1803 |
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Other events in the world this year which influence Louisiana.Events in :North America Europe
South America & Caribbean:
Hispanola:
April 1803; Most of the coastal cities are still under French control.
May, 1803; Peace of Amiens ends, brings British interference back.
Late 1803 produces the greatest emigration from Saint-Domingue, with most going to Santiago Cuba. Many planters will take up coffee and sugar planting in the eastern provinces of Cuba, establishing a solid French speaking community for the next few years.
First LeClerc’s remaining soldiers are evacuated, followed by civilians in confusion. Fleeing whites cannot chose the time of means of departure, taking the first opportunity.
October, 1803; Dessalines occupies heights above Port-Au-Prince, giving French troops eight days to evacuate on condition that they leave the city’s fortifications intact.
November. 1803; Last Frenchmen leave Le Cap for Cuba, many on British ships. The British, while at war with France hope that troops and planters will be able to return to Saint-Domingue to put down the slave administration.
One account places 27,000 refugees in eastern Cuba in 1804.
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North America:
Secession is threatened by New York and Massachusetts who claim the purchase of Louisiana is unconstitutional. Ohio becomes the 17th state of the union. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin will boost the production of cotton throughout the south. The first icebox is developed in Maryland. Dupont produces gunpowder on the Brandywine River in Delaware. Fort Dearborn, the beginnings of Chicago is built by U. S. troops on Lake Michigan and Buffalo, New York is laid out on Lake Erie. Slave importation resumes in South Carolina. War in Europe increases demand for American farm crops. John James Audubon leaves Nantes, France for Philadelphia. |Top of page| |
Europe:
London bankers Baring Brothers help finance the U.S. purchase of Louisiana helping Napoleon’s foreign minister Tallyrand finance the war against Great Britain which resumes in May. Robert Emmet who leads an aborted revolution in Ireland is captured and hanged by the British. Inventor Robert Fulton, in France working on a submarine, assembles a small steam ship. The plague kills 150,000 in Constantinople. English officer Henry Shrapnel develops the weapon that bears his name. Morphine is derived from opium in Germany. Walter Scott, Schiller, Beethoven in Vienna. |Top of page| |
January 1803
Spanish Officials:
Alcaldes Ordinarios
Primer - Pablo Lanusse
Segundo -Francisco Merieult Sindico Procurador General
Salomon Prevost
Mayordomo de Proprios
Juan de Castañedo.
(Juan Bautiste Labatut (Francisco Duplessy?) elected first, rejected when he wanted higher fees for the office.
Juan Ventura Morales serves as Intendant from 1801 until the end of the Spanish Era in November 1803.
Soon after the retrocession to France is formally announced three ship loads of slaves quickly arrive in the colony, which is starved for labor. Although most of the planters wanted to keep the slave trade open it closed again after the U. S assumed control of the colony.
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February 1803
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March 1803
On March 26, 1803
Pierre Clement de Laussat (1756-1835), 47, arrives as Napoleon’s
colonial prefect to reclaim Louisiana for France. Laussat hears nothing
official about the sale of Louisiana to the U. S. until August although
rumors had reached New York and Washington months previously.
He had been born in Pau in 1756 of a distinguished lineage and was intelligent enough to serve under the French monarchy, survive the revolution to serve on Napoleon’s legislature and then with the Bourbon kings afterward. His brief stay in New Orleans is filled with balls and soirees and parties through the night with his wife, three daughters and the many Creole, French, Spanish and American dignitaries.
He leaves New Orleans in April of 1804 to take the post of colonial prefect of Martinique. Later he serves Napoleon in Belgium and the Bourbon rulers as colonial prefect to French Guiana until 1923. He retires to the ancestral chateau in France and dies in 1835.
With the arrival of
Pierre Clement de Laussat the Cabildo expected forty-five hundred
French troops to arrive to take possession of the colony. To prevent speculation,
hoarding and inflation in its free market system for supplying beef it
sought bids to supply beef for the troops. Getting none it accepted an
unfavorable offer from Pedro Heno and Francisco Laudon. The troops never
appeared because France had already sold Louisiana to the United States.
The council canceled the contract and allowed meat to be sold to residents
tax free.
Pierre Clement de Laussat, the French commissioner to recieve the
colony summons all militia officers to his lodging to declare by yea or
nay whether they intended to remain in the service of Spain.
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April 1803
Napoleon may have communicated his intention to sell Louisiana to his brother Joseph as early as April 6. Four days later he explains his reasoning to two ministers Barbé Marbois and Alexander Berthier. He did not want Louisiana to fall into British control and neither did the Americans. The Americans only wanted the Isle of Orleans and the Floridas. Why not sell them the whole territory of Louisiana and use the money to fight the British whose intentions were increasingly bellicose.
On the 11th of April Robert Livingston was in Paris and James Monroe, who had been minister to France in 1794, was on his way. Napoleon instructs Marbois to offer the Americans the whole of Louisiana without waiting for Monroe to arrive. Livingston offered a low price but the Frenchmen decide to wait for Monroe.
An agreement is reached quickly. Although the Americans do not have the authority to make the deal, they believe that Congress and the president will accept their actions.
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May 1803
Although the document is dated April 30, 1803 it is not officially signed until after it is translated and copied on May 3rd.
In the Spring of 1803 Casa
Calvo returns to New Orleans having been appointed to act as joint
commissioner with Salcedo
in turning over the province of Louisiana to France. On May 18, 1803 Salcedo
and Casa-Calvo issue a joint proclamation informing the inhabitants of
Louisiana about the retrocession. Eight days later they send a copy of
the royal order authorizing the transfer to the Cabildo. The formal transfer
awaits the arrival of French General Claude Perrin Victor, but he never
arrives because the war has resumed in Europe.
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June 1803
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July 1803
On July 16 President Jefferson calls for an extra session of Congress in October to consider the purchase of Louisiana.
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August 1803
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September 1803
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October 1803
The U. S. Congress meets for a special session on October 17 to debate the Louisiana question. On October 31 Jefferson approves the bill that Congress had forwarded to him authorizing representatives to take possession of Louisiana.
October, 1803 Judge Advocate Nicolas Maria Vidal informs the post commandant
of Pointe
Coupee not to permit the charivari for any reason. Although the prohibition
may have extended to New Orleans it is never enforced this late in the
Spanish period.
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November 1803
November 18, 1803 the municipal council - the Spanish Cabildo meets for the last time.
The administration of Salcedo
ends with the transfer of the colony to
Pierre Clement de Laussat.
November 30, 1803;
Pierre Clement de Laussat accepts possession of Louisiana from Spain
in a retrocession ceremony at noon. The same day he abolishes the Cabildo
and replaces it with a municipality patterned along French republican
lines. He also places Charity Hospital under municipal control, which
the Cabildo had attempted for 25 years. The councillors will complete
an inventory and prepare their records for the new administration by December
10.
November 30, 1803; Jean Etienne de Boré (1741-1820) becomes the first Mayor of N.O. 1803-1804. Sugar was first granulated in commercial quantities on his plantation in 1795. Other early mayors are Joseph Roffignac, August Macarty, Nicolas Girod, James J. Mather, William Freret, John Watkins, and Denis Prieur.
Other officials during the administration of de Boré include assistants Destrahan and Suave; recording secretary - Derbigny; asst. recording secretary - J.B.M de la Hogue; Treasurer - N. Labatut; Commissioner General of Police - Pierre Achilles Riviere (Rivery); Commissioner of the Third District Caraby and Landreau, Sr.; Commissioner of the Fourth District - Lois Lioteau and P. Profit
The transfer of power is completed but Casa
Calvo remains in New Orleans where he spends a considerable portion
of his time encouraging the belief that Louisiana was to be re-ceded to
Spain.
During
Pierre Clement de Laussat’s twenty one day rule the planters
obtain the reinstitution of the Code Noir but many Spanish laws
continued even after new legal codes of 1806 and 1808.
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December 1803
December 13
The Union or New Orleans Advertiser and Price Current is established by James Lyon and Company.
December 20, 1803;
Pierre Clement de Laussat represents France in the formal transfer
of Louisiana to the United States. William
C. C. Claiborne and General
James Wilkinson are commissioners overseeing the transfer.
The Cabildo’s Sala Capitular is the site of the finalizing of the Louisiana Purchase. The Florida Parishes remain Spanish District of West Florida until 1810.
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In 1803 the governor and the Cabildo again wrestle with the problem of street grading and sidewalk repair, but finally pass it off to the new American administration. Some streets were partially paved with bricks or tiles but only near the sidewalks. On most streets, nearly impassible with holes and ruts, vehicles needed wheels six to eight inches wide to avoid sinking.
In 1803 Sindico Procurador General Provost declares the available flour supply was small, old and wormy. The reason being the suspension of right of deposit for the Americans by intendant Morales and Salcedo order to end importation from the United States. The Cabildo manages to convince Morales to exempt foodstuffs.
In 1803 the Cabildo arrests and deports Dr. Paul Alliot, a refugee from Haiti who has been practicing medicine without a license. An alcalde ordinario authorizes breaking down his door and dragging him off to jail.
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New Orleans has made many advances as the Spanish era closes. Industries include sawmills, distilleries, cordage factories, cotton mills, sugar refineries and a small rice mill. The biggest employer outside the government is the port, requiring stevedores, dock workers, and carters. Some ships are built here.
In 1803 the population of New Orleans is 50% French Creole and 25% Spanish.
Itenerate artist John L. Boqueta de Woiseri completes the first known painting of New Orleans as a city of the United States.
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After the Louisiana Purchase the archives of the Spanish colony of Louisiana are moved successively to Mobile, Pensacola and Cuba and finally to the Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain.
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In 1803 Spanish troops in New Madrid capture Samuel Mason and his band of river pirates and send them to New Orleans. Governor Salcedo sends them back upriver to Natchez to be tried in the Mississippi Territory since they are mostly Americans, who had committed crimes on American soil.
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Longwood Plantation house is built by Madame
Marianne Decoux. The rear section of the house was added in 1835. Today
it is a private residence. Larkin Edwards, is the first settler near what
is Shreveport
today.
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