New Orleans as It Was: Episodes of Louisiana Life

by Henry C. Castellanos

A criminal lawyer and popular journalist, Henry C. Castellanos lived nearly three-quarters of the nineteenth century in New Orleans. In his later years, between 1892 and 1895, he wrote more than 120 articles for the Times-Democrat on the history and mores of his beloved city, and in 1895 he published a selection of those episodes in New Orleans as It Was. This facsimile reproduction of the volume includes a new introduction by historian Judith Kelleher Schafer, which pieces together the little-known life of Castellanos and provides insights about a period when New Orleans was the queen city of the South.Castellanos's collection of vignettes, incidents, anecdotes, personalities, and descriptions focuses on the years 1820 to 1860 and reflects the interests of a city newspaperman. The reader encounters duels, voodoos, executions, and piracy, and meets mayors, generals, slaves, masters, princes, paupers, judges, prisoners, and jailers. Castellanos describes in detail buildings, public parks, suburbs, notable houses, churches, and neighboring plantations as well as the characteristics, customs, dress, food, and amusements of New Orleanians. In capturing what he called New Orleans's "unwritten history," Castellanos brings alive for readers today America's most interesting city at a younger age.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1895

Reviews

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many older histories of the city, this book starts with an account of a duel. Historically it is quite good, as the author was writing it at the tail end of the 19th Century, so many events were either witnessed personally by him or he was able to speak with others who were around for them. For the small amount of events in this book that occurred earlier, he consulted local records. In some ways his book reminds me of the works of Herbert Asbury (THE FRENCH QUARTER, THE GANGS OF NEW YORK). It appears to have been written as entertainment rather than history as there is pretty much no order to how things appear; even within individual chapters Castellanos jumps around constantly. In the preface the author states "...I have, among other matters, attempted to illustrate the various phases of slavery that obtained in our state before the war of succession. The subject is an interesting one, not only to our Northern brothers, but to friends of humanity at large, and is presented in unprejudiced and truthful language." Disappointingly (but not surprisingly) he is a strong proponent of slavery and his attitude towards slaves and free people of color is patronizing at best, and suspicious and contemptuous at worst. He also has a very low opinion of Italian immigrants. I'm going to average this out to 3 stars.