Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008 - (Page 46)

and brought them to New Orleans. Maritime protests were filed in New Orleans from French colonial times until about 1950. In the Spanish period, they document the experience of Spanish fragatas and goletas, not to mention the meddling authority of pompous crown officials. A century later, one can find the charters of towboat and dry-dock companies and the acts of incorporation for seamen’s benevolent societies and maritime unions. From the 20th century are documents relating to tow boats and barges, steamships loading cotton and oil tankers on their way to Baton Rouge or coming from the Far East and Seattle. The protests eventually fade out owing to causes I have not determined. How can we not believe the earnest recitations by these weathered, unlettered seamen braving the forces of the mighty Mississippi while trying to eke out a living? The cases suggest that the flatboatman went to lengths to protect and deliver his cargo in the face of significant odds against an incident-free journey. The steamboat captain, with a bigger vessel sheltering cargo more safely, was too at the mercy of underwater hazards, currents, fire and shallow water. He also made every effort to secure his precious cargo and equipment, fishing them out of the water and refusing to let the river defeat him. Mark Twain, the greatest writer the grandest river ever produced, had this to say about on the broadhorn mariner: “hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism, heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral sties like Natchez under the Hill, …. fighters, reckless fellows, … foulwitted, profane, prodigal of their money, … prodigious braggarts, yet in the main, honest, trustworthy, faithful to promises and duty and often picturesquely magnanimous.” On April 18, 1802, less than a decade after New Orleans’ darkest hour in 1794, when the city had burned for the second time and a pair of hurricanes had hit without even help from FEMA, Thomas Jefferson would write to Robert Livingston … “There is… on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market …” LCV Sally K. Reeves is a historian, archivist and president of the Louisiana Historical Society. 46 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Fall 2008 THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities New Orleans Immortelle The Historic New Orleans Collection Highland-Fairfield: The Historic Heart of Shreveport The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Perils of the Mississippi River Louisiana Foodways Harvest of Life King Oliver: The Forgotten King of Jazz Louisiana Architecture Jazz Notes Louisiana State Museum Eye of the Storm Louisiana Association of Museums Soul Resin Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008

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