New Orleans
The first European to explore the lower Mississippi including what is now Louisiana was Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, who passed by New Orleans’ site in April 1682 down the Mississippi from Canada.
De La Salle claimed the entire river basin from the Appalachians to the Rockies for France, naming the area Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV the king of France.
New Orleans began life in 1718 as a French-Canadian outpost, because of its location to the Mississippi’s delta it quickly became an economic asset. Initially the economic trade consisted of crops such as indigo, rice, and tobacco, later New Orleans became an important African slave trading post.
The new city, or ville, was named La nouvelle Orleans for Philippe Duc d’Orleans
it comprised of what is modern day French Quarter. New Orleans was laid out by the French engineer, Adrien de Pauger, in a classic eighteenth-century symmetrical gridiron pattern.
… Continue Reading
