In Creole City, Nathalie Dessens opens a window onto antebellum New Orleans during a time of rapid expansion and dizzying change. The storyârooted in the Sainte-GĂȘme Family Papers harbored at The Historic New Orleans Collectionâfollows the twenty-year correspondence of Jean Boze to Henri de Ste-GĂȘme, both refugees from Saint-Domingue.
Exploring parts of the city's early nineteenth-century history that have previously been neglected, Dessens examines how New Orleans came to symbolize progress, adventure, and culture to so many. Through Boze's letters, readers witness the convergence of new Americans and old colonial populations that sparked transformations in the economic, social, and political structures, as well as the Creolization of the city. Additionally, the letters depict transatlantic experiences at a time when New Orleans was a key hub of the Atlantic trade and so very distinct from other nineteenth-century American metropolises, such as New York and Philadelphia.
Dessens's portrayal of this seminal period is innovative and crucial to understanding of the city's rich record and its larger role in American history.