The City with Imaginary Walls

Abstract

This chapter shows that racial formation was also shaped by the relationships French New Orleans maintained with its hinterland. Racial tensions were instrumental in developing a sense of collective belonging among urban dwellers of European descent that was defined in confrontation with the world beyond the city’s imaginary walls. The Natchez Wars in 1729–1731 and slave unrest afterward played a crucial role in the construction of the Louisiana capital as a white civic community. In contrast, for the slaves living on the plantations nearby, the urban center increasingly symbolized both a place of greater autonomy and a place of repression.