New Orleans Population and Louisiana Purchase

How dare Napoleon sell our land to the Americans? Everyone is upset about this Louisiana purchase he just signed trading the land for some million dollars. Many of the people are doomed about becoming American citizens and unwillingly admitting its sovereignty. We just heard the news that New Orleans will officially become a French territory as we got it from the Spanish; however, Napoleon sold it immediately and handed us to the Americans. I still remember the day I escaped France and got here after my father was killed in the revolution in 1799. They said New France will be the perfect place to start a new life where no one can recognize me. I don’t know how should I feel towards this change and what will the Americans do to us. Rumors were all over the place that those Americans are well known for enslaving foreigners, treating women as inferiors, only caring about wealthy families, change us from catholic to protestant, and their government will steal our farms and enslave us. Also, which language would be the official one, was a serious issue of the moment. The American expansion started since Napoleon officially signed the Louisiana purchase on May 1803, white families and their slaves, free blacks, and some foreigners flood to New Orleans to work and live here. They brought their culture and traditions with them creating a multi-cultural diverse population in New Orleans, before that it was the Frenchmen, Africans, Spaniards, Creoles, and other minority groups.

In an official ceremony in New Orleans, the French flag was lowered and the American flag was raised and Louisiana is legally an American territory. On December 20, 1803, William Charles Cole Claiborne became the first non-colonial governor of Louisiana, the largest territory ever owned by America. Merging all the people together New Orleans with the fact that each of them having different culture, background, religion and language wasn’t an easy phase in our lives. At first, Americans were a minority but that didn’t last long with them moving from the east of Mississippi as they realized the profits they can make from domestic and foreign trading. Nevertheless, Americans generally expected political leadership because of their familiarity with the governmental system and that they are the citizens of the nation that just purchased Louisiana, that did not make them clang with the people of New Orleans socially or culturally. Within a few years, marriages between Frenchmen, Africans, Spaniards, Creoles and Americans became common, and each group started to learn the other's language to facilitate communication and create a better society for each individual of us. That doesn’t imply that the cultures merged into one but an adaptation and broadmindedness endorsed all the cultures to exist side by side.

New Orleans was known as an urban area and a commercial trading center which is probably why the Americans were interested in controlling it. Therefore, in March 1804, the federal government announced Orleans as a separate territory with District of Louisiana, Upper Louisiana, north of it. That helped in passing new laws that apply to New Orleans only where they encouraged trade. Agriculture also was a preponderant factor in New Orleans before the purchase where farmers and their families owned land around the east and west banks of the Mississippi river. When the Americans immigrated to New Orleans they obtained to own land closer to the river but that wasn’t easy for them as they were less desirable and not as fertile. Throughout the years, the population grew rapidly around the river where every farmer was growing sugar, corn and cotton in particular, that led to nourishment in slave trade as more slaves were needed to work in the farms. The economy of Orleans territory surpassed over a short period and that made the Spaniards look up to control it, hence, a federal protection was needed. In the period between 1803-1812 there was federal troops constantly guarding Orleans’ boundaries against possible attacks as Spain owned the land along Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Mexico.

On April 8, 1812, President Madison signed the 'act for the admission of the State of Louisiana into the Union, and to extend the laws of the United States to the said state”. That gave the American government the right to declare new states. Thus, on the 30th of the same month the Orleans territory ceased to exist and was instead admitted as a part of Louisiana state.