History of Louisiana
Encyclopedia
The history of Louisiana
is long and rich. From its earliest settlement by Native Americans to its status as linchpin of an empire to its incorporation as a U.S. state, it has been successively bathed in the cultural influences of Native Americans
, French, Spanish, the Caribbean
, Africans, and the English, and has subsequently developed a rich and unique creolization of cultures.
for many millennia before the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century.
and one of the earliest dated, complex constructions in the Americas, the Watson Brake
site near Monroe
. It has been dated to about 3400 BCE. The site appears to have been abandoned about 2800.
By 2200, during the Late Archaic period the Poverty Point culture
occupied much of Louisiana and was spread into several surrounding states. Evidence of this culture has been found at more than 100 sites, including the Jaketown Site
near Belzoni, Mississippi
. The largest and best-known site is near modern-day Epps, Louisiana
at Poverty Point
. The Poverty Point culture may have hit its peak around 1500, making it the first complex culture, and possibly the first tribal culture, not only in the Mississippi Delta
but in the present-day United States. Its people were in villages that extended for nearly 100 miles across the Mississippi River. It lasted until approximately 700 BCE.
. These descendant cultures differed from Poverty Point culture in trading over shorter distances, creating less massive public projects, completely adopting ceramics for storage and cooking. The Tchefuncte culture were the first people in Louisiana to make large amounts of pottery. Ceramics from the Tchefuncte culture have been found in sites from eastern Texas to eastern Florida, and from coastal Louisiana to southern Arkansas. These cultures lasted until 200 CE.
The Middle Woodland period starts in Louisiana with the Marksville culture
in the southern and eastern part of the state and the Fourche Maline culture
in the northwestern part of the state. The Marksville culture takes its name from the Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site
in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana
. These cultures were contemporaneous with the Hopewell cultures of Ohio
and Illinois
, and participated in the Hopewell Exchange Network. At this time populations became more sedentary and began to establish semi-permanent villages and to practice agriculture
, planting various cultigens of the Eastern Agricultural Complex
. The populations began to expand, and trade with various nonlocal peoples also began to increase. Trade with peoples to the southwest brought the bow
and arrow
An increase in the hierarchical structuring of their societies, whether indigenously developed or through borrowing from the Hopewell is not certain, also began during this time period. The dead were treated in increasingly elaborate ways, as the first burial mounds are built at this time. Political power begins to be consolidated as the first platform mound
s at ritual centers are constructed for the developing of hereditary political and religious leadership.
By 400 CE in the eastern part of the state the Late Woodland period had begun with the Baytown
and Troyville culture
s and later the Coles Creek culture
. Archeologists have traditionally viewed the Late Woodland as a time of cultural decline after the florescence of the Hopewell peoples. Late Woodland sites, with the exception of sites along the Florida Gulf Coast, tend to be small when compared with Middle Woodland sites. Although settlement size was small, there was an increase in Late Woodland sites over Middle Woodland sites, indicating a population increase. These factors tend to mark the Late Woodland period as an expansive period, not one of a cultural collapse. Where the Baytown peoples began to build more dispersed settlements, the Troyville people instead continued building major earthwork centers. The type site for the culture, the Troyville Earthworks
, once had the second tallest precolumbian mound in North America and the tallest in Louisiana at 82 feet (25 m) in height. The Coles Creek culture from 700 to 1200 CE marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area. Population increased dramatically and there is strong evidence of a growing cultural and political complexity, especially by the end of the Coles Creek sequence. Although many of the classic traits of chiefdom
societies are not yet manifested, by 1000 CE the formation of simple elite polities had begun. Coles Creek sites are found in Arkansas
, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Texas. Many Coles Creek sites were erected over earlier Woodland period mortuary
mounds, leading researchers to speculate that emerging elites were symbolically and physically appropriating dead ancestors to emphasize and project their own authority.
in Louisiana sees the emergence of the Plaquemine
and the Caddoan Mississippian culture
s. This period is when extensive maize
agriculture is adopted. The Plaquemine culture in the lower Mississippi River
Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana begins in 1200 CE and goes to about 1400 CE. Good examples of this culture are the Medora Site
(the type site
for the culture and period), Fitzhugh Mounds
, Transylvania Mounds
, and Scott Place Mounds
in Louisiana and the Anna
, Emerald
, Winterville
and Holly Bluff
sites located in Mississippi. Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture at the Cahokia
site near St. Louis, Missouri
. By 1000 CE in the northwestern part of the state the Fourche Maline culture had evolved into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. By 1400 CE Plaquemine had started to hybridize through contact with Middle Mississippian cultures to the north and became what archaeologist term Plaquemine Mississippian. These peoples are considered ancestral to historic groups encountered by the first Europeans in the area, the Natchez
and Taensa
Peoples. The Caddoan Mississippians covered a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeast Texas
, and northwest Louisiana. Archaeological evidence that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present, and that the direct ancestors of the Caddo
and related Caddo language
speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact and the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is unquestioned today.
Many current place names in the state, including Atchafalaya, Natchitouches (now spelled Natchitoches
), Caddo
, Houma
, Tangipahoa
, and Avoyel
(as Avoyelles), are transliterations of those used in various Native American languages.
expedition led by Panfilo de Narváez
located the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1542, Hernando de Soto
's expedition skirted to the north and west of the state (encountering Caddo and Tunica
groups) and then followed the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico
in 1543. The expedition encountered hostile tribes all along river. Natives followed the boats in large canoes, shooting arrows at the soldiers for days on end as they drifted through their territory. The Spanish, whose crossbows had long ceased working, had no effective offensive weapons on the water and were forced to rely on their remaining armor and sleeping mats to block the arrows. About 11 Spaniards were killed along this stretch and many more wounded.
The French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle named the region Louisiana to honor France's King Louis XIV
in 1682. The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas (at what is now Ocean Springs, Mississippi
, near Biloxi
), was founded by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
, a French military officer from Canada, in 1699.
The French colony of Louisiana
originally claimed all the land on both sides of the Mississippi River
and north to French territory in Canada.
The following present day states were part of the then vast tract of Louisiana: Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
The settlement of Natchitoches
(along the Red River in present-day northwest Louisiana) was established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, making it the oldest permanent settlement in the territory that then composed the Louisiana colony. The French settlement had two purposes: to establish trade with the Spanish in Texas
, and to deter Spanish advances into Louisiana. Also, the northern terminus of the Old San Antonio Road (sometimes called El Camino Real, or Kings Highway) was at Nachitoches. The settlement soon became a flourishing river port and crossroads, giving rise to vast cotton kingdoms along the river. Over time, planters developed large plantations and built fine homes in a growing town, a pattern repeated in New Orleans and other places.
Louisiana's French settlements contributed to further exploration and outposts. They were concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries, from Louisiana to as far north as the region called the Illinois Country
, near Peoria, Illinois
and present-day St. Louis, Missouri
.
Initially Mobile, Alabama
and Biloxi, Mississippi
functioned in succession as the capital of the colony. In 1722, recognizing the importance of the Mississippi River to trade and military interests, France made New Orleans the seat of civilian and military authority.
Settlement in the Louisiana colony was not exclusively French; in the 1720s, German immigrants settled along the Mississippi River in a region referred to as the German Coast
.
and the Aurore
, carrying the first African slaves to Louisiana. From 1718 to 1750, thousands of Africans were transported to Louisiana from the Senegambian coast, the west African region of the interior of modern Benin
, and from the coast of modern Angola
. According to French shipping records, approximately 2000 individuals originated from the upper West African slave ports from Saint-Louis, Senegal
to Cap Appolonia (present-day Ébrié Lagoon
, Côte d'Ivoire
) several hundred kilometers to the south, a further 2000 were exported from the port of Whydah (modern Ouidah
, Benin
) and roughly 300 departed from Cabinda
. It has been argued, though it is by no means universally accepted, that due to historical and administrative ties between France and Senegal
, "Two-thirds of the slaves brought to Louisiana by the French slave trade came from Senegambia." This region between the Senegal and Gambia rivers had peoples who were closely related through history: three of the principal languages, Sereer, Wolof
and Pulaar were related, and Malinke, spoken by the Mande people to the east, was "mutually intelligible" with them. This concentration of peoples from one region of Africa strongly shaped Louisiana Creole culture.
The geographic and perhaps linguistic similarities of many African captives, can be easily exaggerated and did not necessarily imply a common heritage in Louisiana. Religion
was one significant difference among many of the Africans who were sold to the Americas from Senegal. The creation of a common culture as some have argued, is an assertion still debated by historians. It is historically difficult to determine the religious beliefs of slaves, but it is likely that some, if not many, slaves from Senegal were Muslims. Many were certainly captives taken in the religious wars that engulfed the region from Futa Djallon to Futa Toro and Futa Bundu (modern Upper Niger River
) in the early 18th century. Indeed, the inland territories of the African continent from which slaves were captured, were enormous. Contemporary and modern observers may have attributed more similarities to slaves taken from among these areas than enslaved Africans recognized among themselves at the time of transportation and sale in Louisiana.
Most of the territory to the east of the Mississippi was lost to the Kingdom of Great Britain
in the French and Indian War
, except for the area around New Orleans and the parishes around Lake Pontchartrain
. The rest of Louisiana became a possession of Spain after the Seven Years' War
by the Treaty of Paris
of 1763.
Despite the fact that it was the Spanish government that now ruled Louisiana, the pace of francophone immigration to the territory increased swiftly, due to another significant aftereffect of the French and Indian War. Several thousand French-speaking refugees from the region of Acadia
(now Nova Scotia
, Canada) made their way to Louisiana after being expelled from their home territory by the newly ascendant British. The first group of around 200 arrived in 1765, led by Joseph Broussard
dit "Beausoleil". They settled chiefly in the southwestern Louisiana region now called Acadiana
. The Acadian refugees were welcomed by the Spanish, and their descendants came to be called Cajun
s.
Some Spanish-speaking immigrants arrived also, Canary Islanders, called Isleños
. They immigrated to Louisiana between 1778 and 1783. The southwestern area around Lake Charles
was also settled in the late 1700s.
Both free and enslaved populations increased rapidly during the years of Spanish rule, as new settlers and Creoles imported large numbers of slaves to work on plantations. Although some American settlers brought slaves with them who were native to Virginia or North Carolina, the Pointe Coupee inventories showed that most slaves brought by traders came directly from Africa. In 1763 settlements from New Orleans to Pointe Coupee (north of Baton Rouge) included 3,654 free persons and 4,598 slaves. By the 1800 census, which included West Florida, there were 19,852 free persons and 24,264 slaves in Lower Louisiana. Although the censuses do not always cover the same territory, they show a majority of slaves in the population throughout these years. Records during Spanish rule were not as well documented as with the French slave trade, so it is difficult to trace more specific origins of African slaves. The overall numbers, though, resulted in what historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall
called "the re-Africanization" of Lower Louisiana, which strongly influenced the culture.
In 1800, France's Napoleon Bonaparte
reacquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso
, an arrangement kept secret for some two years. Documents have revealed that he harbored secret ambitions to reconstruct a large colonial empire in the Americas. This notion faltered, however, after the French attempt to reconquer Haiti
after its revolution
ended in failure.
, which consisted of all the land not included in Orleans Territory. The Florida Parishes
were annexed from the short-lived and strategically important West Florida
Republic by proclamation of President James Madison
in 1810.
Another result of the Haitian Revolution of 1804 was a major emigration of refugees to Louisiana, where they settled chiefly in New Orleans. The thousands of Haitian immigrants included many free people of color
, whites and enslaved Africans. Some refugees had earlier gone to Cuba, and some Cuban immigrants also arrived in the major immigration of 1809. The free people of color added substantially to the Creoles of color community in New Orleans, and the immigrants enlarged the French-speaking community.
In 1811, the largest slave revolt in American history, the 1811 German Coast Uprising
took place just outside of New Orleans. Between 64 and 500 slaves rose up on the German Coast forty miles outside of New Orleans, and marched to within 20 miles (32.2 km) of the city gates. The revolt took the entire military might of the Orleans Territory to suppress and was the greatest threat to American sovereignty in New Orleans.
of 1819, that was formally ratified in 1821, with an area referred to as the Sabine Free State serving as a neutral buffer zone, as well as a haven for criminals. Also called "No Man's Land," this part of central and southwestern Louisiana was settled in part by a mixed-race people known as Redbones
.
With the growth of settlement in the Midwest (formerly the Northwest Territory) and Deep South during the early decades of the 19th century, trade and shipping increased markedly in New Orleans. Produce and products moved out of the Midwest down the Mississippi for shipment overseas, and international ships docked at New Orleans with imports to send into the interior. The port was crowded with steamboats, flatboats and sailing ships, and workers speaking languages from many nations. The New Orleans was the major port for the export of cotton and sugar. The city's population grew and the region became quite wealthy. More than the rest of the Deep South, it attracted immigrants for the many jobs in the city. The richest citizens imported fine goods of wine, furnishings and fabrics.
By 1840 New Orleans had the biggest slave market in the United States. It had become one of the wealthiest cities and the third largest city in the nation. The ban on importation of slaves had increased demand for the internal market. During these decades after the American Revolutionary War, more than one million enslaved African Americans underwent forced migration from the Upper South to the Deep South, two thirds of them in the slave trade. Others were transported by their masters as slaveholders moved west for new lands.
With changing agriculture in the Upper South as planters shifted from tobacco to less labor-intensive mixed agriculture, planters had excess laborers. Many ended up selling slaves to traders to take to the new frontiers. Slaves were driven by traders overland from the Upper South or transported to New Orleans by ship. After sales in New Orleans, steamboats operating on the Mississippi transported slaves upstream to markets or plantation destinations at Natchez and Memphis.
Construction and elaboration of the levee system was critical to the state's ability to cultivate export crops, especially cotton and sugar cane. Enslaved Africans built the first levees under planter direction. Later levees were expanded, heightened and added to mostly by Irish immigrant laborers, whom contractors hired when doing work for the state. As the 19th century progressed, the state had an interest in ensuring levee construction. By 1860, Louisiana had built 740 miles (1,190.9 km) of levees on the Mississippi River and another 450 miles (724.2 km) of levees on its outlets. These immense earthworks were built mostly by hand. They averaged six feet in height, and up to twenty feet in some areas.
Enfranchised elite whites' strong economic interest in maintaining the slave system contributed to Louisiana's decision to secede from the union. It followed other Southern states in seceding after the election of Abraham Lincoln
as President of the United States
. Louisiana's secession was announced on January 26, 1861, and it became part of the Confederate States of America
.
The state was quickly defeated in the Civil War
, a result of Union strategy to cut the Confederacy in two by seizing the Mississippi. Federal troops captured New Orleans on April 25, 1862. Because a large part of the population had Union sympathies (or compatible commercial interests), the Federal government took the unusual step of designating the areas of Louisiana under Federal control as a state within the Union, with its own elected representatives to the U.S. Congress.
in what was administered as the Fifth Military District
. Under this period of Reconstruction, the slaves were freed and male former slaves were given suffrage. African-Americans began to live as citizens with some measure of equality before the law. Both freedmen and people of color who had been free before the war began to make more advances in education, family stability and jobs. At the same time there was tremendous social volatility in the aftermath of war, with many whites actively resisting defeat.
In the 1870s, whites who opposed the outcome of the war accelerated their insurgency to regain control of political power in the state. White paramilitary groups such as the White League
, formed in 1874, used violence and outright assassination to turn Republicans out of office, and intimidate African-Americans, discourage them from voting, control their work, and limit movement. Among violent acts attributed to the White League in 1874 was the Coushatta Massacre
, where they killed six Republican officeholders, including four family members of the local state senator, and twenty freedmen as witnesses.
Later, 5000 White Leaguers battled 3500 members of the Metropolitan Police and state militia in New Orleans after demanding the resignation of Governor William Pitt Kellogg. They hoped to replace him with the Democratic candidate of the disputed 1872 elections, McEnery. The White League briefly took over the statehouse and city hall before Federal troops arrived. In 1876, the white Democrats regained control of Louisiana.
Through the 1880s, white Democrats began to reduce voter registration of blacks and poor whites by making registration and elections more complicated. They imposed institutionalized forms of racial discrimination.
In 1898, the white Democratic, elite-dominated legislature passed a new disenfranchising constitution, with provisions for voter registration, such as poll taxes, residency requirements and literacy tests, whose implementation was directed at reducing black voter registration. The impact was immediate and long lasting. In 1896, there were 130,334 black voters on the rolls and about the same number of white voters, in proportion to the state population, which was evenly divided.
The state population in 1900 was 47% African-American: 652,013 citizens, of whom many in New Orleans were descendants of Creoles of color, the sizeable population of blacks free before the Civil War. By 1900, two years after the new constitution, there were only 5,320 black voters registered in the state. Because of disenfranchisement, by 1910 there were only 730 black voters (less than 0.5 percent of eligible African-American men), despite advances in education and literacy among blacks and people of color. White Democrats had established one-party rule which they maintained in the state for decades deep into the 20th century.
The notable 19th-century Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson
, which determined that segregation could be legal so long as it did not (purportedly) result in inequality, was the result of a lawsuit brought from Louisiana.
As a result of disenfranchisement, African-Americans in Louisiana essentially had no representation, and suffered inadequate funding for schools and services, lack of representation on juries; no representation in local, state or Federal government; lack of attention to their interests and worse in the segregated state. Nonetheless, they continued to build their own lives and institutions.
In 1915, the Supreme Court struck down the grandfather clause
in its ruling in Guinn v. United States
. Although the case originated in Oklahoma, Louisiana and other Southern states had used similar clauses to exempt white voters from literacy tests. State legislators then passed new requirements for potential voters to demonstrate "understanding" to official registrars. In practice, this device was effective in keeping most black voters off the rolls. By 1923, Louisiana established the all-white primary, which effectively shut out black voters from the only competitive part of elections in the one-party state.
In the early decades of the 20th century, thousands of African-Americans left Louisiana in the Great Migration
north to industrial cities. The boll weevil infestation and agricultural problems had cost sharecroppers and farmers their jobs. The mechanization of agriculture had dropped the need for laborers. They sought skilled jobs in the defense industry in California, better education for their children, and living opportunities in communities where they could vote, as well as an escape from southern violence.
Opelousas, Louisiana
was a stop for at least three of the Orphan Train
s which were arranged by New York social services agencies to provide for resettlement of orphans out of the city from 1854–1929. It was the heart of a traditional Catholic
region of French
, Spanish
, Acadian
, African and French West Indian heritage and traditions. Families in Louisiana took in more than 2,000 mostly Catholic orphans to live in rural farming communities. The city of Opelousas is constructing an Orphan Train Museum (second in the nation) in an old train depot located in Le Vieux Village in Opelousas. The first museum dedicated to the Orphan Train children is located in Kansas.
, Louisiana was led by Governor Huey Long
. He was elected to office on populist appeal. Though popular for his public works projects, which provided thousands of jobs to people in need, and for his programs in education and increased suffrage for poor whites, Long was criticized for his allegedly demogogic and autocratic style. He extended patronage control through every branch of Louisiana's state government. Especially controversial were his plans for wealth redistribution in the state. Long's rule ended abruptly with his assassination in the state capitol in 1935.
Mobilization for World War II created some jobs in the state. Thousands of other workers, black and white alike, migrated to California for better jobs in its burgeoning defense industry. From the 1940s through the 1960s was when most African Americans left the state in the Second Great Migration
. The mechanization of agriculture in the 1930s had sharply cut the need for laborers. They sought skilled jobs in the defense industry in California, better education for their children, and living opportunities in communities where they could vote.
Although Long removed the poll tax associated with voting, the all-white primaries were maintained through 1944, until the Supreme Court struck them down in Smith v. Allwright
. Through 1948 black people in Louisiana continued to be essentially disfranchised, with only 1% of those eligible managing to vote. Schools and public facilities continued to be segregated.
In the 1950s the state created new requirements for a citizenship test for voter registration. Despite opposition by the States Rights Party, downstate black voters began to increase their rate of registration, which also reflected the growth of their middle classes. Gradually black voter registration and turnout increased to 20% and more, but it was still only 32% by 1964. The percentage of black voters ranged widely in the state during these years, from 93.8% in Evangeline Parish to only 1.7% in Tensas Parish, for instance.
Patterns of Jim Crow segregation against African Americans still ruled in Louisiana in the 1960s. Because of the Great Migration
of blacks to the north and especially the later migration to the west, and growth of other groups in the state, by 1960 the proportion of African Americans in Louisiana had dropped to 32%. That still meant that 1,039,207 citizens were adversely affected by segregation and efforts at disfranchisement. African Americans continued to suffer disproportionate discriminatory application of the state's voter registration rules. Because of better opportunities elsewhere, from 1965 to 1970, blacks continued to migrate out of Louisiana, for a net loss of African Americans of more than 37,000 people. During the latter period, some people began to migrate to cities of the New South
for opportunities.
The disfranchisement of African Americans did not end until their leadership and activism throughout the South during the Civil Rights Movement
gained national attention and Congressional action. This led to securing passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
and Voting Rights Act of 1965, with President Lyndon Johnson's leadership as well. By 1968 almost 59% of eligible-age African Americans had registered to vote in Louisiana. Contemporary rates for African American voter registration and turnout in the state are above 70%, demonstrating the value they give it, higher than for African American voters outside the South.
were hit by the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina
, which caused widespread damage due to large-scale flooding of more than 80% of the city and nearby parishes when levees were breached. Warnings of the hurricane prompted the evacuation of New Orleans and other areas, but tens of thousands of people, mostly African Americans, were left behind and stranded by the floodwaters.
Cut off in many cases from healthy food, medicine or water, or assembled in public spaces without functioning emergency services, more than 1500 people in New Orleans died in the aftermath. Government at all levels had failed to prepare adequately despite severe hurricane warnings, and emergency responses were slow. The state faced a humanitarian crisis stemming from conditions in many locations and the large tide of refugees, especially the city of New Orleans. Subsequent reconstruction and repatriation has been slow and generally limited to the state's wealthier citizens.
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
is long and rich. From its earliest settlement by Native Americans to its status as linchpin of an empire to its incorporation as a U.S. state, it has been successively bathed in the cultural influences of Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, French, Spanish, the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, Africans, and the English, and has subsequently developed a rich and unique creolization of cultures.
Prehistory
Louisiana was inhabited by Native AmericansNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
for many millennia before the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century.
Archaic Period
During the Archaic period Louisiana was home to the earliest mound complex in North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and one of the earliest dated, complex constructions in the Americas, the Watson Brake
Watson Brake
Watson Brake is an archaeological site in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana from the Archaic period. Dated to about 5400 years ago , Watson Brake is considered the earliest mound complex in North America. It is the earliest dated, complex construction in the Americas...
site near Monroe
Monroe, Louisiana
Monroe is a city in and the parish seat of Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 53,107, making it the eighth largest city in Louisiana. A July 1, 2007, United States Census Bureau estimate placed the population at 51,208, but 51,636...
. It has been dated to about 3400 BCE. The site appears to have been abandoned about 2800.
By 2200, during the Late Archaic period the Poverty Point culture
Poverty Point culture
Poverty Point culture is an archaeological culture that corresponds to an ancient group of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf coast from about 2200 BCE - 700 BCE...
occupied much of Louisiana and was spread into several surrounding states. Evidence of this culture has been found at more than 100 sites, including the Jaketown Site
Jaketown Site
Jaketown Site is an archaeological site with two prehistoric earthwork mounds in Humphreys County, Mississippi, United States. While the mounds have not been excavated, distinctive pottery sherds found in the area lead scholars to date the mounds' construction and use to the Mississippian culture...
near Belzoni, Mississippi
Belzoni, Mississippi
Belzoni is a city in Humphreys County, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region, on the Yazoo River. The population was 2,663 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Humphreys County...
. The largest and best-known site is near modern-day Epps, Louisiana
Epps, Louisiana
Epps is a village in West Carroll Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,153 at the 2000 census.The Poverty Point National Monument is located nearby, the most complex earthworks site built by a Late Archaic culture....
at Poverty Point
Poverty Point
Poverty Point is a prehistoric earthworks of the Poverty Point culture, now a historic monument located in the Southern United States. It is from the current Mississippi River, and situated on the edge of Maçon Ridge, near the village of Epps in West Carroll Parish, Louisiana.Poverty Point...
. The Poverty Point culture may have hit its peak around 1500, making it the first complex culture, and possibly the first tribal culture, not only in the Mississippi Delta
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...
but in the present-day United States. Its people were in villages that extended for nearly 100 miles across the Mississippi River. It lasted until approximately 700 BCE.
Woodland period
The Poverty Point culture was followed by the Tchefuncte and Lake Cormorant cultures of the Tchula period, local manifestations of Early Woodland periodWoodland period
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures was from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic header for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the...
. These descendant cultures differed from Poverty Point culture in trading over shorter distances, creating less massive public projects, completely adopting ceramics for storage and cooking. The Tchefuncte culture were the first people in Louisiana to make large amounts of pottery. Ceramics from the Tchefuncte culture have been found in sites from eastern Texas to eastern Florida, and from coastal Louisiana to southern Arkansas. These cultures lasted until 200 CE.
The Middle Woodland period starts in Louisiana with the Marksville culture
Marksville culture
The Marksville culture was an archaeological culture in the lower Lower Mississippi valley, Yazoo valley, and Tensas valley areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas and extended eastward along the Gulf Coast to the Mobile Bay area, from 100 BCE to 400 CE. This culture takes its name...
in the southern and eastern part of the state and the Fourche Maline culture
Fourche Maline culture
The Fourche Maline culture was a Woodland Period Native American culture that existed from 300 BCE to 800 CE, in southeastern Oklahoma, southwestern Arkansas, northwestern Louisiana, and northeastern Texas. They are considered to be one of the main ancestral groups of the Caddoan Mississippian...
in the northwestern part of the state. The Marksville culture takes its name from the Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site
Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site
Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site, , also known as Marksville State Historic Site, is a Hopewell tradition earthworks archaeological site in Louisiana, one mile southeast of Marksville in Avoyelles Parish.-Description:...
in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana
Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana
Avoyelles is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Marksville. In 2000, its population was 41,481. The parish is named for the Avoyel Indian tribe.-History:...
. These cultures were contemporaneous with the Hopewell cultures of Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
and Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, and participated in the Hopewell Exchange Network. At this time populations became more sedentary and began to establish semi-permanent villages and to practice agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, planting various cultigens of the Eastern Agricultural Complex
Eastern Agricultural Complex
The Eastern Agricultural Complex describes the agricultural practices of the pre-historic Eastern Woodland Native Americans in the eastern United States and Canada. Native Americans domesticated and cultivated many indigenous crops as far west as the Great Plains.-Term:The term Eastern Agricultural...
. The populations began to expand, and trade with various nonlocal peoples also began to increase. Trade with peoples to the southwest brought the bow
Bow (weapon)
The bow and arrow is a projectile weapon system that predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.-Description:A bow is a flexible arc that shoots aerodynamic projectiles by means of elastic energy. Essentially, the bow is a form of spring powered by a string or cord...
and arrow
Arrow
An arrow is a shafted projectile that is shot with a bow. It predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.An arrow usually consists of a shaft with an arrowhead attached to the front end, with fletchings and a nock at the other.- History:...
An increase in the hierarchical structuring of their societies, whether indigenously developed or through borrowing from the Hopewell is not certain, also began during this time period. The dead were treated in increasingly elaborate ways, as the first burial mounds are built at this time. Political power begins to be consolidated as the first platform mound
Platform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...
s at ritual centers are constructed for the developing of hereditary political and religious leadership.
By 400 CE in the eastern part of the state the Late Woodland period had begun with the Baytown
Baytown culture
The Baytown culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 300 to 700 CE in the lower Mississippi River Valley, consisting of sites in eastern Arkansas, western Tennessee, Louisiana, and western Mississippi. The Baytown Site on the White River in Monroe County, Arkansas is...
and Troyville culture
Troyville culture
The Troyville culture is an archaeological culture in areas of Louisiana and Arkansas in the Lower Mississippi valley in the southern United States. It was a Baytown Period culture and lasted from 400 to 700 CE during the Late Woodland period...
s and later the Coles Creek culture
Coles Creek culture
Coles Creek culture is a Late Woodland archaeological culture in the Lower Mississippi valley in the southern United States. It followed the Troyville culture. The period marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area...
. Archeologists have traditionally viewed the Late Woodland as a time of cultural decline after the florescence of the Hopewell peoples. Late Woodland sites, with the exception of sites along the Florida Gulf Coast, tend to be small when compared with Middle Woodland sites. Although settlement size was small, there was an increase in Late Woodland sites over Middle Woodland sites, indicating a population increase. These factors tend to mark the Late Woodland period as an expansive period, not one of a cultural collapse. Where the Baytown peoples began to build more dispersed settlements, the Troyville people instead continued building major earthwork centers. The type site for the culture, the Troyville Earthworks
Troyville Earthworks
Troyville Earthworks is a Woodland period Native American archaeological site with components dating from 100 BCE to 700 CE during the Baytown to the Troyville-Coles Creek periods. It once had the tallest mound in Louisiana at in height. It is located in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana in the town of...
, once had the second tallest precolumbian mound in North America and the tallest in Louisiana at 82 feet (25 m) in height. The Coles Creek culture from 700 to 1200 CE marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area. Population increased dramatically and there is strong evidence of a growing cultural and political complexity, especially by the end of the Coles Creek sequence. Although many of the classic traits of chiefdom
Chiefdom
A chiefdom is a political economy that organizes regional populations through a hierarchy of the chief.In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band...
societies are not yet manifested, by 1000 CE the formation of simple elite polities had begun. Coles Creek sites are found in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Texas. Many Coles Creek sites were erected over earlier Woodland period mortuary
Morgue
A morgue or mortuary is used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification, or removal for autopsy or disposal by burial, cremation or otherwise...
mounds, leading researchers to speculate that emerging elites were symbolically and physically appropriating dead ancestors to emphasize and project their own authority.
Mississippian period
The Mississippian periodMississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
in Louisiana sees the emergence of the Plaquemine
Plaquemine culture
The Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Good examples of this culture are the Medora Site in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, and the Anna, Emerald Mound, Winterville and Holly Bluff sites located...
and the Caddoan Mississippian culture
Caddoan Mississippian culture
The Caddoan Mississippian culture was a prehistoric Native American culture considered by archaeologists as a variant of the Mississippian culture. The Caddoan Mississippians covered a large territory, including what is now Eastern Oklahoma, Western Arkansas, Northeast Texas, and Northwest Louisiana...
s. This period is when extensive maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
agriculture is adopted. The Plaquemine culture in the lower Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana begins in 1200 CE and goes to about 1400 CE. Good examples of this culture are the Medora Site
Medora Site
The Medora Site is an archaeological site that is a type site for the prehistoric Plaquemine culture period. The name for the culture is taken from the proximity of Medora to the town of Plaquemine, Louisiana. The site is in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, and was inhabited from approximately...
(the type site
Type site
In archaeology a type site is a site that is considered the model of a particular archaeological culture...
for the culture and period), Fitzhugh Mounds
Fitzhugh Mounds
Fitzhugh Mounds is an archaeological site in Madison Parish, Louisiana from the Plaquemine\Mississippian period dating to approximnately 1200–1541 CE...
, Transylvania Mounds
Transylvania Mounds
Translyvania Mounds is an archaeological site in East Carroll Parish, Louisiana with components from the Coles Creek CE and Plaquemine/Mississippi periods...
, and Scott Place Mounds
Scott Place Mounds
Scott Place Mounds is an archaeological site in Union Parish, Louisiana from the Late Coles Creek-Early Plaquemine period, dating to approximately 1200 CE. The site is one of the few such sites in north-central Louisiana.-Description:...
in Louisiana and the Anna
Anna Site
The Anna Site is a prehistoric Plaquemine culture archaeological site located in Adams County, Mississippi north of Natchez. It is the type site for the Anna Phase of the Natchez Bluffs Plaquemine culture chronology...
, Emerald
Emerald Mound Site
The Emerald Mound Site , also known as the Selzertown site, is a Plaquemine culture Mississippian period archaeological site located on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Stanton, Mississippi, United States. The site dates from the period between 1200 and 1730 CE...
, Winterville
Winterville Site
The Winterville Site is an archaeological site consisting of platform substructure mounds and plazas that is the type site for the Winterville Phase of the Lower Yazoo Basin region...
and Holly Bluff
Holly Bluff Site
The Holly Bluff Site , sometimes known as the Lake George Site, and locally as “The Mound Place,”) is an archaeological site that is a type site for the Lake George phase of the prehistoric Plaquemine culture period of the area...
sites located in Mississippi. Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture at the Cahokia
Cahokia
Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is the area of an ancient indigenous city located in the American Bottom floodplain, between East Saint Louis and Collinsville in south-western Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The site included 120 human-built earthwork mounds...
site near St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. By 1000 CE in the northwestern part of the state the Fourche Maline culture had evolved into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. By 1400 CE Plaquemine had started to hybridize through contact with Middle Mississippian cultures to the north and became what archaeologist term Plaquemine Mississippian. These peoples are considered ancestral to historic groups encountered by the first Europeans in the area, the Natchez
Natchez people
The Natchez are a Native American people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi. They spoke a language isolate that has no known close relatives, although it may be very distantly related to the Muskogean languages of the Creek...
and Taensa
Taensa
The Taensa were a people of northeastern Louisiana. They lived on Lake Saint Joseph west of the Mississippi River, between the Yazoo River and Saint Catherine Creek...
Peoples. The Caddoan Mississippians covered a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeast Texas
East Texas
East Texas is a distinct geographic and ecological area in the U.S. state of Texas.According to the Handbook of Texas, the East Texas area "may be separated from the rest of Texas roughly by a line extending from the Red River in north central Lamar County southwestward to east central Limestone...
, and northwest Louisiana. Archaeological evidence that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present, and that the direct ancestors of the Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
and related Caddo language
Caddoan languages
The Caddoan languages are a family of Native American languages. They are spoken by Native Americans in parts of the Great Plains of the central United States, from North Dakota south to Oklahoma.-Family division:...
speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact and the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is unquestioned today.
Native groups at time of European settlement
Many native groups inhabited the state when the Europeans began colonization:- The AtakapaAtakapaThe Atakapan people are a Southeastern culture of Native American tribes who spoke Atakapa and historically lived along the Gulf of Mexico. They called themselves the Ishak, pronounced "ee-SHAK", which translates as "The People". Although the people were decimated by infectious disease after...
in southwestern Louisiana in Vermilion, Cameron, Lafayette, Acadia, Jefferson Davis, and Calcasieu parishes. They were allied with the AppalousaAppalousaThe Appalousa were Native Americans who had occupied the area around Opelousas, Louisiana before European contact.The name Opelousas has been thought to have many meanings, but the one most commonly accepted is "Blackleg", possibly because the tribe painted or stained their legs a dark color...
in St. Landry parish. - The AcolapissaAcolapissaThe Acolapissa were a small tribe of Native Americans, said to originate from the shores of the Pearl River, between Louisiana and Mississippi before 1702. This made them one of four tribes, along with the Bayogoula, Biloxi, and Pascagoula who inhabited the gulf coast of Mississippi at the time of...
in St. Tammany parish. They were allied with the TangipahoaTangipahoaThe Tangipahoa were a Native American tribe that lived in Louisiana, just north of Lake Pontchartrain. It is from them that the modern town of Tangipahoa, Louisiana gets its name.The Tangipahoa were closely related to the Acolapissa...
in Tangipahoa parish. - The ChitimachaChitimachaThe Chitimacha are a Native American federally recognized tribe that lives in the U.S. state of Louisiana, mainly in St. Mary Parish. They currently number about 720 people. The Chitimacha language is a language isolate.- History :The Chitimacha's historic home was the southern Louisiana coast...
in the southeastern parishes of Iberia, Assumption, St. Mary, lower St. Martin, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, Jefferson, Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines. They were allied with the Washa in Assumption parish, the Chawasha in Terrebonne parish, and the Yagenechito to the east. - The Bayougoula, part of the ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
nation, in areas directly north of the Chitimachas in the parishes of St. Helena, Tangipahoa, Washington, East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Livingston, and St. Tammany. They were allied with the QuinipissaQuinipissaThe Quinipissa were an indigenous group living on the lower Mississippi River, in present day Louisiana, as reported by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1682....
-Mougoulacha in St. Tammany parish. - The HoumaHoumaHouma can refer to:*Houma, Louisiana, city in the United States*Houma, Shanxi, city in China*Houma Tribe, a Native American group*Houma, a proper name*Houma, meaning cape, the name of some capes in Tonga and villages near them such as:...
, also part of the Choctaw nation, in East and West Feliciana, and Pointe Coupee parishes (about 100 miles (160 km) north of the town named for them). - The OkelousaOkelousaThe Okelousa are Native American people originally from the Southern United States . The name is taken from the Chocktaw word for "black water"-External links:***...
in Pointe Coupee parish. - The AvoyelAvoyelThe Avoyel or Avoyelles was a small Natchez-speaking tribe who inhabited land near the mouth of the Red River in the area of present-day Marksville, Louisiana. The indigenous name for this tribe is Tamoucougoula. The word Avoyel is of French derivation and means either "Flint People" or "the...
, part of the NatchezNatchezNatchez may refer to:* Natchez people, a Native American nation* Natchez language, the language of that Native American tribe* Natchez, Mississippi, United States* Natchez, Louisiana, United States* Natchez, Indiana, United States...
nation, in parts of Avoyelles and Concordia parishes along the Mississippi River. - The TaensaTaensaThe Taensa were a people of northeastern Louisiana. They lived on Lake Saint Joseph west of the Mississippi River, between the Yazoo River and Saint Catherine Creek...
, also part of the Natchez nation, in northeastern Louisiana particularly Tensas parish. - The TunicaTunica peopleThe Tunica people were a group of linguistically and culturally related Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley, which include the Tunica ; the Yazoo; the Koroa ; and possibly the Tioux...
in northeastern parishes of Tensas, Madison, East Carroll and West Carroll. - The KoroaKoroaThe Koroa were one of the groups of indigenous people who lived in the Mississippi Valley prior to the European settlement of the region. They lived in the northwest of present-day Mississippi in the Yazoo River basin. They were believed to speak a dialect of Tunica.The Koroa may be the tribe...
in East Carroll parish. - The remainder of central, west central, and northwest Louisiana was home to a substantial portion of the CaddoCaddoThe Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
nation, the Adai in Natchitoches parish, and NatchitochesNatchitoches (tribe)The Natchitoches are Native American tribe from Louisiana. They are part of the Caddo Confederacy.In the early 17th century they were joined by some of the remnants of the Kadohadacho, a tribe with many members who had been killed or enslaved by the Chickasaw...
confederacy consisting of the Natchitoches in Natchitoches parish, YatasiYatasiThe Yatasi are a Native American people from northwestern Louisiana that are part of the Natchitoches Confederacy of the Caddo Nation...
and Nakasa in the Caddo and Bossier parishes, Doustioni in Natchitoches parish, and OuachitaOuachita tribeThe Ouachita are a Native American tribe from northeastern Louisiana along the Ouachita River.-History:The Ouachita were loosely affiliated with the Caddo Confederacy. Their traditional homelands were the lower reaches of the Ouachita River and along the Black River...
in the Caldwell parish.
Many current place names in the state, including Atchafalaya, Natchitouches (now spelled Natchitoches
Natchitoches
Natchitoches may refer to:*Natchitoches , an American Indian people*Natchitoches, Louisiana, a city*Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana...
), Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
, Houma
Houma
Houma can refer to:*Houma, Louisiana, city in the United States*Houma, Shanxi, city in China*Houma Tribe, a Native American group*Houma, a proper name*Houma, meaning cape, the name of some capes in Tonga and villages near them such as:...
, Tangipahoa
Tangipahoa
The Tangipahoa were a Native American tribe that lived in Louisiana, just north of Lake Pontchartrain. It is from them that the modern town of Tangipahoa, Louisiana gets its name.The Tangipahoa were closely related to the Acolapissa...
, and Avoyel
Avoyel
The Avoyel or Avoyelles was a small Natchez-speaking tribe who inhabited land near the mouth of the Red River in the area of present-day Marksville, Louisiana. The indigenous name for this tribe is Tamoucougoula. The word Avoyel is of French derivation and means either "Flint People" or "the...
(as Avoyelles), are transliterations of those used in various Native American languages.
European contact
The first European explorers to visit Louisiana came in 1528 when a SpanishSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
expedition led by Panfilo de Narváez
Pánfilo de Narváez
Pánfilo de Narváez was a Spanish conqueror and soldier in the Americas. He is most remembered as the leader of two expeditions, one to Mexico in 1520 to oppose Hernán Cortés, and the disastrous Narváez expedition to Florida in 1527....
located the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1542, Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (explorer)
Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who, while leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States, was the first European documented to have crossed the Mississippi River....
's expedition skirted to the north and west of the state (encountering Caddo and Tunica
Tunica people
The Tunica people were a group of linguistically and culturally related Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley, which include the Tunica ; the Yazoo; the Koroa ; and possibly the Tioux...
groups) and then followed the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
in 1543. The expedition encountered hostile tribes all along river. Natives followed the boats in large canoes, shooting arrows at the soldiers for days on end as they drifted through their territory. The Spanish, whose crossbows had long ceased working, had no effective offensive weapons on the water and were forced to rely on their remaining armor and sleeping mats to block the arrows. About 11 Spaniards were killed along this stretch and many more wounded.
French exploration and colonization (17th century to 1756)
European interest in Louisiana then lay dormant until the late 17th century, when French expeditions, which included sovereign, religious and commercial aims, established a foothold on the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast. With its first settlements, France lay claim to a vast region of North America and set out to establish a commercial empire and French nation stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
in 1682. The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas (at what is now Ocean Springs, Mississippi
Ocean Springs, Mississippi
Ocean Springs is a city in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States, about east of Biloxi. It is part of the Pascagoula, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 17,225 at the 2000 census...
, near Biloxi
Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, in the United States. The 2010 census recorded the population as 44,054. Along with Gulfport, Biloxi is a county seat of Harrison County....
), was founded by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville pronounced as described in note] Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville pronounced as described in note] Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville pronounced as described in note] (16 July 1661 – 9 July 1702 (probable)was a soldier, ship captain, explorer, colonial administrator, knight of...
, a French military officer from Canada, in 1699.
The French colony of Louisiana
Louisiana (New France)
Louisiana or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. Under French control from 1682–1763 and 1800–03, the area was named in honor of Louis XIV, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle...
originally claimed all the land on both sides of the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
and north to French territory in Canada.
The following present day states were part of the then vast tract of Louisiana: Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
The settlement of Natchitoches
Natchitoches
Natchitoches may refer to:*Natchitoches , an American Indian people*Natchitoches, Louisiana, a city*Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana...
(along the Red River in present-day northwest Louisiana) was established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, making it the oldest permanent settlement in the territory that then composed the Louisiana colony. The French settlement had two purposes: to establish trade with the Spanish in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, and to deter Spanish advances into Louisiana. Also, the northern terminus of the Old San Antonio Road (sometimes called El Camino Real, or Kings Highway) was at Nachitoches. The settlement soon became a flourishing river port and crossroads, giving rise to vast cotton kingdoms along the river. Over time, planters developed large plantations and built fine homes in a growing town, a pattern repeated in New Orleans and other places.
Louisiana's French settlements contributed to further exploration and outposts. They were concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries, from Louisiana to as far north as the region called the Illinois Country
Illinois Country
The Illinois Country , also known as Upper Louisiana, was a region in what is now the Midwestern United States that was explored and settled by the French during the 17th and 18th centuries. The terms referred to the entire Upper Mississippi River watershed, though settlement was concentrated in...
, near Peoria, Illinois
Peoria, Illinois
Peoria is the largest city on the Illinois River and the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, in the United States. It is named after the Peoria tribe. As of the 2010 census, the city was the seventh-most populated in Illinois, with a population of 115,007, and is the third-most populated...
and present-day St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
.
Initially Mobile, Alabama
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
and Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, in the United States. The 2010 census recorded the population as 44,054. Along with Gulfport, Biloxi is a county seat of Harrison County....
functioned in succession as the capital of the colony. In 1722, recognizing the importance of the Mississippi River to trade and military interests, France made New Orleans the seat of civilian and military authority.
Settlement in the Louisiana colony was not exclusively French; in the 1720s, German immigrants settled along the Mississippi River in a region referred to as the German Coast
German Coast
The German Coast was a region of early Louisiana settlement located above New Orleans on the Mississippi River – specifically, from east to west, in St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, and St. James parishes of present-day Acadiana. The four settlements along the coast were Karlstein, Hoffen,...
.
Africans and early slavery
In 1719, two ships arrived in New Orleans, the Duc du MaineDuc du Maine (slave ship)
The Duc du Maine was a cargo slave ship 101.71 feet long and 29.86 feet wide which brought the first African slaves to Louisiana on June 6, 1719 from Senegambia. The ship could carry 500 to 600 slaves. After three months at sea, the first landing occurred at Dauphin Island with 250 slaves...
and the Aurore
Aurore (slave ship)
The Aurore was a cargo slave ship which brought the first African slaves to Louisiana on June 6, 1719 from Senegambia....
, carrying the first African slaves to Louisiana. From 1718 to 1750, thousands of Africans were transported to Louisiana from the Senegambian coast, the west African region of the interior of modern Benin
Benin
Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
, and from the coast of modern Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
. According to French shipping records, approximately 2000 individuals originated from the upper West African slave ports from Saint-Louis, Senegal
Saint-Louis, Senegal
Saint-Louis, or Ndar as it is called in Wolof, is the capital of Senegal's Saint-Louis Region. Located in the northwest of Senegal, near the mouth of the Senegal River, and 320 km north of Senegal's capital city Dakar, it has a population officially estimated at 176,000 in 2005. Saint-Louis...
to Cap Appolonia (present-day Ébrié Lagoon
Ébrié Lagoon
The Ébrié Lagoon lies in Côte d'Ivoire, separated for most of its length from the Atlantic Ocean by a narrow coastal strip. The 100 km long lagoon is linked to the sea by the Vridi Canal, while the Comoë River flows into it. The lagoon averages 4 km in width, and 5 m in depth...
, Côte d'Ivoire
Côte d'Ivoire
The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast is a country in West Africa. It has an area of , and borders the countries Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana; its southern boundary is along the Gulf of Guinea. The country's population was 15,366,672 in 1998 and was estimated to be...
) several hundred kilometers to the south, a further 2000 were exported from the port of Whydah (modern Ouidah
Ouidah
Ouidah , also Whydah or Juda, is a city on the Atlantic coast of Benin.The commune covers an area of 364 square kilometres and as of 2002 had a population of 76,555 people.-History:...
, Benin
Benin
Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
) and roughly 300 departed from Cabinda
Cabinda (province)
Cabinda is an exclave and province of Angola, a status that has been disputed by many political organizations in the territory. The capital city is also called Cabinda. The province is divided into four municipalities - Belize, Buco Zau, Cabinda and Cacongo.Modern Cabinda is the result of a fusion...
. It has been argued, though it is by no means universally accepted, that due to historical and administrative ties between France and Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, "Two-thirds of the slaves brought to Louisiana by the French slave trade came from Senegambia." This region between the Senegal and Gambia rivers had peoples who were closely related through history: three of the principal languages, Sereer, Wolof
Wolof language
Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...
and Pulaar were related, and Malinke, spoken by the Mande people to the east, was "mutually intelligible" with them. This concentration of peoples from one region of Africa strongly shaped Louisiana Creole culture.
The geographic and perhaps linguistic similarities of many African captives, can be easily exaggerated and did not necessarily imply a common heritage in Louisiana. Religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
was one significant difference among many of the Africans who were sold to the Americas from Senegal. The creation of a common culture as some have argued, is an assertion still debated by historians. It is historically difficult to determine the religious beliefs of slaves, but it is likely that some, if not many, slaves from Senegal were Muslims. Many were certainly captives taken in the religious wars that engulfed the region from Futa Djallon to Futa Toro and Futa Bundu (modern Upper Niger River
Niger River
The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea...
) in the early 18th century. Indeed, the inland territories of the African continent from which slaves were captured, were enormous. Contemporary and modern observers may have attributed more similarities to slaves taken from among these areas than enslaved Africans recognized among themselves at the time of transportation and sale in Louisiana.
Spanish interregnum (1763–1800)
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
in the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
, except for the area around New Orleans and the parishes around Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Pontchartrain is a brackish estuary located in southeastern Louisiana. It is the second-largest inland saltwater body of water in the United States, after the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the largest lake in Louisiana. As an estuary, Pontchartrain is not a true lake.It covers an area of with...
. The rest of Louisiana became a possession of Spain after the Seven Years' War
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...
by the Treaty of Paris
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War...
of 1763.
Despite the fact that it was the Spanish government that now ruled Louisiana, the pace of francophone immigration to the territory increased swiftly, due to another significant aftereffect of the French and Indian War. Several thousand French-speaking refugees from the region of Acadia
Acadia
Acadia was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire of New France, in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine. At the end of the 16th century, France claimed territory stretching as far south as...
(now Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, Canada) made their way to Louisiana after being expelled from their home territory by the newly ascendant British. The first group of around 200 arrived in 1765, led by Joseph Broussard
Joseph Broussard
Joseph Gaurhept Broussard , also known as Beausoleil, was a leader of the Acadian people in Acadia; later Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Broussard organized a resistance movement against the forced Expulsion of the Acadians...
dit "Beausoleil". They settled chiefly in the southwestern Louisiana region now called Acadiana
Acadiana
Acadiana, or The Heart of Acadiana, is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that is home to a large Francophone population. Of the 64 parishes that make up Louisiana, 22 named parishes and other parishes of similar cultural environment, make up the intrastate...
. The Acadian refugees were welcomed by the Spanish, and their descendants came to be called Cajun
Cajun
Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...
s.
Some Spanish-speaking immigrants arrived also, Canary Islanders, called Isleños
Isleños
Isleño is the Spanish word meaning "islander." The Isleños are the descendants of Canary Island immigrants to Louisiana, Cuba, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and other parts of the Americas....
. They immigrated to Louisiana between 1778 and 1783. The southwestern area around Lake Charles
History of Lake Charles, Louisiana
-Early historical events, settlement and incorporation:While several American Indian tribes are known to have lived in the area occupied by present-day Lake Charles, the first European settlers arrived in the 1760s....
was also settled in the late 1700s.
Both free and enslaved populations increased rapidly during the years of Spanish rule, as new settlers and Creoles imported large numbers of slaves to work on plantations. Although some American settlers brought slaves with them who were native to Virginia or North Carolina, the Pointe Coupee inventories showed that most slaves brought by traders came directly from Africa. In 1763 settlements from New Orleans to Pointe Coupee (north of Baton Rouge) included 3,654 free persons and 4,598 slaves. By the 1800 census, which included West Florida, there were 19,852 free persons and 24,264 slaves in Lower Louisiana. Although the censuses do not always cover the same territory, they show a majority of slaves in the population throughout these years. Records during Spanish rule were not as well documented as with the French slave trade, so it is difficult to trace more specific origins of African slaves. The overall numbers, though, resulted in what historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall is a prominent historian and public intellectual who focuses on the history of slavery in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Louisiana , and the African Diaspora in the Americas...
called "the re-Africanization" of Lower Louisiana, which strongly influenced the culture.
In 1800, France's Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
reacquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso
Third Treaty of San Ildefonso
The Third Treaty of San Ildefonso was a secretly negotiated treaty between France and Spain in which Spain returned the colonial territory of...
, an arrangement kept secret for some two years. Documents have revealed that he harbored secret ambitions to reconstruct a large colonial empire in the Americas. This notion faltered, however, after the French attempt to reconquer Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
after its revolution
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
ended in failure.
Incorporation into the United States and antebellum years (1803–1860)
As a result of his setbacks in Haiti, Bonaparte gave up his dreams of American empire and sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States, which subsequently divided it into two territories: the Territory of Orleans, which became the state of Louisiana in 1812, and the District of LouisianaDistrict of Louisiana
The District of Louisiana, or Louisiana District, was an official, temporary, United States government designation for the portion of the Louisiana Purchase that had not been organized into the Orleans Territory. It officially existed from March 10, 1804 until July 4, 1805, when it was incorporated...
, which consisted of all the land not included in Orleans Territory. The Florida Parishes
Florida Parishes
The Florida Parishes , also known as the North Shore region, are eight parishes in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana, which were part of West Florida in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Unlike much of Louisiana, this region was not part of the Louisiana Purchase, as it had been...
were annexed from the short-lived and strategically important West Florida
West Florida
West Florida was a region on the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico, which underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. West Florida was first established in 1763 by the British government; as its name suggests it largely consisted of the western portion of the region...
Republic by proclamation of President James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
in 1810.
Another result of the Haitian Revolution of 1804 was a major emigration of refugees to Louisiana, where they settled chiefly in New Orleans. The thousands of Haitian immigrants included many free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
, whites and enslaved Africans. Some refugees had earlier gone to Cuba, and some Cuban immigrants also arrived in the major immigration of 1809. The free people of color added substantially to the Creoles of color community in New Orleans, and the immigrants enlarged the French-speaking community.
In 1811, the largest slave revolt in American history, the 1811 German Coast Uprising
1811 German Coast Uprising
The 1811 German Coast Uprising was a slave revolt that took place in parts of the Territory of Orleans on January 8–10, 1811. The revolt took place on the east coast of the Mississippi River in what are now St. John the Baptist and St. Charles Parishes, Louisiana. While the slave insurgency was...
took place just outside of New Orleans. Between 64 and 500 slaves rose up on the German Coast forty miles outside of New Orleans, and marched to within 20 miles (32.2 km) of the city gates. The revolt took the entire military might of the Orleans Territory to suppress and was the greatest threat to American sovereignty in New Orleans.
State of Louisiana
Louisiana became a U.S. State on April 30, 1812. The western boundary of Louisiana with Spanish Texas remained in dispute until the Adams-Onís TreatyAdams-Onís Treaty
The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty or the Purchase of Florida, was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that gave Florida to the U.S. and set out a boundary between the U.S. and New Spain . It settled a standing border dispute between the two...
of 1819, that was formally ratified in 1821, with an area referred to as the Sabine Free State serving as a neutral buffer zone, as well as a haven for criminals. Also called "No Man's Land," this part of central and southwestern Louisiana was settled in part by a mixed-race people known as Redbones
Redbone (ethnicity)
Redbone is a term historically used in much of the southern United States, particularly in Louisiana, to refer to a Métis or Mestee ethnic group of mixed racial heritage.-Definition:...
.
With the growth of settlement in the Midwest (formerly the Northwest Territory) and Deep South during the early decades of the 19th century, trade and shipping increased markedly in New Orleans. Produce and products moved out of the Midwest down the Mississippi for shipment overseas, and international ships docked at New Orleans with imports to send into the interior. The port was crowded with steamboats, flatboats and sailing ships, and workers speaking languages from many nations. The New Orleans was the major port for the export of cotton and sugar. The city's population grew and the region became quite wealthy. More than the rest of the Deep South, it attracted immigrants for the many jobs in the city. The richest citizens imported fine goods of wine, furnishings and fabrics.
By 1840 New Orleans had the biggest slave market in the United States. It had become one of the wealthiest cities and the third largest city in the nation. The ban on importation of slaves had increased demand for the internal market. During these decades after the American Revolutionary War, more than one million enslaved African Americans underwent forced migration from the Upper South to the Deep South, two thirds of them in the slave trade. Others were transported by their masters as slaveholders moved west for new lands.
With changing agriculture in the Upper South as planters shifted from tobacco to less labor-intensive mixed agriculture, planters had excess laborers. Many ended up selling slaves to traders to take to the new frontiers. Slaves were driven by traders overland from the Upper South or transported to New Orleans by ship. After sales in New Orleans, steamboats operating on the Mississippi transported slaves upstream to markets or plantation destinations at Natchez and Memphis.
Secession and the Civil War (1860–1865)
With its plantation economy, Louisiana was a state that generated wealth from the labor of and trade in enslaved African Americans. It also had one of the largest free black populations in the United States, totaling 18,647 people in 1860. Most of the free blacks (or free people of color, as they were called in the French tradition) lived in the New Orleans region and southern part of the state. More than in other areas of the South, most of the free people of color were of mixed race. Many free blacks in New Orleans were middle class and well-educated; many were property owners. By contrast, according to the 1860 census, 331,726 people were enslaved, nearly 47% of the state's total population of 708,002.Construction and elaboration of the levee system was critical to the state's ability to cultivate export crops, especially cotton and sugar cane. Enslaved Africans built the first levees under planter direction. Later levees were expanded, heightened and added to mostly by Irish immigrant laborers, whom contractors hired when doing work for the state. As the 19th century progressed, the state had an interest in ensuring levee construction. By 1860, Louisiana had built 740 miles (1,190.9 km) of levees on the Mississippi River and another 450 miles (724.2 km) of levees on its outlets. These immense earthworks were built mostly by hand. They averaged six feet in height, and up to twenty feet in some areas.
Enfranchised elite whites' strong economic interest in maintaining the slave system contributed to Louisiana's decision to secede from the union. It followed other Southern states in seceding after the election of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
as President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
. Louisiana's secession was announced on January 26, 1861, and it became part of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
.
The state was quickly defeated in the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, a result of Union strategy to cut the Confederacy in two by seizing the Mississippi. Federal troops captured New Orleans on April 25, 1862. Because a large part of the population had Union sympathies (or compatible commercial interests), the Federal government took the unusual step of designating the areas of Louisiana under Federal control as a state within the Union, with its own elected representatives to the U.S. Congress.
Reconstruction, disenfranchisement and segregation (1865–1929)
Following the Civil War, much of the South, including Louisiana, was placed under the supervision of military governors under northern command. Louisiana was grouped with TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
in what was administered as the Fifth Military District
Fifth Military District
The 5th Military District was a temporary administrative unit of the United States set up during the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War. It included Texas, from Brazos Santiago Harbor, , at the Mexican border, north to Louisiana. General Philip Sheridan served as its first...
. Under this period of Reconstruction, the slaves were freed and male former slaves were given suffrage. African-Americans began to live as citizens with some measure of equality before the law. Both freedmen and people of color who had been free before the war began to make more advances in education, family stability and jobs. At the same time there was tremendous social volatility in the aftermath of war, with many whites actively resisting defeat.
In the 1870s, whites who opposed the outcome of the war accelerated their insurgency to regain control of political power in the state. White paramilitary groups such as the White League
White League
The White League was a white paramilitary group started in 1874 that operated to turn Republicans out of office and intimidate freedmen from voting and political organizing. Its first chapter in Grant Parish, Louisiana was made up of many of the Confederate veterans who had participated in the...
, formed in 1874, used violence and outright assassination to turn Republicans out of office, and intimidate African-Americans, discourage them from voting, control their work, and limit movement. Among violent acts attributed to the White League in 1874 was the Coushatta Massacre
Coushatta massacre
The Coushatta Massacre was the result of an attack by the White League, a paramilitary organization composed of white Southern Democrats, on Republican officeholders and freedmen in Coushatta, the parish seat of Red River Parish, Louisiana...
, where they killed six Republican officeholders, including four family members of the local state senator, and twenty freedmen as witnesses.
Later, 5000 White Leaguers battled 3500 members of the Metropolitan Police and state militia in New Orleans after demanding the resignation of Governor William Pitt Kellogg. They hoped to replace him with the Democratic candidate of the disputed 1872 elections, McEnery. The White League briefly took over the statehouse and city hall before Federal troops arrived. In 1876, the white Democrats regained control of Louisiana.
Through the 1880s, white Democrats began to reduce voter registration of blacks and poor whites by making registration and elections more complicated. They imposed institutionalized forms of racial discrimination.
In 1898, the white Democratic, elite-dominated legislature passed a new disenfranchising constitution, with provisions for voter registration, such as poll taxes, residency requirements and literacy tests, whose implementation was directed at reducing black voter registration. The impact was immediate and long lasting. In 1896, there were 130,334 black voters on the rolls and about the same number of white voters, in proportion to the state population, which was evenly divided.
The state population in 1900 was 47% African-American: 652,013 citizens, of whom many in New Orleans were descendants of Creoles of color, the sizeable population of blacks free before the Civil War. By 1900, two years after the new constitution, there were only 5,320 black voters registered in the state. Because of disenfranchisement, by 1910 there were only 730 black voters (less than 0.5 percent of eligible African-American men), despite advances in education and literacy among blacks and people of color. White Democrats had established one-party rule which they maintained in the state for decades deep into the 20th century.
The notable 19th-century Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in private businesses , under the doctrine of "separate but equal".The decision was handed...
, which determined that segregation could be legal so long as it did not (purportedly) result in inequality, was the result of a lawsuit brought from Louisiana.
As a result of disenfranchisement, African-Americans in Louisiana essentially had no representation, and suffered inadequate funding for schools and services, lack of representation on juries; no representation in local, state or Federal government; lack of attention to their interests and worse in the segregated state. Nonetheless, they continued to build their own lives and institutions.
In 1915, the Supreme Court struck down the grandfather clause
Grandfather clause
Grandfather clause is a legal term used to describe a situation in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations, while a new rule will apply to all future situations. It is often used as a verb: to grandfather means to grant such an exemption...
in its ruling in Guinn v. United States
Guinn v. United States
Guinn v. United States, 238 U.S. 347 , was an important United States Supreme Court decision that dealt with provisions of state constitutions that set qualifications for voters. It found grandfather clause exemptions to literacy tests to be unconstitutional...
. Although the case originated in Oklahoma, Louisiana and other Southern states had used similar clauses to exempt white voters from literacy tests. State legislators then passed new requirements for potential voters to demonstrate "understanding" to official registrars. In practice, this device was effective in keeping most black voters off the rolls. By 1923, Louisiana established the all-white primary, which effectively shut out black voters from the only competitive part of elections in the one-party state.
In the early decades of the 20th century, thousands of African-Americans left Louisiana in the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
north to industrial cities. The boll weevil infestation and agricultural problems had cost sharecroppers and farmers their jobs. The mechanization of agriculture had dropped the need for laborers. They sought skilled jobs in the defense industry in California, better education for their children, and living opportunities in communities where they could vote, as well as an escape from southern violence.
Opelousas, Louisiana
Opelousas, Louisiana
Opelousas is a city in and the parish seat of St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies at the junction of Interstate 49 and U.S. Route 190. The population was 22,860 at the 2000 census. Although the 2006 population estimate was 23,222, a 2004 annexation should put the city's...
was a stop for at least three of the Orphan Train
Orphan Train
The Orphan Train was a social experiment that transported children from crowded coastal cities of the United States to the country's Midwest for adoption. The orphan trains ran between 1854 and 1929, relocating an estimated 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children...
s which were arranged by New York social services agencies to provide for resettlement of orphans out of the city from 1854–1929. It was the heart of a traditional Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
region of French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
, Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
, Acadian
Acadian
The Acadians are the descendants of the 17th-century French colonists who settled in Acadia . Acadia was a colony of New France...
, African and French West Indian heritage and traditions. Families in Louisiana took in more than 2,000 mostly Catholic orphans to live in rural farming communities. The city of Opelousas is constructing an Orphan Train Museum (second in the nation) in an old train depot located in Le Vieux Village in Opelousas. The first museum dedicated to the Orphan Train children is located in Kansas.
The Great Depression and WWII (1929–1940s)
During some of the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Louisiana was led by Governor Huey Long
Huey Long
Huey Pierce Long, Jr. , nicknamed The Kingfish, served as the 40th Governor of Louisiana from 1928–1932 and as a U.S. Senator from 1932 to 1935. A Democrat, he was noted for his radical populist policies. Though a backer of Franklin D...
. He was elected to office on populist appeal. Though popular for his public works projects, which provided thousands of jobs to people in need, and for his programs in education and increased suffrage for poor whites, Long was criticized for his allegedly demogogic and autocratic style. He extended patronage control through every branch of Louisiana's state government. Especially controversial were his plans for wealth redistribution in the state. Long's rule ended abruptly with his assassination in the state capitol in 1935.
Mobilization for World War II created some jobs in the state. Thousands of other workers, black and white alike, migrated to California for better jobs in its burgeoning defense industry. From the 1940s through the 1960s was when most African Americans left the state in the Second Great Migration
Second Great Migration (African American)
The Second Great Migration was the migration of more than 5 million African Americans from the South to the North, Midwest and West. It took place from 1941, through World War II, and lasted until 1970. It was much larger and of a different character than the first Great Migration...
. The mechanization of agriculture in the 1930s had sharply cut the need for laborers. They sought skilled jobs in the defense industry in California, better education for their children, and living opportunities in communities where they could vote.
Although Long removed the poll tax associated with voting, the all-white primaries were maintained through 1944, until the Supreme Court struck them down in Smith v. Allwright
Smith v. Allwright
Smith v. Allwright , 321 U.S. 649 , was a very important decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Democratic Party's use of all-white primaries in Texas, and other states where the party used the...
. Through 1948 black people in Louisiana continued to be essentially disfranchised, with only 1% of those eligible managing to vote. Schools and public facilities continued to be segregated.
The battle for civil rights (1950–1970)
State legislators created other ways to suppress black voting, which crept up to 5% of those eligible from 1948 to 1952. Civil rights organizations in New Orleans and southern parishes, where there had been a long tradition of free people of color before the Civil War, worked hard to register black voters.In the 1950s the state created new requirements for a citizenship test for voter registration. Despite opposition by the States Rights Party, downstate black voters began to increase their rate of registration, which also reflected the growth of their middle classes. Gradually black voter registration and turnout increased to 20% and more, but it was still only 32% by 1964. The percentage of black voters ranged widely in the state during these years, from 93.8% in Evangeline Parish to only 1.7% in Tensas Parish, for instance.
Patterns of Jim Crow segregation against African Americans still ruled in Louisiana in the 1960s. Because of the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
of blacks to the north and especially the later migration to the west, and growth of other groups in the state, by 1960 the proportion of African Americans in Louisiana had dropped to 32%. That still meant that 1,039,207 citizens were adversely affected by segregation and efforts at disfranchisement. African Americans continued to suffer disproportionate discriminatory application of the state's voter registration rules. Because of better opportunities elsewhere, from 1965 to 1970, blacks continued to migrate out of Louisiana, for a net loss of African Americans of more than 37,000 people. During the latter period, some people began to migrate to cities of the New South
New South
New South, New South Democracy or New South Creed is a phrase that has been used intermittently since the American Civil War to describe the American South, after 1877. The term "New South" is used in contrast to the Old South of the plantation system of the antebellum period.The term has been used...
for opportunities.
The disfranchisement of African Americans did not end until their leadership and activism throughout the South during the Civil Rights Movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
gained national attention and Congressional action. This led to securing passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
and Voting Rights Act of 1965, with President Lyndon Johnson's leadership as well. By 1968 almost 59% of eligible-age African Americans had registered to vote in Louisiana. Contemporary rates for African American voter registration and turnout in the state are above 70%, demonstrating the value they give it, higher than for African American voters outside the South.
Katrina and its aftermath (2005–present)
In August, 2005 New Orleans and many other low-lying parts of the state along the Gulf of MexicoGulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
were hit by the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, which caused widespread damage due to large-scale flooding of more than 80% of the city and nearby parishes when levees were breached. Warnings of the hurricane prompted the evacuation of New Orleans and other areas, but tens of thousands of people, mostly African Americans, were left behind and stranded by the floodwaters.
Cut off in many cases from healthy food, medicine or water, or assembled in public spaces without functioning emergency services, more than 1500 people in New Orleans died in the aftermath. Government at all levels had failed to prepare adequately despite severe hurricane warnings, and emergency responses were slow. The state faced a humanitarian crisis stemming from conditions in many locations and the large tide of refugees, especially the city of New Orleans. Subsequent reconstruction and repatriation has been slow and generally limited to the state's wealthier citizens.
See also
- Great UpheavalGreat UpheavalThe Expulsion of the Acadians was the forced removal by the British of the Acadian people from present day Canadian Maritime provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island...
- History of the Southern United StatesHistory of the Southern United StatesThe history of the Southern United States reaches back hundreds of years and includes the Mississippian people, well known for their mound building. European history in the region began in the very earliest days of the exploration and colonization of North America...
- Spanish missions in LouisianaSpanish missions in LouisianaThe Spanish missions in Louisiana are part a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Roman Catholics to spread their faith among the local Native Americans.-Mission Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de los Ais:...
Surveys
- Allain, Mathe. Louisiana Literature and Literary Figures (2004)
- Baker, Vaughan B. Visions and Revisions: Perspectives on Louisiana Society and Culture (2000)
- Becnel, Thomas A. Agriculture And Economic Development (1997)
- Brasseaux, Carl A. A Refuge for All Ages: Immigration in Louisiana History (1996)
- Cummins, Light Townsend, Judith Kelleher Schafer, Edward F. Haas, and Michael L. Kurtz. Louisiana: A History (1997), textbook by scholars
- Gentry, Judith F., and Janet Allured, eds. Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009) 354 pp. isbn 978-0-8203-2947-5
- Louisiana Writers' Project. Louisiana: A Guide to the State (1941), famous WPA Guide online edition
- Nolan, Charles. Religion in Louisiana (2004)
- Schafer, Judith K., Warren M. Billings, and Glenn R. Conrad. 'An Uncommon Experience : Law and Judicial Institutions in Louisiana 1803-2003 (1997)
- Wade, Michael G. Education in Louisiana (1999)
- Wall, Bennett. Louisiana: A History (2002), 476pp; history by leading scholar online edition
Colonial to 1900
- Bergeron, Arthur. The Civil War in Louisiana: Military Activity (2004)
- Conrad, Glenn R. The French Experience in Louisiana (1995)
- Delatte, Carolyn. Antebellum Louisiana, 1830-1860: Life And Labor(2004)
- Din, Gilbert C. The Spanish Presence in Louisiana, 1763-1803 (1996)
- Labbe, Dolores Egger. The Louisiana Purchase and its Aftermath, 1800-1830 (1998)
- Powell, Lawrence N. Reconstructing Louisiana(2001)
- Schott Matthew J. Louisiana Politics and the Paradoxes of Reaction and Reform, 1877–1928, (2000)
- Vincent, Charles. The African American Experience in Louisiana: From Jim Crow to Civil Rights (2002)
Since 1900
- Becnel, Thomas. Senator Allen Ellender of Louisiana: A Biography (1996)
- Bridges, Tyler. Bad Bet on the Bayou: The Rise of Gambling in Louisiana and the Fall of Governor Edwin Edwards (2002) excerpt and text search
- Fairclough, Adam. Race & Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972 (1999) excerpt and text search
- Haas, Edward F. The Age of the Longs, Louisiana, 1928-1960 (2001)
- Howard, Perry. Political Tendencies in Louisiana (1971) online edition
- Kurtz, Michael L. Louisiana Since the Longs, 1960 to Century's End (1998)
- Schott Matthew J. Louisiana Politics and the Paradoxes of Reaction and Reform, 1877–1928, (2000)
- Vincent, Charles. The African American Experience in Louisiana: From Jim Crow to Civil Rights (2002)
- Williams, T. Harry. Huey Long (1970), Pulitzer Prize
Local and regional
- Ancelet, Barry Jean, Jay D. Edwards, and Glen Pitre, eds. Cajun Country (1991) online edition
- Clark, John G. New Orleans, 1718-1812: An Economic History (1970) online edition
- Jeansonne, Glen. Leander Perez: Boss of the Delta (2006) excerpt and text search
- Louisiana Writers' Project. Louisiana: A Guide to the State (1941), famous WPA Guide; good coverage of every parish and city online edition
- Sanson, Jerry Purvis. Louisiana During World War II: Politics and Society, 1939-1945 (1999) excerpt and text search
External links
- History of Louisiana (includes complete text of Gayarré, and several other books)