The first significant migration of Chinese into Louisiana took place during Reconstruction after the American Civil War, between 1867 and 1871, when local planters imported hundreds of Cantonese contract laborers from Cuba, California, and directly from China as a low-cost replacement for slave labor.

[1] By the mid-1870s, nearly all of these laborers had abandoned the plantations and migrated to Southern cities, especially New Orleans, in search of higher pay and better working conditions.

The original unskilled laborers were joined by merchants from California and other states, who provided goods and services to the Chinese, imported tea and luxury goods to the Port of Orleans, and exported Southern cotton and Gulf South dried shrimp to other Chinatowns, China itself, and other countries in Asia.

[2] By the 1880s, these merchants had developed a small Chinatown on the 1100 block of Tulane Avenue, between Elk Place and South Rampart Street.

[3] The historic Chinese Presbyterian Mission of New Orleans was located a few blocks to the north on South Liberty Street.