Chapter Three- Historic Settlement of New Orleans

Old New Orleans (Google Images)

The idea to found New Orleans or Nouvelle-Orleans, came about in Paris in 1717 through John Law's Company of the West, which took control of Louisiana that year.  New Orleans was to be a "port of deposit," or transshipment centre for future trade from upriver in the Mississippi River Valley.  Jean-Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville, the man who suggested the site, was entrusted with the actual foundation of the city.

Clearing of underbrush for the new city probably began in March 1718. The engineers charged with this task met with problems arising from uncooperative convict labour, a shortage of supplies, two severe hurricanes (in 1721 and 1722), and the unpleasant physical conditions of mosquito-infested swamps as they set up the first crude dwellings covered with bark and reeds. An engineer, Adrien de Pauger, drafted the first plan for the town, encompassing what is now the Vieux Carre and consisting of 66 squares forming a parallelogram.

The first residents were a colorful mixture of Canadian backwoodsmen, company craftsmen and troops, convicts, slaves, prostitutes, and indigents.  In a census taken in November 1721, New Orleans had a population of 470 people: 277 whites and 172 black and 21 Indian slaves. In 1722 New Orleans was designated the capital of Louisiana, and in 1731 the city returned to the control of the French crown.


Old New Orleans (Google Images)

In 1762 France, secretly agreed to cede Louisiana to Spain, and, by the Treaty of Paris (1763), Spain received New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi.

In 1800 Louisiana was secretly returned to Napoleon's France, and by 1803 the French emperor had negotiated its sale to the United States. The ceremonies transferring Louisiana to France and later to the United States took place in new Orleans's Cabildo and main square, the Place d'Armes (now Jackson Square), in the winter of 1803.
(source:http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/411897/New-Orleans/11810/History)