The occupations of the Antebellum period varied. The Planters considered themselves
to be of utmost status. As land owners, voters and vital forces in the economic
engine of the region, they disdained most physical labor. Other Creoles were
skilled in a particular trade or metier, such as law, carpentry or business enterprises.

However in the aftermath of the War of Secession, Creoles, often regarded as former enemy combatants
were prohibited from certain types of enterprise. Most specifically, the former planters having
suffered the confiscation of their lands by the Federals were forced into the cities to earn their living.

When formerly business occupations such as banking or law had been anathema to them,
these occupations became the work that they preferred. Thus the Creoles increasingly sought work in banking,
often forming their own banking associations; they worked in commission houses, cotton firms,
sugar brokerage, coffee importers, cattle brokers, shipping and drayage concerns, retailing and
other similar lines of work. Until the end of Reconstruction, most Creoles were prohibited from
holding public office; indeed many had been disenfranchised. Others worked as lawyers, notaires,
physicians, while still others worked as book keepers, scribes, cashiers and clerks.

Total output from the port of New Orleans for the year of 1857

156 million dollars total sum output. Of that sum:

86million dollars is cotton
12million dollars is tobacco,
11million dollars is sugar
50 percent of all cotton grown in the United States is shipped from New Orleans port