Beautiful Crescent: A History of New Orleans (38 page)

1996
December 14.
The bulk cargo ship,
MV
Bright Field
crashed into the Riverwalk.

2005
August 29.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans.

2010
February 7.
New Orleans Saints win Super Bowl XLIV in Miami, defeating Indianapolis Colts 31-17.

April 20.
Deepwater Horizon oil well explodes in the Gulf of Mexico.

Glossary

Allée:
French
,
alley. A double row of trees leading from the road or river to a plantation home.

Armoire:
A cabinet closing with one or two doors, having rows of shelves, and used for keeping clothes.

Arpent:
A former land measure. A linear arpent is equal to 191.835 feet; a square arpent is approximately 85 percent of an English acre.

Banquette:
French, low bench. A sidewalk, so called because the early wooden sidewalks were elevated, or banked up, above the muddy streets.

Batture:
French, from
battre,
to beat. The land built up by the silting action of a river.

Bayou:
American Indian, from
bayuk,
creek or river. A distributary coming out of a river or lake, not contributing to it.

Blanchisseuse:
French, from
blancher,
to whiten or clean. A washer woman.

Bouillabaisse:
Provençal, from
bouis-baisso,
boiled down. A stew of red snapper and redfish, with various kinds of vegetables, seasonings and spices.

Briquette entre poteaux:
French, brick between posts. A method of construction in vogue in the eighteenth century in which bricks were filled in between the spaces of a framework of cypress timbers.

Café au lait:
Black coffee with milk. Slang expression indicating presence of black heritage.

Café noir:
Black coffee.

Cajan/Cajun:
Acadian, corruption of
Acadien.
French immigrant from Acadia, now Nova Scotia, or descendant of one who came to live in Bayou country of Louisiana.

Charivari:
Medieval Latin, from
carivarium.
A serenade of “rough music” with kettles, pans, and the like, originally given in derision of unpopular marriage. Often spelled
chivari.

Chef Menteur:
Big Liar, Chief among liars. River so called because currents deceptive, ran both ways. Governor Kerlerec so called by Indians for obvious reasons.

Code Noir:
Code of behavior governing conduct of slaves and masters.

Congo:
A man from the Congo nation. Slang, very black man.

Courtbouillon:
Redfish cooked with highly seasoned gravy.

Crawfish bisque:
French,
bisque,
thick soup. A rich soup made with crawfish, whose heads are stuffed and served in the broth.

Creole:
Spanish, from
criollo,
native born.
In New Orleans, referred to, native born of French or Spanish parents. Also used in referring to native grown, e.g. Creole tomatoes.

Fais-dodo:
French, from
dormir,
to sleep, and
fais dodo
(children)
,
go to sleep. A country dance.

Faubourg:
French, literal, plantation, suburb.

F. M. C. or F. W. C.:
“Free Man of Color” or “Free Woman of Color.” Initials found in old documents that refer to freed slaves.

Gallery
: French, from
galerie,
or Latin, from
galleria,
gallery. A porch or balcony.

Garçonniere:
French, from
garçon,
boy, bachelor. Bachelor’s quarters, usually separate from the principal part of the house.

Gris-gris:
Amulet, talisman, or charm, worn for luck or used to conjure evil on enemies by Voodoo devotees. Presumably of African origin.

Gumbo:
Louisiana French, from
gumbo,
or Angolan or Bantu,
ki ngombo.
A soup thickened with the mucilaginous pods of the okra plant and containing shrimp, crabs, and often chicken, oysters, or other meat varieties.

Gumbo-filé:
A condiment made of powdering leaves of the Red Bay, often containing powdered sassafras root. Used in place of okra for thickening gumbo.

Gumbo-des-herbes:
French, from
herbe,
herb. Gumbo made of herbs and greens, including spinach, mustard greens, etc. instead of okra.

Jalousie
: French, literal, vertical or Venetian blind. In Louisiana, the common two-battened outdoor blind.

Jambalaya:
A Spanish-Creole dish made with rice and some other core ingredient, such as shrimp, crabs, cowpeas, oysters, or sausage.

Lagniappe:
French, from
la nappe,
tablecloth (in particular, one that catches remaining grains of rice), or Spanish, from
La napa,
small gift. A trifling gift presented to a customer by a merchant.

Levee:
French, from
lever,
to raise. An embankment on the Mississippi or smaller streams to prevent floods. Natural or man-made.

Make ménage
: French, from
faire le ménage,
to clean the house. Local expression. To clean the house.

Mamaloi:
French, from maman, mother, and
roi,
king. The Voodoo priestess.

Mardi Gras
: French, literal, Fat Tuesday. Shrove Tuesday, the last day of Carnival.

Marraine
: French, literal, a godmother.

Mulatto:
Spanish, from
mulato,
a young mule. One of mixed race. In particular, the offspring of a black and a white individual.

Nainaine
: Creole diminutive of
marraine.

Octoroon:
Latin, from
octo,
eight. The child of a quadroon and a white person. A person having one-eighth African blood.

Papillotes:
French, from
papillon,
butterfly, or literal, curl paper or foil parcel. Curl papers (for the hair). Also, buttered or oiled paper in which fish, especially pompano, is broiled to retain flavor.

Parish:
In Louisiana, the equivalent of county
.
Parishes here were originally ecclesiastical, not civil divisions.

Parrain:
French, literal, a godfather.

Perique:
Local term. A unique kind of tobacco grown only in St. James Parish. Said to have been the nickname of Pierre Chenet, an Acadian who first produced the variety of tobacco.

Picayune
: Formerly the Spanish half-real, worth about 6¼ cents. Now out of use, except to refer to something small and unimportant.

Ponchatoula:
Choctaw, from
pasha,
hair, and
itula (itola),
to fall or hang. A term used to describe the Spanish moss that hangs or falls off trees.

Porte-cochère:
French, from
porte,
gate or door, and
carosse,
carriage or coach. The gateway that allows vehicles to drive into a courtyard.

Praline:
A bonbon made of pecans browned in sugar. It is said to have been invented by Marechal du Plessis Praslin’s cook.

Quadroon:
Spanish, from
cuarteron,
a quadroon. The child of a mulatto and a white person. A person having one-fourth African blood.

Quartee:
Local. Half of a five-cent piece.

Soirée:
French, from
soir,
evening. An evening party.

Sugar-house:
Local. A sugar mill or factory.

Tignon:
Middle French, from
tignon
or
chignon,
nape of the neck. Bandana-like headdress required for free women of color after 1786.

Vamoose:
Spanish, from
vamos,
let’s go. Get out!

Vieux Carré:
French, literal, old square. The original walled city of New Orleans, bounded by Canal Street, North Rampart Street, Esplanade Avenue, and the Mississippi River.

Voodoo:
Fon,
vôdu,
a deity. An African religion, commonly perceived as a cult of witchcraft imported into America by slaves from the present-day Republic of Benin, Haiti, and the Caribbean.

Selected Bibliography

Andersen, Christine F., and Hurricane Katrina External Review Panel. 2007. “The New Orleans Hurricane Protection System: What Went Wrong and Why,”
American Society of Civil Engineers.
ASCE Publications.

Basso, Etolia, S. 1948.
The World from Jackson Square.
New York: Farrar, Straus & Co.

Blackstone, William. 1769.
Commentaries on the Law of England.
Book I. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. E-book.

Butler, Benjamin Franklin. 1892.
Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major General Benjamin Butler.
Boston: A. M. Thayer & Co. E-book.

Capers, Gerald Mortimer.1965.
Occupied City, New Orleans under the Federals, 1862-65.
Lexington: University of Kentucky.

Chase, John C. 1960.
Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children
. . . Gretna: Pelican Publishing Company.

Chase, John C., Herman B. Deutsche, Charles L. Dufour, and Leonard V. Huber. 1964.
Citoyens, progrès et politique de la Nouvelle Orléans.
New Orleans: E.S. Upton Printing Co.

Christovich, Mary Louise, and Foulhac Toledano. 1972.
New Orleans Architecture, Volume II: The American Sector.
Gretna: Pelican Publishing Company.

Claiborne, William Charles Cole.
Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne, 1801-1816.
Volume 7. Edited by Dunbar Rowland. Jackson, MS: State Department of Archives and History. E-book.

Cooke, John. 1979.
Perspectives on Ethnicity in New Orleans.
New Orleans: Committee on Ethnicity in New Orleans.

Davis, Edwin Adams. 1971.
Louisiana: A Narrative History.
Baton Rouge: Claitor’s Law Books and Publishing.

Davis, William C. 2005.
The Pirates Laffitte: The Treacherous Corsairs of the World of the Corsairs of the Gulf.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Delier, John Hanno. 1909.
The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana and the Creoles of German Descent.
Philadelphia: American Germanica Press.

Derbes, Robin Von Breton. 1976. “The WPA Saved New Orleans and Destroyed It Too,”
New Orleans Magazine,
July (10).

Evans, Clement Anselm. 1899.
Confederate Military History: A Library of Confederate States History.
Volume 10. Atlanta: Confederate Publishing Company.

Federal Writers’ Project of Louisiana of the WPA, comp. and ed. 1938.
New Orleans City Guide.
Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press.

Freiberg, Edna. 1980.
Bayou St. John in Colonial Louisiana (1699-1803
)
.
New Orleans: Harvey Press.

French, B. F. 1857. “The Memoirs of M. Dumont.” In
Historical Collections of Louisiana.
Volume 5. New York.

Gayarré, Charles E. 1851.
History of Louisiana: The French Domination.
Volume 2. New Orleans: Armand Hawkins.

Gayarré, Charles E. 1885.
History of Louisiana: The Spanish Domination.
Volume 3. New Orleans: Armand Hawkins.

Gruesz, Kirstin Silva. 2002. The Mouth of a New Empire. Chapter 4 in
Ambassadors of Culture: The Transamerican Origins of Latino Writing.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Grummond, Jane Lucas de. 1983.
Renato Beluche: Smuggler, Privateer, and Patriot (1780-1860).
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Haas, Edward F. 1990. “Victor H. Schiro, Hurricane Betsy, and the ‘Forgiveness Bill,’”
Gulf Coast Historical Review,
Fall 6 (1).

Harrison, Benjamin. 1891. “Third Annual Message.”
State of the Union Address. December 9.

Huber, Leonard V. and Samuel Wilson Jr. 1964.
Baroness Pontalba’s Buildings.
New Orleans: Laborde Printing Co.

Kendall, John. 1922.
History of New Orleans.
Chicago and New York: The Lewis Publishing Company.

Kmen, Henry A. 1966.
Music in New Orleans: the Formative Years, 1971-1841.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Le Gardeur, Rene J., Jr. 1963.
The First New Orleans Theatre, 1792-1803.
New Orleans: Leeward Books.

Le Page Du Pratz, Antoine-Simon. 1975.
The Early French Histories of Louisiana.
Reprint. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Lewis, Peirce F. 1976.
New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape.
Cambridge, MA: Bellinger Publishing Co.

Lomax, Alan. 1956.
Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole, and “Inventor of Jazz.”
New York: Grove Press.

New Orleans Regional Planning Commission. 1969.
History of Regional Growth of Jefferson, New Orleans, and St. Bernard Parishes.
New Orleans: New Orleans Regional Planning Commission.

Official Site of the New Orleans Saints. 2012. “Key Moments in Saints History.” Accessed August 9. http://www.neworleanssaints.com/team/history/key-moments.html.

Rightor, Henry. 1900.
Standard History of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Cambridge, MA: Lewis Publishing Company.

Rose, Al. 1978.
Storyville, New Orleans: Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red-Light District.
Birmingham: University of Alabama Press.

Samuel, Martha Ann Brett, and Ray Samuel. 1974.
The Great Days of the Garden District and the Old City of Lafayette.
Revised Edition. Parents’ League of the Louise S. McGehee School.

Saxon, Lyle, Robert Tallant, and Edward Dreyer. 1945. G
umbo Ya-Ya: A Collection of Louisiana Folk Tales.
New York: Bonanza Books.

Tallant, Robert. 1946.
Voodoo in New Orleans.
New York: Collier Books.

Taylor, Joe Gray. 1976. “Colonial Louisiana: A Study in Failure.” In
Louisiana: A Bicentennial History
. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

Taylor, Joe Gray. 1984.
Louisiana: A History.
New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

Texada, David Ker. 1970.
Alejandro O’Reilly and the New Orleans Rebels.
Lafayette: University of Southern Louisiana.

Williams, T. Harry. 1981.
Huey Long.
New York: Vintage Books.