Mother St. Croix, Landing Of The Ursulines At New Orleans.
Mother St. Croix, Landing Of The Ursulines At New Orleans, August 7, 1727. Photograph of a painting by Paul Poincy based on a sketch by Marie Madeleine Hauchard, 1894. Historic New Orleans Collection.
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Summary |
| I will not speak to you at all, my dear Father, of the morals of the secular people of this country. I do not know them and have no wish at all to know them, but it is said that their morals are quite corrupt and quite scandalous. There is also a large number of honest people. One cannot see at all any of the girls that were said to have been here by force. None seem to have come this far. | Dear Father, I will not tell you about the morals of the people who live in this colony. I do not know many regular people, and I have no wish to meet them. But people say they are corrupt and wild. There are also many honest people. We have not met any of the girls that were forced to come here. None seem to live in this area. |
Marie Madeleine Hachard, Letters dated 27 October 1727 and 24 April 1728.
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Summary |
| The women are ignorant of their welfare, but not of their vanity. The luxury in this city makes no distinctions of persons; all are of equal magnificence. Most of them, along with their family, are reduced to living on nothing but sagamité, which is a kind of gruel. They are dressed in velvet and satin cloth or damasks full of ribbons, in spite of the cost, for these fabrics sell regularly in this country for three times more than in France. | The women here do not care about their health. They care only about their looks. People of every class wear the most luxurious clothing. Most of these well-dressed people are so poor that they live on gruel. But they are dressed in velvet, satin, and damask full of ribbons. These fabrics cost three times more here than they do in France. |
| The women here, as women everywhere, wear white powder and rouge to hide the wrinkles on their faces, and beauty spots. In the end, the devil has a great empire here, but this does not take away from us the hope of destroying him, with God’s love. There is an infinity of examples to make his strength show through our weakness. The more powerful the enemy is, the more we are encouraged to fight him. | The women here wear face powder, blush, and beauty spots to hide their aging, just like women everywhere. It seems the devil has a strong hold in this place, but we do not despair. We will destroy him with God’s love. The stronger the devil is, the more we want to fight him. |
| What pleases us is the docility of the children, whom one forms as one wants. The blacks are also easy to instruct once they learn to speak French. It is not the same for the savages, whom one does not baptize without trembling because of the tendency they have to sin, especially the women, who, under a modest air, hide the passions of beasts. | We are happy with the white children here. They are open to learning, so we can guide them however we like. The Black children are also easy to teach once they learn French. But the Indigenous children are not so obedient. We are always nervous when we baptize a Indigenous person because they are more likely to sin, especially the women, whose modest personalities hide animalistic urges. |
Marie Madeleine Hachard, Letters dated 27 October 1727 and 24 April 1728.
Background
The Order of St. Ursula is a community of nuns that was founded in Italy in the 1500s. They are dedicated to education and health care, so unlike other communities of nuns the Ursulines frequently work outside their convents in their local communities. By the 1700s the Ursulines had a strong reputation for being leaders in women’s education and spreading the Catholic faith and already ran established missions in the colony of New France.
In 1726 a French Catholic priest asked the Ursulines to establish a mission in New Orleans to improve the moral character of the Louisiana colony. When they arrived in 1727 the nuns were unique among the women who were immigrating to the colony. Most women were forced to immigrate to Louisiana either as wives, enslaved women, or to marry male colonists.
The Ursuline nuns choose to move to the colony to spread their religious beliefs and help build the community. Called by a Jesuit missionary to begin to bring their mission to Louisiana, the Ursulines established a convent. Jesuit priests served as their mentors, but the nuns were allowed to run their own lives and earn and manage their own money. One of their missions in Louisiana was converting Native people, but because people of African descent both free and enslaved made up about a third of the population in the region, they turned their attention to teaching them the faith. While the Ursulines’ missionary activity did not discriminate based on race, they were amongst the largest enslavers in the colony.
The Ursulines soon established themselves as a pillar of the New Orleans community. They established a hospital, cared for the city’s orphans, and founded a school for girls and young women. The Ursulines believed that all young women needed a good education. At the Ursuline Academy, white Catholic girls learned basic housekeeping skills along with more traditional subjects like math, reading, and writing. The presence of the school in New Orleans elevated the entire community’s expectations around educational opportunities for women and girls. The Ursuline Academy is still in operation today and is the longest continuously operating school for girls in the United States.
About the Documents
This sketch of the arrival of the Ursuline nuns in Louisiana was made by Marie Madeleine Hachard. Marie Madeleine was one of the first group of Ursuline nuns to move to New Orleans in 1727.
The excerpts come from letters Marie Madeleine sent to her father back in France. In 1728 a set of her letters was published to educate the French about life in the Louisiana colony. In the first excerpt from 1727 Marie Madeline shares her early impressions of the people of New Orleans. In the second, from 1728, she gets more specific about her opinions of the women and children she has encountered. Her religious convictions likely strongly influenced her opinions, and she holds racist stereotypes that were common among white settlers in the 1700s.
Vocabulary
- Catholic: A Christian who follows the pope in Rome.
- convent: The home of a community of nuns.
- mission: A settlement founded to spread a religion and convert people.
- nun: A woman who dedicates her life to serving the Catholic Church.
- priest: A person who is trained to perform the rites of the Catholic Church.
Discussion Questions
- Why did a French Catholic priest ask the Order of St. Ursuline to establish a mission in New Orleans?
- How does Marie Madeline characterize the people of New Orleans? Can we trust her assessment? Why or why not?
- What makes the Ursuline Academy different from other schools in the 1700s? Why is this significant in American history?
Suggested Activities
- Pair this resource with The Casket Girls for a more complete representation of life for women in colonial Louisiana.
- Compare and contrast this image of the Ursuline nuns arriving in New Orleans with the painting of the Filles du Roi arriving in New France. How did each artist choose to represent the women? What does this tell us about their impact on life in the colonies?
- To better understand why the Ursuline approach to educating all free young women was radical, see Fashionable Rebellion.
- To consider the role that nuns played in shaping colonial life, pair this resource with any or all of the following resources:
- Pair this resource with Republican Motherhood to consider how traditional education fit into expectations of women in the 1700s and early 1800s.
- Pair this resource with Life Story: Sister Blandina Segale (Acts of Faith) and Life Story: Mother Cabrini, aka Maria Francesca Cabrini to consider the role nuns played in shaping American society.
Themes
IMMIGRATION, MIGRATION, AND SETTLEMENT
