In The Flow of Time – August 8, 2024 Along the way I’ve read two standard biographies of Marie Laveaux. One was very academic, a dissertation turned into book, and written through a lens of female empowerment. The other had extensive footnotes referencing parish and historical records. That’s the one… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 7, 2024 Underlying the evil of slavery was a very simple belief: slaves are things. Simple? White superiority – or more tellingly, Black inferiority was like the sunrise. It was there, it was always, it was so obvious it was beneath notice. It… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 4, 2024 There is a hole in my primary research. I need to get my head around Voudou, the amalgam of African and Catholic beliefs widespread in New Orleans in the 1800s. After all, Marie Laveau was “queen” of the voudouiennes. In that… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – July 29, 2024 Researching life in Louisiana in the 1800s I run across this, about Acadian weddings. “Sometimes the ceremony included a charivari… The custom was an old one and was particularly popular in New Orleans, until the authorities suppressed it as a public… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – July 27, 2024 The Citizens Bank of Louisiana was chartered in 1833. It began issuing paper currency. The federal government didn’t do that. The bank was so solid that its $10 notes, below, were widely used throughout the south. “However, there was in New… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – July 24, 2024 It’s the south, ante-bellum New Orleans. I’m digging into slave trades around Marie Laveau, and the Trudeau family – her father a free man of color, and his parentage, powerful white men at the pinnacle of society. I’m pretty much accustomed… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – July 22, 2024 In 1798, Marie Laveau’s grandmother Catherine Henry had the house on St Ann Street built. It was torn down in 1903. But I have the 1885 fire insurance map, so I have (a few years after Marie’s death) the layout of… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – July 20, 2024 This cringe-worthy statement is from a mid-20th century white New Orleans author: “No true Creole ever had colored blood.” This sums up one of my challenges. Race is at the heart of New Orleans. So are race words and—far more importantly—the… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – July 18, 2024 I was looking for weather reports. I thought, newspapers of the period. Into the Library of Congress I go. The papers were four dense pages long. The LoC. has thousands of New Orleans papers. The oldest they have is the new… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – July 16, 2024 Maybe. I was up early this morning. Puzzles done, coffee overcoming sleepiness, I was getting some details on the aftermath of the slave rebellion in 1811. As I’ve read the history, it seemed like this might be a good starting place… Continue reading
