New Orleans Louisiana Creole Cajun Zydeco Music. Blues & Jazz of Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday NOLA Saints
New Orleans (pronounced /nu???li?nz, nu???l?nz/ locally and often pronounced /nu??r?li?nz/ in most other US dialects French: La Nouvelle-Orléans is a major United States port city and the largest city in Louisiana. New Orleans is the center of the Greater New Orleans metropolitan area, the largest metro area in the state.
New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, straddling the Mississippi River. It is coextensive with Orleans Parish, meaning that the boundaries of the city and the parish are the same. It is bounded by the parishes of St. Tammany (north), St. Bernard (east), Plaquemines (south), and Jefferson (south and west). Lake Pontchartrain, part of which is included in the city limits, lies to the north, and Lake Borgne lies to the east.
The city is named after Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans, Regent of France, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. It is well known for its multicultural and multilingual heritage, cuisine, architecture, music (particularly as the birthplace of jazz), and its annual Mardi Gras and other celebrations and festivals. The city is often referred to as the “most unique” city in America
La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans) was founded May 7, 1718, by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville on land inhabited by the Chitimacha. It was named for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of France at the time; his title came from the French city of Orléans. The French colony was ceded to the Spanish Empire in the Treaty of Paris (1763) and remained under Spanish control until 1801, when it reverted to French control. Most of the surviving architecture of the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) dates from this Spanish period. Napoleon sold the territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The city grew rapidly with influxes of Americans, French, and Creole French. Major commodity crops of sugar and cotton were cultivated with slave labor on large plantations outside the city.
The Haitian Revolution of 1804 established the second republic in the Western Hemisphere and the first led by blacks. Haitian refugees both white and free people of color (affranchis) arrived in New Orleans, often bringing slaves with them. While Governor Claiborne and other officials wanted to keep out more free black men, French Creoles wanted to increase the French-speaking population. As more refugees were allowed in Louisiana, Haitian émigrés who had gone to Cuba also arrived. Nearly 90 percent of the new immigrants settled in New Orleans. The 1809 migration brought 2,731 whites; 3,102 free persons of African descent; and 3,226 enslaved refugees to the city, doubling its French-speaking population.
During the War of 1812, the British sent a force to conquer the city. The Americans decisively defeated the British troops, led by Sir Edward Pakenham, in the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815.
As a principal port, New Orleans had the major role of any city during the antebellum era in the slave trade. Its port handled huge quantities of goods for export from the interior and import from other countries to be traded up the Mississippi River. The river was filled with steamboats, flatboats, and sailing ships. At the same time, it had the most prosperous community of free persons of color in the South, who were often educated and middle-class property owners.
The population of the city doubled in the 1830s, and by 1840 New Orleans had become the wealthiest and third-most populous city in the nation. It had the largest slave market. Two-thirds of the more than one million slaves brought to the Deep South arrived via the forced migration of the internal slave trade. The money generated by sales of slaves in the Upper South has been estimated at fifteen percent of the value of the staple crop economy. The slaves represented half a billion dollars in property, and an ancillary economy grew up around the trade in slaves – for transportation, housing and clothing, fees, etc., estimated at 13.5 percent of the price per person. All this amounted to tens of billions of dollars during the antebellum period, with New Orleans as a prime beneficiary.
The Union captured New Orleans early in the American Civil War, sparing the city the destruction suffered by many other cities of the American South.
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Little Chenier (new trailer)
A Cajun Story. Beauxregard Dupuis, watches his idylllic Cajun life unravel into one of great social complexities, as he struggles to protect his mentally handicapped younger brother, Pemon Dupuis, from the jealous actions of his nemesis and local sheriff, Carl LeBauve. Littlechenier.com myspace.com/littlechenier
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TEAM BeauSoleil Takes First for Market Viability in 2009 Solar Decathlon
The BeauSoleil Louisiana Solar Home was designed and built by Louisiana students for Louisiana residents. Judges for the Market Viability contest in the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon recognized that.
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette team placed first in the contest. Judges were looking for homes that answered the needs of their clients.
TEAM BeauSoleil designed for Louisiana residents who face harsh summers and hurricanes.
The (BeauSoleil) house hit on all cylinders, said Joyce Mason, Market Viability judge and vice president for marketing with Pardee Homes. We were so impressed with the degree to which the team listened to their market. They didnt impose their ideas or try to infer them upon their residents.
The team is one of 20 university teams from across the globe competing in the 2009 Solar Decathlon on the National Mall. TEAM BeauSoleil is the only team from Louisiana to ever participate in this contest held every two years.
We knew from the beginning that if we couldnt bring this home to the people of Louisiana, we wouldnt accomplish anything, said Gretchen Lacombe Vanicor, BeauSoleil project manager. We paid a lot of attention to our Cajun culture and produced a product that is viable.
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Travel to New Orleans
You know about Mardi Gras, the French Quarter and Bourbon Street, but there’s so much more to learn. Find out more about life with http://www.WatchMojo.com in the Big Easy: New Orleans.
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