"Saint-Louis, Senegal, and New Orleans, Louisiana, were two river towns created ex-nihilo by the French, the former in West Africa and the latter in North America, at the time of French early imperial expansion in the Atlantic world. Both became important port cities of in the French Empire. Saint-Louis was founded the earliest, in 1659, with the internationalization of the transatlantic slave trade. New Orleans was established much later, in 1718, after the transatlantic slave trade had greatly expanded and plantation ...
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"Saint-Louis, Senegal, and New Orleans, Louisiana, were two river towns created ex-nihilo by the French, the former in West Africa and the latter in North America, at the time of French early imperial expansion in the Atlantic world. Both became important port cities of in the French Empire. Saint-Louis was founded the earliest, in 1659, with the internationalization of the transatlantic slave trade. New Orleans was established much later, in 1718, after the transatlantic slave trade had greatly expanded and plantation slavery was already well entrenched in the French Antilles. The location and site of both Saint-Louis and New Orleans were chosen because they controlled the mouth of a river that gave access to the interiors of West Africa and North America, respectively. The site of each city allowed them to maintain connections with and even to control over time a large continental hinterland: much of Western Sahara, the upper and middle Niger Valleys, and the north of Senegambia for Saint-Louis; the whole Mississippi Basin for New Orleans."--Provided by publisher.
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