Isabel Allende - Island Beneath the Sea

The first official event was the transfer of power, with three years' delay, from the Spanish colony to French authorities. According to the prefect's hyperbolic address at the ceremony, the residents of Louisiana had "souls inundated with the delirium of extreme felicity." They celebrated with balls, a concert, banquets, and theatrical spectacles in the best Creole tradition, a true competition of courtesy, nobility, and extravagance between the deposed Spanish and new French government. That did not last long, however, because just as the flag of France was being raised a ship from Bordeaux anchored carrying confirmation of the sale of the territory to the Americans. Sold like cattle! Humiliation and fury replaced the festive spirit of the previous day. The second transfer, this time from the French to the Americans, who were camped two miles outside the city, ready to occupy it, took place seventeen days later, on December 20, 1803, and it was no "delirium of extreme felicity" but of collective mourning.

That same month, Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Saint-Domingue under the name of the Republique Negre d'Haiti, with a new blue and red flag. Haiti, "land of mountains," was the name the vanished Arawak Indians had given their island. With the intent to erase the racism that had been the island's curse, all citizens, no matter the color of their skin, were designated negs, and all those who weren't were called blancs.

"I think that Europe, and even the United States, will try to sink that poor island for fear its example will incite other colonies to fight for independence. Neither will they permit the abolition of slavery to be propagated," Parmentier commented to his friend Valmorain.

"The disaster of Haiti will work to the benefit of those of us in Louisiana because we will sell more sugar, and at a better price," concluded Valmorain, to whom the fate of the island didn't matter since he no longer had investments there.

The Saint-Domingue emigres in New Orleans were not entirely absorbed by the news of that first black republic, as events in their city claimed all their attention. On a day of brilliant sunshine a multicolored crowd of Creoles, French, Spanish, Indians, and Negroes came together in the place d'Armes to watch the American authorities ride in, followed by a detachment of dragoons, two companies of infantry, and one of riflemen. No one had any sympathy for those men who swaggered as if each one had taken from his own pocket the fifteen million dollars that bought Louisiana.

In a brief official ceremony in the Cabildo, the keys of the city were handed to the new governor, and then the change of flags took place in the square; the tricolor pennant of France was slowly lowered and the starry flag of the United States raised. As they met midway they were stopped for a moment, and a cannon blast gave a signal, immediately answered by a cannonade from the ships in the port. A band of musicians played a popular American song and people listened in silence; many wept, and more than one lady swooned from grief. The new arrivals set about occupying the city in the least aggressive way possible, while the natives set about making their lives difficult. The Guizots had already circulated cards instructing their relations to keep the Americans at a distance; no one must collaborate with them or welcome them in their houses. Even the most pitiful beggar of New Orleans felt himself superior to the Americans.

One of Governor Claiborne's first measures was to declare English the official language, which was received with mocking incredulity by the Creoles. English? They had lived for decades as a French speaking Spanish colony; the Americans must be categorically demented if they expected their guttural jargon would replace the most melodic tongue in the world.

The Ursuline nuns, terrified by the certainty that first the Bonapartists and then the Kaintucks were going to level the city, profane its church, and rape them, hurriedly set sail, en masse, for Cuba, despite the pleas of their pupils, their orphans, and the hundreds of indigents they helped. Only nine of the twenty-five nuns stayed behind, the other sixteen filed in a row to the port, wrapped in veils and weeping, surrounded by a train of friends, acquaintances, and slaves who went with them to the ship.

Valmorain was sent a hastily written message warning him to withdraw his protegee from the school within twenty-four hours. Hortense, who was expecting another child with the hope that this time it was the immensely desired male, gave him to understand that that black girl would not set foot in her house, and that she never wanted anyone to see her with him. People had evil thoughts, and surely rumors would spread-false of course-that Rosette was his daughter.

With the defeat of the Napoleonic troops in Haiti came a second avalanche of refugees to New Orleans, just as Dr. Parmentier had predicted, first hundreds and then thousands. They were Bonapartists, radicals, and atheists, very different from the Catholic monarchists who had come before. A clash between the new refugees and the emigres was inevitable, and it coincided with the Americans' entrance into the city. Governor Claiborne, a young military man with blue eyes and a short yellow beard, did not speak a word of French and did not understand the mentality of the Creoles, whom he considered lazy and decadent.

Ship after ship came from Saint-Domingue loaded with civilians and soldiers sick with fever, who represented a political danger because of their revolutionary ideas, and a public health threat given the possibility of an epidemic. Claiborne strove to isolate them in distant camps, but that measure was roundly criticized and did not affect the stream of refugees who in some way were able to get into the city. He put the slaves the whites had brought in prison, fearing they would infect the local ones with the germ of rebellion, and soon there was no further space in the cells and the clamor of their indignant owners at the confiscation of their property spread far and wide. They claimed that their Negroes were loyal and of proven good character-they would not have brought them otherwise. In addition, they were badly needed. Even though in Louisiana no one respected the prohibition against importing slaves and the pirates supplied the market, there was still a great demand. Claiborne was not in favor of slavery but he had to yield to public pressure. He decided he would consider each case individually, which could take months, while all New Orleans was on edge.

Violette Boisier was quick to adjust to the impact of the Americans. She sensed that the amiable Creoles, with their culture of leisure, would not resist the push of those enterprising and practical men. "Pay attention to what I tell you, Sancho; in no time at all those parvenus are going to wipe us off the face of the earth," she warned her lover. She had heard of the egalitarian spirit of the Americans, inseparable from democracy, and thought that if once there had been room for free people of color in New Orleans, with greater reason there would be room in the future. "Make no mistake, they're more racist than the English, French, and Spanish put together," Sancho argued, but she didn't believe him.

While others were refusing to mix with the Americans, Violette devoted herself to studying them up close, to see what she could learn from them and how she could keep afloat through the inevitable changes they would bring to New Orleans. She was satisfied with her life; she had her independence and comfort. She was serious when she said she was going to die rich. With her earnings from her creams and advice on fashion and beauty she had in less than three years bought the house on Chartres and was planning to acquire another. "I have to invest in properties, it's the only thing that lasts, everything else blows away on the wind," she kept saying to Sancho, who owned nothing, the plantation belonged to Valmorain. The project of buying land and making it yield had seemed fascinating to Sancho the first year, bearable the second, and from then on torment. His enthusiasm for cotton evaporated as soon as Hortense showed interest in it; he preferred not to have any dealings with that woman. He knew that Hortense was conspiring to get him out of their lives, and recognized that she was not without reason, he was a burden Valmorain carried out of friendship. Violette advised him to resolve his problems by finding a wealthy wife. "Don't you love me?" Sancho replied, offended. "I love you, but not enough to support you. Get married, and we will go on being lovers."