100 Dollars Citizens' Bank of Louisiana, New-Orleans, Bilingual

The Citizens' Bank of Louisiana was chartered in 1833 as a mortgage bank, its capital secured against sugar and cotton plantations — which meant, in practice, against enslaved people held as collateral. That financial architecture underpinned every note the bank issued. By the time the American Bank Note Company was producing this series, the bank had survived Louisiana's catastrophic 1842 banking crisis, during which it was one of very few New Orleans institutions to avoid outright suspension.

The bilingual French-English format was not decorative. Louisiana's Civil Code and its commercial culture remained substantially Francophone well into the late nineteenth century, and notes printed only in English would have faced real friction in the parishes.