Cabildo

Lonely Planet review

The first Cabildo was a single-story structure destroyed by the Good Friday fire of 1788. Reconstruction was delayed by the city's more pressing needs for a prison, cathedral, and police and fire stations. It turned out to be fortuitous that architect Gilberto Guillemard, who was busy with the St Louis Cathedral, did not hurry the reconstruction. The December 1794 fire would have likely destroyed a new Cabildo and the almost completed cathedral as well.

Tenants in the rebuilt Cabildo, dedicated in 1799, have included the Spanish Council (for which the building is named), the City Hall government from 1803 to 1853, the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1853 to 1910 and the Louisiana State Museum from 1911 to the present.

Three floors of exhibits emphasize the significance of New Orleans in a regional, national and even international context. It is a challenge to see it all in part of a day. You might try to quickly survey the lower floor, paying attention to the pre-Columbian Indian artefacts and the colonial exhibits that most interest you. You can overlook Jackson Square from the Sala Capitular (Spanish Council room) on the 2nd floor. This is where the Louisiana Purchase documents were signed, transferring the extensive territory from Napoleonic France to the US. Other displays depict the Battle of New Orleans, including the role of free blacks and members of the Choctaw tribe in Major General Andrew Jackson's force, which -decisively defeated General Packenham's British troops in 1814. The 3rd-floor exhibits of racial and ethnic groups from the American period are among the most interesting, with artefacts and shocking depictions of African slaves next to Civil War military displays that show free people of color in support of the Confederacy.