New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1883-04-18
EARLY Sugar-Making in New Orleans.

george w. Cable continues his series
OF illustrated historical papers in the
March Century,, with an entertaining
description of "The End Of Foreign Do
minion in Louisiana, which includes
the following account of the first success
there in sugar-making:
In 1871 the blacks of St. Domingo
rose in rebellion. Refugees flew in every
direction. A few found their way to
Louisiana. They had been prosperous
sugar-makcrs, and presently the efforts
that had ceased for twenty-five years
came again to life Two Spaniards,
Mendez and Soils, in that year erected
on the confines of New Orleans, the one
a distillery and the other a battery of
sugar-kettles, and manufactured rum
and sugar.
Still the Creoles, every year less able
than the year before to make rash ex-
periments, struggled against the mis-
fortunes that multiplied around the
cultivation of indigo, until 1894 found
them without hope.
at this juncture appeared Eticnne de
Bore. He was man of fifty-four, a
Creole of the Illinois district, but of
distinguished Norman family; he had
lived in France from the age of four to
thirty-two, had served with the kings
naousQuetaires, had married a lady whose
estate was in Louisiana near New Or
leans, and had returned with her to the
province, and had become an indigo
planter. The year 1894 found him face
to face with ruin His father-in-law,
Destrehan, had in former years been
one of the last to abandon sugar-culture.
His wife and friends warned him against
the resolution he was taking; but he
persisted in his determination to abandon
indigo, and risk all that was left to him
on the chance of q success which, il
achieved, would insure deliverance and
fortune to himself and the community.
He bought quantity of canes from
Mendez and Soils. planted on the land
where the seventh district Gate Car
rollton) now stands, and while his crop
was growing erected mill, and pre-
pared himself for the momentous season
of grinding
His fellow planters looked on with
the liveliest-not always with the most
hopeful-interest. and at length they
gathered about him to see the issue Of
the experiment in which only he could
be more deeply concerned than they. In
the whole picturesque history of the
Louisiana Creoles few scenes offer SO
striking subject for the painter as that
afforded in this episode: The dark
sugar-house; the battery of huge cald-
rons, with their yellow juice boiling like
sea, half hidden in clouds of steam;
the half-clad, shining negroes swinging
the gigantic utensils with which the
seething flood is dipped from kettle to
kettle; here, grouped at the end of the
battery, the Creole planters with anxious
faces drawing around their central
figure az closely as they can; and in the
midst the old mousquetaire, dipping,
from time to time, the thickening Juice,
repeating again and again his simple
tests, until, in the moment Of final trial,
there is common look of suspense, and
instantly after it the hands are dropped,
heads are raised, the brow is wiped, and
there is a long breath of relief-''it
granulatesr'
The people were electrified. Etienne
de Bore marketed $4,000 worth Of SUI
perior sugar. The absence of interdic-
tions that had stifed earlier trade en-
abled him to sell his product to advan-
tage. The agriculture Of the Delta was
revolutionized; and, seven years after
ward, New Orleans was the market for
200, 600 gallons Of rum, 550, 600 gallons
OF molasses, and 5000, 600 pounds Of SUI
gar. The town contained some twelve
distilleries probably not a subject for
unmixed congratulation and q sugar
refinery which produced about 200. 900
pounds of loaf sugar; while on the other
hand the production Of indigo had de-
clined to total of 5000 pounds, and
soon after ceased.