Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
America'sGulfCoast—ascrawl,likesomethingwrittenonacocktailnapkinafterthesecond
drink.
Luis de Moscoso was the first European to see the future site of New Orleans, a strip of
land between the Mississippi and the great salt estuary later named for the French minister
of the marine Louis Phélypeaux, Count of Pontchartrain. He was a member of de Soto's last
expedition. This trip was later recalled as a delirium, a terror: the men marching in armored
ranks through the swamp, the sun beating down, the stink of the marsh, the misery of the
waste places. They searched out the natives, killed whomever they met, then took notes on
each killing. (As John Wayne says in
Red River
, “I'll read over him in the morning.”) In
March 1541, the party, which began with 600 men and 200 horses, was attacked by Chickas-
aw Indians. Horses slaughtered, Spaniards killed. Those who escaped did so by running. De
Soto died on a raft in the river, which is perfect, a consecration, his flesh devoured by catfish
withblackeyesandlongwhiskers.Moscosoledwhatwasleftofthepartysouth.Itwasfrom
this vantage point—on rafts in the river—that Moscoso and a dozen others saw the swell of
land that would become New Orleans. It was the summer of 1543.
The site was not visited again for over a hundred years, and then by Robert de La Salle.
The French explorer traveled the length of the Mississippi, planting a cross near what is now
Jackson Square in 1682. The city foundations were laid in 1719 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne
de Bienville, a diplomat charged with establishing a town near the mouth of the Mississippi,
which was to give Paris control of the interior. In his diary, Bienville said the site was selec-
ted for its natural advantages. At 10 feet above sea level, it seemed unlikely to flood. In this,
the founder set the general pattern of municipal leadership: totally confident and completely
wrong.Thewatersinundatedthecity,thenjustwoodenstakesandfoundationholes,lessthan
a year after the cornerstone had been laid. The outline of the town was already visible: a par-
allelogram,whichisjustadrunkensquare,4,000feetalongtheriver,itsassprotruding1,800
feet into the swamp country that continued to Lake Pontchartrain.
This was divided into sixty-six 300-square-foot lots, which, covered in houses, hotels,
stores, and such, would eventually be known as the French Quarter. A parade ground was set
aside on the riverfront: Jackson Square. The early years of the city were just disaster after
disaster: hurricanes, floods, Indian attacks, outbreaks. In 1735, the city was set upon by wild
dogs. Yellow fever and cholera rampaged through the beginning of the last century. In 1905,
thewindowsoftheFrenchQuarter wereshuttered, thestreets filled withfuneral processions,
thehorse-drawnhearsecarryingvictimsofyellowjacktotheSaintLouisCemeteries beyond
the ramparts. According to historians, the jazz funeral is probably a remnant of that plague
year, when burials were so frequent that turning the dour processions into a parade was a
means of survival, the march to the ground being a dirge because death is terrible and great,
the march back to town being a parade because life is greater still.
