GEORGE Y. DURRETT, Grades 6-8, Social Studies
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OVERVIEW:
Out of the swamps of Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi River grew a society that differed from any on the North American Continent. French explorer, Sieur de LaSalle, accompanied by Italian explorer Enrico de Tonti claimed the Mississippi River and all of its tributaries for Louis XIV, King of France in 1682. Over the next hundred years the inhabitants of this land ruled by heat, humidity, and disease would slowly grow in number from many diverse nationalities into a unique culture now referred to as Creole.
Through the activities in this lesson, students will become familiar with the integration of nationalities and the conflicts that ensued. They will research the individual nationalities, the reasons for immigration, and their place in New Orleans society. The students will unravel the true meaning of the term “Creole” as used throughout the Nineteenth Century.

SUBJECT MATTER: Louisiana History

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Students will be able to:
• Describe the events that led to various immigrant groups settling in New Orleans prior to 1803.
• Define the various groups and their origins.
• Explain the results of each immigrant group’s relocation.

STANDARDS:
National Standards for Historical Thinking
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/nchs/standards/thinking5-12-4.html
Standard 3: Historical Analysis and Interpretation: B. Consider multiple perspectives of various peoples in the past by demonstrating their differing motives, beliefs, interests, hopes, and fears.

Louisiana Social Studies Content Standards
http://www.lcet.doe.state.la.us/doe/assessment/standards/SOCIAL.pdf
H-1C-E3:  The student will describe the causes and nature of various movements of large groups of people into and within Louisiana and the United States throughout history.
H-1C-E4:  The student will recognize how folklore and other cultural elements have contributed to our local state and national heritage.

MEDIA COMPONENT:
Video:
Louisiana: A History, The New Americans , Episode 2 (Louisiana Public Broadcasting)

Web sites:
A History of New Orleans
http://www.madere.com/history.html
This Web site compiled by Donnald McNabb and Lee Madere offers a step-by-step approach to the history of New Orleans from 1682 to the present. Includes geological explanations concerning the difficulty of establishing a port and town.

New Orleans – Historical Timeline
http://www.umkc.edu/imc/neworlea.htm
This Web site provides a chronological list of historical events in New Orleans.

Code noir of Louisiana English
http://www.ac-amiens.fr/college60/delaunay_gouvieux/codenen.htm
This Web site provides the Code Noir as introduced into law by the French government in order to provide guidelines for legal slavery.

Catholic Encyclopedia: New Orleans New Advent Web site
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11005b.htm (Casket Girls)
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03692a.htm (Choctaw Indians)
This Web site relates the history of the Catholic Church in New Orleans and its
significance in Louisiana history.

Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism
http://www.louisiana.edu/Academic/LiberalArts/CCET/
This Web site is offered by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. It provides easy to access information about the cultures of Louisiana and provides links to museums and suggested readings.

Creoles of Color in the Nineteenth Century New Orleans
http://www.gensdecouleur.com/
This Web site offers historical information on Creoles of Color and photographs of these people.

MATERIALS:
Per Student:
· Video question and answer sheet (attached)
· Pencil and paper

Per Group (of 4-5 students):
• One or more computer with Internet access
• Group assignment slips (included)
• Map of New Orleans
• Copy of the Code Noir, Code noir of Louisiana English http://www.ac-amiens.fr/college60/delaunay_gouvieux/codenen.htm
• Picture of a Creole Woman, Josephine Landry, http://www.gensdecouleur.com/ (Photo Album)
• Time Line http://www.umkc.edu/imc/neworlea.htm (Through 1815, printed and copied for distribution).

PREP FOR TEACHERS:
Prior to teaching this lesson, bookmark the Web sites used in the lesson on each computer in your classroom. Access sites and print copies of a Creole person of color, Josephine Landry, and a time line to give to each group.

When using media, provide the students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION, a specific task to complete and/or information to identify during or after viewing of video segments, Web sites, or other multimedia elements.

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY:
Step 1. Distribute the picture of a Creole woman to the students. Tell the students that she was a New Orleans woman whose ancestors probably had come from another country. Point out the type of clothing she is wearing and the fact that few poor people could afford photographic portraiture. Ask the students what they think her nationality could have been and why.
(Answers will vary from French, Spanish, English, etc. Tell the students that she is a free person of color, sometimes referred to as Creoles of color. Creoles are a mixture of French, Spanish, and sometimes African. With the immigration in New Orleans, other nationalities may also be represented.)

Step 2. Ask the students to refer to the time line located at http://www.umkc.edu/imc/neworlea.htm and find the first mention of Creoles. (answer: 1815-A motley army of Creoles, Spanish, free men of color, and Choctaw Indians…..) Ask the students if the Creoles had just appeared in the early eighteen hundreds. (answer: No, the roots of the culture had begun much earlier.)

lEARNING ACTIVITY:
1. Tell the students that they are about to watch an excerpt from the second episode of Louisiana: A History The New Americans. Insert Louisiana: A History The New Americans into the VCR. Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION by asking: “Where was three-fourths of Louisiana’s population located?” and “What present area of Louisiana was still Spanish?” Direct the students to answer the questions as they watch the film. (The film will be watched for approximately six minutes, from the beginning through the painting of New Orleans.) Guide the students to understand that most of the population was located near the mouth of the Mississippi River because New Orleans was an important port city. Spain was still ruling from Baton Rouge eastward. This area was called the Florida Parishes.

2. Tell the students that they are about to watch another excerpt from Louisiana: A History The New Americans. Insert Louisiana: A History The New Americans into the VCR. Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION by asking: “What did Claiborne suggest would bring the Creoles to their senses?” and “Why did the people of New Orleans dislike the Americans? Direct the students to answer the questions as they watch the film. (The film will be watched for approximately three minutes, from the pause point through the window scene with the candle.)(Guide the students to understand that this was an unusual society with a different set of customs from the Americans. Conflicts were bound to arise. Frustrated, Claiborne suggested that perhaps using a cannon to knock down the walls of the city might bring them to their senses. The Creoles did not like the Americans because they made fun of New Orleans architecture and culture.)

3. Tell the students that they will be watching another segment of Louisiana: A History The New Americans. Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION by asking: “Why did Spain find Louisiana’s territory to be important?”, “When the Anglo-Americans left St. Francisville to march on Baton Rouge, what did they demand of the Spanish”, and “What were the new borders of Louisiana?” Direct the students to answer the questions as they watch the film. (The film will be watched for approximately three minutes from the pause to the view of the lake.) (Guide the students to understand the Spanish saw Louisiana as a buffer zone for the Texas silver mines under Spanish control. The Anglo-Americans demanded that they be given their independence and wanted to become part of Louisiana. The new borders of Louisiana were the Sabine River and the Pearl River.)

4. Tell the students that they will be watching another segment of Louisiana: A History The New Americans. Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION by asking: “Why did the demand for slaves grow?”, “Why did the Americans come to Louisiana?”, and “What slave rights were abolished after Napoleon sold Louisiana?” Direct the students to answer the questions as they watch the film. (The film will be watched for approximately three minutes, from the pause point through the picture of The Bill.) (Guide the students to understand that the demand for slaves grew because of the invention of the cotton gin and a better way to refine sugar. Anglo-Americans came to Louisiana to seek their fortune through farming. Slave marriages, the right to keep slave families together, and the rights of slaves to own property were abolished.)

Learning Activity Closing:
Guide the students to understand the resentment of the French after being sold by Napoleon. First, Louis XV had given Louisiana to his cousin, the King of Spain. As if that was not enough, as soon as Napoleon regained control of the colony, he sold it to the United States. Now, a culture with its own unique set of laws derived from France, Spain, and colonial common sense has a new government step in and abolish the Code Noir. This code guaranteed rights to slaves that made their lives bearable. They had the right to marry and own property. At this time over about fifty percent of the population in lower Louisiana were slaves. These were dramatic changes.

CULMINATING ACTIVITIES:
1. Tell the students that for them to really understand the Creole mixture of nationalities, they should research the people that had immigrated to Louisiana in the years prior to 1803 and the Louisiana Purchase. Divide the class into groups and hand out their group assignments. (If the teacher does not have access to several computers, the groups can take turns doing research on the Web sites. While taking turns, have the groups write a letter of protest to the United States government outlining the reasons why abolishment of the Code Noir was going to have an adverse affect on political tensions in Louisiana, New Orleans in particular. The letters should include a street address derived from the French Quarter portion of a map of New Orleans. The students may choose the type of person and occupation they want.)

2. The groups will go to the computer and first create a documents page. This page can then be minimized or hidden. At this point the students will go to the appointed Web sites.The students can copy the pertinent information from the site and paste it to the document page. In this manner, a student does not accidentally print more pages than necessary.(See attachment of group activities)

3. The groups will assemble the information and address the class on the events of the period and the resulting immigrant groups by assuming a personality of that period. The personalities can include such people as King XV of France, John Law, a German immigrant, etc. The presenter will act in first person to tell a few facts about the time period and why certain immigrant groups came to Louisiana.

4. As an assessment of this lesson may be the oral presentation, written essays on the group work and letter written to the United States Government about abolishment of the Code Noir.

Group Assignments:

Group 1 - Before 1716
Research the following:
• French and the purpose Louis XV had for Louisiana. A History of New Orleans
http://www.madere.com/history.html
• Catholic Missionaries The information is found in the third paragraph under “Early Colonial Period” in Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11005b.htm Missionaries in the early colonial period – Keep this part brief, just an overview.
• Choctaw Indians Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03692a.htm Choctaw Indians – emphasize that a small portion of this Indian nation was located in Louisiana
(Include the fact that a few Italians filtered into the colony.)

Group 2 – 1716 to 1722
Research the following:
• John Law, the Duc d’ Orleans
• German Immigrants A History of New Orleans http://www.madere.com/history.html (Chapter 2)
• Casket Girls and Ursaline Nuns
Catholic Encyclopedia: New Orleans http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11005b.htm The information is found in the eighth paragraph. (Also add that prisoners from French jails were brought to the colony because free Frenchmen were reluctant to immigrate. Fur trappers from the Midwest arrived.)

Group 3 – 1723 to 1762
Research the following:
• King Louis XV of France gives Louisiana to King Charles III of Spain, his cousin, in a secret treaty.
• Destabilization of France’s economy and a resultant revolution
• The end of the Mississippi Company
• 2000 German immigrants
• Fifty per cent of the population of Louisiana is now African slaves
A History of New Orleans http://www.madere.com/history.html Chapter 2 – The Spanish

Group 4 – 1762 to 1802
Research the following:
• Spain’s mistrust of the English and Americans
• English and Scots establish in the Florida Parishes
A History of New Orleans http://www.madere.com/history.html Chapter 2 – The Spanish
• Acadians immigrate
• Islenos from the Canary Islands immigrate
Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism http://www.louisiana.edu/Academic/LiberalArts/CCET/
Go to Cultural Tourism and then go to The People

Group 5 – 1803
Research the following:
• Napoleon sells Louisiana to the United States for fifteen million dollars.
• Westward migration begins
A History of New Orleans http://www.madere.com/history.html Go to Chapter 2 – The Americans
• What is the Code Noir?
• What were possible outcomes of the abolishment of the Code Noir by the United States?
Code noir of Louisiana English http://www.ac-amiens.fr/college60/delaunay_gouvieux/codenen.htm

CROSS-CURRICULAR EXTENSIONS:
LANGUAGE ARTS:
• Write letters as the new immigrants to relatives about conditions in Louisiana.
Refer in some way to your nationality, income level, housing conditions, and family situation.
MATHEMATICS:
• Calculate how much a common laborer from the turn of the Eighteenth Century would make in a day at today’s minimum rates per hour. Remember that they did not work eight-hour days.Take minimum wage per hour, figure that these laborers probably worked ten to twelve hours per day for one dollar. Figure out the difference in what you would make for a twelve-hour day compared to the laborer at the turn of the century.
TECHNOLOGY/SOCIAL STUDIES:
• Research the further repercussions of Anglo-American migration to the South. How did Anglo-American values form a different culture in North Louisiana compared to South Louisiana? How do the Florida Parishes differ from other parishes in Louisiana? How did a personality like Edwin Edwards evolve?
VISUAL ART:
• Compare art in Europe during the 1700’s to American and Louisiana art during the same time frame.

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS:
• Plan a field trip to your local museums and study the backgrounds of the immigrants from your area.
• Have guest speakers knowledgeable about their immigrant lineage speak in class.
• Visit historical museums in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Compare and contrast the difference in the cultures as they grew. This could also be done with other Louisiana cities because we have such a diverse culture.
• Investigate the role of the Catholic Church in Louisiana by having a guest speaker knowledgeable in this area.

STUDENT MATERIALS:
See attached. Student Materials include:
• Video Questions (  PDF ) and Answers (  PDF )
• Rubric (  PDF )