This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

■NOUVXIM T>% c Ot VERM p
dim. tires ®;raiid
o- ♦ ♦
pays
tue daws L AMEKIQXJIi
ylir . */> t> */,y de JCejtvrej&jr.JjJj
/
d Utrec Cke* Guiliaume Brobdi;iet.
Up in Smoke
A preview of Pipe Dreams, opening June 18
From 1717 to 1731 the French Company of the Indies possessed a total monopoly in Louisiana. The company controlled the slave and American Indian trades, oversaw the immigration of free and indentured whites, and managed the purchase and exportation of Louisiana-grown tobacco. Company directors dreamed of creating a French version of the Chesapeake in Louisiana—that is to say, a colony capable of producing enough tobacco to supply the French Empire, as the English had done in Virginia. However, they failed to maintain the diplomatic relationships with local Indian groups necessary to establishing plantation agriculture. The Indian population, which outnumbered that of the Europeans by 14:1, occupied much of the land suitable for tobacco cultivation. Rather than focus on French-Indian diplomacy, however, company administrators on both sides of the Atlantic underestimated the weakness of their position.
In 1729 the Natchez Indians set fire to company dreams of establishing a Louisiana-based tobacco empire when warriors killed more than 230 Frenchmen and burned field upon field of tobacco, destroying the French establishment at Fort Rosalie as well as company drying sheds and warehouses. Less than two months later the company relinquished all control of Louisiana through its retrocession of the colony back to the king, on January 23, 1731.
The Collections forthcoming exhibition Pipe Dreams: Louisiana under the French Company of the Indies, 1717-1731 examines the company’s role in Louisiana during the years of its monopoly, as well as Louisiana’s and New Orleans’s roles within the company’s network of trade outposts. The exhibition also explores the development of tobacco culture in America; the popularity of tobacco in France during the first half of the 18th century; Louisiana’s population—Indian, European, and African—during the company years; and the war between the Natchez and the French and their Indian allies, 1729-31. Over 100 items will be on display, including manuscripts, engraved maps, and plans; contemporary artworks and drawings; archaeological artifacts from Fort Dauphin, Old Mobile, Natchez, and New Orleans; documents and artifacts related to John Law, the Company of the West, and the Company of the Indies; and trade items circulated throughout the company’s global networks.
—Erin M. Greenwald
Left: In this copperplate engraving accompanying a 1697 book by Louis Hennepin, Louisiana is depicted as an earthly paradise inhabited by peace pipe—wielding Indians. (THNOC, 77-532-RL)
	Pipe Dreams: Louisiana under the
LU	French Company of the Indies,
>	1717-1731
O	On view June 18 through Sept. 15, 2013
	In the Williams Gallery, 533 Royal St.
	Tuesday-Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
	Sunday, 10:30 a.m.^:30 p.m.
	Free and open to the public
6 Volume XXX, Number 2 — Spring 2013