Louisiana
The Creole State
Citizens of Louisiana ratified a new state
constitution on December 8, 1879. Simultaneously, the
state capital was moved from New Orleans to Baton
Rouge. Responding to the demands of diversity as well
as to the events of the Civil War and Reconstruction,
Louisianians revised and passed new constitutions ten
times from 1812-1921. In the 1940s, Louisiana state
politics inspired Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize
winning novel All the King's Men.
Located at the mouth of the Mississippi-Missouri
river system, Louisiana was occupied by Native
Americans for 16,000 years prior to European
settlement. Spanish explorers were the first Europeans
to discover Louisiana, but the French were the first
to colonize it. In 1682, French explorer Robert
Cavelier de La Salle claimed this strategically vital
region for France. French Canadians from the colony of
Acadia sought refuge in Louisiana during the 1750s and
1760s after being ousted by the British. Their
descendants, the "Cajuns," culturally dominate much of
southern Louisiana.
Nine years after the October 20, 1803 ratification of
the Louisiana Purchase, Louisiana became the
eighteenth state in the Union. Just three years later,
Major General Andrew Jackson successfully defended
Louisiana's port-city in the Battle of New Orleans.
Over the next thirty years, the combination of the
expansion of steamboat transport and the rise of "King
Cotton" made the port of New Orleans the fourth
busiest in the world.
Louisiana's fertile subtropical soils conceal oil
fields below. They also support production of cotton,
sugar cane, and rice. Frequent flooding prompted
innovative planning including a system of canals and
the above-ground cemeteries of New Orleans. It also
inspired humorist William Hall. He used Louisiana's
climate as a point of departure in his 1904 monologue
Diversified Drollery:
Appreciating the fact that [my mother-in-law's]
life depended on being in a dry climate, I rented a
house in the flood section of Louisiana, in a town
called Swamp Haven. Swamp Haven is on the banks of
the Mississippi river, when it's not under it . . .
The Landlord was actually imbued with the idea that
Swamp Haven was the only town on the map . . . I
said [to him], "Don't you think it would have a
tendency to check these floods if the citizens would
get together to dam the water?" He said "No, I think
prayers would do more good than profanity."
William D. Hall,
Diversified Drollery, p. 2-3,
1904.
The rich multicultural heritage of Louisiana is very
evident in New Orleans. With French, Spanish, and
African roots, this Creole city on the Mississippi
proved fertile ground for American creativity. The
birthplace of jazz, New Orleans produced famed musical
artists Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and
Mahalia Jackson. Writer Truman Capote, poet/novelist
Arna Bontemps, and playwright/screenwriter Lillian
Hellman also were born in New Orleans. The city
provides the setting for Tennessee Williams's play A
Streetcar Named Desire.
Traditional Mardi Gras festivities express the
cultural diversity of New Orleans as well as the
fun-loving spirit of the "city that care forgot."
Text
Source: Library of Congress
