New Orleans: Gateway to the Americas

Augardiente de caña, 1770

In 1770, Governor Alexander O'Reilly decreed a tax on rum imported into the Louisiana colony. Most of the "aguardiente de caña" came from Cuba into the port of New Orleans. This document records fees paid on rum shipments received from Cuba and Martinique during the spring of 1803. According to Jack D. L. Holmes in his 1970s study of Spanish regulation of the liquor trade, the authorities realized more than $16,000 in revenue from the rum duty.
[City Treasurer. Accounts of Juan de Castanedo, 1794-1803]
Trade with the French, Spanish, and British West Indies was central to the economy of New Orleans during the decade 1783-93. . . . of 119 registered arrivals at New Orleans in 1786, 82 came from the Indies. In later years, the Spanish West Indies retained their significant position while the importance of the French and English trade declined.
[John G. Clark, New Orleans,
1718-1812: An Economic History

(Baton Rouge, 1970)]



Introduction | Aguardiente de caña, 1770 | Imports, 1822 | Price-Current, 1845 | Minatitlan, 1852 | Steamships, 1854
Cotton Exposition, 1884 | The Logical Point, 1885 | El Nopal, 1885 | Bananas, ca. 1919 | Mercurio, 1913
Cuyamel Fruit, 1917 | La Voz Latina, 1936 | Del Sud, 1938 | deLesseps S. Morrison, 1946
International House, 1950 | Garden of the Americas, 1957 | International Trade Mart, 1964
Coffee, 1965 | Victor H. Schiro, 1965