Carte de l'Isle de la Martinique from Guillaume de L’Isle’s Atlas nouveau, contenant toutes les parties du monde. Amsterdam: Chez Jean Cóvens & Corneille Mortier, [1742].

LLMVC G5080 1742 .L57 MCAGE
CATALOG RECORD

LSU’s Center for French and Francophone Studies (CFFS) organized an international colloquium entitled “Louisiana/French Antilles: A Shared Space/Time” which took place on campus November 10-12, 2016, with sessions in both English and French. The colloquium focused on historical, linguistic, and cultural elements shared by Louisiana and the French Antilles, including the legacies of plantation economies and slavery, and reflections of these elements in literature, music, art, and film. Participants came from France, Italy, the French Antilles, the Bahamas, and several U.S. states, and included professors and graduate students as well as other researchers. This colloquium was the first event supported by a three-year grant awarded jointly to LSU and the Université des Antilles by the French government and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation earlier this year.

As part of the colloquium program, a display of materials from LSU Libraries Special Collections was held in the McIlhenny Room of Hill Memorial Library on the afternoon of November 11 for conference participants. Curated by Rare Book Cataloger and French Studies liaison librarian Christina Riquelmy, the theme of the display was “Slavery, Plantations, and other Louisiana/Caribbean Connections.” Visitors viewed books, manuscripts, and maps ranging in date from the 17th century to the present, selected mainly from the Rare Book Collection and the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Collections. The materials related in various ways to some of the topics presented during the colloquium, and featured connections between the French Antilles and Louisiana brought to light in the collections themselves. Several Special Collections staff members were on hand to answer questions from the attendees. Many conference visitors expressed interest in returning to LSU Special Collections to do research in the future.

Below is a small selection of materials curated for this special event. AN album of digitized materials curated for the Louisiane/French Antilles International Colloquium may be found HERE.

Sidonie de la Houssaye papers, between 1880 and 1894. Mss. 105, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections

Vol. 9 of 21 manuscript notebooks contains parts of the text of “Gina” and “Dahlia,” the third and fourth novels of the author’s tetralogy Les quarteronnes de la Nouvelle-Orléans, which were first published in serialized form in a Louisiana newspaper from 1895 to 1898 under the pseudonym Louise Raymond. Manuscript displayed with modern edition of “Dahlia” published in 2014.

The collection has been digitized as part of the LOUISiana Digital Library.
DIGITAL COLLECTION
CATALOG RECORD

Armand Duplantier family letters, 1777-1859. Mss. 5060, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections

Aide-de-camp to the Marquis de Lafayette during the American Revolution, Armand Duplantier (1753-1827) subsequently came to Louisiana where his uncle was a planter in Pointe Coupee Parish. Duplantier later owned Magnolia Mound Plantation in Baton Rouge.  This 1792 letter from Armand to his father in France reports the murder of his uncle by a slave on the plantation in Pointe Coupee.

The collection of 95 letters has been digitized in its entirety and is available online via the LOUISiana Digital Library.
DIGITAL COLLECTION
CATALOG RECORD

France. Code noir. 1724.  Based largely on the Code noir of 1685, but issued specifically for the Louisiana colony.  Contains detailed regulations for governing slaves in French colonies.

LLMVC Rare KJV4534 .F732 1728
CATALOG RECORD

Sugar imprints collection, 1765-1860. Mss. 2880, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections.  Bills of lading, 27 March 1776 and 3 August 1785, for shipments of raw sugar from Port-au-Prince to Marseille.

LLMVC Ephemera Collection, Subgroup III
CATALOG RECORD

Hearn, Lafcadio, 1850-1904. Two years in the French West Indies. Harper & brothers, 1890.

Journalist and prolific writer Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) lived in New Orleans from 1877 to 1887. Harper’s Magazine sent him to the West Indies as a correspondent in 1887, and he lived in Martinique for the next two years before moving to Japan in 1890.

LLMVC F2081 .H43
CATALOG RECORD

Rochefort, Charles de, 1605-1683. Histoire naturelle et morale des iles Antilles de l’Amérique. First edition, 1658.  The presumed author of this early work on the Antilles is believed to have been a French Protestant pastor.

Rare F2001 .R612
CATALOG RECORD

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Center for French and Francophone Studies

Conference program for the Louisiane/French Antilles International Colloquium

The World of French in Special Collections

Sugar at LSU