Benjamin Latrobe was a British-American architect who traveled much of the country in the nineteenth century documenting both the architecture that he saw and the cultural phenomena he observed. Part of his journey took him to the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, which he recognized as a critical strategic and economic focal point for America’s westward expansion. As an Englishman, he had come to find slavery a peculiar American institution and believed that arguments in favor of slavery ran counter to the very ideals of Americans’ professed faith, culture, and traditions. In his recollections of New Orleans in his published journal, The Journal of Latrobe, the architect described the beauty he found in the culture of the enslaved people, detailing their Sunday dance and music as well as their spirits and energy. He found these factors of the lives of enslaved people particularly interesting given their maltreatment in American society. He noted, too, that many of the most aggressive of the slaveowners and overseers were Creoles, or those of mixed African and Caucasian descent.