| 1747 July 29 |
Born, Cambrai, France of Belgian heritage (was born in Flanders?) , son of Jean Louis Carondelet and Marie Angelique Bernard de Rasoir. He was a man of ability and rose to the rank of colonel in the royal armies of Spain. |
| 1762 |
Entered Spanish military service in 1762 |
| 1777 Oct. |
Marries in Barcelona, Maria de la Conception Castanos y Arragorri a native of La Coruña daughter of Jean Felipe de Castaños intendant of Portugalete and Maria de Aragorri. Children: Luis Angel (b 1787), Marla Felipa Cayetana (b 1788) |
| 1781 |
Served in Caribbean theater during American Revolution; participated in Spanish siege of Pensacola under Galvez, 1781. |
| 1789 March |
Became governor of San Salvador, Audiencia de Guatemala. |
| ; | |
| 1791 March 13 |
Carondelet is appointed Governor and Intendent of the provinces of Louisiana and West Florida. He also continues his predesessor’s Intendant post and the governor’s domination of the Cabildo. |
| 1791 December 30 |
Francisco Luis Hector, Baron de Carondelet becomes governor of Louisiana. He also serves as Intendant until 1794. He is the first governor to spend municipal revenues without Cabildo authorization. He spends the money and then notifies the Cabildo after the fact, but the councilors paid the bills because they did not object to his planned use of the money and the city benefited. He governed Louisiana during the most turbulent years of the Spanish era. He faces intrigues among Native Americans launched by William Augustus Bowles; expansionist pressures from many groups in the United States; invasion threats to Louisiana and West Florida fomented by the French minister to the United States, Edmond Genet and internal dissension inspired by the French Revolution and slave revolts. As a result he strengthens the ramparts and forts around the city and keeps galleys on the river. |
| 1791 December 30 |
The custom of celebrating the arrival of a new governor begins with Carondelet in December 1791. He is greeted down the river by the ranking regidores, Almonester and Ducros, and gives him a reception in its temporary chambers. |
| 1792 Jan. 22 |
Carondelet issues his Bando de buen Gobierno, dividing the city into four wards, each presided over by an alcalde de barrio or commissary of police, who were directed to get the names of persons occupying each house in their respective wards, newcomers to report on the day of their arrival or the following day. The alcalde de barrios were also to assume the management of the fire engines in case of conflagrations. His manifesto further provided for the lighting of the city by oil lamps, the expenses of the lamps and oil to be met by a tax of $1.12 1/2 on each chimney in the city. He prohibited the importation of slaves from Jamaica and the French Caribbean islands, for fear that they might be imbued with insurrectionary spirit and cause trouble in the province; made treaties with the Indians; recommended leniency toward the debtors of the Natchez district; issued regulations regarding the treatment of slaves, prescribing the kind and amount of food and clothing they should have, the hours of work and the nature of their punishment; placed New Orleans in a comparatively good state of defense; and tried in every possible way to reduce expenses. Altogether Carondelet deserves the credit of having been one of the most active and entergetic of Spanish governors. |
| 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. |
| 1792 August |
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. |
| 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. |
| 1792 |
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. |
| 1792 |
Governor Carondelet reorganizes the militia to create special units and posts for French Creoles who dislike sharing duties with "commoners". |
| 1792 |
In a levee ordinance governor Carondelet recreates the office of syndic to help post commandants watch over levees on the Mississippi. Syndics were used in the French system, but have been ignored by Spanish government in new settlements. |
| 1792 |
In a reform program Carondelet divides New Orleans into four wards (up from 1779s two) and elects two alcaldes de barrios (ward commissioner or Justice of the peace) from each ward to preserve order. Later there will be seven wards to include the three suburbs of Santa Maria, San Carlos and Bayou St. John. The keep a running census of their district, keep track of newcomers, hear civil cases up to ten pesos and appoint two watchmen to assist them. |
| 1792 |
Andres Almonester provides the Charity Hospital with an income from his rental property since 1886 Now the Cabildo, on which he has had a seat since 1790 asks him to increase his endowment. Since his old nemesis Reggio is dead the new troubles are led by sindico procurador general Sarpy. Almonester gets the Cabildo to drop the request, but when Carondelet becomes governor the others on the Cabildo take advantage of his ignorance of the history of the conflict. Carondelet appoints Gilberto Leonard as administrator of the hospital even though it was Don Andres right. Almonester sues and petitions the king before he gets control back in 1795. |
| 1793 |
Threatened seaborne attacks from the French (1793-1794) and British (1796-1797). News reached Louisiana early in 1793 that Spain had declared war against France. The French population of New Orleans became filled with hope that the province would again pass into the hands of their "beloved France." With Louisianians singing "La Marseillaise" in the streets and French envoy in the U.S. calling his "brothers in Louisiana" to seize upper Louisiana, Spanish Governor Carondelet tightens security. They did not break into open revoluton as in 1768, but at the theatres the more enthusiastic would demand that the orchestra play the "Marseillaise," while some would even go so far as to sing the songs of the Jacobins. This condition of affairs led Carondelet to issue the order prohibiting revolutionary music and martial dances in the theatres. About this time he wrote to his home government: "By extreme vigilance and by spending sleepless nights, by scaring some and punishing others, by banishing a number, particularly some newcomers who were debaching the people with their republican teaching, by intercepting letters and documents suspected of being incendiary and by prevarication with everybody, I have done better than I expected, as the province is now quite orderly and quiet." Carondelet also renewed the negotiations, begun by his predecessor, for the secession of the west. |
| 1793 |
Governor Carondelet builds new fortifications around New Orleans. Included with the construction is a slaughterhouse for butchers that is located on Bayou St. John road. |
| 1793 August 10 |
Governor Carondelet closes at least six taverns, revenues begin to dwindle as he closed more bars. By 1797 only ten taverns are still operating. |
| 1794 August 21 |
The New Orleans area are hit by minor hurricanes. Nevertheless crops are ruined and shipping on the river is heavily damaged. Hurricanes exact a heavy price on the Cabildo’s coffers. Governor Carondelet asks for assistance, but it is not approved until December 25, 1794 and does not arrive until June 1795. |
| 1794 |
In 1794 Carondelet begins a canal in the rear of the city to drain the marshes and, by connecting with the Bayou St. John, open a navigable route to the sea through Lake Pontchartrain. This first canal is one and a half miles long and about six feet in width. The Carondelet Canal is constructed by slave labor, donated by the planters, and is opened in the fall of 1795. |
| 1794 |
In addition to the canal, 1794 is the year that Carondelet orders a drawbridge across Bayou St. John. The Cabildo has more involvement in this project than the canal. Originally a horse was to operate it but it worked so well that two men could raise it. Shortly after its completion the Cabildo builds a small hut to house a sentry to guard and repair the drawbridge. A toll on ships passing the bridge pays for repairs and is collected by the sindic of the Bayou St. John district. |
| 1794 |
Despite the adjustment of bread prices by Governor Carondelet in 1794 some bakers begin mixing good flour with spoiled flour. The Cabildo warns them that if it continues all of their bread would be tossed into the river. A second offense would mean that the offending bakers would be deprived of their profession for a year. The fire this year destroys the flour reserve prompting Carondelet to order the Royal Treasury to loan the Cabildo money to import flour. |
| 1794 |
Carondelet orders eighty street lamps from Philadelphia and has them installed. Subsequent lamps will be manufactured and repaired in New Orleans. The system is modeled on the one in Havana and is sophisticated for a frontier town like New Orleans. Fuel for the lamps was fish oil, or bear or pelican grease and was the most expensive part of the system. The lamps were only lit on nights that moonlight was insufficient, averaging 22 nights per month. To pay for the lighting the Cabildo considers a frontage tax, which is found to be regressive. Governor Carondelet suggests a chimney tax, which is approved. The fire of 1794 put a severe strain on the city’s income but Carondelet prevails upon the Cabildo to resist abandoning the lighting system. |
| 1794 December 8 |
December 8, 1794 the Second Great Fire of New Orleans destroys 212 buildings, mostly warehouses, government structures, stores and barracks. |
| 1795 |
Carondelet works diligently‹if unrealistically‹at forging a grand alliance of the Native Americans as the primary defense of Louisiana and West Florida against U. S. encroachment, only to see his efforts dashed by Spanish acquiescence in U. S. territorial demands and navigation rights to the Mississippi in the Treaty of San Lorenzo, 1798. He urges, without success, making New Orleans a free port as a means of stimulating economic growth and is responsible for numerous public improvements in New Orleans. He is esteemed by most contemporaries as an energetic and honest administrator. |
| 1795 April |
Sindico Procurador General Miguel Fortier urges the
council to assemble an investigation of the slave conspiracy in Pointe
Coupee District. Alferez Real Almonester opposes the measures saying the commandant in Pointe Coupee can run his own investigation. Governor Carondelet sees the Cabildo plan as a challenge to his, as well as royal, authority. |
| 1795 June 1 |
Governor Carondelet sends the Cabildo a copy of the letter he has sent to post commandants that included rules for masters in treatment of their slaves. In June he also tries again to exact funds from all slave owners to indemnify owners of slaves executed and imprisoned after the Pointe Coupee slave conspiracy. The plan is an utter failure. |
| 1795 June 20 |
The Cabildo decides it would be harmful to permit anything other than bozales (unassimilated African Slaves) to enter the colony. and asks the governor to ban slave importation as long as war with France existed. Governor Carondelet gives individuals who had recently acquired a license to import bozales six months to use them |
| 1795 |
A group of Big and Little Osage chiefs visit New Orleans and Governor Carondelet. Visits by Native Americans from throughout the vast colony is common during the Spanish era but it is discouraged by the governors. The Indians bring gifts, dances, music, and the governors make a show of military parades and fire power to impress upon the natives the seriousness of Spanish control. |
| 1795 |
Carondelet updates his use of syndics because of need to keep levees, roads and bridges in good repair, the entry of numerous immigrants, Jacobin unrest, and the Pointe Coupee slave conspiracy. Post commandants were to nominate responsible, literate persons, usually planters, subject to his confirmation. |
| 1795 |
An arsonist starts three fires in New Orleans, but eludes capture. |
| 1795 |
Governor Carondelet orders plays to begin at 5:30 pm and posts specific rules of behavior for both audience and actors at the theater, such as no throwing oranges or repeating lines. |
| 1796 January |
Sindico Procurador General Gabriel Fonvergne petitions the Cabildo to revoke the license for the black dances on Saturday nights in the city owned dance hall. He explains that slaves of both sexes attended the dances without their owner’s permission and resort to theft to get clothes for the dances. Sailors and other disreputable whites tell slaves about slave revolts in the Caribbean, inciting local blacks to similar rebelliousness. As a compromise slaves are forbidden to attend the dances and fines will be imposed for each slave allowed to attend with or without an owner’s permission. Opposition, however comes from the slave owners, who have seen slave morale raised by the dances. Governor Carondelet decides that the slave owners are right and prohibits whites from the dances, but still requires slave owner’s permission for slave attendance. |
| 1796 February 19 |
The Cabildo and the governor agree to extend the ban on importation of slaves. The planters may agree because the two export crops of an early era, indigo and tobacco, have declined. |
| 1796 July |
The Cabildo prohibits woodcutters from felling trees on public land. It is concerned over its authority over public lands and asks Carondelet to clear up land titles or repudiate all grants that are unclear. He ignores the Cabildo , which will ask his successor Gayoso in October 1797. |
| 1796 |
Louisiana deals with a serious flour shortage. Governor Carondelet bans the export of flour, corn and rice. He seizes four hundred barrels of corn from two ships anchored on the river, and with Cabildo permission, bakers make bread with half flour and half rice, but it proves unpalatable. They reduced the rice to one third. Next they force Santiago (James) Fletcher to sell 397 barrels of flour to the city. When they try to return 80 barrels as spoiled Fletcher sues the city. The Cabildo orders the spoiled flour made into hardtack to avoid a complete loss. The flour is expensive and, as it turns out, excesive when an expected shortage did not occur the following January. The Cabildo may have lost 12,000 pesos in the confusion. |
| 1796 |
Governor Carondelet improves the canal that will bear his name. The Carondelet Canal is widened to fifteen feet wide and six feet deep so that it is wide enough to accommodate small ships.An eight foot wide path on each side facilitates travelers and horses that pull flatboats. The city’s convicts and 150 slaves provided by area plantations construct the canal, which would often curve around large trees. The canal provides a short cut by sea to Spanish settlements in Mobile and Pensacola and also helps to drain the city. A marble plaque commemorating Carondelet’s contribution is placed on Charity Hospital which stands on the turning basin right outside the San Fernando gate. Pedro Herrera serves as the first caretaker followed by Jose Antonio Garcia, but the position is voluntary and by 1802 the canal is filled with debris and vegitation and usable by only pirogues. By 1796 Carondelet has also ordered the construction of six floodgates near the city to divert floodwaters and diminish damage to New Orleans. |
| 1796 |
638 people, slightly more that 7% of the city's pop. of 8,756,die in the second recorded yellow fever outbreak in Louisiana. Governor Carondelet’s brother, a monk, is among the victims. Many of the victims are Protestant craftsmen who had recently arrived to rebuild the city. Catholic natives use mosquito netting to avoid the pests, but did not know that it also saves their lives. Home remedies included garlic, vinegar, camphor and hartshorn, but many people who could afford it simply abandon the city during the summer. |
| 1797 |
Only ten taverns are still operating in 1797 and Governor Carondelet gives the Mayordomo de Propios authority to license bars. He leaves Louisiana this year and the number of taverns and the incidents of illegal and vulgar activities begin to increase again. |
| 1797 |
Francisco Bermudez requests a city lot to build a wax factory but is refused. Next he asks for three arpents of land for an apiary and a laboratory for wax bleaching. The Cabildo allows it pending royal confirmation. The crown answers two years later, but rather than three square arpents it carelessly grants a plot three arpents square which includes the Protestant Cemetery and the Carondelet Canal. Bermudez had to reapply for the grant. |
| 1797 |
The Cabildo begins electing twelve syndics for seven posts within 15 miles of New Orleans: three in Tchoupitoulas; two on the right bank upriver; two below the city on the left bank; two outside the San Carlos Gate of suburb; one for Bayou St. John; one for Metairie and one for Gentilly. They are made deputies to district commandants and hold civil hearing to settle small civil disputes. They keep watch on strangers and suspicious activities, enforce livestock and boundary regulations and had charge in all matters relating to slave supervision. This system is effective only under Carondelet. |
| 1797 August |
Carondelet leaves New Orleans. His administration came to an end in August 1797 when he was reassigned to to Viceroyalty of New Granada, eventually he becomes president of the Audiencia of Quito, in Peru. |
| 1797 August 5 |
Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, Governor of the Natchez district replaces Carondelet as governor. |
| 1800 August |
Forty planters petition acting civil governor Vidal to renew the importation of bozales directly from Africa. Sindico Procurador General Pedro Barran leads the opposition in the Cabildo. He cites the lack of a fugitive slave fund and the abundance of fugitive slaves everywhere. The Cabildo voted to back him, but Vidal, Casa-Calvo and Intendant Lopez pointed out that royal consent was not needed since the king had never validated CarondeletËs embargo. |
| 1802 August |
Forty planters petition acting civil governor Vidal to renew the importation of bozales directly from Africa. Sindico Procurador General Pedro Barran leads the opposition in the Cabildo. He cites the lack of a fugitive slave fund and the abundance of fugitive slaves everywhere. The Cabildo votes to back him. In the end Vidal, Casa Calvo and Intendant Lopez decide that royal consent was not needed since the king had never validated Carondelet’s embargo of 1792. |
| 1804 |
Patrick McDermott, a miller, obtains a Spanish land grant in the Felicianas in 1804 for the land shown to him by Baron De Carondelet. His daughter Emily married Dr. Henry Barnes who builds the Georgian style Waverly Plantation house in 1821 |
| 1807 October |
Carondelet records his thoughts on the current quarrel between the U. S. and Spain over West Florida and the western border of Louisiana citing the diminishing power of Spain, the dependence on these areas on New Orleans and troubles with Napoleon in Europe. |
| 1807 December 10 |
Carondelet dies in Quito, Peru. |