LCV Winter 2013-14 - (Page 62)
erhaps because it has defied the odds by
being situated in such an improbable and,
at times, inaccessible location, New
Orleans has had an affinity for risk-takers,
gamblers and aficionados of the sporting life.
The Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints
might rule the modern day, but it was the 1800s that
ushered in the golden age of sport in the city. New
Orleans' population has always been an exotic mix of
cultures from across the Americas, Africa and Europe, and
the 19th century saw these diverse inhabitants first enticed
to a vast array of contact sports and more genteel activities
as participants, bettors, spectators or casual fans.
Successive waves of immigration in the early decades of
the 19th century brought Haitian refugees, American
pioneers, German and Irish settlers and others into a city
where Spanish, French, African, Native American and
other influences already thrived. The city's diverse
makeup produced an even broader selection of leisure
activities and entertainment found nowhere else
throughout the antebellum South.
With everything from opera to cockfights, residents and
travelers alike could find some source of entertainment at
almost any hour of the day, even on Sundays. While other
parts of the country observed the Sabbath seriously, Catholic
Creoles, as a result of the Spanish and French influence in
the city's development, felt unconstrained by the Puritan
inhibitions found in New England and elsewhere.
The game of craps was introduced to America in New
Orleans by the Baron Xavier Philippe de Marigny de
Mandeville following a trip to London in 1801, where he
learned the game "hazard." It was modified by rivermen
and became known as crapaud, meaning "toad," referring to
the way players crouched like toads when playing the dice
game.
The city's oldest and most prestigious social organization,
the Boston Club, was established in 1841 to provide a venue
for its members to play a card game similar to whist and
bridge called "Boston," said to have been devised by French
military officers during the Revolutionary War.
New Orleanians would bet on anything and everything,
from cockfighting to riverboat races.
COLLECTION OF S. DERBY GISCLAIR
Alfred Waud, a leading illustrator for Harper's Weekly during and after the Civil War, visited a New Orleans cockfight in 1866 and produced this illustration of the event.
nimal fighting appeared in New Orleans
as early as 1817. Cockfighting, dog fights
and bearbaiting were among the more
popular blood sports available around the city.
62 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES * Winter 2013-14
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