French Colonial New Orleans

New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718 near the mouth of the Mississippi and became the administrative centre of Louisiana. Its population included European officials, soldiers, merchants, enslaved Africans and communities connected to the river and Gulf trades.

The settlement developed within a contested imperial world shared with Spanish, British and Indigenous powers. Smuggling, privateering, epidemics and unstable commercial fortunes shaped everyday life before France transferred Louisiana to Spain after the Seven Years’ War.

The Pirate Bride places a former privateer and Spanish heiress in the city in 1725.