New Orleans, the capital of the French colony of Louisiana, was only five years old when this map was drawn. The author is unknown to us. Very likely he was a local colonial official or military officer based in New Orleans who based his map upon observations made on the spot. This map and two of the supplemental maps supplied with this module belong to a remarkable collection of 117 manuscript maps in the Newberry Library's Ayer Collection called the Cartes Marines (marine maps). For the most part the Cartes Marines depict French colonial outposts around the world, in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The collection was clearly intended for someone with an economic or political interest in France's overseas colonies, although we don't know precisely who was this early owner of the collection. The maps in the Cartes Marines were drawn and colored (in water-color) in a style common among naval and military officers during the eighteenth century. Beautiful to behold, such maps were nevertheless serious working maps, meant to inform military and administrative officials of the latest developments in the colonies. Looking at this map, one might imagine a government official back in Paris reading it with pride and curiosity as it told the story of the vibrant new French outpost on the delta of the Mississippi River.

When New Orleans, or Nouvelle Orléans, as its French inhabitants called it, was founded in 1718, the French were already well established in North America. The French colony of New France spread out along the banks of the St. Lawrence River in what is now Quebec and Ontario, French Canada was already more than one hundred years old. The explorer Samuel de Champlain established the oldest of the St. Lawrence settlements, the city of Quebec, in 1608. New France had since expanded into the Great Lakes region and the Illinois country of the upper Mississippi valley. Detroit, the main French outpost on the Great Lakes, was founded in 1701. The French hoped to establish control as well over the lower Mississippi River and its many tributaries. European knowledge of the Mississippi was still fairly limited in 1718 (see the Senex/Delisle map of Louisiana for a glimpse of the European understanding of the region in 1718). But the French and their English and Spanish rivals already understood that the river was key to transportation routes across the interior of North America, and that the fertile lands it drained were a potentially rich source of agricultural, mineral, and animal products. The great explorer Robert Cavelier de la Salle traveled the whole length of the Mississippi (which he called the River St. Louis) from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico in 1682. On April 9 of that year he claimed the territory for France, calling it Louisiana, in honor of his king Louis XIV. Yet early French attempts to colonize floundered. In order to hasten the pace of the colony's development, the French government authorized a Scottish banker, John Law, to establish a private company that would be responsible for attracting the needed money and settlers to the region. Law's Company of the West was a famous economic catastrophe for most of its investors, but not before the company had succeeded in establishing New Orleans, which would become the colony's largest city and one of North America's most important port cities and trading centers for centuries.

The fleur de lis that appears on the compass rose at upper left points north, which means that the map is oriented northeast. The title tells us that the map covers about 10 French leagues (about 30 miles) of riverfront above and below New Orleans. The map is undated, but we believe that it was drawn (or based on a map drawn) sometime in 1723. In the previous year, Louisiana's capital was moved from Biloxi (in modern Mississippi) to New Orleans. Though the city boasted only about 500 inhabitants and roughly 100 houses, the local government, under governor Jean Baptiste le Moyne, sieur de Bienville, was busily planning for the city's anticipated growth. The elaborate palisade protecting the settlement is already in place. A larger-scale Plan of New Orleans drawn in the same year reveals that the most important civic, military, and religious structures are already in place, and several more are planned. Names were not assigned to the city's straight streets until 1724.

The site of the fortified city was chosen carefully. It was situated on a bend in the river that brought it very close to a bayou that provided access to nearby Lake Ponchartrain. Though the city and the surrounding agricultural settlements were intended to secure France's control of the delta and mouth of the Mississippi River, the city was and is some distance from the mouth itself (about 100 miles, if one follows the course of the river itself). Most of the land farther downstream was simply too swampy and unstable to support a substantial settlement. The surrounding cypress forest gave the city an abundant source of building materials and fuel. Water, of course, was readily available, and the natural levees that lined the riverbank protected the city from most floods.

The map shows us as well that agricultural development of the area was already well underway. In colonies throughout North America, the French divided their land into a series of long lots that are clearly visible on the map. These kinds of settlement patterns were also established in Illinois and Missouri along the Mississippi river near St. Louis, in and near Detroit, Michigan, and along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. You may easily find these distinctive patterns of settlement on modern topographic maps of those areas or on street maps of Detroit and New Orleans. Arranging farms and plantations in long strips insured that each plot had access to the river, which provided water for irrigation, power for the operation of mills, and transportation. (Note that no roads are indicated on the map.) Each of these plantations had to be fairly self-sufficient. Their buildings were clustered together near the river, with the fields trailing behind into the forest. The map identifies each of the landowners or settlers on these lands. Most of the names are French, but at the lower left are two "habitations des Allemands," likely some of the 300 Alsatians brought to Louisiana by Mr. Law. In between these two lots is one marked "Habitation a Monsieur Arensbourg." He was a Swedish captain and leader of this Alsatian group. Downriver (to the right on the map and southeast) we find the "Terrain au sieur Manadé." Pierre de Manadé was a surgeon who raised cattle and had married an Indian. Near the city itself are the substantial holdings of Governor Bienville. At far right are a "Village sauvage de Chabüachas," and a few Indian "cabannes" (cabins). These were settlements of Choctaw Indians. The Choctaw were allied with the French against their British rivals and their allies, the Chickasaw, archrivals of the Choctaw. Such alliances (often temporary) between Indian nations and European colonies were typical of the early colonial history of the continent. They gave European settlers some measure of safety while providing access to much needed resources and trading items, while giving Indian nations temporary advantages against their neighbors.