Governor William C.C.  Claiborne, who was the Territorial Governor, was elected by acclamation the first Governor of the State.  He was a Virginian and a man of fine attainments.  His peculiar temperament was well suited to the Creole population, and identifying himself with that population by intermarrying with one of the most respectable families of New Orleans, and studiously devoting himself to the discharge of the duties of his office, he assumed some state in his style of living, and when going abroad kept up something of the regality of his colonial predecessors.  Thus suiting the taste and genius of the people, and in some degree comporting with what they had been accustomed to, at the same time assuming great affability of manner, both in private and in the discharge of his public duties, he rendered himself extremely popular with both populations.

Governor Claiborne studiously promoted harmony between the people of the different races constituting the population of the State, and especially that of New Orleans.  The State had been under the dominion of three separate nations.  The mass of the population, originally French, very reluctantly yielded to Spanish domination, and not without an attempt at resistance.  For a time this had been successful in expelling a hated Governor; but the famous O’Reilly, succeeding to the governorship of the colony, came with such a force as was irresistible, suppressing the armed attempt to reclaim the colony from Spanish rule.  He made prisoners of the chiefs of the malcontents, with Lefrenier at their head, and condemned them to be shot.  One of these was Noyan, the son-in-law of Lefrenier.  He was a young man, and but recently united to the beautiful and accomplished daughter of the gallant Lefrenier.  His youth, his chivalry, and extraordinary intrepidity excited the admiration of the cold, cruel O’Reilly, and he was offered a pardon.  He refused to accept it, unless mercy should be extended to his father-in-law:  this having been denied, he was executed, holding in his own the hand of Lefrenier, defiantly facing his executioners and dying with Roman firmness.

This bloody tragedy was transacted upon the square in front of the Cathedral, where now stands the colossal statue of Andrew Jackson, in the midst of the most lovely and beautiful shrubs and flowers indigenous to the soil of Louisiana.  The orange, with her pale green foliage, and sweet, modest white flowers, so delicate and so delicious; the oleander, the petisporum, and roses of every hue unite their foliage and blend their fragrance to enchant and delight the eye and sense, and to contrast too the scene of carnage once deforming and outraging this Eden spot.

Scarcely had the people become reconciled to Spanish domination, before the colony was retroceded to France, and again in no great while ceded to the United States.

The French were prejudiced against the Spaniards and despised them, and now the Americans were flowing into the country and city, with manners and customs intolerable to both French and Spaniards, hating both and being hated by both, creating a state of society painfully unpleasant, and apparently irreconcilable.