Five Things from a New Orleans Graveyard
New Orleans travelog #8
French Quarter - Monday, 23 Apr 2023, 4pm
Today we decided to visit a graveyard in New Orleans since the museums we wanted to visit were closed. [Ed.: This blog is delayed from almost 2 weeks ago.] After some discussion of alternatives we chose the St. Louis Cemetery #1 because it was the oldest- and also nearest. We could walk there from our hotel a block off Bourbon Street in the French Quarter.
What's there to do in a cemetery? Learn, actually. Here are Five Things:
1. Graves in New Orleans are all above ground
Throughout most times and places in Western cultures, most of dead are buried underground. Above ground crypts are only for the very wealthy few. In New Orleans the calculus is different, as if you dig a hole even 18 inches deep it fills with water.
Originally inhabitants of New Orleans, founded by the French in 1718, buried their dead in the levees on the banks of the Mississippi River. That failed as soon as there was a natural flood... all of a sudden the coffins of the dead were floating among the living! Then they tried drilling holes in coffins (to allow water in) and sinking them in the river... that didn't work so well, either. St. Louis Cemetery #1, the oldest in the New Orleans (but named St. Louis because that's the name of the cathedral), was founded in 1789 when the region was under Spanish rule.
2. It's HOT inside. A year and a day.
It gets hot inside these brick and stone tombs. It's often 130° (55° C), the tour guide told us. This slowly cremates the remains inside. How slowly? Well, not too slowly. City ordinance dating back centuries is that tomb can be reopened a year and a day after a body is interred- and then it can be reused.
3. High mortality rates
On many of the tombs in New Orleans you'll see several names in the space for one body- sometimes a dozen names. This reflects not just the law allowing reuse of tombs (see above) and the economics of allocating real estate for the dead, but also the high mortality rate of the times.
"Half of all children died before their 5th birthday," our guide asserted. I've been unable to find hard data supporting that- but it's not too far off from widely understood figures. From 1800 to 1870, the child mortality rate was 40%+ globally. That means almost half of all children born alive didn't survive 5 years. Could something(s) particular to New Orleans have led to a higher death rate locally? Sure. The city was rife with poverty, and squalor, and... Yellow Fever.
4. HALF the city died?!
Yellow Fever was a scourge of New Orleans throughout the entire 1800s. It was only tracked officially starting in 1800, and its cause (mosquitos and poor sanitation) wasn't identified until 1900. Epidemics occurred almost annually after 1825. The worst outbreak was in 1853. "In that year alone the city lost half its population!" our guide asserted.
Half the residents died? That's a shocking statement. Again I did some research to check the numbers. Long story short: Various sources indicate the death rate from Yellow Fever topped out at around 5-7% per year. But that's still a lot of people when you think about it. Perhaps what the guide meant was in a 10 year period half of all city residents died. The numbers definitely support that! 💀
5. Racial history. Homer's defiance.
New Orleans had a history of racial integration. Founded as a French colony in 1718, its culture was more welcoming of Black and mixed-raced people than it would become after US statehood (as part of Louisiana) in 1812. During the French period it had a significant population of free people of color. And these non-white people were not just relegated to servant status a la the Jim Crow era that followed the Civil War; they were artisans, business owners, and educated. Even when the Spanish Crown tried tightening racial laws during the brief period of Spanish control in the late 1700s, locals developed ways around it to continue blending multi-racial families.
US statehood in 1812 brought a host of legal changes. All of a sudden the laws controlling Black and mixed-race people were very strict, and they were strictly enforced. Culture, though, tends not to change as quickly. Many of the French- and Spanish-speaking residents of the area- who were actually the majority for a long time- continued with their more "live and let live" ways. Or at least they tried.
There's an interesting bit of American history rooted here. Among the dead buried in this cemetery is a local fellow named Homer. Homer Plessy. A name that all US students learn in history class- or used to learn, before "anti-woke" hysteria became a thing.
In 1892 a group of prominent citizens, including Black, White, and mixed race people, wanted to challenge racial segregation laws. One of its members, Homer Plessy, bought a train ticket and sat in the whites-only train car. Plessy was born a free man and was only one-eighth Black- but by US law that meant he was Black, and under Louisiana law that meant segregation. He was arrested.
Plessy's punishment may have been as short as a single night in jail (our guide's claim; I've been unable to verify with brief research) but the point wasn't to go to jail or not. The point was to challenge the law. Plessy appealed all the way up to the US Supreme Court. In 1896 the Supremes decided, in the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson decision, to uphold segregation with the doctrine of Separate But Equal. That doctrine became the legal underpinning for the Jim Crow south. It was the law of the land for at least 58 years, until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and other cases in the years following, picked it apart.
French Quarter - Monday, 23 Apr 2023, 4pm
Today we decided to visit a graveyard in New Orleans since the museums we wanted to visit were closed. [Ed.: This blog is delayed from almost 2 weeks ago.] After some discussion of alternatives we chose the St. Louis Cemetery #1 because it was the oldest- and also nearest. We could walk there from our hotel a block off Bourbon Street in the French Quarter.
What's there to do in a cemetery? Learn, actually. Here are Five Things:
1. Graves in New Orleans are all above ground
Throughout most times and places in Western cultures, most of dead are buried underground. Above ground crypts are only for the very wealthy few. In New Orleans the calculus is different, as if you dig a hole even 18 inches deep it fills with water.
Originally inhabitants of New Orleans, founded by the French in 1718, buried their dead in the levees on the banks of the Mississippi River. That failed as soon as there was a natural flood... all of a sudden the coffins of the dead were floating among the living! Then they tried drilling holes in coffins (to allow water in) and sinking them in the river... that didn't work so well, either. St. Louis Cemetery #1, the oldest in the New Orleans (but named St. Louis because that's the name of the cathedral), was founded in 1789 when the region was under Spanish rule.
2. It's HOT inside. A year and a day.
It gets hot inside these brick and stone tombs. It's often 130° (55° C), the tour guide told us. This slowly cremates the remains inside. How slowly? Well, not too slowly. City ordinance dating back centuries is that tomb can be reopened a year and a day after a body is interred- and then it can be reused.
3. High mortality rates
On many of the tombs in New Orleans you'll see several names in the space for one body- sometimes a dozen names. This reflects not just the law allowing reuse of tombs (see above) and the economics of allocating real estate for the dead, but also the high mortality rate of the times.
"Half of all children died before their 5th birthday," our guide asserted. I've been unable to find hard data supporting that- but it's not too far off from widely understood figures. From 1800 to 1870, the child mortality rate was 40%+ globally. That means almost half of all children born alive didn't survive 5 years. Could something(s) particular to New Orleans have led to a higher death rate locally? Sure. The city was rife with poverty, and squalor, and... Yellow Fever.
4. HALF the city died?!
Yellow Fever was a scourge of New Orleans throughout the entire 1800s. It was only tracked officially starting in 1800, and its cause (mosquitos and poor sanitation) wasn't identified until 1900. Epidemics occurred almost annually after 1825. The worst outbreak was in 1853. "In that year alone the city lost half its population!" our guide asserted.
Half the residents died? That's a shocking statement. Again I did some research to check the numbers. Long story short: Various sources indicate the death rate from Yellow Fever topped out at around 5-7% per year. But that's still a lot of people when you think about it. Perhaps what the guide meant was in a 10 year period half of all city residents died. The numbers definitely support that! 💀
5. Racial history. Homer's defiance.
New Orleans had a history of racial integration. Founded as a French colony in 1718, its culture was more welcoming of Black and mixed-raced people than it would become after US statehood (as part of Louisiana) in 1812. During the French period it had a significant population of free people of color. And these non-white people were not just relegated to servant status a la the Jim Crow era that followed the Civil War; they were artisans, business owners, and educated. Even when the Spanish Crown tried tightening racial laws during the brief period of Spanish control in the late 1700s, locals developed ways around it to continue blending multi-racial families.
US statehood in 1812 brought a host of legal changes. All of a sudden the laws controlling Black and mixed-race people were very strict, and they were strictly enforced. Culture, though, tends not to change as quickly. Many of the French- and Spanish-speaking residents of the area- who were actually the majority for a long time- continued with their more "live and let live" ways. Or at least they tried.
There's an interesting bit of American history rooted here. Among the dead buried in this cemetery is a local fellow named Homer. Homer Plessy. A name that all US students learn in history class- or used to learn, before "anti-woke" hysteria became a thing.
In 1892 a group of prominent citizens, including Black, White, and mixed race people, wanted to challenge racial segregation laws. One of its members, Homer Plessy, bought a train ticket and sat in the whites-only train car. Plessy was born a free man and was only one-eighth Black- but by US law that meant he was Black, and under Louisiana law that meant segregation. He was arrested.
Plessy's punishment may have been as short as a single night in jail (our guide's claim; I've been unable to verify with brief research) but the point wasn't to go to jail or not. The point was to challenge the law. Plessy appealed all the way up to the US Supreme Court. In 1896 the Supremes decided, in the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson decision, to uphold segregation with the doctrine of Separate But Equal. That doctrine became the legal underpinning for the Jim Crow south. It was the law of the land for at least 58 years, until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and other cases in the years following, picked it apart.