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the plan was a scheme to bilk money from the investors in return for selling them Louisiana. Law was given a monopoly on trade, as well. Later, when it turned out that Law’s company was merely a large confidence game, many of the settlers decided to ignore this and stay on. During the first year of Law’s operation, he decided that a town should be founded at a spot that could be reached from both Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. In 1718, this town became La Nouvelle Orleans. Development of the city began that year, but work was slow, thanks to brutal heat and the rising and falling waters of the Mississippi. There was talk of moving the city because of the danger of flooding, so levees were constructed, which spread out as the city and the plantations of the area grew. But rising water was not the only danger that could be found at the mouth of the Mississippi. In many early documents, writers spoke of the monsters that dwelt in the murky waters, and the Indian legends told of gigantic beasts that waited to spring upon unwary travelers. “May God preserve us from the crocodiles!” wrote Father Louis Hennepin. Meanwhile, John Law was having problems holding up his end of the bargain that he made with the French. In order to get his money, he had promised his investors that he would have a colony of six thousand settlers and three thousand slaves by 1727. His problem, however, was a shortage of women. The colony’s governor, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, wrote, “The white men are running in the woods after the Indian girls.” About 1720, one solution to cure the shortage of women arrived when the jails of Paris were emptied of prostitutes. The ladies of the evening were given a choice: serve their term in prison or become a colonist in Louisiana. Those who chose the New World quickly became the wives of the men most starved for female companionship. The prisons also served as a source for male colonists. Many thieves, vagabonds, deserters and smugglers also chose to come to Louisiana to avoid prison time. They made for strange company when mixed with aristocrats, indicted for some wrongdoing or another, who also chose New Orleans over the Bastille. New Orleans also lacked education and medical care. Despairing over the conditions, Governor Bienville coaxed the sisters of Ursuline to come from France and assist the new city. The first Ursulines arrived in 1727 and set to work caring for orphans, operating
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Troy Taylor (Haunted New Orleans: History & Hauntings of the Crescent City (Haunted America))