New Orleans City Council Evaluates Removing Historical Monuments

In January 2015, New Orleans celebrated the 200th Anniversary of the 1st Battle of New Orleans at Jean Lafitte National Park and in the French Quarter at Andrew Jackson Square.  

The Battle of New Orleans was the last Battle of the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain and possibly saved the newly formed United States from going back under British rule.

Jackson went on to become President of the United States.

Like other Presidents before him, Jackson owned slaves. Lafitte was a pirate, who specializing in smuggling in humans to be sold in New Orleans as slaves.  Importing slaves had been banned in 1808.  Lafitte was pirating slaves from the Caribbean and bringing them into New Orleans. 

Jackson needed Lafitte's  knowledge of Louisiana waterways and fleet to defeat the British.  Both men were honored with monuments and parks for establishing the newly admitted state of Louisiana as a vital part of the United States. 

On Sept 14, 1874 the Battle of Liberty Place was fought in New Orleans.  The Civil War had ended and the Reconstruction Period was in full force in the South.  Government officials sent from the North to supervise Reconstruction Laws, began to run for office on tickets with Freedmen against members of the long established Democratic Party in power. 

Elections were being influenced by Democratic Party paramilitary groups such as the Crescent City White League and the Red Shirts opposing the new laws being issued by Congress and referring to the outsiders as "Carpetbaggers."

Both the Presidential and Gubernatorial Elections of 1872 were disputed in Louisiana.

Nationally Louisiana's electoral votes were not counted.  The Governorship dispute lasted until September 1874 when 5,000 members of the Democratic Party's Crescent White League overtook the Republican Governor and Lt. Governor in the Battle of Liberty Place. 

For three days the installed Governor and Lt. Governor of the Democratic Party ran Louisiana until Federal Troops arrived by train and restored the Kellogg as Governor and Antoine as Lt. Governor.

The Lt. Governor, C.C. Antoine, was the grandson of an African Chief that had been sold into slavery in Haiti by a conquering tribe.  Antoine had become a successful businessman in Louisiana.  Twenty-five died in the Battle of Liberty Place including eleven police officers defending the Governor and Lt.Governor.

The Crescent City White League was active again in 1891, playing an active role in hanging eleven Sicilians who had been acquitted in a trail.  That same year the erection of a monument dedicated to the Battle of Liberty Place took place.

In 1993, original inscriptions were removed and the following inscription added: "In honor of those Americans on both sides who died on the Battle of Liberty Place... A Conflict of the past that should teach us lesson for the future."

The effort to remove Liberty Place Monument, along with three other statutes including,  General and University President Robert E. Lee who stands near the Civil War Museum and WWII Museums has created a new "Battle of New Orleans."

City Council meetings are now packed with members of "Save our (Robert E.

Lee) Circle" and "Save all Monuments" as well as those advocating additional monuments be removed.

 A recent marches held by "Take 'em Down NOLA" started at Andrew Jackson Square, poured paint on Liberty Monument, and expressed favoring the removal expanded to additional monuments.

This Battle of New Orleans will go on for a long time.