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
