I have thus given a brief sketch of a few of the leading incidents
which tended to bring into existence and develope the resources of this
important section of our country. What makes it of so much interest,
at this time, is, that its birth and youth, and transformation,
as by magic, has been before the eyes of the present generation.
Nevertheless, they seem to pass it by as being among the most common
incidents in the life-time of every man. It is like the idle tale of a
school boy. And here it is proper to call the reader to one important
consideration, from which will readily be recognized the causes which
have produced this state of things, so peculiar in New Orleans, and
which gives a character to this city unlike any other in the world.
These causes commenced with the beginning of the settlement, and
increased by the frequent changes which so often occurred, in the
government and possession of the territory of Louisiana. First came
the French adventurer in search of the “FOUNTAIN OF IMMORTAL YOUTH.”
Then came the bigoted, iron rule of the dark frowning Spaniard; and,
mixed up with these, from all parts of the world, were fugitives from
justice, disaffected politicians, and desperate adventurers of all
descriptions. At length appeared also the shrewd and ever calculating
Yankee, with a force and power to leave the unmistaken impress of his
_guessing_ nature upon every thing that he laid his hands upon. And
finally the poor African, stolen from his native home, was brought to
mingle with the heterogeneous mass, and impress his nature and give a
shade of character upon the length and breadth, the height and depth
of every thing that has had existence in New Orleans. This crushed and
down-trodden being came in with the commencement of the cultivation
of sugar cane, in 1751. African slaves were sent from the Island of
St. Domingo, by the Jesuits, to their brethren in New Orleans, to
superintend the making of sugar. From their first introduction, the
females have been to all intents and purposes, the wives of both the
French and Spanish, and are now the same with the Americans who have
taken up their abode here. And in this there has been no respect to
color, from the dark sooty black, down to the soft and mellow tinge
of the beautiful quadroon. Thus, it will be freely acknowledged, the
African has had no small share in impressing the peculiarities of his
nature upon the living picture of a life in New Orleans. From this
heterogeneous mass, which in the beginning was thrown suddenly and
promiscuously together, has originated a state of society differing
widely from any other part of the civilized world. And now, as at the
beginning, the Spaniard is there, with his low dark brow, concealing
deep under its arch the small keen black eye, with snake-like language,
which tells of treachery, deceit, and midnight assassination. Here too
figures the brilliant, the proud and restless Frenchman, with all the
life and animation peculiar to his nature, with his heart constantly
running off at his tongue’s end. And now, at every turn, you meet the
cool, calculating, determined emigrant from the Northern States, who
moves on, with an eye single to the “almighty dollar.” To these may be
added, within a few years past, the warm-hearted son of the Emerald
Isle, together with the cold and ever measured tread of the plodding
Dutchman. And to complete the picture, in this mixed mass of living
beings the neat and tidy Quadroon is seen, civil, courteous, unassuming
in all his manners, yet with a down cast look, indicative of a deep
realizing sense of the damning curse that rests upon him in consequence
of the yellow tinge of his brow.