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John Law Collection Bolsters The Collections Extensive Holdings Related to French Louisiana
/ J /\\e John Law Collection M makes an important addi-V	tion to the impressive array
of materials related to the French in Louisiana available to researchers at The Historic New Orleans Collection’s Williams Research Center—an assemblage on par with those at such distinguished institutions as the University of Chicago, Duke University, Yale University, the University of Minnesota, the Newberry Library, and the New York Public Library.
THNOC founder General L. Kemper Williams began amassing the materials long before the institution was established. His steadfast interest in acquiring maps and pictorial items related to
French Louisiana is evident in his early acquisitions, such as the ca. 1720 hand-colored engraving by Frangois Chereau (1680-1729) entitled Le Missisipi ou la Louisiane Dans I’amerique Septentrionale (1959.210). Acquired in 1959, the map depicts a fortified New Orleans. While indicative of the European thirst for knowledge about the young colony, the map is highly fanciful and imaginative. Equally as fanciful is Frangois-Gerard Jollain’s ca. 1720 Le Commerce qite les Indiens du Mexique Font avec les Francois au Port de Missisipi (1952.3), a propaganda piece distributed by Law’s representatives to stimulate immigration to Louisiana (see image, page 9).
Williams’s 1964 correspondence with dealers reveals his desire to assemble an excellent collection of royal French administrative acts concerning Louisiana. The eventual acquisition of those materials (MSS 268) along with a copy of the 1720 Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid (The Great Mirror of Folly) in 1960 (60-63-RL) clearly indicates his strong interest in Law’s Louisiana legacy. In his later years, Williams did not waver in his desire to assemble materials related to French Louisiana. From October 19, 1965, to just a week before his death in November 1971, he pursued the acquisition of the papers of Henri de Ste-Geme (1767-1842),
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Le Missisipi ou la Louisiane Dans l’amerique Septentrionale by Frangois Chereau, ca. 1720 (1959.210)
6 Volume XXVIII, Number 4 — Fall 2011