monopoly laid the foundation for the legal...
When Americans think of Chinatown, they rarely associate it with New Orleans, but at the turn of the twentieth century, New Orleans was the only southern city with a population of Chinese immigrants significant enough to constitute a Chinatown. Like other immigrants in America, the Chinese in New Orleans had to balance the ongoing connections and relationships back home with the opportunities presented...
All the earth stood silent on December 20, 1803, as the Mississippi territorial governor rode in on the streets of New Orleans. Beautiful women adorned the balconies that hung over the Place d' Armes. Each country, represented by its own amount of officials and military, watched as the France flag descended and the American flag ascended succinctly down the pole, meeting halfway to acknowledge...
New Orleans is a city rich with cultural identity fused into the roots of its people. Most evidently, the cuisine has blossomed from the history of New Orleans, and as my primary source shows it is also the most celebrated and shared cuisine our country has to offer. The most famous part of New Orleans, the "French Quarter", is home to most all the cultural traditions New Orleans have...
In the years following the Louisiana Purchase divisions arose within the city of New Orleans between the newly arriving Americans from the Eastern States and the pre-existing Creole faction of the city. The Creoles, a broad name referring to a group with a racial mix of French, African American, and Native American ancestry who were living in New Orleans following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, did...