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1797 |
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| Previous Hispanola: 1797 In France Robespierre falls from power.
François Barbe Marbois, the French Intendant in Saint Domingue now champions the planters.
February, 1797; Lt. General Simcoe who was a British hero in the American Revolution arrives to command the 30,000 British troops in the West Province.
Returning from France, Sonthonax names Toussaint L Ouverture commander of the French forces defending the colony.
Toussaint attacks the British from the North, Rigaud from the west (South Province.)
Toussaint s leadership of the slave rebellion is now secure, but he fights for the French, ingratiating himself to them while seizing plantations and granting ownership to the slaves as partners in the French Republic. Toussaint protects whites but squeezes a 20% tax from them.
In June 1797 Sonthonax again returns to France relieved of his post.
Next South America & Caribbean: Cuban cigar makers begin producing cigarettes, severe earthquake in Peru and New Granada. |
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| North America:Alien Acts force French aliens from United States. | |||||||||||
| Europe: Napoleon resumes conquering Italy, while Council of 500 takes over in Paris; France and the U.S. are on the brink of war over the XYZ Affair; German optical industry gets a start; Goethe; Haydn. | |||||||||||
January 1797
 Spanish Officials: Alcaldes Ordinarios Primer - Manuel Serrano Segundo -Pedro Marîn de Argote Sindico Procurador General Beltran Gravier. Beltran Gravier dies in June and Francisco Caiserguez is elected to replace him July 7, 1797 Mayordomo de Proprios Juan de Castañedo. Juan Ventura Morales serves as Intendant from 1796 until 1799. January 27 Barthelemy Lafon proposes a public bathhouse. He submits a plan to the Cabildo. He wants to build it in an area on the levee near part of the orange grove that tops the levee. Aa plot of land was granted by governor Carondelet to Bernard Tremoulet on August 9, 1796 and is transferred to Lafon August 26, 1796 but a bath house is never built there. |
February 1797
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March 1797
Carondelet orders the razing of the fort erected three years earlier at Nogales, also known as Chickasaw Bluffs and later Memphis TN, for strategic reasons. Also evacuated is Fort Confederacion on the Tombigbee River. Troops and stores from Nogales are moved to St Louis while the Alabama garrison is moved down stream to Ft. St. Stevens, still north of the 31st parallel. Natchez is still held by the Spanish as a hedge against British attack from Canada across American soil by force majeure. |
April 1797
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May 1797
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June 1797
Bertrand Gravier dies and Faubourg Ste. Marie is now developed by his brother Jean who expands the survey back to Circus Street (now Rampart) and then eight blocks more toward the lake. Jean Gravier reserves a strip 40 feet wide in the center of Poydras street for a canal to be connected to a branch of Bayou St. John near Hagan Ave. in back of town . He also reserved space for a basin of 180 feet and beside the basin a public ground called Place Gravier. The canal, basin and park later become the object of litigation between the Second Municipality and the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad Co., settled in 1841. |
July 1797
July, 1797; After the many deaths from yellow fever last year the Cabildo is concerned that burials are still performed in the old city cemetery. An ordinance now prohits burials in the old cemetery and in the cathedral. Burials in the cathedral continue, however.
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August 1797
August 5, 1797 Gayoso, Governor of the Natchez district succeeds Carondelet as Governor-General of Louisiana and West Florida. His first act is to issue his Bando de Buen Gobierno and send a list of instructions to commandants of all posts concerning land grants. |
September 1797
On September 22, 1797 a royal order is issued for the evacuation of all Spanish forts north of the new American boundary. A rupture in Franco-American relations has caused fear by the Spanish court that they will be dragged into a war with much more to lose than their new French Republican friends. Final evacuation will happen within a year. September, 1797; the brick fence that has surrounded the old city cemetery has been demolished and the bricks hauled away, allowing vagrants and animals to roam through it. The Cabildo states that it has allowed Almonester to use the bricks to build the new Cathedral. The Cabildo offers to rebuild the fence and Almonester suggests that the bodies be moved to the new cemetery, but for three years nothing is done. September 22, 1797; Reflecting the growth of the city six new Regidores Sencillos are added to the New Orleans Cabildo on this date. They are Francisco Riaño, Joseph Leblanc, Jaime Jorda and Juan de Castañedo all of whom will hold this office until the transfer of the territory to the U. S. in 1803. The other two new regidores are Luis Darby Danicant (1799) and Gilberto Andry (1800) who renounce their posts before the transfer. The new offices are put up for bid but no one offers to buy them. The six men purchase the offices for their appraised value plus standard fees. Regidore-Alferez Real Almonester objects to Andry and Leblanc because they are army officers and to Casteñedo because he is already Mayordomo de Proprios. The new councilors have no collateral office and are ranked according to seniority behind the original six regidores. With this change merchantile interests within the council became a strong force and the role of the planters diminishes in the Cabildo. |
October 1797
In the fall of 1797 fifty merchants in New Orleans led by Fernando Alzar petitioned the Cabildo to prohibit vending on the levee. The council entertained several ideas but did nothing until November of 1798. October 1797 Andres Almonester registers a complaint against Mayordomo de Proprios Casteñedo because of the 5% commission rate he receives and his failure to post the bond required by law. The bond is posted, but the commission remains. |
November 1797
November 18, 1797 The Spanish government allows its American subjects to use neutral foreign ships to trade their goods with all Spanish American ports, a decree that is of great benefit to Louisiana. |
December 1797
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| By 1797 only ten taverns are still operating
and governor Carondelet
gives the Mayordomo
de Proprios 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. In 1797 the Cabildo asks for a new issue of paper money due to the cut off of its Mexican subsidy and war with Great Britain since last October. A new request to lower the import-export tax to 25% on silver and 4% on merchandise also goes unanswered. |
Francis Baily, an English Traveler writes a description of the New Orleans, but it is not published until1856 by his descendants. In their last major attempt to evade taxes on liquor merchants smuggling through Bayou St. John is halted by the Cabildo. |
In 1797 Juan Luis Nicolas, a tinsmith, is named inspector of weights and measures, but he abuses the office by insisting that vendors buy and use only measures that he has manufactured. Other metalsmiths complained and the Cabildo corrected the unethical practice. In 1797 the Sindico Procurador General accuses the monthly commissioners of neglecting their duties in the public market. Comisarios Mensual (monthly commissioners) are regidores who serve by turn according to seniority and rank. The duties increase throughout the Spanish era until 1801 when two commissioners serve each month. Their daily inspections at the meat market include number of cows slaughtered , listing of brands, collecting rents and taxes and many other duties. |
The leper hospital suffers a flood in 1797 and the Cabildo decides to sell the building, but within a year another person is diagnosed with the disease. A house in the city is dedicated to isolate lepers. By 1799 the number of patients is back up to five. 1n 1798 two commissioners are appointed to supervise the construction of four ditches to carry sewerage to the back of the city. Three of the ditches work successfully, but a fourth is graded wrong and carries slime back into the city. It is deepend into a canal and a small skiff is purchased to carry waste to dump behind the city. |
In 1797 the Cabildo begins electing twelve syndics or deputies to district commandants who hold civil hearings to settle small civil disputes. Governor Vidalcomplains in 1797 that a building being built by blacksmith Juan Dumaine between Vidal’s residence and the levee will be too noisy and cause him comfort. Vidal next widened his complaint to include all buildings built on the levee since the 1788 fire and all persons who had served as Sindico Preocurador General for not enforcing the building codes. This is ironic because later as Judge Advocate (Auditor de Guerra) he will be the main obstacle to prevent such enforcement. |
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