French Colonial, Spanish Colonial, and Nineteenth-Century Louisiana Documents

Description

Louisiana documents from 1655 to 1924 with a strong emphasis on the French colonial, Spanish colonial, and early national periods. Includes correspondence, land sales, slave sales, plantation journals, business licenses, property sales, professional and family papers, legal documents, land grants, tax receipts, theater programs, broadsides, engravings, and more. A noted Louisiana document collector, Felix Kuntz (1890-1971) donated his collection to Tulane University in four installments beginning in 1954 and requested that it be named after his parents. Today, the Rosemond E. and Emile Kuntz Collection (LaRC Manuscripts Collection 600) is a renowned resource for studying Louisiana with a special emphasis on New Orleans. Particularly noteworthy are records from the Company of the Indies, papers of Francisco Bouligny describing early French and Spanish authority over Louisiana, documents spanning Louisiana's entry into the United States through the Civil War and New Orleans? growth as a major commercial center, New Orleans municipal records (1805-1850s, including an 1805 census), and several small personal and family collections such as those of John McDonogh, the Pontalba family, and the Pierson family.