by DD Sow

Created on: November 19, 2008   Last Updated: April 16, 2011

New Orleans or La Nouvelle-Orlans as it was called then was designed by the French Mississippi company along the Mississippi River. The then capital of French Louisiana was Mobile, Alabama and due to its geographic location culminated to a series of problems relating to shipment mobility and trade, New Orleans was discovered by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in May 7th, 1718 and because of its strategic geographic location and its proximity to the sea, New Orleans became the capital of French Louisiana.

The name of Orleans came from Prince Phillippe II, Duke of Orleans of France. The colony of New Orleans was under the control of Spain from 1763-1801 when after it went back to the control of France but it was during the time under the Ruling family of Spain did New Orleans inherit its major architecture. Napoleon sold the colony to the United States as a part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Soon after massive migrations took place from Africa, France, Haiti, and Cuba. Some of the largest migrations came due to the Haitian Revolution of 1804 when large French speaking populations both ethnically African and Caucasian began to settle inside the city. By 1809, sixty three percent of the population in New Orleans was French speaking American citizens.

When the War of 1812 began, the British sent a large number of troops to conquer the city causing severe ruins to the city. The British were finally forced out at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8th, 1815 and soon after reconstruction of destroyed areas were given a more New Orleans touch, a combination of French/Spanish architecture style.

As New Orleans was the trading center for the Colony of Louisiana comprising of cotton and crops of sugar that came from within and neighboring State plantations. It had the major role of any city from benefiting from slave trade. Its ports were consumed of millions of materials of trade through the Mississippi River, gaining much wealth from local merchants throughout this time. By contrast New Orleans also had a surprisingly a fair number of wealthy, educated free persons of color in the South.

During the 1830s through to the 1840s New Orleans became the wealthiest city in the nation. Main reasons of its wealth were a tribute to the largest slave market with millions of slaves brought to the South arrived via the slave trade. The slaves were worth nearly half a billion dollars in property, as the economy grew by slaves for transportation, housing and clothing.

During the civil war the Unionists invaded New Orleans early sparing the city the destruction suffered by many other cities of the South. But by the 1900s, New Orleans a progressed in to a major city where urban development was largely limited to higher ground along natural river with wood's pump system allowed the city to expand into low-lying areas. The city nevertheless was vulnerable to flooding but by 1965, Hurricane Betsy killed dozens of residents, a beginning of a series of Hurricanes to come in the decades ahead.

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