Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2006 - (Page 42) In 1817, Jacques Tanesse mapped the city of New Orleans with the Vieux Carré at its center. The map shows the upriver settlement of Faubourg St. Mary; the 1806 subdivision of Bernard de Marignyʼs downriver plantation; and the 1810 transformation of Claude Treméʼs farmland, immediately north of the Vieux Carré, into building lots and streets. courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection Not all émigrés won favor in the community. Paul Alliot, who arrived in New Orleans around 1795, was the subject of anxious correspondence between Spanish governor Manuel de Salcedo and French colonial prefect Pierre Clément Laussat. Alliot’s alleged activities included questionable medical practices and earned him jail time, followed by deportation to France. From prison in Lorient, Alliot drafted a proposal for the improvement of Louisiana’s government and the beautification of New Orleans. His “Historical and Political Reflections on Louisiana,” which he sent to Laussat, called for the creation of public spaces and avenues lined with monuments. If Alliot offered up constructive criticism, other émigrés took potshots. Pierre-Louis Berquin-Duvallon arrived in New Orleans in 1800, traveled around the region compiling observations, and resettled in France in 1801. His unenthusiastic report on colonial life — Vue de la colonie espagnole de la Louisiane et Florida Occidentale en 1802 par un observateur resident sur les lieux (1803) — was translated into German (1804) and English (1806). In the book, Berquin-Duvallon contrasted the unfriendly attitude of Louisianans with the warmer welcome extended émigrés on the East Coast. Although personal factors may have tainted Berquin-Duvallon’s objectivity, the book’s underlying sentiments resonated with domestic and international developments. First, the news of revolution in St. Domingue terrified Louisiana’s influential planter class. Some of the St. Domingue émigrés had brought slaves with them to Louisiana — and planters feared that these slaves, having been exposed to revolutionary ideology, might serve as conduits for the “radical” idea of freedom through violent insurrection. Second, though French-speaking émigrés in Spanish-ruled Cuba had hitherto been well accommodated, the increasingly fevered relations between Carlos IV and Napoleon Bonaparte were beginning to prompt a readjustment in Spain’s colonial policy toward French settlers. In short, Berquin-Duvallon was not writing in a vacuum. Other contemporary authors and political observers tapped a similar vein. James Pitot, for one, offered a critical assess- ment of Spanish policy in Observations sur la Colonie de La Louisiane 1796-1802. Originally written as a report to French officials, Pitot’s memoir outlined the benefits of Louisiana’s anticipated return to the French fold. The Second Wave of Émigrés The political tensions brewing in Europe would have profound implications for settlement patterns in the Americas. In 1808, diplomatic sniping between Spain and France edged into outright war. By 1809, an analogue of the Peninsular War was raging in the streets of Santiago de Cuba as hostilities erupted between Spanish citizens and the French from St. Domingue. In April 1809, Cuba expelled the émigrés. Flight to the United States, an attractive option in the 1790s, was impeded by new federal immigration laws. Congress had prohibited the importation of slaves in 1808 — a deal breaker for many émigrés. Because Louisiana was still a territory and not yet a state, the authority of federal law remained open to debate. In June 1809 territorial governor William C. C. Claiborne personally approved the entry of slaves 42 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Spring 2006
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