Chicken Scratch: May 20th

The first 300 years.

New Orleans has been around for quite a while.
Here's a quick history lesson.....
I won't bore you with the obvious, hopefully.

NOLA was founded in the Spring of 1718, by the French.
A guy named Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville (a mouthful!)
picked the current site because,
1)according to the local Indians,the area was prone to seasonal flooding. (no duh).
2) It had a neat crescent shape that already had a natural levee.
3) It was the terminus of a portage route from the lake to the river.
and....
probably the most important, was that it was far enough away
from the colonial Spanish and English settlements....
Our boy, Bienville, was nobody's fool.
Meanwhile,
back in the city.....
Bienville decided to name it after the Duke of Orleans.
Totally a brown nosed move.
Now, he needed settlers.....
But, it was no paradise,
what they actually encountered was this....
In that summer a hurricane blew through.
It destroyed most of the wooden structures,
the few settlers that they had were beset by malaria,
"serpents and alligators".
So, Bienville decreed that all the settlers were to adhere to
his nifty grid pattern to discourage outlying buildings prone to flooding.

Now....
His initial problem was that he couldn't sell his colony idea in France.
No one wanted to make that long journey
from cushy France to sweat in sub tropical heat!
Again,
Bienville to the rescue.
He offered cheap land to anyone who came,
and extra to prisoners, newly released, who married
the local prostitutes of France.
Yay!
Win, win proposition?
France gets rid of riff-raff
and New Orleans gets colonists?
Okay....

Anyway, this goes on till the late 1760's.
As a result of Britain winning in the "7 years war",
and the main fact was that they really didn't want to deal
with New Orleans (They already had Mobile),
they just gave the entire colony to Spain.
But......
Nobody showed up to govern the place.
Nobody wanted to.
Score one for the riff-raff.
It was like teenagers with no parents were home!
But, in that time, French and German colonists
started to arrive in droves. French, to the city, and
Germans, to the marshes in the south,
(Des Allemands).
Acadians arrived from Nova Scotia.
By this time, somebody from Spain finally shows up to govern.
Finally....
The Spanish were responsible for most of our iconic
architecture - Cathedral, Cabildo and Presbytery.

Then,
There was a massive fire in 1788 and another one in 1794.
The Spanish learned fast.
The old, flammable buildings were built with wood,
now, they'd only be made of brick.
It worked.

In 1803 Napoleon, needing money, sold some of
the "The Louisiana Purchase" lands in the south, to France.
Now,
Its back to the future time and France is at the helm again.

Louisiana becomes a state in 1812.
But, no counties! Only parishes!
After all, Catholics R Us.

In 1815, Jackson and Lafitte save us,
albeit a tad late, (the war of 1812 was already over)
from another British attack.

New Orleans surrenders without a fight early in the
Civil War - no one wanted the city destroyed.
On to Reconstruction!
Race riots, occupation by the "Yankees" and
a "red light" district.

New immigrants came in again in droves (I like that word).
Irish, Italians and Yellow fever.
The immigrants and blacks were put to work.
They closed in areas where standing water could be a problem.
Voilà!
The yellow fever epidemic was curbed!
The new suburbs get a boost from an exodus of sorts.
Seems nobody wanted to live that close to those new immigrants.
So, ethnic neighborhoods sprang up.

Fast forward to today.....
Devastating hurricanes, crime, removed statues and
corrupt politicians.
But.....
We still have us.
We make this goofy place a little slice of heaven.
(and the food!)