The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square

by Ned Sublette

Offering a new perspective on the unique cultural influences of New Orleans, this entertaining history captures the soul of the city and reveals its impact on the rest of the nation. Focused on New Orleans' first century of existence, a comprehensive, chronological narrative of the political, cultural, and musical development of Louisiana's early years is presented. This innovative history tracks the important roots of American music back to the swamp town, making clear the effects of centuries-long struggles among France, Spain, and England on the city's unique culture, and the role of the Senegambia, Congo, and Haiti on the making of Afro-Louisiana. The origins of jazz and the city's eclectic musical influences, including the role of the slave trade, are also revealed. Featuring little known facts about the cultural development of New Orleans--such as the real significance of gumbo, the origins of the tango, and the first appearance of the words vaudeville and voodoo--this rich historical narrative explains how New Orleans' colonial influences shape the city still today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Music, American History, Travel, Historical, Audiobook

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Ned Sublette is a critically acclaimed writer, historian, musician, and photographer. Born in Lubbock, Texas, and raised in Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico, he lives in New York City with his wife, writer Constance Ash. He was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in 20052006, and was previously a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. In 20042005 he was a Tulane Rockefeller Humanities Fellow in New Orleans."

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually was crying when I finished this book. My daughter and I went to New Orleans recently to visit Tulane, where she'd been accepted to college, in order to see if a San Franciscan could be comfortable in the south. We were fortunate enough to have a week to drive around a bit - saw Lafayette, Houma, Grand Isle and the spaces in between. She might not have been comfortable there, but New Orleans ... I stopped by the Faulkner book store the first day and bought Zeitoun, which I read in a few days while in New Orleans and this book, which I opened back home. The book is exquisitely, passionately written - the chapters on the economics of slavery are the best I have read on the subject. The final chapter that provoked the tears was on the Mardi Gras Indians, whom I had never heard of, but who embody the resistance and cultural richness of their African slave ancestors. My daughter decided that the weather in Santa Barbara suited her better (and it's closer to Mom : ), so I will have to make excuses to return to New Orleans, but that won't be difficult.

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

POSTCARD FROM NEW ORLEANS

Every street here has its own soundtrack. I can't walk along Royal without hearing ‘One last walk down Royal Street…same old blues, sad and sweet…’ playing in my head. I can't go for a drink on Burgundy without visions of Tom Waits growling ‘Arm in arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me…’ Everything here is a song, and songs pound out of every shitty overpriced barroom in the Quarter, blues, jazz, funk, drums improvised from upturned buckets.

On Bourbon Street (‘There's a mooon…over Bourbon…Street’) I find a country bar where the bar-stools are topped by real saddles. I mount one, with some difficulty, and drink sazeracs while I watch a three-piece burn through the Hank Williams songbook. TV screens around the bar are showing commercials for rifles and other firearms. In the corner they have one of those mechanised bucking bronco things, and halfway through ‘I'm a Long Gone Daddy’, some girl in a Saints T-shirt gets up and starts riding it, and then, apparently enjoying the crowd reaction, removes her shirt and bra. Conceivably this was for aerodynamic reasons, since she really clung onto that thing for an impressive amount of time.

It is gloriously trashy, and so is the rest of the district. I am Instagramming shots of the neon signs as fast as I can take them – Boogie Woogie, Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler, Reverend Zombi's House of Voodoo. I build my days around the food, a series of catfish po'-boys, blackened tuna, crab gumbo, red beans and rice. In Pat O'Brien's, where the central fountain is on fire for no good reason, I drink the obligatory hurricanes, which taste like very alcoholic flat Dr Pepper but kind of nicer than that sounds. A sober-looking middle-aged couple, dressed for dinner, come out of a posh seafood place, cross the street, and walk into the Hustler Barely Legal Club. I assume this name means that the women working there are young, although I do entertain the possibility that the dancers all have ten points on their driver's licenses, or green cards up for renewal.

If I had thought about it for more than a second I'm sure I would have realised before now that Bourbon Street is not named after the American liquor, but after the French dynasty. More surprising is to learn that New Orleans itself is not – as I had imagined – named in memory of the early settlers' hometown of Orléans, but after the Duc d'Orléans, who was Prince Regent at the time. There is a surprising amount of French here, still, what with the beignets and lagniappes and banquettes. But the French were only the first wave: perhaps the key thing that made New Orleans so unlike any other American city is that

Louisiana had what amounted to three colonial eras in rapid succession: French, Spanish, Anglo-American. Moreover, each colonial power that ruled Louisiana was associated not only with a different European language, but with a different slave regime.

And these Europeans weren't necessarily (as Donald Trump might have put it) sending their best – France originally used Louisiana as a penal colony. ‘To say “Louisiana” in the France of 1719,’ according to Sublette, ‘was more or less the equivalent of saying “Siberia” in twentieth-century Russia.’ They made a special effort to send women, because the colony had been so male-heavy when it was founded – so thousands of convicted prostitutes were sent from France, branded on the shoulder with a fleur-de-lis.

The languages now are thoroughly mixed together, their origins often disguised under multiple layers of translation. Signs on Royal Street remind you that it was originally the Calle Real. A guy I interviewed called LaBranche turned out to be from a German family called Zweig – their name was simply translated into French on arrival in the nineteenth century.

The area was settled as a strategic port for the Mississippi, which it remains – but in every other way, it's a strikingly inappropriate place to build a city. Driving along the 17th Street canal until I hit Lake Pontchartrain, I stand by the new pumping station and look out over the city. The lake, the canals, the river – New Orleans is basically defined by its water. More than one person describes the city to me as being like a bowl held in a basin of water: the slightest breach in the levees, or rise in water level, and the water will rush in and fill up the city, which is still sinking at a rate of an inch and a half a year.

That's what does the damage. Katrina in 2005 didn't actually do that much damage to the town, as a storm – the problem was that the levees broke, and the city simply filled up with water. That's why they've spent so much money on this new pumping facility, which just went online: the operations manager tells me proudly that it can pump out the volume of an Olympic swimming pool every 3.8 seconds.

The cemeteries, of which there are several either side of the road as I drive back into town, have a preponderance of above-ground mausoleums – the water table is so high that bodies buried underground are washed away within a few years. Death is, as people often remark, quite a visible presence in New Orleans. (There's a Museum of Death next to my hotel.) I associate this with the local voodoo tradition, which grew from West African religions and was then shaped by an influx of Haitians, which was a huge event in New Orleans's history.

Sublette's treatment of the Haitian Revolution is one of the best things in the book: he shows it to be the formative event of its time for the entire region. Thousands of refugees from Saint-Domingue – Creole landowners, slaves, and free blacks in roughly equal proportions – streamed over the ocean, first to eastern Cuba and then, when the French were evicted from there in 1809, over the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans. For future generations, this would become a foundational myth – an archetypal story of independence, for Afro-Louisianans, and of paradise lost for white Creoles. ‘The ghost that haunted New Orleans was the ghost of Saint-Domingue.’

The multicultural swirl of influences, the music and food, the friendliness, all make for a very enticing atmosphere. ‘Aw, you goin' home, baby?’ says my Uber driver when I confirm I'm heading for Louis Armstrong International. ‘I won't say goodbye, 'cause I know you'll be back!’ I didn't want to say goodbye either.

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, don't get me wrong. In many places this book is very dry. Mainly it focuses on the colonial history of New Orleans, which is to say he spends a lot of time detailing movements by the French and Spanish royalty. Still New Orleans has a pretty crazy history and it makes for pretty entertaining reading.

It started really dry and then it really picked up, certain parts of this are more engaging than others. Especially noteworthy are the frank passages on slavery. Sublette talks frankly about aspects of slavery that are routinely downplayed in American historical discussions. Moreover, his discussion of the reluctance of historians to acknowledge the probability of the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings relations.

"New Orleans was a dissolute town from the beginning. The crooks and whores were unsuited by experience and temperament for artisanship or agriculture, but were well prepared to establish a culture of criminality and poverty.

"[The Indians after Katrina] As they tried to rebuild their lives and their community, they sewed their suits in the dark, empty city. You don't go to those lengths for folklore. This was a sacramental act. These were men who had fought all their lives against the amnesia that is slavery's legacy...They played tambourines and sang as they moved through the empty, twisted ghost town of the Lower Ninth Ward, where six months after the disaster the people were still gone and houses sat on top of upside down cars. They refused to cooperate in their own erasure. They were still men, and these were still their streets. They wouldn't bow down. They rocked the city with their Congo dances."

This book is good, very good. Highly recommend it to anyone planning a trip to New Orleans.

Here's the order you should do it in: Read this book. Watch the first season of Treme, go to New Orleans.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square [2008] – ★★★★★

The World That Made New Orleans is a fascinating book that traces the history of New Orleans, Louisiana, from around 1492 to the nineteenth century: from the city’s humble beginnings on swamp soils to the French Spanish, British-American colonisations, and finally the city’s growth and ultimate urbanisation in the nineteenth century. This is not one’s ordinary history non-fiction book, however. Ned Sublette pays due attention to the music tradition of the area, its unique and changing slavery regimes, and spends time explaining why New Orleans became a diverse, jazz-pioneering and carnival-hosting city it is known today. Ambitious and well-researched, this insightful book provides an eye-opening journey into historical and cultural peculiarities of New Orleans.

Sublette starts his story way back in the past, portraying a swampy and undesirable place to live. What redeemed this area near Lake Pontchartrain was that it had a strategic position near the opening of the bay, with a great river flowing through it, giving access to water and navigation. Thus, he terms the place “a bowl set in water”. In 1492, Lord of La Salle arrives to the region of Mississippi and claims it for French King Louis XIV, hence the name of the state and the town. Another curious fact is that, in 1699, there was apparently the first celebration of Mardi Gras held in the area when Canadian explorer Iberville arrived and held some festivities with a local Indian population on Fat Tuesday. The French solution to populate the area was forced migration since no one saw the region as El Dorado, and that means convicts and undesirables of France arriving to the region, spurring the culture of criminality and poverty. Slaves from Africa and other French colonies were also arriving, later forming the Afro-Louisianan culture through the growing Creole population. In fact, until the 1830s, people of colour comprised the majority in the city.

The author notes that dance as leisure grew rapidly in popularity among upper classes (the 1740s), and that it was Duc d’Orleans Philippe II who gave the name to the city. It was in the 1820s that the New Orleans became a powerful city, but not before changing authority hands – this time the Spanish gained power in 1764. Sublette writes that, with the Spanish regime, there were an urbanisation boost and more freedom given to black people since they now had certain rights. Acadians then arrived from the north, forming the Cajuns, another layer in the New Orleans’s multiculturalism. When Louisiana was annexed in 1804 by the US, the author notes that, at that time, the city “was [already] an urban crossroads of languages, both spoken and musical, with a complex Afro-Louisianan culture already in existence” [Sublette, 2008: 3]. This is only a brief summary of what this book has in store.

There are two things the author is not indifferent to and feels passionate about: the issue of slavery and music. In that vein, he spends quite some time on both, and sometimes the book reads like a treatise on the development of musical traditions in the area, while at other times, it feels like a tome on the development of slavery. New Orleans had three changes of slavery regimes – with French, Spanish and then British-Americans came different outlooks on slavery and ways to organise it. All three nations then made their impact on New Orleans, shaping it. Sublette provides both a broader and more intimate picture of slavery prevailing at that time in New Orleans, sometimes making rather bold and shocking statements about the treatment of slaves and struggles for freedom. He also writes “in New Orleans, you can easily see, and feel, that slavery wasn’t so long ago” [Sublette, 2008: 7].

“New Orleans is not mishmash; it is a fusion – a layering of cultures, languages and traditions which gives the place a unique aura not found anywhere else in the world.“

After finishing this book, music and New Orleans seem like two sides of the same coin. When the Spanish took control in 1764, they had a more relaxed slavery regime, with black people freely moving and being allowed to promote their traditions. That also meant dancing to African beats. According to the author, dancing was the way to communicate with other people, and, notoriously, nocturnal dances happened at the infamous Congo Square. This was also the way for slaves to communicate their personalities, passions and longing for freedom. Sublette writes: “notwithstanding other places of importance, the musical concepts of Africa were more freely and more widely expressed in the dynamic, creative, violent city of New Oreland than anywhere else in the United States” [2008: 120]; and “the multiple subterranean line of connection – the legacy of Congo Square, voodoo, the musical funeral procession, the Mardi Gras Indians, the spiritual churches, and other cultural phenomena – come together still in the contemporary music of New Orleans” [2008: 299].

The book may look a bit chaotic the way it focuses on some cultural elements and not on others, but the feeling is still that it is cohesive. Perhaps some digressions and personal opinions of the author were not necessary to tell the story (for example, his references to the personality of Thomas Jefferson), but even these passages are intriguing. The book also takes a dark turn in its “slave-breeding industry” chapter if some readers are interested in a more unsettling side to the story.

🎷 The World That Made New Orleans maybe a historical non-fiction, but it is written in an entertaining and accessible manner. It shows one peculiar rapid power struggle (French/Spanish/British-American dominions) for the originally rockless area benefiting from a good river location, while not forgetting Acadian and Indian influences. Most importantly, there was a unique African influence on the development of the city. The great thing about this illustrated book is that it highlights some of the historical and cultural elements which go overlooked when talking about the development of New Orleans. These include Spanish coins, British banking system, different slave regimes and African musical rhythms.

[Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was both frustrated and inspired by The World That Made New Orleans. I am convinced that amidst all of Sublette's unqualified conjectures and bitter diatribes, there is a truly valuable historical contribution here. Unfortunately, it is perpetually undermined by an informal tone and leaps of faith that seem to ask too much of a critical reader. Who was this book for? Digressions on the etymology of the word funk, an entire chapter dedicated to anti-Jefferson apologetics, and various unsubstantiated claims of musical congruity from the Caribbean islands to New Orleans seriously damage an otherwise thought provoking account of the historical milieu that existed during the creation of the influential American port city.

If viewed as a strict history, the book is poorly executed and largely unsuccessful in constructing a coherent and well supported argument, but I believe this book is better read as something else. Sublette’s book might qualify as a treatise—a lengthy speculative and interpretive essay on New Orleans and its various strands. Many sections of the book devolve into polemics and diatribe. While never directly stated, his argument seems to be that many factors in the world amalgamated to create the singular city of New Orleans, ranging from multinational colonialism, Caribbean revolutions, and a unique relationship to the social rights of African-American slaves. Many primary sources, some quoted in surfeit, are presented to support this hypothesis, though many of his main arguments about the details of New Orleans culture are unsubstantiated by these primary sources. More often than not, the cultural details of places like Santo Domingo and Cuba are given and the reader is asked to assume that the details must have been similar in New Orleans based on the “inevitability” of cultural exchange due to close proximity and constant trading between the islands and the city. In addition, attempts at interdisciplinary scholarship simply become distracting and convoluted. In fact, I’m not even sure if some of his material is interdisciplinary or just plain off topic. All of this criticism is valid only if one views his work as historical scholarship. As a speculative examination of the various networks that had an effect, however oblique, on the culture of New Orleans, it is quite expressive and certainly interesting. However, I would argue that historical conjecture should only occur when overwhelming historical evidence is present. In Sublette’s case, a simple introductory chapter explaining his intention of exploring the various reticular networks that came up when studying the roots of New Orleans’s culture and interpreting them within the larger global context of the city would have eased some of the frustration I felt when reading this book as a history.

The World That Made New Orleans is a passionate albeit discombobulated attempt to create a synecdoche where the world surrounding New Orleans is used to represent a specific rendering of that city. Sublette doesn’t so much prove New Orleans to be a globalized city as much as assume it to be so. When the record is silent regarding New Orleans’s contact with the outside world, he assumes that the contact most likely continued undocumented. Sublette oversteps the role of the scholar in interpreting a lack of primary source information, seeming to simply insert what he assumes to be true, because it can neither be substantiated nor disconfirmed.

For example, he claims that that the Kongos “were the strongest single influence on African culture in the New World” and that their legacy “permeates the popular music the world listens to today.” No footnote, no proof. He may be right, I don’t know. What’s certainly true is that claims like this have to be backed up. One statement this broad with no supporting evidence can completely undermine an entire piece of scholarship as far as I am concerned. Later, he claims that in order to know what the Kongo culture in New Orleans was like, “all we have to do today is visit Cuba. . . . The island still lives and breathes explicitly African culture, and perhaps the most influential of those traditions is the Kongo religion." Again, no footnote. Herein lies the problem: we are to believe this culture exercised an inordinate amount of influence, not only in New Orleans, but throughout the African Diaspora; yet to prove it, we are told to simply visit Cuba, where perhaps this culture exerts the most influence. I'm open to the theory, but I'm obliged to require some sort of substantial evidence. The burden of proof is with the author, not the reader.

[Suvi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned for now because quite honestly, it bored me. It was hard to stay focused when the author's thoughts were scattered all over the place. A detailed description about the birth of New Orleans could have been awesome in theory, but in practice Sublette didn't make it work. I've been dreaming about going there and expect it to be very vibrant and filled with interesting people and stories, but in this the confusing minute details about irrelevant things annoyed me. Especially when it felt like pointless rambling compared to other non-fiction I've been reading lately.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite what I was expecting (far more about music and slavery than I thought totally necessary) and at times boring enough that I wanted to skim, but still a really interesting book about a time and place in history that isn't explored often enough.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ned Sublette is a musician and co-founder of the NPR musical program "Afro-Pop." As such, he brings a different perspective to this history of early New Orleans. His focus is on the French and Spanish Colonial years and just the first 20 years of United States possession. He also outlines the connections between New Orleans and Caribbean islands such as Cuba and Sainte Domingue, all of which makes New Orleans different from any other U.S. city. These influences also affected the African American population, leaving New Orleans with probably the highest percentage of free Blacks in the antebellum years. The side notes on the music and dance of the New Orleanians (sorry, that's the term he uses) provide a fascinating cultural history alongside the more traditional "who did what" style of history. Sometimes the two aspects get a bit jumbled and transitions from one aspect to the other were a bit abrupt at times, but it didn't ruin the book for me at all. You just shift gears and absorb what he wants to tell you at that time.

[Billy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty cool book. Very eclectic. Basically, it's a history of New Orleans from its earliest days as a Spanish possesion up through the Louisiana Purchase, ending in 1819.

The basic thesis of the book is that the three distinct colonial powers that held New Orleans brought different slave cultures to the city - different both in the origins of the slaves, and in the few "freedoms" that slaves were allowed. The author is both a musician and a musicologist, so a huge focus is on the different musical contributions of different groups.

I read a review of the book that compared reading it to having a conversation with a very erudite guy in a bar. Sublette is all over the place, but he really seems to know his stuff (with some exceptions). It's a real good free ranging conversation on New Orleans.

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting read on, as the title says, the world that made New Orleans. Sublette focuses on roughly the period up to 1819, looking at the forces that influenced the founding and early years of New Orleans. He examines the influences of the various control of the area by Spanish, French, and the English as well as the influence of the slave economies both on economic and political growth of the area and on the culture of the communities. In addition to being an author, Sublette is also a musician and a musicologist. I appreciated seeing how he explored the history of the music and dance of the region and it's ties to the Caribbean in here. It added a different dimension to what I expected to be a fairly standard historical account. Sublette concludes the book with a chapter on the Mardi Gras Indians, acknowledging that while it isn't a part of the time period he covers in the book, history is always in the process of being created and the Mardi Gras Indians are a perfect example of this. I only learned about this recently and I was glad to spend this chapter understanding more about this part of New Orleans culture and tradition.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I was in NY. Maybe some of you New Yorkers can check this out. Ned is having a book party and forum in the city Thursday night. I'll type the info. I wish I could firgure out how to send an attachment. BOOK PARTY "hip, erudite and provocative story-telling"- Roger Han, 'Songlines' "an energetic and fascinating read" --Tristram Lozaw, 'Boston Globe' NED SUBLETTE speaking singing, signing books MAY 8 7:30 pm BRECHT FORUM NYC 451 West Street (Bank & Bethune)

previously posted:

got this on line http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articl...

MMc review Feb 2010

Timing was right for me and this book: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and a trip west are fresh in my memory...Haiti suffered a dramatic disaster...I just watched some flics on the War of 1812 and have been listening to the 'Who Dat Nation' playlist, and, for the first time in 46 years, the Saints won the Super Bowl.

You'll be amazed at the huge importance little ol' Haiti and Cuba had in our nation's history. Mr. Sublette thoroughly lays out the complex development of the slave trade and conflagration of Spanish, French and British enterprise in America.

His research is impeccable and colorful; his scholarship erudite yet very accessible, punctuated with humor and some diffucult observations of our not so perfect country.

I won't spoil the historical explaination of Aaron Neville's vocal styling, tri-color dances, voudou ceremonies, the derivation of mardi gras, the large population of free women of color, why black men dress up and march as Indians, the origin of Dr. John's moniker or who taught Notorious B.I.G....you'll enjoy learning this, and so many other things, yourself.

What a fabulous book. I`wanted to come back to it at every free moment. I come away knowing so much more than I did when I first cracked it open. He makes his work look so easy. I am forever grateful.

As Cuba and It's Music is about much more than Cuban music, The World That Made New Orleans is about MUCH more than New Orleans. I recommend it to every American, of every ethnicity, to truly learn about their country.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is packed with information. And I liked it, but think I (or any reader) would have benefitted more if I had read the author's previous book, 'Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo' in advance -- Much of New Orleans character stems of course from its musical history -- which is derived from the confluences of the slave trade, the history of the various Caribbean colonies and which state (nation) had control over New Orleans and when. New Orleans history is tied much with the history of Saint Dominique(now Haiti/the DR), as well as Cuba and is further tied to the interstate slave trade (between Upper South and Deep South) that occurred in the US after the Louisiana Purchase. Therefore, the info was a Lot to take in, and difficult to retain, having not been schooled in such before. I would like to read the previous book and then reread this one, (perhaps in conjunction with listening to sound recordings!) to see if the connections are more easily understood as a result.

[Redsteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very good. It made a lot of interesting connections between New Orleans and Havana that many other writers ignore. It also a good bit of the evolution of the city's music and dance. The book largely deals with the period from the founding of the Louisiana Colony through the early 19th Century, but also hits some points up through post-Katrina, including and interesting section on the Indians (Mardi Gras Indians, not Native Americans). The author is maybe a bit heavy on the breast beating about slavery - I find it annoying when an author is writing about slavery and has to stop every few lines to state that it is bad. Seriously, if someone isn't horrified by the unvarnished details of the slave trade, telling them that slavery is immoral isn't going to help. But overall, an excellent book.

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually like historical books that are based on contemporary documents from the period of the book. This book focused on the slave trade and how it affected NOLA's formation and growth. Fair enough. But this book bored me when it went off on tangents about Cuba and Domingue and what not. I understand what he was trying to do - give the reader a bigger picture of what was going on in the world at the time and how it affected NOLA. It just wasn't that interesting to me. I would have liked more info on what was happening in NOLA during the time - he only briefly talks about the urban planning of the city.

[patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

FIN - Perfect read prior to annual NOLA visit to see friends and family. Well-researched, and now I better understand our centuries-long connections to Africa and the Caribbean, and the music and traditions these connections spawned. My ancestors - from the French (Bredy) , Spanish (Migues) , and German (Dugas) sides all owned slaves likely because they were planters. There is amazing amount of detail online re the Afro-Louisiana connection. Interesting that the mix of slaves owned by my ancestors represented the three main lineages of African culture that drives much of the information in this book. Though sad to admit, yes my ancestors owned slaves!

[Suanne Laqueur · Rating 5 out of 5]

A million stars. I've been looking for a book about the history of New Orleans for a long time and this one checked all the boxes. And the narration by Sean Crisden was (*chef's kiss*).

[Whitney Teal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this on Audible and the voice actor, Sean Crisden, brought so much music to his pronunciations and intonations that it gave the book's kinda meandering prose an enjoyable rhythm. I wasn't expecting to learn so much about the music of the region or about the similar music styles of Cuba and Haiti, but I enjoyed those passages even when I kind of zoned out because he says more about drums than I'd ever want to know.

What I love about the book is what I love about New Orleans, which is my favorite city in the world: To know New Orleans you have to know that it's an African city. The Spaniards paved the streets and the French and Indigenous people left their names all over them, but the spirit, the jazz, the food and the frivolity is Black, no matter how little recognition those creative and industrious early settlers receive. As a Black American from Texas, I feel so at home in the city and always want to go back, no matter how long I've stayed. Reading this book is not a substitute for soaking up New Orleans' unique atmosphere, but the author does a good job of keeping the book musical and just a little off-kilter, so that it feels like the city.

As a history text, I learned a few things that I want to research more. Sublette isn't interested in a lot of rote data unless it's to prove a point, which makes it accessible to people who don't nerd out on history but was a little frustrating for me because I love to learn new things, especially about Southern cities. This book didn't curb my yearning to learn more about the unique history of Louisiana and its larger-than-life characters and customs, but it's a worthwhile read nonetheless.

[K. Goldschmitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic deep dive into the history of New Orleans that mostly focuses on the period before the Civil War. There's a ton in this book worthy of multiple reads. Come for Sublette's genuine love of music and food, stay for long explanations about moments in history that may, on first glance, appear to have nothing to do with New Orleans. If you ever doubted the importance of the Dutch or the Haitian Revolution in the history of that storied city, this book cements the connections. There's just enough jumping back and forth in the timeline to keep a reader on their toes. I'm especially impressed at how well Sublette explains the economics of the 18th and 19th centuries on the U.S. continent and how he connected those factors to pop culture references. Biggie Smalls even makes an appearance.

I learned a ton from this book and it whetted my appetite for more, which I suppose was the intention.

[Ayana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is PHENOMENAL. Handles the complex nature of New Orleans’ origin story through the lens of music in a conversational- almost storytelling- tone, easily blending in the history, demographics, and religion that existed to make the city what it is today. You don’t need a musical background to appreciate this book (although at some parts, it sure would have helped) but be warned- the author weaves the traumatic elephant in the room of slavery throughout the text but without so much as a transition from the previous subjects.

This results in a somewhat jarring effect between paragraphs at times but overall still a fascinating read and I highly recommend for readers 16+ and adults. Would be a perfect resource for homeschooling as well as it heavily pulls from primary sources!

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this while traveling in New Orleans. I loved the background of all the cultures that made the city—especially the various cultures of the African diaspora that came on different decades and shaped the specific Creole culture. Sublette is a scholar of music and that is a major theme in the book. The lack of 5 stars is only because of the flow and organization which wasn’t totally clear to me and had some whiplash effect for me. But this perspective is vital for understanding New Orleans on the cusp of the Louisiana’s statehood.

[Lirazel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was chock full of stuff I'm interested in, so I mostly loved it. I do wish the writing had felt a little less all over the place--the subject matter has got to jump around given the many influences on early New Orleans culture, but I feel like there were ways to transition between them with a little less whiplash.

[Eric Boyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and written. An important reminder of how so so much of New Orleans and the US were built because of slavery. Interesting ending. A must read for anyone interested in New Orleans.

[Mary Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since this book is non-fiction, it doesn't have the quick pace of action and dialog in a fiction piece. That said, the research is phenomenal. I'm currently writing an urban fantasy novel that takes place in New Orleans and I found myself jotting down notes for my book as I read this one.
If you've never been to New Orleans, it's a magical and unique place and Mr. Sublette explains how it all came together. You fall in love with the city, deeply and madly.

[Vicky Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good macro view of the teeming elements that formed the city of New Orleans; Sublette marks the many parts of daily life as they appear now from their beginning. There is a heavy focus on the music's history. Particular customs are traced to the city's early trade links with Cuba, and the different African nationalities that took root in New Orleans.

All of these differing characteristics of the colony that was ruled interchangeably by France and Spain, before being sold to the US, make it a different place than the colonies earlier ruled by the restrictive British.

One of those fascinating details is the freedom that was given to slaves, like Louis Congo. This freedom had a huge effect on the musical style that would come out of this city.

I read this in the paperback format, one of the books I picked up when we recently visited New Orleans. I recommend this for anyone wanting a big picture view. The author seems intimately aware of his subject and does a good job of drawing it all together.

[Alex Telander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ned Sublette, author of Cuba and Its Music, embarks on a daring undertaking in a detailed and complete history of the Big Easy. Sublette spent the 2004-2005 year in New Orleans, leaving just three months before Hurricane Katrina hit and the levees broke, changing the city forever; making this book all the more meaningful and emotional.

With extensive research, Sublette starts at the very beginning, explaining the topography and geology of the Mississippi River and the substantial yet flooded Mississippi Delta, and how there was simply nothing that could really be built there before the advent of water pumps created the potential for draining of the area. In a time when the land that would one day be Louisiana was being fought over and used by the Spanish, French, and British, while every piece of natural resource in this part of the world was being used for the benefit of the Western World, coupled with the unceasing influx of slaves, a group of settlers began a town that would one day become the great city of New Orleans. Inhabitants included an influx of forced citizens from France consisting of prostitutes and convicts.

From its genesis, New Orleans was composed of an entire world of nationalities, cultures, faiths, and languages. Like the spine of the book, Sublette uses music as the backbone of The World That Made New Orleans, discussing the influences and developments of these different people, many of them slaves. It is a city that, after the catastrophic events of Hurricane Katrina, will never be the same – like New York missing the World Trade Center skyline. Thankfully, Sublette does an incredible job of revealing the many chapters in the history of New Orleans.

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[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

way more riveting than its subtitle makes it seem like it's got any business being.

ned sublette is a scholar of cuban music, primarily, and was given a year's fellowship in NOLA (the year before katrina hit, actually) to study history, culture and music there - including its links to cuba and present-day haiti. one thing i loved about this book was never being quite sure what its 'thesis' was, much less its discipline: whether it was straight-up history (with a focus on politics, slavery, etc.), musical theory, cultural studies, race relations, economics ... it's all over the place. but it's wide, curious about the city and its people, and he comes across as excited to share what he learned. not a sit-back-and-be-dispassionate book whatsoever. it's not that kind of a place, after all.

barely tipped the iceberg of the history of slavery in the caribbean and americas, but still fed me some mini-bombshells i'd never noticed (or absorbed) in other educations. (e.g. abe lincoln wasn't the only abolitionist whose vision of freeing slaves culminated with the entire freed slave population being shipped away to places like liberia and haiti.)

made me hear music sometimes, and marvel at the impossibility of hearing it at others: we can never know what the sunday sessions at congo square in the 18th and 19th centuries actually sounded like. not even by logging in to spotify or pandora. talk about bombshell. this world that made us has been going on a long time, and the constant connections feeding it are infinite. i liked the impossibility of trying to glimpse those moments.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though I've gone to New Orleans several times, I know very little about its history. So I picked this book up a few weeks before a trip to New Orleans. I was mostly hooked when I started, the history itself is pretty interseting and Sublette's passion really shines through. But, I did not finish it prior to my trip, and I really struggled to finish it when I got back... its been sitting here for almost 2 months waiting to get through the final pages. Parts are very interesting and a very quick read, and other parts are really really really dry. For me, its really difficult to read about music, which the author spends alot of time doing. I just can't hear it unless I'm listening to it, so those parts were really difficult to get through.

Also, I was looking for more actual history of NOLA. The histories of Cuba and Saint-Domingue, and the effects of slavery in other parts of the country were interesting, but not exactly what I was looking for. But, I still enjoyed this book, for the most part.

[Becca Packer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it was a misunderstanding on my part, I thought this book would be about New Orleans but all the New Orleans history in this book could be reduced to 10 pages.
The first 150 talked more about Saint-Domingue and the contention between France, Spain and Britain. Which one could argue is important to the story but it didn't really discuss how it influenced New Orleans. According to this book, New Orleans was fine when the Spanish took it over and that contradicts everything else I have read.
My biggest frustration with this book is how discombobulated it is. It will go from talking about one subject in one paragraph and then somehow end up talking about music for 4 pages and then back to the original subject to finish up. Nothing against the history of music in New Orleans as it did influence the city, but there was a whole chapter on it and then it keeps being brought back up. As if the author kept thinking of more things to be said and just plops then in wherever.

If you're looking for a book on the history of New Orleans, this is not it.

[Nan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great scholarship and a personable voice. Sublette takes on the formidable task of walking through the multiple layers of this fascinating city from the bottom up. A major accomplishment is to place in context the journeys that brought Africans not just to New Orleans but to Haiti and Cuba; understanding all 3 is essential to getting a handle on the complexity of both jazz and the city itself.

Sublette is particularly good at outlining the horrors of slavery, and the ways in which slave-owners used their power to shape American politics. Thomas Jefferson doesn't fare very well (hard to disagree if you've read "Notes on the State of Virgina"). In fact, there's as much information in the book about that as there is about New Orleans. All in all, extremely informative and well-written history.

[Jennifer Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the title implies, this book offers a history of the city of New Orleans. I learned a lot from its pages. I think that any prospective reader should know going into the book that the author comes to this subject matter with a passion and interest in musicology. It is important to know this in advance because this interest is at the kernel of his argument about how New Orleans became the city it is today, and also informs a lot of the vocabulary that he uses in the book. I think that the author provides a lot of good evidence with which to support his argument, but at various moments, it sometimes seemed that he was forcing his premise to fit the available evidence. The author also has the habit of referencing his previous publications.