Building the Davil's Empire: French Colonial New Orleans

Abstract

The French Crown formally founded New Orleans in 1718, intending it as the capital of an ambitious colonial system that would link French colonies in the Caribbean to those of North America. Shortly after the city's establishment, the spectacular failure of John Law's Mississippi scheme led to financial ruin for its investors, both public and private. As a result, French designs in the New World largely collapsed. For the next half century, until it became a Spanish possession, New Orleans hung in limbo, only tenuously controlled from France, with its fate in the hands of adventurers, entrepreneurs, and others who became responsible for the city's lasting reputation for decadence and immorality. This era is the focus of Shannon Lee Dawdy's Building the Devil's Empire. The author, trained in historical archaeology and anthropology, provides often-remarkable insights into the ethos and daily lives of the people of New Orleans, while putting this unique society into a larger context of colonial dynamics and structure.