SPANISH IN NEW ORLEANS

SPANISH IN NEW ORLEANS
29 April, 2014




If you happen to be in old New Orleans one summer and, after a strong, piping hot cup of café-au-lait at Café du Monde you should visit Jackson Square late at night, standing in front of St. Louis Cathedral, wait until the lights go dim just after midnight. Then go off the beaten path for a few moments. Go for a stroll through the misty alleyways alongside the cathedral.

There are two alleys: one is called Pirates Alley, named in honor of the French Buccaneer, Jean Lafitte, and his band of men who sailed before the mast under the Jolly Roger - or so it is said.

Close your eyes and imagine it is in the early 1800's. Your eyes may conjure up a view of salty seamen, just returned from the sea with boxes and barrels of contraband. Pirates, they were called, but really they were mostly boucaniers, smugglers, not cut-throat killers.

These exiled Frenchmen were mocked and shamed for making a somewhat less-than-honest living, perhaps, but in reality they helped SAVE the very city that scorned them. It was their ships and cannon that helped General Andrew Jackson turn the British away, and keep the City of New Orleans American. For this reason, this alley remembers them so fondly.

Didn't see any pirates? Then go to the other side of the cathedral. There is another dimly-lit alley called Père Antoine Alley. If, in the dark recesses of the passageway, you should catch a glimpse of a ghostly Capuchin priest, offering you his blessing, you have just seen  the spirit of buen Padre Antonio de Sedella.

Affectionately known as Père Antoine by the city's French-speaking population, this beloved priest's name appears in the St. Louis Cathedral's sacramental record books as having performed many, many marriages and other holy sacraments in the city of New Orleans throughout the Spanish administration, the brief second period of French rule, and decades into the American period.

Many of my ancestral family members were married by Padre Antonio, who so loved the city of New Orleans and its people that his spirit forever walks and keeps vigil in the alley that bears his name.

Qué en paz descanse, querido padre.

When the Spanish arrived in New Orleans, they took over a city of shanties and plantation homes for the most part. Two decades into their rule, most of the city burned, with another conflagration a few years later devouring much of what remained.

It fell unto the lot of wealthy Spanish residents of the city to rebuild, and so they did, according to the designs and architecture prevalent at that time. The finest French and Spanish Créole architects went to work, and the result is the beautiful section of old New Orleans which we lovingly call the Vieux Carré, or French Quarter.

Viejo San Juan (Puerto Rico) is very similar to New Orleans in its architecture. This is no accident. Similarities in architecture can be found elsewhere through Iberoamerica, especially in la Habana (Havana) Cuba and Cartagena, Colombia. In this respect, as well as in many others, New Orleans can also be classed as an Iberoamerican city.

The city of New Orleans has a colorful history, and its period of Spanish rule was by no means an exception. It is a little-mentioned time in which a true multicultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic port city came into being.

One oddity is that the first Spanish governor was run out of Louisiana by the local French. He was replaced by a second governor, Alejando O'Reilly - an IRISHMAN!

No WONDER I love this city so!! New Orleans pushed the envelope and forged its own way in the New World - neither following nor leading.

We of New Orleans owe much of who and what we are to those Peninsulares who came to a dismal swamp, and left with a beautiful, unique, endearing city as a token of their passing.