Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New Orleans

Acknowledgments

a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s On Good Friday, 1788, a devastating fire spread through New Orleans, eventually destroying three-quarters of the city’s buildings. As the fire threatened his house, notary Pierre Pedesclaux ordered his children to save the notary registries in his possession. Pedesclaux’s actions saved the records while his house burned to the ground. Without Pedesclaux’s heroic efforts, and those of the parish priests who saved the sacramental records, as well as the continuing efforts of all the archivists since then, this book never could have been written. Hurricane Katrina underscored that without their efforts, we historians would have no histories to study. For their role in preserving New Orleans’ early history, and facilitating my research , my foremost thanks goes to the staffs of the Archives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans (especially Dr. Charles Nolan and Dorenda Dupont), the New Orleans Notarial Archives (especially Howard Margot, who first told me the story of Pedesclaux and the fire), the Louisiana Division of the New Orleans Public Library (especially Greg Osborn), the Historic New Orleans Collection (particularly Mark Cave), the Manuscripts Department and the Louisiana Collection of the HowardTilton Memorial Library at Tulane University, Marie E. Windell at the Louisiana and Special Collections Department at the Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans, Katherine Nachod at the Tulane Law Library, the Archives of the Ursuline Nuns of New Orleans, and the Louisiana Historical Center at the Louisiana State Museum. Beyond the Crescent City, my thanks to the staffs at the Bancroft, Huntington, and John Carter Brown Libraries and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson, Mississippi. Research and a much needed sabbatical was financed by the Hellman Family Faculty Fund, the University of California at Berkeley’s Faculty Development Program and the Committee on Research, the American Historical Association, the John Carter Brown Library, and the Huntington Library. My special thanks to Norman Fiering, former director of the John Carter Brown Library, for supporting x Acknowledgments my work since its early days as a dissertation. My research was greatly facilitated by the assistance provided by Clint Bruce, Nadia Lour, Kristenn Templeman, Bill Wagner, and especially Jacqueline Shine. For a place to live during my frequent and lengthy stays in New Orleans, I am indebted to Suzanne B. Dietzel and David Rae Morris who opened their home to me and, even more enjoyably, introduced me to the city’s culinary and musical delights. It has become commonplace to confess that one’s work is not a solitary venture. Anyone who knows how I work knows how true this is for me. From my dissertation study group and committee to commentators and audiences at conferences and workshops to those who have had the patience to read through multiple versions as the book kept taking new form, I hope you will see some of your influences reflected in the following pages. Thanks to Robert Frame, Rachel Barrett Martin, Brett Mizelle, and Matt Mulcahy; Jean O’Brien-Kehoe (whose passion for colonial history first attracted me to this subject), David Roediger, Elaine Tyler May, Lisa Norling, and the late Susan Geiger; everyone from the University of Minnesota Early American History Workshop; all of the commentators and audiences who have sat through readings of my work, but especially Vaughan Baker, Ira Berlin, Patricia Cleary, Patricia Cooper, Judith Fossett, Franklin Knight, María-Elena Martinez, Simon Middleton, Mary Beth Norton, Sharon Salinger, Nancy Shoemaker, and Justin Wolfe. To the students in my seminars on colonialism , race, gender, and sexuality and readings in racial formation, my gratitude for allowing me to hash out some of my ideas and vent some of my bugaboos. Special thanks to Robin Einhorn, Linda Lewin, Mark Brilliant, Joyce Chaplin, Emily Clark, Sylvia Frey, and Jean O’Brien who read the entire manuscript at least once and always had encouraging words, as well as to Tarak Barkawi, Juliana Barr, Sharon Block and Kathy Brown, Margaret Chowning, Kirsten Fischer and Jennifer Morgan, Chris Grasso, Mark Healey, David Henkin, Martha Hodes, Kerwin Lee Klein, Laz Lima, Janet Moore Lindman and Michel Lise Tarter, Sue Peabody, Dan Richter, Peter Sahlins, John Wood Sweet, Tyler Stovall, Bill Taylor, and Richard Waller. Joyce Chaplin and Philip Morgan, the series editors of Early America: History, Context, Culture, and Robert J. Brugger at the Johns Hopkins University Press took on this project at a most auspicious...