Orleans), Jan. 27 and Mch.
24, 1810.]

Meanwhile the purchase of Louisiana by the United States in 1803 had
transformed the political destinies of the community and considerably
changed its economic prospects. After prohibiting in 1804 the importation
into the territory of any slaves who had been brought from Africa since
1798, Congress passed a new act in 1805 which, though probably intended to
continue the prohibition, was interpreted by the attorney-general to permit
the inhabitants to bring in any slaves whatever from any place within the
United States.[39] This news was published with delight by the New Orleans
newspapers at the end of February, 1806;[40] and from that time until the
end of the following year their columns bristled with advertisements of
slaves from African cargoes "just arrived from Charleston." Of these the
following, issued by the firm of Kenner and Henderson, June 24, 1806, is
an example: "The subscribers offer for sale 74 prime slaves of the Fantee
nation on board the schooner _Reliance_, I. Potter master, from Charleston,
now lying opposite this city. The sales will commence on the 25th. inst.
at 9 o'clock A.M., and will continue from day to day until the whole is
sold.[41] Good endorsed notes will be taken in payment, payable the 1st.
of January, 1807. Also [for sale] the above mentioned schooner _Reliance_,
burthen about 60 tons, completely fitted for an African voyage."

[Footnote 39: W.E.B. DuBois, _Suppression of the African Slave Trade_, pp.
87-90. The acts of 1804 and 1805 are printed in B.P. Poore, _Charters and
Constitutions_ (Washington, 1877), I, 691-697.]

[Footnote 40: _Louisiana Gazette_, Feb. 28, 1806.]

[Footnote 41: _Louisiana Gazette_, July 4, 1806.]

Upon the prohibition of the African trade at large in 1808, the slave
demand of the sugar parishes was diverted to the Atlantic plantation states
where it served to advertise the Louisiana boom. Wade Hampton of South
Carolina responded in 1811 by carrying a large force of his slaves to
establish a sugar estate of his own at the head of Bayou Lafourche, and a
few others followed his example. The radical difference of the industrial
methods in sugar from those in the other staples, however, together with
the predominance of the French language, the Catholic religion and a
Creole social regime in the district most favorable for sugar, made
Anglo-Americans chary of the enterprise; and the revival of cotton prices
after 1815 st