Creole Sketches

New Orleans in 1878-1880 was perhaps the most cosmopolitan city in North America. It was a port city of 200,000 inhabitants, open to French, Spanish, South American, and West Indian cultural influences, and home to a significant population descended from free African Americans. It was also a battleground in the fight against yellow fever (malaria) and in the political upheavals that followed the end of Reconstruction. The continued influx of Anglo-Americans and the renewed ascendancy of white supremacists threatened to overwhelm the local blend of languages, races, and cultures that enlivened the unique Creole character of the city. Writing for an English-language newspaper, Hearn presented the speech, charm, and humor of the Creolized natives on the other side of Canal Street, and illustrated his sketches with woodcut cartoons - the first of their kind in any Southern paper