Projects of cotton were baffled by the lack of a gin, and recourse was once more had to sugar.

A Spaniard named Solis had built a small mill below New Orleans in 1791 and was making sugar with indifferent success when, in 1794-1795, Etienne de Bore, a prominent Creole whose estate lay just above the town, bought a supply of seed cane from Solis, planted a large field with it, engaged a professional sugar maker, and installed grinding and boiling apparatus against the time of harvest.

The day set for the test brought a throng of onlookers whose joy broke forth at the sight of crystals in the cooling fluid--for the good fortune of Bore, who received some $12,000 for his crop of 1796, was an earnest of general prosperity.
Other men of enterprise followed the resort to sugar when opportunity permitted them to get seed cane, mills and cauldrons.

In spite of a dearth of both capital and labor and in spite of wartime restrictions on maritime commerce, the sugar estates within nine years reached the number of eighty-one, a good many of which were doubtless the property of San Domingan refugees who were now pouring into the province with whatever slaves and other movables they had been able to snatch from the black revolution.

Some of these had fled first to Cuba and after a sojourn there, during which they found the Spanish government oppressive, removed afresh to Louisiana.