Of course everyone associates Mardi Gras with New Orleans. Every year, southern Louisiana is packed with locals and visitors to celebrate Mardi Gras through parades, floats, beads, and a little bit of drinking. It truly is a sight to see, and something everyone should experience at least once. But did Mardi Gras actually originate in Louisiana? How did Mardi Gras even get started? Louisianians love to claim Mardi Gras as being the ones who created it, but it actually started in Rome as a Christian holiday that dates back thousands of years to pagan spring and fertility rights (history.com). It is also celebrated all over the world in countries with a large Roman Catholic population called Carnival or Carnaval. Along with New Orleans, Brazil and Venice also host the most famous public festivities. Mardi Gras, traditionally, is to be celebrated on Fat Tuesday. However, many areas have evolved this tradition to last a whole week.
The first American Mardi Gras was held in what is now Mobile when French explorers Pierre Le Moyne D’Iberville and Sieru de Bienville (last names sound familiar?) landed on Mobile on March 2, 1699. They named it “Pointe du Mardi Gras” and “Fort Louis de la Louisiane” because they realized it was the eve of the French holiday. They held a small celebration on March 3, 1703, which marked the very first Mardi Gras in America.
This small celebration grew over the years when French settlers took to having street parties, lavish dinners, and masked balls. Bienville established New Orleans in 1718. By the 1730s, of course they had a type of Mardi Gras, but not what we know of it today. It mainly consisted of elegant society balls, and the first recorded Mardi Gras parade took place in 1837. A secret society of New Orleans businessmen, dubbed the Mistick Krewe of Comus, organized a procession with marching bands and floats in 1857, which set the tone for future celebrations. The second Krewe was formed in 1870 called the Twelfth Night Revelers. This was the first recorded Mardi Gras with “throws.” Krewes have remained a staple of Mardi Gras, with other lasting traditions such as throwing beads, masks, floats, and king cake.
One of the oldest Mardi Gras Krewes, Rex, the King of Carnival, established purple, gold, and green as the staple colors of Mardi Gras. Rex presided over the first daytime parade and introduced the colors to honor the visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff. Purple stands for justice; gold for power; and green for faith. The next year, floats begane to be constructed entirely in New Orleans instead of France. In 1875, Governor Henry Warmoth signed the “Mardi Gras Act,” making Fat Tuesday a legal holiday in Louisiana.
Louisiana is the only state that recognizes Mardi Gras as a holiday. Other parts of the country have carnival festivities, such as Alabama and Mississippi, but only Louisiana has a true Mardi Gras! Other countries around the world still celebrate Carnival that happen pre-Lent, but all have their own events and traditions. We may be biased, but we think that there is nothing better than New Orleans’ Mardi Gras!
