The New Orleans Cabildo: Colonial Louisiana's First City Government, 1769-1803

The New Orleans Cabildo: Colonial Louisiana 's First City Government, 1769-1803. By Gilbert C. Din and John E. Harkins. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996. xxii, 330 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8071-2042-1.)

Dating from Roman times and revived and reformed during the long centuries of the Reconquest, the Spanish cabildo, or municipal council, provided an easily replicable model for establishing Spain's authority in newly occupied territories. Employed repeatedly for this purpose in the early days of Spanish conquest and settlement in the New World, it was the natural instrument for Gov. Alejandro O'Reilly to adopt in 1769 when he sought to make Spanish dominion effective over the recently ceded French colony of Louisiana. Because France had maintained no analogous institution, Gilbert C. Din and John E. Harkins correctly describe the cabildo as...