BORE, (JEAN) ETIENNE

born Dec. 27, 1741, French North America died Feb. 2, 1820, near New Orleans, La., U.S. founder of the sugar industry in Louisiana. Of noble Norman ancestry, Bor was educated in France and served for 10 years in the household guard of Louis XV before he established himself as an indigo planter in Louisiana. When pests ruined the indigo crop in the early 1790s, he perfected a sugar-granulating process (1794 or 1795) and devoted his land (now within New Orleans) to raising sugarcane. Unlike many other agrarian experimenters, he profited greatly from his innovation. He was mayor of New Orleans under French and U.S. rule (180304).