French and American Claims Commission records, 1861-1884.

Open to research.

Correspondence, petitions, inventories, depositions, lists, certificates, and receipts. Most of the correspondence is from French residents in New Orleans and elsewhere in Louisiana and is addressed to the French consul in New Orleans, the French minister in Washington, D.C., and the ministry of foreign affairs (Ministère des affaires étrangères) in Paris. Some petitions are from French residents in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas. Includes material relating to the Union Army's western offensive and occupation of New Orleans and to protests by French residents of Bagdad, Mexico, a settlement attacked and pillaged by U.S. Army soldiers in January 1866. Correspondents include Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, Benjamin F. Butler, William Henry Seward, and Edwin McMasters Stanton.

Commission established in 1880 by a treaty between the governments of France and the United States to resolve outstanding claims by French citizens residing in the United States for property confiscated or destroyed during the Civil War.

Collection material in French with English.

Finding aid available in the Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room.

The records were originally processed as part of the Manuscript Division's David Dixon Porter Papers from which they were separated.