Dear Sir:
As a new immigrant to this welcoming republic I can't believe it's taken me all this time to come across your superb publication. Although I must say, with due respect, that I didn't abandon my previous life in France to have M. de Tocqueville lecturing me here as well.
Yours faithfully,
M. Blanc
I'm glad you've stumbled across our humble newspaper. Welcome aboard, sir! My apologies for M. de Tocqueville's pomposity!
The metric system should be the only one on Earth!
Spoken like a true Bonapartist!
Ha!
Dear Sir,
Pays d'Ouragan - what an evocative name. Perhaps the transit of the tribes through Luoisiana will result in them settling this land, as untamed and savagely-named as they are themselves?
Yours musingly,
RGB.
An interesting idea but, I suspect, unlikely, due to their low numbers and propensity towards the nomadic lifestyle.
Gens de Couleur, &c
This is more than excellent. Just some french mistake if you want to correct them, nothing too important.
In french, texien doesn't exist, it's still texan.
According names to genre is really hard in french when you don't speak it...for the Louisiana's Imperial Guard, the best nome in french would be "la Garde Impériale de Louisiane" or ''la Garde Impériale Acadienne".
In the census, you should read "Gens de Couleur". you mean freed slaves?
I'm curious, how is organised the Republic's armed force? Surely the Garde Impériale is not the principal force of it? Or américa is already ours
Er, no.
He was right. The word slowly changed in English and in French following Texian independence & Texan became standard following admission to the Union, but at the time Texien was perfectly correct.
The
gens de couleur libres were largely but not necessarily freed slaves. In particular, they were more often mulatto than entirely black. Louisiane's racial problems & stratification extend well beyond the simple institution of slavery.
Ok for Texian. For the Gens de couleurs...I was under the impression that Louisiana was a place full of mulatro...Can someone clarify that?
Mulatto (
mulâtre) was a racial class (white mom, black dad or black mom, white or mulatto dad) &
gens de couleurs was a legal class (a free black or
metis.)
I'm using
Gens de Couleur to represent primarily freed slaves. In game terms that means the free persons belonging to African-American, African-Antillean or Afro-Carribbean cultures.
Dear Sir:
A brief note to express my deep appreciation for your charming & capable assistant, Mademoiselle Dubois. Shortly after receiving my letter of the 4th, Mlle. Dubois of her own initiative searched for & excavated duplicates of the missing editions from your archive (or as we call them in Wales, "basement") and dispatched them to the city libraries. In addition, she then personally delivered a copy to my office, welcomed me to the city, & invited me to join her and her cousins at the next fais do-do later this week.
I must say, having had my first experience of the famed "French hospitality," I am now much more comfortable with my decision to immigrate. With thanks, I remain
Your faithful reader,
Llywelyn Farf-fehinog AP LLWYD
I'm glad Mlle Duboise could be of assistance. She has proved invaluable in the offices of the Star, especially during stressful and busy periods.
Now,
that is a fun mod.
edit [& edit for format]:
Dear Sir:
With details such as 'Texien' & 'Orleans-sur-le-Brazos,' I am curious whether you might perhaps have wanted to break up the new territories using French names. Certainly the services of Louis & Clarke were not so beneficial that the state must be forever saddled with this American nomenclature?
For truly compulsive historical detail, allow me to commend the services of David Rumsey, cartographer extraordinaire, whose shoppe graces the Rue de Constantinople in our fair capital. On a particularly excellent map from 1804, there are notes that Arkansas started out as Akansas, Oklahoma was the land of the Cadodaquois, the Iowa's much smaller than the R. de Moines, Nebraska & S. Dakota could've been called Paneise Blanche & Noire after the Pawnee, &c. Some provinces could get names of beloved French regions, the royal family, or former administrators (e.g., Beauharnois for Minnesota.)
Your faithful reader,
Llywelyn Farf-fehinog ap Llwyd
Dear Sir:
Forgive if you can such an inordinately discursive epistle as this may prove to be; but as a recent immigrant to these shores, I have determined to assimilate myself as best I am able and to that purpose am slowly making my way through your back issues as a means of familiarizing myself with the people and mores of this great land.
- First, I have noticed that someone seems to have misplaced the historic July 12, 1815, edition detailing Louisiana's first reactions to the introduction of the Bonaparte dynasty.
- Likewise, the only copy of your May 6, 1821, edition detailing Louisiana's reaction to Napoleon I's death seems to have been vandalized.
The entire second half has been covered with the following graffito:
.
- A series of editorials over the years has lambasted the quality of Nouvelle-Orleans's printers. Should you again relocate your business, allow me to commend the fine staff at Tiny Picque on the Rue de Rocheblave. Owing to a long-standing feud involving some misplaced goats, the gendarme of my own neighborhood, la Chine, categorically refuse distribution of publications from your current house, l'Imageshack. While I am aware this is less your problem than mine, still it would be pleasant to no longer depend on securing my copies from the bottoms of friends' birdcages and the obviously ill-tended (sup.) archives at the town library.
- Perhaps owing to those gaps in the record, a number of questions come to mind:
- Considering the amount of Louisianan income gained from steamer transportation & customs duties, the great political power wielded by our clerics, & our generally amicable relations with the Indian tribes, how could President Andrew Jackson have failed to declare war upon us? Are American goods shipped duty-free through the port? & if so, how does the administration prevent smuggling of goods from within Louisiana?
- Any number of your readers echo the government's generally sympathetic tone towards the Indians, even going so far as to suggest that America's humane relocation of them is somehow morally reprehensible. Certainly there are some settled tribes who perform yeoman's work in their own villages: Sam Houston's Cherokee in north Texas come to mind. But have these people heard none of the stories from Texas? or from our own traders with Santa Fe?
The Comanche are nothing but a plague upon our nation, & at the resolution of hostilities in Texas, I should like to hear more of our government's plans for their expulsion or containment.
- 3% of our population comes to what? 50,000 men under arms? 5 full regiments of infantry? I am aware M. Dubois de Saligny is discussing the provision of war loans to the Texiens in exchange for enormous grants of land, but if our men do not join the conflict, what hope do we have that those drunkards & ruffians who previously had given themselves no choice but to have Gone To Texas will survive long enough to honor their commitments?
(Leaving aside that many of the land grants seem to be located in Comanche territory rather than the settled vale along the St.-Antoine road, is Texas still considered to be part of Louisiana? [i.e., core territory: it was claimed by the U.S. as part of the Louisiana Purchase until the Adams-Onis Treaty.])
- Any word on whether the government is entertaining offers from the federalist Mexican rebels in Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas, or the Yucatan? There're even rumors the last might be interested in annexation in exchange for protection from the Mexican "centralistas." If war with Gen. Santa Ana is necessary to protect the people of Champ d'Asile, we might as well gain as much as we can from the conflict.
- Finally, speaking of rumors, one hears many disquieting things about the "Hoodoo" practiced by the slaves of St.-Domingue & many even here in Nouvelle-Orleans. Surely they can't be true?
Your faithful reader,
Llywelyn Farf-fehinog ap Llwyd
Dear M. ap Llwyd,
My thanks for your extensive letter. I'll do my best to address your welcome comments.
Regarding the
cartography services of M. Rumsey - he has proven to be most helpful, and I think that I shall indeed update the map previously published. I have endeavoured to balance names familiar to some of my American readers with a more Francophone flair. Wherever possible, it seems appropriate to use the names of a territory's Indian inhabitants, rather than a person of note.
Regarding
images - I hope the missing issues have been republished to your satisfaction. The editorial team has endeavored to correct some printing errors that occurred.
I'm sorry to hear about the problems with your local constabulary and the lithographers widely employed by publishing houses. As I have already been involved in a dispute with the "photobucket" publishing company, I can understand the difficulties involved. There are, however, no plans at this time to begin using a different printing corporation.
Political questions - A key part of the Treaty of Ghent which established the Republic of Louisiana guarantees duty-free access for American and British goods along the Mississippi. Both parties have further guaranteed protection to Louisiana in the event of either a British or American invasion.
The Indian territories set aside in the Western portion of Acansas are aimed at settled the 'civilised' tribes expelled from the United States. Relations with the plains Indians of Upper Louisiana will be a different story, however, especially once Acadien settlers begin heading west to the Pacific...
Louisiana is bound by the Adams-Odonis treaty, despite the fact that it was ratified with barley any consultation with our government. Texas is not internationally considered a core part of the Republic. There are, however, many within the government who believe otherwise.
Remember that the census was conducted by household. 11,963 men are enlisted as regular or reservist members of the armed forces, which represents 3% of the total number of households surveyed (c.460,000).
Whether either the US or Louisianais government recognises other independence movements within Mexico will probably depend upon the progress of the war.
I'm afraid rumours of the Hoodoo practices of the African community in Louisiana persist, albeit in clandestine societies and underground meetings. The church takes a particularly dim view of such proceedings.
Dear Sir
Thank you for your informative census article. I for one was shocked by the full extent of the slave population. It almost feels as if our new country is actually two nations crudely joined together - Louisiana and St Dominique. I cannot help but think that dvelopment here on the mainland will be curtailed by the need for repressive measures to keep the planation economy of St Domnique running.
Your faithfully
Mr A Alfredian
You have put your finger upon it. The Caribbean colonies share very little in common with
much of Louisiana. Slavery is the dominant issue of the time. Louisiana is unlikely to face such discord as the United States, however, since there is less discrepancy between an industrial north and agricultural south. At present, the entire economy of Louisiana is agrarian. Instead, the conflict will be between the free farmers and slave-owning elites.
Do you have cores on Quebec?
No. But I am planning to create 'New France' as a cultural union for Quebec and Louisiana. Whether I can possibly achieve that is another matter.
Now I have to play the
first Gabriel Knight just to get in the New Orleans mood
Old School! I should check it out!
Dear Sir
Truly President Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón is a monster, and possibly Russian by blood.
I'm intrigued by this great census, the results are most fascinating, especially the results from Saint Dominge. Surely there is no possible way that slavery can continue when the slaves outnumber the colonists by far, hopefully they can end this barbaric practice before the slaves decides to take the matter in their own hands. A bloody revolution is not what Lousianne needs.
Yours
Mssr. Sometimes
The question that divides our political classes is this - are the Africans a greater danger as resentful slaves, or as free and empowered former captives who threaten to overwhelm our culture?
