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PAGE 20
| Decree by Pierre Clément de
Laussat establishing a municipal government for French New Orleans. This body, though an appointed one,
was an improvement over the Spanish Cabildo, whose members gained their seats through payments into
the Royal treasury. An elected City Council would have to wait for U.S. statehood in 1812.
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In addition to Jean Etienne Boré, the first mayor of New Orleans, Laussat's municipal government
included a future mayor, John Watkins, and two future governors of Louisiana, Pierre Derbigny and Jacques
Philippe Villeré. Two of the members, Evan Jones and William Donaldson, were Americans,
indicating the strength of that segment of the population even before the U.S. took control of the
province. 
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