Spanish Louisiana Research Articles

Petty Felony, Slave Defiance, and Frontier Villainy: Crime and Criminal Justice in Spanish Louisiana, 1770-1803.

Petty Felony, Slave Defiance, and Frontier Villainy: Crime and Criminal Justice in Spanish Louisiana, 1770-1803.

Petty Felony, Slave Defiance, and Frontier Villainy: Crime and Criminal Justice in Spanish Louisiana, 1770-1803

Petty Felony, Slave Defiance, and Frontier Villainy: Crime and Criminal Justice in Spanish Louisiana, 1770-1803

Francisco Bouligny: a Bourbon soldier in Spanish Louisiana

Francisco Bouligny: a Bourbon soldier in Spanish Louisiana

Francisco Bouligny: A Bourbon Soldier in Spanish Louisiana

Francisco Bouligny: A Bourbon Soldier in Spanish Louisiana

The Archival Legacy of Spanish Louisiana's Colonial Records

Louisiana was a Spanish colony from 1762 to 1803. The author traces the short history of Spanish Louisiana and the archival legacy of its colonial records. Through two centuries, administrators, historians, and archivists have undertaken copying, reorganization, and reformatting projects in an effort to preserve the records and to provide increased access. A massive microfilming collaboration by the Spanish National Archives and several American institutions, including Loyola University of New Orleans, Louisiana State University, and the Historic New Orleans Collection, has just been completed. This thirty-year endeavor achieved the ultimate preservation of the records and increased international access to these dispersed documents. In the process, the project influenced the archival policy of the archives of Spain, the former parent country.

Spanish Louisiana

Spanish Louisiana

Boom and Bust: The Rise and Fall of the Tobacco Industry in Spanish Louisiana, 1770-1790

French royal officials, speculators such as John Law, and the French Crown itself had placed great hopes in the development of the tobacco industry in French Louisiana. Some officials even anticipated that Louisiana tobacco might someday be grown in sufficient quantities to supply all the needs of the French Tobacco Monopoly. These lofty expectations were never realized although tobacco production did reach 400,000 pounds in 1740.By the time of the transfer of the colony to Spain in 1766 the perils of war and erratic shipping had almost killed the industry. Most planters had switched to the more profitable production of indigo. Historian Jacob Price claims that the failure of the French government's efforts to develop the tobacco trade resulted from a misunderstanding about costs. In Louisiana, he writes, labor was expensive and freight dear, yet French authorities expected Louisiana tobacco to be competitive in price in the French market with Virginia tobacco, grown in an established market, with abundant labor, and much closer to Europe. Fortunately, the Spanish officials had no such illusions.

Review: Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest, by Abraham P. Nasatir

Review: <i>Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest</i>, by Abraham P. Nasatir

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest

&lt;sc&gt;abraham p. nasatir&lt;/sc&gt;. &lt;italic&gt;Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest&lt;/italic&gt;. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1976. Pp. x, 175. $12.00

&lt;sc&gt;abraham p. nasatir&lt;/sc&gt;. &lt;italic&gt;Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest&lt;/italic&gt;. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1976. Pp. x, 175. $12.00

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest.

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest.

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest

Borderland in Retreat: From Spanish Louisiana to the Far Southwest

Research in the Spanish Borderlands: Louisiana

The Renaissance of Interest in Spanish Louisiana Over the Past Ten Years owes much to the acquisition of important document collections by such universities as Loyola in New Orleans, Northwestern of Louisiana, Tulane and Memphis State. Graduate students and scholars who lacked sufficient funds for research in Europe now find adequate materials in the United States.

A Legal Revival of Pundonor in Spanish Louisiana

On November 25, 1769, General Alejandro O'Reilly, the second Spanish Governor of Louisiana, issued a proclamation setting forth the laws for the government of the province (1). These laws constituted an abstract of the multitudinous laws in effect at that time in Spain and the Indies, but they were principally drawn from the following codes: the Fuero Real, the Fuero Juzgo, the Siete Partidas, the Nueva Recopilaci6n de Castilla, and the Recopilacidn de las Indias (2). Article 6, Section 5 of O'Reilly's ordinance stipulated: La muger casada que adultere y el adiltero sean entregados al marido para que haga de ellos lo que quiera, con tal que no pueda matar al uno sin matar al otro (3). This harsh law was taken from Book 8, Section 20, Law 1 of the Nueva Recopilacidn de Castilla (4), which first appeared in 1567 (5), and, which, despite its rather early date, continued to be one of the principal codes for legislative law in Spain as late as 1803 (6). Does the inclusion of this law in O'Reilly's ordinance signify that it was being literally observed in Spain in the 1760's? Before seeking to answer this question, it might be well to review briefly social practices in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries relating to conjugal honor and the vengeance accorded and taken by wronged husbands. Despite the legal codification of conjugal honor that we have seen in the Nueva Recopilacid6n de Castilla, debate continues to be waged as to how much of the concept of honor was pure convention and how much was actually put into practice by the people of the time.

Proposals for a French Company for Spanish Louisiana, 1763-1764

Proposals for a French Company for Spanish Louisiana, 1763-1764

A Projected Settlement of English-speaking Catholics from Maryland in Spanish Louisiana, 1767, 1768

A Projected Settlement of English-speaking Catholics from Maryland in Spanish Louisiana, 1767, 1768

2. A Projected Settlement of English-speaking Catholics from Maryland in Spanish Louisiana, 1767, 1768

2. A Projected Settlement of English-speaking Catholics from Maryland in Spanish Louisiana, 1767, 1768