Beautiful Crescent: A History of New Orleans (20 page)

Since the Irish, and immigrants in general, had anti-slavery propensities, they were the political targets for the prominent, wealthy, slave-owning Whigs. Although hostility existed between the Irish and the black population (mostly due to competition for jobs), the Irish had been oppressed too long by the British to support an institution that fostered oppression. Paradoxically, many old, established Irish business leaders, who had married Creole
wives, were not only Whigs but also slave-owners. This was also true of some well-established Anglo-Americans.

The Democratic Party dominated national politics from 1801 to 1860. During this period, the opposition party had been called, at different times, Federalists, National Republicans, and Whigs.

As we have seen, the city split into three municipalities in 1836 and reunited in 1852. When they reunited, the Creoles
wanted a common council which, in allegiance with the Third District immigrants, they could control. The Americans wanted consolidation and annexation of the City of Lafayette
, which would support them on basic issues. The latter plan was accepted.

To obtain the support of the Third District immigrants, many of the Creoles
in the Vieux Carré
joined the Democratic Party. The Americans in Faubourg St. Mary
, both by choice and necessity, joined the Whig Party.

Just before the Civil War
, the National Democratic Party split into the Northern Democrats and the Southern Democrats; the Whigs, divided over the same issue, began to disintegrate. The nation saw the emergence of a new political party, the Republican Party, in 1854 through 1856. With their candidate, Abraham Lincoln, the Republicans won the presidential election of 1860.

In New Orleans, the Whigs ceased to exist because of their anti-slavery sentiments. Those who had been Whigs and wished to retain their anti-Democratic identity joined the “Know-Nothings,” rabid Nativists, whose main objective was to break the power of the immigrants in politics. It was easy to make the change from Whig to Know-Nothing. Whigs were wealthy and powerful. The Nativist doctrine of the Know-Nothings, which oppressed the immigrants, suited their purposes.

Throughout the summer of 1854, reckless remarks by Know-Nothings convinced the Irish that the Americans were going to burn down St. Patrick’s Church
and slaughter Irish immigrants as they slept.

For ten days in September, armed gangs of Irish and Americans marched endlessly, causing needless destruction. On the evening of September 11, the Americans gathered at Lafayette Square
and the Irish at St. Mary’s Market. A fight ensued on Camp Street. Two were killed and many were wounded. Hostile feelings flared.

Just before the mayoral election of 1858, the Know-Nothings in New Orleans split. The independents nominated Major P. G. T. Beauregard and went after the old Whig vote; the American Party nominated Gerard Stith
, a printer, and went after the labor vote. Two days before the election, the Creole
-immigrant group formed a vigilante committee to guarantee a peaceful election. They recruited five hundred men, mostly Irish, who occupied the arsenal and the municipal buildings at Jackson Square
. The Americans formed an organization which camped at Lafayette Square
. Peace was achieved by means of a compromise, without the use of violence.

From 1860 to 1864, during the War Between the States, political parties had no purpose. Municipal government, as we shall see, gave way to military rule. Then, during Reconstruction, only two political
parties remained: the Republicans (the members of the Federal army of
occupation and the blacks) and the Democrats (the defeated Southern whites). For more than half a century, the South was referred to as the Solid South because of the total and predictable adherence of the whites to the Democratic Party and its policies.

CHAPTER VII

Customs, Carnival, and Cemeteries

Customs

When New Orleans became American in 1803, the port city became a refuge for the world. Down the Mississippi and from across the Atlantic came immigrants, bringing with them customs and traditions, which were to be their lifeline to a world they had left behind.

In a city that was predominately Catholic and known for its love of festivity, it is not strange that as many as twenty-five Holy Days per year, besides Sundays, came to have their own special celebrations.

On
Christmas Eve,
a peculiarity of the area is the lighting of bonfires all along the levee of the Mississippi. It is a very old tradition, supposedly begun by the Acadians, who were “so far from home that they had to guide ‘Père Noel,’ so he could find them.” For weeks in advance of Christmas, river dwellers begin erecting pyramids of logs in graduated sizes in preparation for the fires. The sight of the line of bonfires from the opposite side of the river on Christmas Eve is one of the most memorable spectacles the area has to offer.

Twelfth Night
is King’s Day, another religious holiday, that honors the day when the three wise men are said to have visited the Christ Child. It is the twelfth night after Christmas. It is celebrated in New Orleans by the baking and eating of “king cakes,” circular rings of coffee cake dough sprinkled with colored, granulated sugar. Inside the cake, a tiny doll, bean, or ring is hidden. The guest who finds the object gives the next party, and so it goes weekly until Mardi Gras.

A forerunner in New Orleans of this charming party custom was the Bal de Bouquet
, which originated in the nineteenth century. It was given by a bachelor, chosen at the beginning of the Carnival season, at the home of a lady whom he had designated his queen by crowning her with a wreath of flowers. After a few quadrilles at the party, the

A little girl receives lagniappe after her purchase.
(Courtesy Leonard V. Huber Collection)

king (the bachelor) led the queen to the center of the floor, where she crowned the king with a wreath of flowers. The ritual was repeated weekly until Mardi Gras. (The similarity to today’s King Cake parties can easily be seen.)

Mardi Gras
is so special in New Orleans and has such a history of its own that it will be treated in a separate section of this chapter.

St. Patrick’s Day,
March 17, is celebrated by the wearing of green, parades, and dances and banquets given by the Hibernians and other Irish-American organizations.

Visitors admire the artistry of the altar at St. Joseph the Worker church.
(Courtesy Ethelyn Orso)

St. Joseph’s Day,
March 19, is observed by the building of St. Joseph Altars in the homes of Italians in thanksgiving to the saint for favors granted. The altars originated in Sicily during the Middle Ages, when famine threatened the island, and the people prayed to St. Joseph. One crop, the fava bean, survived to save them, and in
thanksgiving, they prepared cooked food and laid it out on an altar for
the needy. New Orleanians of Sicilian descent still commemorate the day in the same way.

Throughout the year, many Italians make vows that if a prayer for help is answered, they will build an altar to St. Joseph in their homes each year on his feast day.

Father Douglas Doussan blesses the St. Joseph’s Altar at St. Joseph the Worker church in Marrero, Louisiana.
(Courtesy Ethelyn Orso)

Today, the altars are elaborately decorated with bread baked in the shape of wreaths, crosses, and hearts. Italian cakes and cookies are decorated with praying hands and Bibles. Baskets of fava beans and St. Joseph medals are placed on the altar to be distributed to visitors, as they did in the old days, to ward off famine in the coming year. No meat is placed on the altar in keeping with the Lenten penance, but there are dishes of fish, stuffed lobsters, crabs, and vegetables, fruits, and pasta of many kinds.

On St. Joseph’s Day, children dressed as Mary and Joseph take part in a little ceremony commemorating their search for shelter in Bethlehem. The Italians invite them in to share the wealth of their altars. Then, the food is shared with friends and neighbors or is donated to a needy organization.

On St. Joseph’s Night, the Italian community gives a parade through the French Quarter with floats, horses, bands, and marchers.

An interesting sidenote of the St. Joseph feast is the tradition of the parades of the Mardi Gras Indians. Only twice a year, on Mardi Gras Day and St. Joseph’s Night, do they appear in their colorful, elaborate costumes, with the ornate beadwork and the enormous feather headdresses. Tribes such as the Wild Magnolias, the Black Eagles, the Yellow Pocahontas, or the Wild Squatoolas compete in a colorful display of costumes. It is believed that their appearance on this particular feast day dates back to their veneration of St. Joseph in their voodoo rituals of the late nineteenth century.

Easter Sunday
is a movable feast, celebrated on the first Sunday
following the first full moon after the spring equinox. This, of course, is
a world-wide holiday. But in New Orleans, Germaine Cazenave Wells, a descendent of Count Arnaud (founder of Arnaud’s Restaurant), arrived at the St. Louis Cathedral on Easter Sunday for several decades in an extravagant
chapeau,
after having led an Easter parade through the French Quarter. Today, the Germaine Wells parade continues and is followed by another at noon, led by French Quarter entertainer Chris Owens.

The
Spring Fiesta
is an acknowledgment of the beautiful season of spring and a tribute to the cultural heritage of Louisiana. Begun in 1947, the Spring Fiesta is a tourist-oriented celebration. For nineteen days, beginning on the first Friday after Easter, young ladies of New Orleans dressed in antebellum costumes escort groups of tourists by candlelight through the French Quarter
patios and the beautiful old homes of the Garden District
. Plantations along Bayou Teche, River Road, Bayou Lafourche, and Feliciana offer similar tours of private homes.

New Orleanians decorate the tombs of the dead for All Saints’ Day.
(Courtesy Leonard V. Huber Collection)

All Saints’ Day,
November 1, has a very special meaning to New Orleanians. Since the water table of the city made above-ground
burials a necessity, residents took the opportunity to erect elaborate tombs and mini-mausoleums to house their dead. The upkeep of these properties was a way of life and a year-round occupation. Special pains
were taken in preparation for All Saints’ Day, which included whitewashing tombs, pulling weeds, sweeping sidewalks, and bringing vases to the burial site. In the old days, tombs and headstones were draped with flags or black crepes. Ground plots were edged with painted shells, China dogs, and pig banks. And on the day itself, thousands thronged to the cemetery to bring flowers and pray for their loved ones in these cities of the dead. The first All Saints’ Day activities celebrated the re-opening of St. Peter’s Cemetery in 1742 and the completion of the fence surrounding it. The work had been paid for by the rich and labor was the gift of the poor.

Street Vendors

Almost from the very beginning of New Orleans history, there were street vendors, singing their cadences as they advertised their wares to housewives of the city. In colonial days, slave-owners sent older slaves who could no longer work in the fields out to sell the surplus products of the plantation. The owners had to buy licenses for their slaves but increased their annual income by thousands of dollars.

Vendors endured well into the 1960s, and even today, an occasional truckload of fresh vegetables or fruit may still be seen in the residential areas of town. At the turn of the century, the housewife depended almost entirely on street vendors and went to market only if it was in walking distance and if she was in need of meat, an item that did not appear daily on the supper table.

The sight of the mule-drawn vegetable wagon was a welcome one, for it was a break in the day’s routine, and the sound of vendor’s melodious “Water-melon! Red to the rind!” or “Ah got Ba-na-na, Lay-dee!” was music to the ear of the housewife. The rendition of the vendor’s songs and chants was limited only by his imagination and talent. “Black-ber-reees! Ah got black ber-rees!” might be warbled into the morning air with the pathos of a tenor of the Metropolitan Opera House.

Many vendors walked, carrying baskets filled with a variety of vegetables on their heads. Their prices were low, their produce fresh, and the cost of any item was subject to discussion. Each season saw the appearance of its own specialties. In early summer, there were strawberries, followed later on by watermelons and by wild ducks in the fall. During Lent, there were always fish and oysters. There were milk vendors, ice cream vendors, and bread and cake vendors singing the familiar “Calas! Tout chauds!” Familiar faces included the Corn Mean Man, the Hot Pie Man, the Waffle Man, the Candy Man, the Broom Man, the Clothespole Man, the Chimney Sweep, the Bottle Man, the Knife Sharpener, the Umbrella Man, and Zozo La Brique, who sold brick dust to scrub stoops and walks in certain neighborhoods. There were also the spasm bands of small black boys who did a slapfoot dance with makeshift instruments, hoping for a handout from passing pedestrians.

At the French Market, Choctaw Indians sold sassafras and other
roots and herbs. Black women in tignons sold rice cakes, molasses, and
pralines. In the markets, which were spread all over town, everything was available from chickens to fish to oysters to live canaries in cages. Even women in search of a day’s work were singing out their trades, waving their washboards above their heads.

Superstition

Due to the constituency of the population, superstition ran rampart throughout the city. The Irish had brought over their own superstitions, most of which were considered comic, or at least, not taken too seriously. The blacks, because they so long adhered to the voodoo cult, feared gris-gris (ritual objects such as crossed sticks, circles of salt, roosters’ heads) as evil omens. Gamblers, with which the city abounded, were natural adherents of superstition. Many played the lottery and consulted their “dream books” for the numbers they should play, depending on whether they had dreamed of fire, death, rain, or even red beans.