ESSAY: Gulf Oil Spill: A New Louisiana Story

Once upon a time there was a kingdom by the sea.  It was shaped like a humble workboot, but it was a frontier of singular wild magnitude, and its greatest treasure was the final destination of a mighty river. The meeting of river and sea created a vast, spongy delta swamp of bayous, inlets, sky, and slow tidal penetrations.

The value of the great kingdom was not understood by its king, and desperate for money after fighting many wars, he sold the land to the young leader who lived in a new kingdom nearby.  He, in turn, was laughed at for paying so dearly for unexplored swamps, but as time passed,  he was praised for his wisdom and foresight.

Some two hundred years passed quickly and the small nation grew to possess wealth and power never before seen in human history.  The country, once so impenetrable, developed farms, factories, fishing fleets, and great cities, but the bayou remained a place of surpassing beauty.

David Bates, Catfish Moon, oil on canvas, 84x64” www.dallasmuseumofart.org/

A nation is often symbolized by body parts: the capital is its vital acting mind, the farm states its heartland, its wild frontiers its elusive soul. But lovely Louisiana claimed, by right, the womanly center, tender and receptive, fecund, reflective, responsive, vulnerable.

Flaherty tells their story about how oil is taken from the land using the watching eyes of a bayou youth.  Ulysses is a prince of Petit Anse Bayou who roams the waters, at one with his world and time.  His father allows the Oil Lord’s workers to drill on his land, hoping to earn some extra money for his family.

Corner of Uncle Sam Plantation House and Garconniere, St. James Parish, Louisiana, Walker Evans Archive, Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.met.org/

Louisiana’s citizens sang and told many stories: about its great city, New Orleans, the sugar cane plantations, the Acadian people who came from the cold North, about their special music, jazz; their fervent religious devotion, and their mad once-yearly celebration they called “Mardi Gras”.

  The houses were humble bayou shacks or gracious welcoming plantations, lacy charmers with wide front porches.  Life was slower; it was humid, hot, prone to mildew and decay, flood, damp, but languid and dreaming always.

 Quote from interview with Mrs. Flaherty included in DVD, from the solicitation made by Standard Oil to famous documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty in 1946: “...a permanent artistic record of the contribution which the oil industry has made to civilization, ...that would present the story with dignity and the epic sweep it deserves...and ensure...a lasting place in the literature of the screen”.

Not only did Louisiana tell stories about itself; others came to set their own tales upon the changing world of the bayou and lakes. The storytellers of the kingdom told them in a new way, showing pictures that moved and talked for them instead of in the old manner, circled around a fire and speaking of the past so the young would possess their heritage.  

Storyteller Flaherty was sent to Louisiana by a powerful group of lords to make a story for the people of the kingdom. Their story was about oil, a fuel that gave the land even more wealth. It had just been found along the shores, and the growing country needed its power.

 The huge machine used to drill the well fascinates the boy, who climbs it, fishes from it, and is befriended by the workers. The workers are heroes to Prince Ulysses, who admires their power. Prince Ulysses is skilled too, catching and skinning the alligator he thinks ate his pet raccoon, showing it proudly to his friends. He watches excitedly as long sheaths for a drill are screwed together and penetrate deep into the bayou waters to reach the oil secreted beneath. But when it does, the well explodes with a tremendous roar. 

Finally the well stops spurting, and begins pumping oil instead, and the drilling barge is towed away.  Only the small machine called a “Christmas Tree” turns the pumps of the well in the still waters. With the money he earns, his father buys gifts for his delighted family:  for his wife, a new cookpot and a dress, and for Ulysses, a fine hunting rifle.  Bayou life is like it always was, tranquil, placid, and serene, a place apart, a place to return in dreams

 frame from “Louisiana Story”, showing a “newspaper account” of the blowout - photos from DVD on computer screen

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But the story Flaherty told for the oil lords left out some of the things that happens when a well blows out.

The oil spreads all over, through, and beneath the earth and sea, sticking to everything it touches. The air is filled with sickening gases that can ignite into flame.  The animals and plants are covered with oil.

Then the citizens of the kingdom have to work hard to clean the oil from their forests, fields, lakes, bayou and sea.

The people liked Flaherty’s story, and valued it because it showed their beautiful land, but as they watched, they realized it was the story the Oil Lords wanted told. It was not a story that helped them keep their kingdom safe for themselves and their children, nor a story to help them take care of the bounty of their kingdom. Instead, they were reminded of great tragedies that had befallen the lovely Louisiana since that time, and they were saddened afresh. 

The kingdom is a very different place today than when the emperor sold the vast land holding.  People talk among themselves, wondering if the kings and lords had become like he was, unable to understand the value of the land they hold, and willing to sell its future short.

Tonight in the bayou, the egret flies in a sky reddened with gas and dust. The pirogue glides over waters calm but rusty glittering with slick.  The moon casts her white blessing, a pathway to what could be again, if the citizens only choose.