Legal history, Louisiana, and the Floridad / Seán Patrick Donlan and Vernon Valentine Palmer -- A confusion of institutions : Spanish law and practice in a francophone colony, Louisiana, 1763-circa 1798 / Paul E. Hoffman -- Changing sovereigns and settling land claims in Florida / Susan Richbourg Parker -- "The Spanish spirit in this country" : newcomers to Louisiana in 1803-1805, and their perceptions of the Spanish regime / Eberhard L. Faber -- Immigrant lawyers and slavery in territorial New Orleans / Kenneth Aslakson -- Sounding the retreat : the exit of Spanish law in early Louisiana 1805-1808 / Vernon Valentine Palmer -- Spanish law, the teatro de la legislación universal de españa e indias, and the background to the drafting of the digest of Orleans of 1808 / John W. Cairns -- Bitter legacy : Spanish colonial policies and the tradition of extra-legal violence in Louisiana's Florida parishes / Samuel C. Hyde, Jr -- The Supreme Court, Florida land claims, and Spanish colonial law / M.C. Mirow -- Articulation of folk law in the lore of place : legend as expression of sense of place and folk justice in Louisiana's neutral strip / Keagan LeJeune.
Summary:
"This collection focuses on the period from 1763 through the mid-nineteenth century. In Louisiana and the Floridas, the territorial ambitions of Britain, France, and Spain, as well as the new American Republic, led to a rapidly shifting series of political and cultural changes. The result in the region was the creation of complex hybrids of social mores, customs, and legal ideas and institutions. Of particular significance were the land claims that inevitably followed transfers of sovereignty and legal systems, the social and legal entrenchment of established elites and the institution of slavery, as well as a legacy of extra-legal violence and folk justice. The fluid borders of Louisiana and the Floridas, both East and West, exposed the flexible social identities and political loyalties of those who were settled there. Indeed, later accounts of the period and place have often misunderstood mixed motives, and contemporary rhetoric, of its subjects and citizens. Through a mix of different historiographical methods, a broad understanding of legal and social history, and the lens of plural comparative contexts, this collection tells us much about continuity and change in a critical transition period for the region, as well as for the modern Western nation-state and its increasingly common laws"--Back cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.