Friday, June 2, 2017

Day 45: Lafayette to New Orleans

Day 45: Lafayette to New Orleans


Today we travelled into the state of Loiusiana.  Louisiana was French owned, named for the Sun King, Louie XIV. It became part of the USA with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, when under President Thomas Jefferson, USA bought all the land west of the Mississippi from Napoleon, thus nearly doubling the size of the US.

Map

For this tour, today was unusual in that none of our activities were directly related to music.  We went first to St Martinville, where there is a tribute to Longfellow’s poem ‘Evangeline’.  While driving there, Peter told us the real story and then the story as told in Longfellow’s poem.

The story is related to the Arcadian people who were forced to leave Nova Scotia in 1755 because they refused to forsake their French language, laws and customs when Britain took over that part of Canada. 

The real story of the couple in this epic poem is that lovers Louie and Emiline were separated when Louie fled Nova Scotia for this part of Louisiana, which was then controlled by the French.  Louie waited and waited several years for Emiline to join him but never did she come. Eventually he married someone else.  When Emiline did eventually come some years later, Louie had to break the news to her that he was married and in love with someone else.  This meeting took place under a tree in the little town of St Martinville.  Emiline apparently died of a broken heart.

This tragic story remained as oral tradition and unknown outside the Arcadian (Cajun) community until Longfellow heard the story and adapted it in the form of an epic poem.  He changed the names to Evangeline and Gabriel and had their separation as several weeks instead of years.  He also changed the outcome of the story, having Evangeline becoming a nun once Louie had broken the news to her.  On his death bed, Louie was nursed by Evangeline, who recognised him just before he died.




 The Evangeline Tree, immortalised in the 1847 poem by American Poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow




Statue of ‘Evangeline’ outside

  St Martin de Tours Catholic Church,  St Martinville, Louisiana


  St Martin de Tours Catholic Church,  St Martinville, Louisiana





On the Bayou Tech, St Martinville, Louisiana


Next we visited McGees’ swamp tours, where we had a most relaxing hour or so gliding slowly along the Atchafalaya Swamp.



Spanish moss clings to the tress in the swamp
Close up of Spanish Moss – soft but full of bugs.  The slaves used it to make a mattress but they soon realised that it needed to be boiled to get rid of the bugs.

Spanish moss was, some believe, used to stuff the upholstery on the first Ford motor cars.  Wiley Henry Ford had it shipped in timber crates made from cypress timber, local to the south.  He valued the shipments not so much for the Spanish Moss but for the cypress in the crates, which he used to make the floor and running boards for his cars! (I looked this story up on the internet and find that it may well be an  urban myth - but it does make a good story!)


Great example of one-point perspective to show my students



 One of USA’s longest road bridges (18.2 miles)  crosses over the Atchafalaya Basin

Alligator sunning himself – until he spied our boat.
 Water levels were unusually high causing the appearance of the swamp to be less dramatic than it usually is.

 House boat on the Atchafalaya Swamp



This family-run business has recently been purchase by the Boy Scouts of America.  Within a couple of weeks, this building will be demolished, making way for a new, state-of-the-art facilty for the Scouts.



 No doubt where their loyalties lie!



  Collector’s item maybe?



We passed by (literally) Baton Rogue, the capital of Louisiana 




and on to Houmas House Plantation.  We were now in sugar country.


  At Houmas House, we saw nothing of the degradation of its slaves – only the grandeur that its owners lived in.  The house was originally built in 1774 as a humble dwelling.







In the 1820s, a new house was built beside the original….









   …with a carriageway later built to connect the two.


The original house then became the kitchen.







This was the ‘single man’s quarters’ for the mansion. We came to know this as typical French architecture, with the very pointed dome roof.













The mansion has been faithfully restored by its current owner.







This rather strange portrait is typical of its time.  It was pre-painted with space left for the faces to be added for the buyer when he came along!


 Duelling pistols





Solid silver statue of Abraham Lincoln – (not that he was any hero in these parts)


The real Tiffany deal


Table top gambling game.  Set the horses in motion and bet on the winner!















Did they have any realistic view of the life of their slaves?





Reminders of a grizzly past.












Map of the plantations along the Mississippi River



 I can't claim this photo or the next one - they are both postcards bought at Homous House.





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