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The Cabildo of New Orleans: Capitular

The official document was signed in the Sala Capitular, the hall where the Cabildo met, and was read from the centre gallery. Then the tricolor of France replaced the flag of Spain.

December 20, 1803, was the date of the transfer to the United States. The American Commission met the French Commission in the Sala Capitular of the Hôtel de Ville, or City Hall, as the French called the Cabildo. Governor Claiborne received the keys of the city, and the tricolor on the flagstaff gave way to the Stars and Stripes. A vast company of citizens watched the ceremonies, listened to the addresses, and looked at the American troops in the square, as well as at the French soldiers who were to have no further power in the province.

Grace King, in "New Orleans, the Place and the People," tells what followed : "When, twenty-one days before, the French flag was flung to the breeze, for its last brief reign in Louisiana, a band of fifty old soldiers formed themselves into a guard of honor, which was to act as a kind of death watch to their national colors. They stood now at the foot of the staff and received in their arms the Tricolor as it descended, and while the Americans were rending the air with their shouts, they marched silently away, their sergeant bearing it at their head. All uncovered before it; the American troops, as they passed, presented arms to it. It was carried to the government house, and left in the hands of Laussat."

During the years since that momentous transfer the Cabildo has continued to be the centre of historical interest in New Orleans. In 1825 Lafayette was quartered here. In 1901 President McKinley was received in the building. In 1903 the Centennial of the Louisiana Purchase was observed in the Sala Capitular, which had been for many years the meeting place of the State Supreme Court. The great hall is almost as it was when the Cabildo of Don Almonaster met there.