What is the biggest party in the South? Some say it happens every year in Jacksonville, Fla., learning up to the annual Georgia/Florida football game. But really, the biggest party in the South — and maybe the biggest, longest party in the world — is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Salvation South magazine editor Chuck Reece is here with some Mardi Gras history that might surprise you.

Salvation South

TRANSCRIPT:

Of all the special days Southerners celebrate, one might be the most special: Mardi Gras. 

The words, in French, mean “fat Tuesday.” Why fat Tuesday? Because, beginning in the Middle Ages, Europeans made sure to spend a particular Tuesday getting fat. Because that next day? It was Ash Wednesday, which begins the 40-day season of fasting and repentance the Christian world knows as Lent. 

Here in North America, we associate the Mardi Gras holiday with a particular Southern city: Mardi Gras equals New Orleans. But did the party begin there? No, it began in what is now Alabama.

Okay, let’s rewind three centuries to the late 1600s, when an explorer named René-Robert Cavalier claimed the lower Mississippi River valley for France. Stealing this land from the Native Natchez people proved difficult because the Natchez did not take kindly to the French and acted accordingly. The climate was also inhospitable — even deadly. 

Many years ago, I commissioned a wonderful guy named Richard Murff to write about this history. Here's a little part of what he wrote:

The thing that must be remembered about the Gulf Coast…is that no one really wanted to be there: It was a likely death sentence. The idea was to make a fortune before getting killed by some dread disease or a revolt by the slaves whose lives you’d ruined, then remove yourself back to the Old World — fortune intact — to buy a title and pretend your money was older than it was.

One of those dread diseases was yellow fever, and an outbreak of it in 1704 killed many along the Gulf Coast. So, in 1705, the French colonists who remained threw a party for beginning of the season of Lent. And that party — the first American Mardi Gras — was held at Fort Louis de la Louisiane, a few miles north of present-day Mobile, Ala. 

How Mardi Gras made its way New Orleans is a story for another day. But when I think about what Mardi Gras means, I like to think about how that first party in 1705 was more than just a chance to eat well before the fasting began. In the wake of the yellow fever, it was more like a collective sigh of relief, I imagine — an "At Least We’re Still Alive" party.

As Richard wrote for me, Mardi Gras is, and I quote, “a celebration of the elation we feel — not when things are great, but when we survive as the world comes unhinged.”

You can party with us anytime at SalvationSouth.com