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    Awaiting Your Return From Shore | 
    Swathed in the romance of 
    pirates, voodoo and Mardi Gras, Louisiana is undeniably special. This is the 
    land of the rural French-speaking Cajuns, descended from 18th century French 
    Canadian refugees, and the haughty Creole aristocrats of jazzy, sassy New 
    Orleans. In 1718 New Orleans was nothing but a set of shacks on a 
    disease-ridden marsh. Its prime location led to rapid development, and by 
    the end of the 18th century, the port was flourishing, the haunt of 
    smugglers, gamblers, prostitutes, pirates and escapees from the French 
    Revolution and West Indian slave rebellions. New Orleans was already a 
    diverse and many-textured city when it experienced two quick-fire changes of 
    government, passing Spanish to French control in 1801 and then being sold to America under the Louisiana Purchase 
    two years later. This heralded the most bitter transition in the city’s 
    history, literally splitting it into two sections. The Americans who 
    migrated here in droves were seen as crass and uncouth by the Creoles and 
    hated by the blacks, upon whom they placed previously unknown restrictions. 
    Unwelcome in the French Quarter, the newcomers were forced to settle in the 
    areas now known as the Central Business District and the Garden District. 
    Canal Street divided the two sectors, and even today the median strip of the 
    main roads is called ‘the neutral ground’. Creoles and Americans did however 
    come together briefly in 1815, defeating the British in the Battle of New 
    Orleans, ending the War of 1812 and securing American supremacy. The 
    victorious General Andrew Jackson’s army was made up of pirates, supplied by 
    the notorious Jean Lafitte, slaves, Creoles and native Americans.
 The subsequent “Golden Age” as a finance center for the cotton picking 
    South, trading in tobacco, cotton and indigo lasted until the Civil War. 
    Union troops occupying the city sealed off the Mississippi until 1872 and 
    isolated it from its
 markets. The North industrialized, other southern cities grew and the 
    fortunes of New Orleans took a downturn. With the coming of the railway, 
    which diminished the importance of the river, and the abolition of slavery, 
    New Orlean’s glory days were gone. Then, at the turn of the century, when 
    jazz exploded into the bars and bordellos, and Mardi Gras developed into a 
    tourist attraction, this irresistible city got once again a new lease on 
    life.
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    Awaiting Your Return 
    From Shore |