BULBANCHA IS STILL A PLACE: Decolonizing the Tricentennial of New Orleans

In 2018 the city where I live was abuzz with the “Tricentennial.” Countless events sprung up. Lectures, festivals, concerts, posters, artwork, flags, and shirts proclaimed that this place where I write is three hundred years old. The idea is that three hundred is a number of particular significance, marking the anniversary of Bienville landing around here. The commemorations often, though not always, described his arrival using colonialist lies such as “discovery” and “founding,” as if the Indigenous Peoples of the area never existed, as if there were no other people around in 1718 other than Europeans. Those who celebrated the