Michael S. Martin is Associate Professor of History at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and director of its Center for Louisiana Studies. He also manages the university’s publishing concern and its Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism. Dr. Martin is also the managing editor of the Louisiana Historical Association’s quarterly journal, Louisiana History. His publications include Chemical Engineering at the University of Arkansas:  A Centennial History, 1902-2002 (2002), and Historic Lafayette (2007).Janet Allured is Professor of History at McNeese State University and coordinator of its Women’s Studies program. The co-editor of Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times (2009), she also shared the authorship of Images of America: Lake Charles (2012). She is currently working on a history of the modern feminist movement in Louisiana.

• Editors' Preface 1PART ONE: LOUISIANA'S COLONIAL CONTEXT 3The Frontier Exchange Economy of the Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783by Daniel J. Usner 5The Moral Climate of French Colonial Louisiana, 1699–1763by Carl A. Brasseaux 25Oliver Pollock's Plantations: An Early Anglo Landowner on the Lower Mississippi, 1769–1824by Light T. Cummins 37PART TWO: WOMEN, RACE, AND CLASS IN EARLY LOUISIANA 49Desiring Total Tranquility—and Not Getting It: Conflict Involving Free Black Women in Spanish New Orleansby Kimberly Hanger 52A Female Planter from West Feliciana Parish: The Letters of Rachel O'Connorby Sara Brooks Sundberg 63The Murder of a "Lewd and Abandoned Woman": State of Louisiana v. Abraham Parkerby Judith Kelleher Schafer 78PART THREE: TRANSFORMATION OF THE LOUISIANA "CREOLE" 93Early New Orleans Society: A Reappraisalby Joseph G. Tregle, Jr. 95In My Father's House: Relationships and Identity in an Interracial New Orleans Creole Family, 1845–1875by Justin Nystrom 108PART FOUR: VIOLENT LOUISIANA 127"I Would Rather Be Among the Comanches": The Military Occupation of Southwest Louisiana, 1865by Michael G. Wade 129From the Barrel of a Gun: The Politics of Murder in Grant Parishby Joel M. Sipress 142Feuding Is Our Means of Societal Regulation: Elusive Stability in Southeastern Louisiana's Piney Woods, 1877–1910by Samuel Hyde, Jr. 154An Inhospitable Land: Anti-Italian Sentiment and Violence in Louisiana, 1891–1924by Alan G. Gauthreaux 164PART FIVE: PROGRESSIVES AND RACE 177When Plessy Met Fergusonby Keith Weldon Medley 180The Rest of the Story: Kate Gordon and the Opposition to the Nineteenth Amendment in the Southby Elna C. Green 188In Pursuit of Louisiana Progressivesby Samuel C. Shepherd 197PART SIX: MODERN LOUISIANA POLITICS 209"What he did and what he promised to do . . .": Huey Long and the Horizons of Louisiana Politicsby Jerry P. Sanson 212Huey Long: A Political Contradictionby Glen Jeansonne 220"When I Took the Oath of Office, I Took No Vow of Poverty": Race, Corruption, and Democracy in Louisiana, 1928–2000by Anthony J. Badger 232The Politics of Poverty and History: Racial Inequality and the Long Prelude to Katrinaby Kent B. Germany 248PART SEVEN: TRANSITIONS IN RACE RELATIONS 257Racial Repression in World War Two: The New Iberia Incidentby Adam Fairclough 259Transitional Generations: African American Workers, Industrialization, and Education in the Northern Louisiana Lumber and Paper Industries, 1930–1950by Lesley-Anne Reed 270PART EIGHT: CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT IN MODERN LOUISIANA 289Making the "Birthplace of Jazz": Tourism and Musical Heritage Marketing in New Orleansby J. Mark Souther 291Commercialization of Cajun Cuisineby Marcelle Bienvenu, Carl A. Brasseaux, and Ryan A. Brasseaux 314Who Destroyed the Marsh?: Oil Field Canals, Coastal Ecology, and the Debate over Louisiana’s Shrinking Wetlandsby Tyler Priest and Jason P. Theriot 331