Louisiana's Florida Parishes:
Securing the Good Life From a Troubled Land
Building on the results of the first-ever gathering of regional, national and international
scholars participating in the sponsored conference, Louisiana's Florida Parishes:
Continuity and Change, 1699-2000, the Center has written, directed and produced a
30 minute documentary film, Louisiana's Florida Parishes: Securing the Good Life From a Troubled Land.
This documentary, produced by Southeastern's Center for Southeastern Louisiana Studies,
was co-written and directed by Center Director Samuel C. Hyde Jr., and Assistant Director
Charles Elliott. It was filmed by L.E. Wallace Productions and mixed by Kirk Lee at
Vivid Video Studios.Hyde, who holds Southeastern's Ford Chair in Region Studies, said
the film offers a spirited narrative, period music, maps and illustrations, scholarly
interviews and live-action recreations to trace the Florida Parishes' distinctive
development from the exploration of Bayou Manchac by the French in 1699, to the area's
current position as one of the fastest-growing region of the state.
"The film discloses historical events as perilous as they are fascinating," he said.
Hyde said that while the Florida Parishes is home "to arguably the most distinctive
and turbulent course of development anywhere in the Gulf South," the region "has been
curiously overlooked in the annals of popular history."
"Possessing strategic geography and abundant natural resources, southeast Louisiana
attracted every major colonial power penetrating the North American wilderness," Hyde
said. "The only part of the state not included in the original Louisiana Purchase,
the Florida Parishes evolved into a place whose people shaped their own destiny through
an armed insurrection overthrowing the existing government and establishing the original
Lone Star Republic."
"Successive occupations by European and American forces created shifting loyalties
that contributed to a regional culture of violence that produced some of the fiercest
blood feuds in American history," Hyde said.
Louisiana's Florida Parishes: Securing the Good Life from a Troubled Land was aired on LPB's Instructional Television and made available to teachers, librarians,
tourist development agencies and the general public.
For more information about this video:
Tel: 985-549-2151
Email: selahistory@southeastern.edu
This video is for sale at the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies for $20.00.
To obtain a copy of this video by mail, send a check or money order for $25.00 (this includes shipping and handling) to:
Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies
SLU Box 10730
Hammond, LA 70402
