Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
www.buffaloriver.com ; cnr Hwys 43 & 74; kayak/canoe per day $58/60, car shuttle from $18, zipline
tour $89; 8am-5pm; ) in Ponca. They will point you in the right direction and rent
out attractive cabins in the woods too. Thanks to its National River designation in 1972,
the Buffalo is one of the few remaining unpolluted, free-flowing rivers in America.
LOUISIANA
Southerners will often tell you they're different from other Americans. They say it's their
intensely felt local traditions and connection to the land, though they might say this sit-
ting on the porch of a cookie-cutter subdivision that could be Anywhere, America. But in
Louisiana, that regional pride becomes actual regionalism, a palpable sense that you are
somewhere different.
A French colony turned Spanish protectorate turned reluctant American purchase; a
southern fringe of swampland, bayou and alligators dissolving into the Gulf of Mexico; a
northern patchwork prairie of heartland farm country, and everywhere, a population tied
together by a deep, unshakeable appreciation for the good things: food and music.
Louisiana's first city, New Orleans, lives and dies by these qualities, and her restaur-
ants and music halls are second to none, but everywhere, the state shares a love for this
joie de vivre. We're not dropping French for fun, by the way; while the language is not a
cultural component of North Louisiana, near I-10 and below it is a generation removed
from the household - if it has been removed at all.
History
The lower Mississippi River area was dominated by the Mississippian mound-building
culture until around 1592 when Europeans arrived and decimated the Native Americans
with the usual combination of disease, unfavorable treaties and outright hostility.
The land was then passed back and forth between France, Spain and England. Under
the French 'Code Noir,' slaves were kept, but retained a somewhat greater degree of free-
dom, and thus native culture, than their counterparts in British North America.
After the American Revolution the whole area passed to the USA in the 1803 Louisi-
ana Purchase, and Louisiana became a state in 1812. The resulting blend of American
and Franco-Spanish traditions, plus the influence of Afro-Caribbean communities, gave
Louisiana a unique culture she retains to this day.
Steamboats opened a vital trade network across the continent. New Orleans was a ma-
jor port, and Louisiana's slave-based plantation economy kept up a flowing export of
rice, tobacco, indigo, sugarcane and especially cotton. After the Civil War, Louisiana was
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