Exhibit Case 1: New Orleans and the Spanish-Speaking World in the Nineteenth Century

Pan-American Life in New Orleans



CASE 1: New Orleans and the Spanish-Speaking World in the Nineteenth Century

From its privileged geographical location at the mouth of the Mississippi River, New Orleans has historically shared affinities and developed enduring cultural and commercial ties with Latin America and the Caribbean. In this case are exhibited rare materials that attest to varying kinds of commercial and cultural exchanges between the Crescent City and the Spanish-speaking world in the 19th century.

 

Case 1, a physical exhibit at The Latin American Library.

Contents

The texts below and images above right highlight the materials exhibited in Case 1 shown above.

 

Noticias de la América Septentrional, 1815
Imprenta de los Niños Expósitos
Buenos Aires

In the decades following annexation to the United States (1803) and until the Civil War (1861-1865), New Orleans was a point of reference within the Spanish-speaking world. The publication at left illustrates the Crescent City’s influence as far south as Argentina. As independence movements took hold in most of the Spanish American colonies at the turn of the 18th century and in the first two decades of the 19th, news of revolutionary efforts in far-flung corners of the vast Spanish empire was in high demand. This gazette issue, published in Buenos Aires in 1815, gathers together news reports about the insurgency in Mexico learned through the New Orleans press, La Gaceta de Nueva Orleans.

El Misisipí, 1808-1810
William H. Johnson & Co.
New Orleans

In the right corner of the case, a facsimile reproduction of the first Spanish-language newspaper ever published in the United States—printed in New Orleans. This short-lived semi-weekly was a mouthpiece for Spanish exiles to provide accounts on the development of the Peninsular War against Napoleon, who had invaded Spain. The paper included original articles, as well as translations and reprints from other publications. Only three extant issues are known to survive, none of them in Louisiana repositories.

 

El Moro de Paz, 1888-?
José A. Fernandez de Trava, founder
New Orleans

El Moro de Paz’ stated editorial mission was “the advancement of the commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing interests of Louisiana and Spanish America.” Its founder, José A. Fernández de Trava (1826-1906), was a prominent naturalized New Orleanian of noble Spanish birth who settled in St. Bernard Parish in the early part of the century. (See his obituary at far right, which curiously refers to him as French.) He taught in the Spanish Department of Tulane University sometime in the 1880s before turning to publishing. Articles in this issue include U.S. foreign and diplomatic affairs, a moral disquisition on indulgence, a report on an evolving scandal in the Mexican lottery, a notice of the death of a prominent madrileña, the suicide of a beloved New Orleanian, and a few ads.

Louisiana Research Collection
Tulane University Special Collections

 

Hotel Louisiana and Hotel St. Charles, 1887
Veracruz, Mexico
Ernesto Scheleske, photographer
Album of Veracruz

The album opened to the photograph in the upper left corner of the case bears witness to historical flows of people between New Orleans and cities along the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, in both directions. In the mid to late 19th century a number of Louisiana free people of color fled increasingly hostile regulations at home to Veracruz and Tampico in Mexico as well as to Haiti. Most were affluent Creoles of color who wielded moderate to considerable financial and social clout. It is very likely that the names of these two establishments in Veracruz—Hotel Louisiana and Hotel St. Charles—are a result of the influence of these recent immigrants.

Image Archive
The Latin American Library

 

Mexican Military Band
World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition
New Orleans, 1884-1885

Held on the grounds of what is today Audubon Park, and garnering international publicity, New Orleans’ World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition was intended to showcase a city on the verge of a renaissance, shaking out of its post-Civil War economic stagnation. The Mexican Government invested heavily in the event, and the Mexican Pavilion became one of the most popular places at the event. The exposition was not financially successful, but it did reinforce ties to Latin America, and not only in the commercial sphere. Jazz historian Jack Stewart has suggested that the Mexican military band that played in the Mexican Pavilion left a lasting mark on New Orleans’ music scene. A number of other Mexican bands followed in their wake, some of whom stayed and mingled with local musicians, influencing later genres of local music such as ragtime and other vernacular musical developments.

William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive
Tulane University Special Collections