This dissertation explores the relationship between a women's religious order and the growth of colonial culture and society in New Orleans between 1727 and 1803. The experience of the Ursulines traces a common arc of colonial development from the frontier struggle to survive, to stabilization, and maturation. At the same time, it reveals a distinctive pattern of cultural continuity and adaptation at work. A traditional French institutional form was transplanted to a new environment, leaving its imprint on the society that emerged in the process. The Ursulines influenced slavery and race relations, shaped gender roles and expectations; and played a critical part in establishing and defining Catholicism in New Orleans The Ursulines promoted an aggressively inclusive form of Catholicism that deputized laywomen of all racial and social backgrounds to carry out an active campaign of catechesis among the young and unconverted of the colony. The results of their apostolate were striking. Enslaved Africans were drawn into the fold of Catholicism and women of diverse backgrounds enjoyed a formal educational experience unavailable to the colony's men The spirituality and practices of vowed and lay women in colonial New Orleans invite comparison among English, French, and Spanish experiences, and suggest how different cultural legacies inflected the developmental course of these three colonial societies. The Ursulines' active educational mission contrasts with the contemplative mode of Spanish and Spanish colonial female religious, who were excluded from the process of native and slave conversion. The New Orleans nuns enjoyed economic autonomy and wealth in land and slaves, providing a counterpoint to trends in the English colonies and post-Revolutionary America which reinscribed women within a confining realm of domesticity The history of the Ursulines in New Orleans demonstrates that while the institutions of colonizing nations shared a common developmental trajectory, distinct cultural endowments persisted in the New World. It testifies to the profound impact of religious ideology and institutional forms on colonial development, and offers new perspective on the origins of nineteenth-century conflict over the nature of American identity / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_24851 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Contributors | Clark, Emily J (Author), Frey, Sylvia R (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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