New Orleans

Although New Orleans is not a capital city, it is one of the most culturally rich cities in America, and it has played an integral part in our history. Given the ultimate goal of this project, to bring the United States closer together through the cultural history of our states, I felt that it was only fitting to include New Orleans. 

I woke up on Halloween morning in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was a blustery, cloudy day and there was rain in the forecast. After packing up my life in the car yet again, I set off to tour the Old State House before driving an hour to New Orleans for the weekend. It promised to be a trip to remember.

The drive seemed to melt away before me and before I knew it I was approaching the city limits of the original City of Sin. Just east of the city on I-10, the freeway morphed in to a vast bridge that spanned the Louisiana Bayou, a mysterious swampland of endless varieties of flora and fauna. It was a rainy day and the highway and power lines vanished into the fog of the marshes. Before long New Orleans began to appear in the distance.

I arrived at the hotel shortly after check in time and was whisked upstairs to the 17th floor by a jovial bellman. I unpacked in my cramped accommodations, and planned the details of my evening. It was Halloween, and I had hastily bought a costume the day before. The only one available that looked remotely comfortable was a cop outfit, so I donned my festive attire and set out for the French Quarter.

My hotel was on St. Charles Avenue, just on the other side of Canal St. from the French Quarter. It allowed me to remain in walking distance from the sightseeing spots, but still have a little bit of distance from the craziness. It wasn’t long before I reached Bourbon St. and the famous “party that never ends.” Halloween is second only to Mardi Gras for the level of celebration that sweeps the French Quarter, which predominantly consists of tourists. Many of the locals have grown tired of the goings on in the French Quarter, and if you ask any one of them, they will say that they will only work there if they have to. For tourists, it is definitely something you should experience at least once in your life. Even if the novelty of carrying around an alcoholic beverage in a plastic to-go cup on the street isn’t especially appealing to you, the French Quarter attracts an extraordinary variety of talents, from fire swallowing to live jazz along with countless art galleries and antique stores. There is quite literally something for everyone, whether or not you have come to the Big Easy for questionable pursuits. I believe that both artistic expression and controversial exploits make New Orleans what it is, and contribute to its society of great joyousness and indulgence as well as perpetual strife. It is a very old, complex, and turbulent city with many positive and negative qualities. One thing is for certain - there isn’t anywhere else quite like New Orleans.

I planned to spend Halloween night taking the Haunted History Tour, which is a famous tour around the French Quarter to historical sights with ghostly stories attached to them. After walking the length of Bourbon St. and taking in the sights, I traveled to Reverend Zombie’s Voodoo Shop, where the tours were set to start from. I arrived and presented my confirmation email on my phone, was handed a sticker, and got in line. Soon, a group of about 15 people including myself were pared with a boisterous guide with a foreign accent, and off we went. After taking us around the corner to Pirate’s Alley, where historically Pirates were known to make black market deals, our guide introduced himself and gave us an overview of what to expect. He explain that he originally moved to New Orleans from overseas to complete his graduate degree, but six years later he was still in New Orleans and still did not have his degree. Instead, he fell in love with the lifestyle of New Orleans, which is why he decided to pursue the honorable duty of regaling tourists with the stories that make New Orleans unique.

He started by giving a background of New Orleans history. For one, the majority of the French Quarter burned several times throughout history, and was largely reconstructed during the time that the Spanish owned Louisiana. As a result, many of the buildings in the French Quarter are in fact, Spanish. These fires also created a severe amount of suffering, one of the most powerful of human emotions. Many people believe that ghosts or other mysterious occurrences are a result of the mark left behind by human suffering. Our guide explained that he would present the stories of ghostly activity here in New Orleans, but it was up to us to decide if we believed in it.

As the tour commenced, rain began to pour. Various people in the group began to drop out and soon we were left with a following about half its original size. Our guide was thrilled that there were a handful of hardy individuals, myself included, who stuck it out through the nasty weather, and promised to try to keep us as dry as possible.

Then, we went to an elementary school, and our group paused across the street under a balcony sheltered from the rain, eager to hear the story behind it. Here, back in the 1950s, Elvis was seated under a tree in the corner of the parking lot, filming a movie. Surrounding him were crowds of admirers watching the most famous man on the planet with unwavering adoration. Upstairs, classes were progressing as usual, and a young boy was distracted. He desperately wanted to go outside and be apart of the excitement, so he raised his hand and asked his teacher if he could go to the restroom. As soon as he left the classroom, he hurried down the stairs and out the back door. He grasped a piece of schoolwork in his hands as he walked straight up to the King of Rock n’ Roll and asked for his autograph. Elvis, despite being right in the middle of filming, graciously acquiesced. As he handed the paper back to the little boy, Elvis told him that he would be someone someday. Thrilled, a young Richard Simmons returned to his classroom, having just experienced one of the coolest things that could ever happen to anyone. Interestingly enough, it was a classroom that he happened to share with Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated JFK. Boy, what an interesting class that must have been.

Next our boisterous guide took us to the oldest building used as a bar in America, Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar. It dates back to the 1700s, having been one of the only buildings to survive the two great fires of New Orleans, which happened in 1788 and 1794. Back then pirates ran extensive black market smuggling operations in New Orleans. This tavern used to be a blacksmith’s shop, and it was a meeting spot where pirates would come to report on their plunders or store smuggled goods. The story is that one of the most famous pirates in history, Jean Lafitte, heard that some of his men were lining their own pockets with his profits. To make an example of them, Lafitte tied the three men up and lined them up in front of a roaring fire. He pushed the first one into flames, making his friends watch as he slowly burned alive, screaming in agony. Then he did the same with the second and the third pirate, but not before the third one suffered through witnessing his friends burn alive. Tourists who come to the bar have taken pictures of the fireplace, and some have report ghostly images of a face appearing in their photographs. Those that believe in such things say that it was the third pirate, so traumatized by seeing his comrades burn that his ghost remained as a testament to their suffering.

Jean Lafitte is an icon in New Orleans. Though some aspects of his life are subject to debate, there are a few well-established facts. Along with his brother Pierre, Jean Lafitte was one of the most powerful pirates in the Caribbean. He ran a lucrative smuggling business, selling anything from gunpowder to slaves between New Orleans and the island of Barataria, located in Barataria Bay, off Louisiana’s coast. The Americans raided Lafitte’s colony on Barataria, seizing his ships and goods. During the war of 1812, Lafitte received an offer from the British Navy to join their forces against the Americans, but he refused and instead offered his services to Governor William Claiborne, who initially refused. Many of Lafitte’s men were angry about the raid on Barataria, and didn’t want to help the Americans anyway. When Lafitte met with Andrew Jackson in December of 1814, Lafitte managed to negotiate a pardon for himself and his men in return for their support in the war. New Orleans was poorly defended, and didn’t even have enough sailors to man the ships. Andrew Jackson needed all the help he could get so he agreed to the deal, and the Louisiana State Legislature petitioned the United States Government for a pardon. After the Battle of New Orleans was a resounding success, partially due to Lafitte and his men, the US Government granted them a full pardon. Although many choose to remember him for the cruel, lawless man that he was, Lafitte clearly did a positive thing for New Orleans even if it was for selfish reasons. Not only that, but Andrew Jackson would likely not have won the Battle of New Orleans had Lafitte not helped him. Because of that fact, Andrew Jackson owes his presidency and his historical legacy to a pirate, which is not often discussed by those that look upon Andrew Jackson with rose-colored lenses.

There were several other stops on the Haunted History Tour, but many of them seemed to be rooted in more fantasy than historical fact. Though they were all incredibly entertaining, some of the details elude me, and I would not want to recount any of them inaccurately. For anyone who plans on visiting New Orleans, and I firmly believe everyone should at least once, I highly recommend the Haunted History Tour. It very interesting and entertaining and an inexpensive thing to do for tourists that want to know a little more about the city.

The next day, I went on the Natchez Steamboat Tour. It is one of only two true steam powered vessels that traverse the Mississippi today. In addition to tours of the Mississippi River, the Natchez also takes part in annual steamboat races, and is undefeated to this day. They snapped my picture as I boarded the boat, and after I quickly explored its interior, I found a spot to sit on the second floor of the balcony. One of my college applications was due that day, and while I was waiting for the tour to start, I quickly submitted the final version and paid the application fee on my phone. Oh, the beauty of the 21st century. Soon, a man’s voice boomed over a megaphone, signaling the start of the journey. We took off from the dock and began drifting lazily down the Mississippi while the gentleman with the megaphone narrated the experience. First, he pointed out Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral, two iconic landmarks in the French Quarter. As the tour continued, we saw the levees that broke during Hurricane Katrina, and the neighborhoods beyond that have still not recovered from the devastation. As we passed by old military buildings and other landmarks, our guide pointed out a specific house. It had a balcony on the second floor, and a man was standing on it, waving to the group. Apparently this gentleman made it a habit of greeting the daily tours while standing on his balcony, and was known well by the captain and crew. We also passed by the Domino Sugar factory, and a number of different vessels, from cargo ships to oil tankers. After a while the narration reached an end, and the lovely Natchez turned around to return us to the shore.

 It is truly impossible to encapsulate the glory of New Orleans within the confines of this blog. The sights, the people, and the experiences are one of a kind, and to fully appreciate it you must visit yourself. I have included the parts of my visit that are the most relevant to my journey as a whole, but I assure you it is not the entire story. If there is one thing that I want to impress upon my readers with this post in particular it is that traveling, especially to New Orleans, will change your life. For me, it opened up a whole new understanding of the nature of humanity, and the culture of our incredible country. People in America, and pretty much everywhere else, just want to be accepted, quirks and all and be free to make their own choices about how they wish to live. In New Orleans, this is the essence of the cultural mentality, and the diversity of the city reflects that idea. In this way, it mirrors the United States as a whole. We all dance to the rhythm of a free nation, and we should celebrate the glorious differences that it creates.