A vintage map illustration of the Gulf of Mexico, depicting historical ships sailing in the water. The land features small settlements, mountainous terrain, and decorative figures, showcasing an artistic interpretation of the geography.

New Orleans, the Founding Era

Rare artifacts from HNOC's holdings and from institutions across Europe and North America tell stories of the city’s early days.

February 27 to May 27, 2018

533 Royal Street

In commemoration of the city’s 300th anniversary in 2018, the Historic New Orleans Collection provides a multifaceted exploration of the city’s first few decades and its earliest inhabitants with New Orleans, the Founding Era, an original exhibition and bilingual companion catalog.

New Orleans, the Founding Era brings together a vast array of rare artifacts from HNOC’s holdings and from institutions across Europe and North America to tell the stories of the city’s early days, when the city consisted of little more than hastily assembled huts and buildings.

Beginning with the region’s Native American tribes, through the waves of European arrival and the forced migration of enslaved African people, the exhibition reflects on the complicated and often conflicted meanings the settlement’s development held for individuals, empires and indigenous nations.

The display features works on paper, ethnographic and archaeological artifacts, scientific and religious instruments, paintings, maps and charts, manuscripts and rare books. These original objects—such as a model of the ship La Dauphine, which carried early New Orleans resident Jean-Charles de Pradel to New Orleans, or the mortar and pestle used by Ursuline nun Sister Saint Francis Xavier to mix medicines—will be complemented by large-scale reproductions and interactive items.

Le Commerce que les Indiens du Mexique Font avec les François au Port de Missisipi, between 1719 and 1721, published by François-Gérard Jollain. HNOC, the L. Kemper and Leila Moore Williams Founders Collection, 1952.3

Koning en Koningin van de Missisippi, between 1715 and 1725. HNOC, 1974.25.10.99

America, 1606, between 1563 and 1612, published by Jodocus Hondius. HNOC, L. Kemper and Leila Moore Williams Founders Collection, 00.1

Mon Plaisir Le Chateau et jardin du Chevalier de Pradel, 2001, watercolor by Jim Blanchard. HNOC, 2001.39.3

Koning en Koningin van de Missisippi, between 1715 and 1725. HNOC, 1974.25.10.99

America, 1606, between 1563 and 1612, published by Jodocus Hondius. HNOC, L. Kemper and Leila Moore Williams Founders Collection, 00.1

Mon Plaisir Le Chateau et jardin du Chevalier de Pradel, 2001, watercolor by Jim Blanchard. HNOC, 2001.39.3

More than 75 objects are on loan from organizations in Spain, France, Canada and around the United States. A number of items, like a pair of 18th-century Native American bear-paw moccasins from the Musée du quai Branly in Paris and pieces of 15th-century Mississippian pottery from the University of Mississippi, have rarely traveled beyond their home institutions.

Digital interactives will include a gallery of photographs from archaeological digs at a variety of French Quarter sites, a game quizzing visitors on supplies needed for a new home in the settlement and a 1731 inventory of enslaved Africans and African-descended people living on a West Bank plantation.

about the companion Catalog

In addition, the companion catalog—a bilingual edition, in both English and French—will feature essays describing the different populations who inhabited precolonial New Orleans and the surrounding areas, as well as the forces driving the settlement’s growth. Essayists include exhibition curator Erin M. Greenwald and historians Emily Clark, Shannon Lee Dawdy, Robbie Ethridge, Gilles-Antoine Langlois, Yevan Terrien, Daniel Usner and Cécile Vidal. Gérard Araud, ambassador of France to the United States, contributed the book’s foreword.