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1792 |
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| South America & Caribbean:Previous Hispanola: 1792 Spring; French leaders try to ally whites and free coloreds by recognizing free persons as citizens: color may divide but property holding unites.
1792 sees islolated departures of whites for peaceful shores including some military families. Military officers first offer their sword to Santo Domingo but often end up in with the Spanish army in Cuba. These departures become organized immigrations after undocumented negotiations with authorities in Santo Domingo and Cuba.
September 19,1792; Légér-Felicite Sonthonax arrives in Cap Française as a French Commissioner charged with restoring order in Saint-Domingue. Born March 17, 1763 at Oyonnax (Bugey) France he was an attorney who was active in the original Parisian revolutionary movement. He joined with Condorcet and Brissot to secure the writ that extended civil rights for the free people of color in the French Antillies. On June 3, 1792 he was named a royal commissioner to the Antillies along with Etienne Polverel and Ailhaud.
Meeting resistance to the revolutionary order Sonthonax and Polverel deport the governor. Many other white colonial officials considered seditious white supremists are imprisoned or deported and replaced with free coloreds.
Along with the new commisioners France sends 6,000 troops who retake the northern plain in the Fall of 1792.Next South America & Caribbean: A French force sent to Saint Domingue restore order, instead sides with slaves; Captain Bligh; . |
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| North America:Kentucky becomes the 15th state, originally part of Virginia; Philidelphia site of first U. S. Mint produces silver, gold and copper coins; Eli Whitney creates his cotton gin and spurs cotton industry; New York Stock Exchange; Schemes to develop Ohio Valley using European capital fail; Toll roads and canal companies formed in Pennsylvania and New York; Small Pox strikes Boston, thousands inoculated; The Farmer’s Almanac | |||||||||||
| Europe: France declares war on Austria and its new ally Prussia; France loses initial battles, creates inflation Paris Mob confines Louis XVI and abolishes the monarchy; Lafayette, declared a traitor by National Assembly, is captured by Austria; Thomas Paine flees England and becomes and honorary citizen of France; Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire change leaders; Mary Wollstonecraft - Feminist; Robert Burns; Haydn; La Marseillaise | |||||||||||
January 1792
Spanish Officials: Alcaldes Ordinarios Primer -Pedro Marigny Segundo - Pedro Jose de la Peña. Sindico Procurador General Juan Bautista Poeyfarre Mayordomo de Proprios Miguel Roche y Girona. |
February 1792
February 29 Carondelet leases the site of the Conde/Dumaine Market to Filiberto Farge to erect a public ballroom. The Salle Conde opens October 4 1792, the same week as the first theatre at 732 Rue San Pedro. The Cabildo judges it prudent to ban slave imports from foreign Caribbean Islands. However, the procedure of inspecting incoming ships is cumbersome and ineffective. Carnival Balls held in New Orlenas first public Ballroom, La Salle Conde. |
March 1792
March 22 A Carondelet letter describes the military threat of Americans, He calls on Gilbert Guillemard, designer of the presbytere and the future Cabildo building to design fortifications. The old French palisade is in ruins so Guillemard starts from scratch. |
April 1792
The 1792 Spring floods innundate most of the Tchoupitoulas district upriver from the city along the abandoned lands as before. The area continues to be a problem every Spring. Across the river Francisco Bernoudy applies for a loan to rebuild his levee, warning that a crevass will flood twelve to fourteen leagues of land. The Cabildo confirms this but does not have the funds to make the loan. Governor Carondelet’s realization of this chronic problem leads to his recognition of rural sindics. |
May 1792
May 1792; The Cabildo authorizes the Alcaldes de Barrio to accept voluntary contributions for additional fire pumps. The citizens are generous, giving enough for two and the Cabildo returns extra money pro rata. The governor decrees that a well should be dug on each lot to provide water. |
June 1792
June 24 Land just inside the up river and down river walls of the city are surveyed by Carlos Trudeau for Governor Carondelet. This land is granted to veterans, widows and other citizens of the province. During this time Carondelet, who ordered many public works reconstructed the city's fortifications the moat outside the city was widened to 40 feet wide and 7 feet deep. This gave better protection to the city and helped drainage of the area outside the gates. June 1792; Upon the death of Luis Toutant Beauregard his heirs quarrel over the post of Alcalde Mayor Provincial . The Cabildo office is not filled until 1798. |
July 1792
Sindico Procurador General Juan Bautista Poeyfarre warns the Cabildo about slaves coming in from Guarico (Cap Francais, Saint Domingue). The restrictions from February become top priority. |
August 1792
August 1792; Hurel Dupre petitions governor Carondelet for a city lot to build a rice mill. The governor grants it and the Cabildo approves it despite the usurption of the Cabildo’s perogative. |
September 1792
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October 1792
The city's first theatre building, built by Louis Alexandre Henri opens on Calle San Pedro. |
November 1792
Don Luis Carlos de Blanc son of Cesar de Blanc will be Commandant at Natchitoches until March 1795. |
December 1792
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The first public dance hall for whites appears in 1792. Private dance halls have existed for years to provide a popular form of entertainment for all classes. This year the Cabildo offers a contract calling for an individual to build a hall on public land. In return the builder would have rent free use of the facility for three years. After three years he could rent the building or sell it to the city. Filberto Farge builds a structure eighty feet long and at least thirty feet wide. It has a wooden dance floor and boxes for chaperones and girls too young to dance. A gaming room adjoined the dance hall. In 1796 Farge accepts the option to rent, but at the end of five years the building would become city property. In 1801 Francisco La Rosa takes a contract and continues the dances in spite of the lease requiring him not to. He probably received permission from Vidal to do so. The Cabildo authorizes free blacks and mulattoes to use the dance hall facility on Saturday nights. A partnership of Santiago (James) Bernardo Coquet and Jose Antonio Boniquet received the concession and agree to subsidize the New Orleans theater, El Coliseo. They also receive permission to hold a public lottery. The dances for free people of color soon attracted both slaves and white men, becoming known as tricolor balls. They were a precursor to the famed quadroon balls. Trouble predicted by the Cabildo did not occur until 1796. |
Fort San Carlos (St. Charles) was typical of the Vieux Carré forts. Located where the Old U, S, Mint Building is today, the fort was a regular pentagon built on earthworks with a parapet 18ft thick coated with brick and a coverd way. nearby were barracks for 150 men and a powder magazine. It was armed with a dozen 12 and 18 pound cannons. In the rear of the city were Forts Burgundy, St. Joseph and St. Ferdinand. These rear guards did not have a covered way and not revetted but strengthened with frieses and palasades and eight mounted guns. There were three gates, the Tchoupitoulas gate that opened to the River Road upriver; the Bayou road gate in back of town; and the Chemin public near Fort San Carlos which led downriver. Fort St. Charles was the last remnant of these fortifications, first constructed after the fall of Quebec in 1755 and rebuilt during times of crisis. It was dismantled in 1821. In 1792 the Cabildo finds it necessary to fine several bakers for selling underweight bread. For the first time since 1777 the Cabildo contends with a bad flour supply in 1792 and 1793. After inspecting the flour the spoiled barrels are simply dumped into the river. |
By 1792 carts of dirt are needed six days a week for street repairs. Besides dirt the street crews used surplus ballast rocks discarded by ships on the waterfront. | In 1792 lower Louisiana is again suffering
from bands of fugitive slaves committing crimes. Governor Carondelet
will try this year and again in 1795 to reestablish a slave fund to
pay for apprehension of maroons.
The Cabildo allows Domingo de Fleitas, chief surgeon of the Royal Hospital to take the physician’s exam despite having lost his diploma when serving aboard ship in the Spanish attack on Mobile in 1780. |
First street lighting in New Orleans. Suggested
to the Cabildo by Carondelet,
the lighting department will later develop into the city’s principle
fire fighting and policing agency. The city clears lots adjacent to
the city to pay for lighting reflectors and provide additional military
security. The city fenced in these lots and charged for pasturage..
Cuban emigrant Antonio Morin granulates small quantities of sugar in 1792 on the St. Bernard plantation of Don Antonio Mendez. Two years later he will take his process to the plantation of Etienne de Bore. |
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