Louisiana Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==History== {{Main|History of Louisiana}} === Pre–colonial history === {{further|Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands}} [[File:Watson Brake Aerial Illustration HRoe 2014.jpg|right|thumb|upright=0.9|[[Watson Brake]], the oldest mound complex in North America]] The area of Louisiana is the place of origin of the [[Mound Builders]] culture during the Middle [[Archaic period in the Americas|Archaic period]], in the [[4th millennium BC]]. The sites of Caney and Frenchman's Bend have been securely dated to 5600–5000 [[Before Present|BP]] (about 3700–3100 BC), demonstrating that seasonal hunter-gatherers from around this time organized to build complex earthwork constructions in what is now northern Louisiana. The [[Watson Brake]] site near present-day [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]] has an eleven-mound complex; it was built about 5400 BP (3500 BC).<ref>[http://www.archaeology.org/9801/newsbriefs/mounds.html Amélie A. Walker, "Earliest Mound Site"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100227043152/http://www.archaeology.org/9801/newsbriefs/mounds.html |date=February 27, 2010 }}, ''Archaeology Magazine'', Volume 51 Number 1, January/February 1998</ref> These discoveries overturned previous assumptions in archaeology that such complex mounds were built only by cultures of more settled peoples who were dependent on maize cultivation. The Hedgepeth Site in [[Lincoln Parish, Louisiana|Lincoln Parish]] is more recent, dated to 5200–4500 BP (3300–2600 BC).<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ccsmpug-xaoC&q=Hedgepeth+Middle+Archaic+site&pg=PA177 |title=Robert W. Preucel, Stephen A. Mrozowski, ''Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism'', John Wiley and Sons, 2010, p. 177 |date=May 10, 2010 |access-date=April 23, 2014 |isbn=9781405158329 |last1=Preucel |first1=Robert W |last2=Mrozowski |first2=Stephen A |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |archive-date=February 20, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220153248/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ccsmpug-xaoC&q=Hedgepeth+Middle+Archaic+site&pg=PA177 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[File:Poverty Point Aerial HRoe 2014.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|right|[[Poverty Point]] [[UNESCO]] site]] Nearly 2,000 years later, [[Poverty Point]] was built; it is the largest and best-known Late Archaic site in the state. The city of modern–day [[Epps, Louisiana|Epps]] developed near it. The [[Poverty Point culture]] may have reached its peak around 1500 BC, making it the first complex culture, and possibly the first tribal culture in North America.<ref>[http://www.deltablues.net/jon.html Jon L. Gibson, PhD, "Poverty Point: The First Complex Mississippi Culture"], 2001, ''Delta Blues'', accessed October 26, 2009 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131207234411/http://www.deltablues.net/jon.html |date=December 7, 2013 }}</ref> It lasted until approximately 700 BC. The Poverty Point culture was followed by the [[Tchefuncte culture|Tchefuncte]] and Lake Cormorant cultures of the [[Tchula period]], local manifestations of Early [[Woodland period]]. The Tchefuncte culture were the first people in the area of Louisiana to make large amounts of pottery.<ref name="Tchefuncte">{{cite web|url=http://www.crt.state.la.us/dataprojects/archaeology/tchefuncte/|title=Tchefuncte|access-date=June 1, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170331120414/http://www.crt.state.la.us/dataprojects/archaeology/tchefuncte/|archive-date=March 31, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> These cultures lasted until 200 AD. The Middle Woodland period started in Louisiana with the [[Marksville culture]] in the southern and eastern part of the state, reaching across the Mississippi River to the east around Natchez,<ref name="Prehistory">{{cite web|url=http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/laprehis/marca.htm |title=Louisiana Prehistory-Marksville, Troyville-Coles Creek, and Caddo |access-date=February 4, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081215051856/http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/laprehis/marca.htm |archive-date=December 15, 2008 }}</ref> and the [[Fourche Maline culture]] in the northwestern part of the state. The Marksville culture was named after the [[Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site]] in [[Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana|Avoyelles Parish]]. [[File:Troyville Earthworks HRoe 2017sm.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|right|[[Troyville Earthworks]], once the second tallest earthworks in North America]] These cultures were contemporaneous with the [[Hopewell tradition|Hopewell cultures]] of present-day [[Ohio]] and [[Illinois]], and participated in the Hopewell Exchange Network. Trade with peoples to the southwest brought the [[bow (weapon)|bow]] and [[arrow]].<ref name="OASPAST">{{cite web|url=http://www.ou.edu/cas/archsur/counties/latimer.htm|title=OAS-Oklahomas Past|access-date=February 6, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100531183817/http://www.ou.edu/cas/archsur/counties/latimer.htm|archive-date=May 31, 2010}}</ref> The first [[burial mound]]s were built at this time.<ref name="TejasWoodland" /> Political power began to be consolidated, as the first [[platform mound]]s at ritual centers were constructed for the developing hereditary political and religious leadership.<ref name="TejasWoodland">{{cite web|url=http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/ancestors/woodland.html|title=Tejas-Caddo Ancestors-Woodland Cultures|access-date=February 6, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091029090229/http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/ancestors/woodland.html|archive-date=October 29, 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref> By 400 the [[Late Woodland period]] had begun with the [[Baytown culture]], [[Troyville culture]], and Coastal Troyville during the Baytown period and were succeeded by the [[Coles Creek culture]]s. Where the Baytown peoples built dispersed settlements, the Troyville people instead continued building major earthwork centers.<ref name="HANDBOOK">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3JH-TPFjLk4C&pg=PA552|title=Handbook of North American Indians : Southeast|author=Raymond Fogelson|publisher=Smithsonian Institution|date=September 20, 2004|isbn=978-0-16-072300-1|access-date=December 31, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231200726/https://books.google.com/books?id=3JH-TPFjLk4C&pg=PA552|archive-date=December 31, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Southeastern Prehistory : Late Woodland Period|url=http://www.nps.gov/seac/outline/04-woodland/index-3.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128232856/http://www.nps.gov/seac/outline/04-woodland/index-3.htm|archive-date=January 28, 2012|access-date=October 23, 2011|publisher=National Park Service}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fWm6FYXp50wC&q=troyville+culture |title=Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives |editor1=Timothy P Denham |editor2=José Iriarte |editor3=Luc Vrydaghs |publisher=Left Coast Press |date=December 10, 2008 |pages=199–204 |isbn=978-1-59874-261-9 |access-date=December 31, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231172006/https://books.google.com/books?id=fWm6FYXp50wC&q=troyville+culture#v=snippet&q=troyville%20culture&f=false |archive-date=December 31, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref> Population increased dramatically and there is strong evidence of a growing cultural and political complexity. Many Coles Creek sites were erected over earlier Woodland period [[morgue|mortuary]] mounds. Scholars have speculated that emerging elites were symbolically and physically appropriating dead ancestors to emphasize and project their own authority.<ref>{{Cite book|last= Kidder |first= Tristram |editor= R. Barry Lewis |editor2=Charles Stout |title= Mississippian Towns and Sacred Spaces |publisher= [[University of Alabama Press]] |year= 1998 |isbn= 978-0-8173-0947-3 }}</ref> The [[Mississippian culture|Mississippian period]] in Louisiana was when the [[Plaquemine culture|Plaquemine]] and the [[Caddoan Mississippian culture]]s developed, and the peoples adopted extensive maize agriculture, cultivating different strains of the plant by saving seeds, selecting for certain characteristics, etc. The Plaquemine culture in the lower [[Mississippi River]] Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana began in 1200 and continued to about 1600. Examples in Louisiana include the [[Medora site]], the archaeological [[type site]] for the culture in West Baton Rouge Parish whose characteristics helped define the culture,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/seac/outline/05-mississippian/index.htm |title=Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Period |access-date=September 8, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080607164259/http://www.nps.gov/seac/outline/05-mississippian/index.htm |archive-date=June 7, 2008 }}</ref> the [[Atchafalaya Basin Mounds]] in St. Mary Parish,<ref name="REES">{{cite book|editor1-last=Rees|editor1-first=Mark A.|editor2-last=Livingood|editor2-first=Patrick C.| author=Rees, Mark A. | chapter= Plaquemine Mounds of the western Atchafalaya Basin |title= Plaquemine Archaeology| publisher= University of Alabama Press |year=2007|pages=84–93}}</ref> the [[Fitzhugh Mounds]] in Madison Parish,<ref name="FITZHUGH">{{cite web|url=http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/moundsguide/fitzhugh.html|title=Indian Mounds of Northeast Louisiana:Fitzhugh Mounds|access-date=October 20, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121224104816/http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/moundsguide/fitzhugh.html|archive-date=December 24, 2012}}</ref> the [[Scott Place Mounds]] in Union Parish,<ref name="SCOTTPLACE">{{cite web|url=http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/moundsguide/scottplace.html|title=Indian Mounds of Northeast Louisiana:Scott Place Mounds|access-date=October 20, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121225083457/http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/moundsguide/scottplace.html|archive-date=December 25, 2012}}</ref> and the [[Sims site]] in St. Charles Parish.<ref name="WEINSTEIN2008">{{cite journal |journal=Southeastern Archaeology |title=The spread of shell-tempered ceramics along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico |volume=27 |issue=2 |year=2008 |author1=Weinstein, Richard A. |author2=Dumas, Ashley A. |url=http://www.coastalenv.com/sarc-27-02-202-221-e.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425141409/http://www.coastalenv.com/sarc-27-02-202-221-e.pdf |archive-date=April 25, 2012 }}</ref> Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture that is represented by its largest settlement, the [[Cahokia]] site in Illinois east of [[St. Louis, Missouri]]. At its peak Cahokia is estimated to have had a population of more than 20,000. The Plaquemine culture is considered ancestral to the historic [[Natchez people|Natchez]] and [[Taensa]] peoples, whose descendants encountered Europeans in the colonial era.<ref name="The Plaquemine Culture, A.D 1000">{{cite web | url = http://bcn.boulder.co.us/environment/cacv/cacvbrvl.htm | title = The Plaquemine Culture, A.D 1000 | access-date = September 8, 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120210023033/http://bcn.boulder.co.us/environment/cacv/cacvbrvl.htm | archive-date = February 10, 2012 | url-status = dead }}</ref> By 1000 in the northwestern part of the state, the Fourche Maline culture had evolved into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. The Caddoan Mississippians occupied a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeast [[East Texas|Texas]], and northwest Louisiana. Archaeological evidence has demonstrated that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present. The [[Caddo]] and related [[Caddoan languages|Caddo-language]] speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact were the direct ancestors of the modern [[Caddo Nation of Oklahoma]] of today.<ref name="TejasLinguistics">{{cite web | url= http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/fundamentals/languages.html | title= Tejas-Caddo Fundamentals-Caddoan Languages and Peoples | access-date= February 4, 2010 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100310203249/http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/fundamentals/languages.html | archive-date= March 10, 2010 | url-status= dead }}</ref> Significant Caddoan Mississippian archaeological sites in Louisiana include [[Belcher Mound Site]] in [[Caddo Parish, Louisiana|Caddo Parish]] and [[Gahagan Mounds Site]] in Red River Parish.<ref name="NAGRRA">{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/fed_notices/nagpradir/nic0419.html|title=Notice of Inventory Completion for Native American Human Remains and Associated Funerary Objects in the Possession of the Louisiana State University Museum|access-date=February 22, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106035503/http://www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/fed_notices/nagpradir/nic0419.html|archive-date=November 6, 2012|url-status=live}}</ref> Many current place names in Louisiana, including [[Atchafalaya River|Atchafalaya]], Natchitouches (now spelled [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]]), Caddo, [[Houma, Louisiana|Houma]], [[Tangipahoa]], and [[Avoyel]] (as [[Avoyelles]]), are transliterations of those used in various Native American languages. ===Exploration and colonization by Europeans=== {{Main|French colonization of the Americas|New France|Louisiana (New France)||New Spain|Louisiana (New Spain)|West Florida}} The first European explorers to visit Louisiana came in 1528 when a Spanish expedition led by [[Pánfilo de Narváez]] located the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1542, [[Hernando de Soto (explorer)|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. Spanish interest in Louisiana faded away for a century and a half.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/465605 |title=Route of the Hernando de Soto Expedition, 1539–1543 |publisher=National Park Service |date=December 1988 |access-date=18 October 2022 |pages=6, Appendix B}}</ref> In the late 17th century, French and French Canadian expeditions, which included sovereign, religious and commercial aims, established a foothold on the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast. With its first settlements, France laid 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. In 1682, the French explorer [[Robert Cavelier de La Salle]] named the region Louisiana to honor [[Louis XIV of France|King Louis XIV]] of France. The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas (now [[Ocean Springs, Mississippi]]), was founded in 1699 by [[Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville]], a French military officer from [[New France]]. By then the French had also built a small fort at the mouth of the Mississippi at a settlement they named [[La Balize, Louisiana|La Balise (or La Balize)]], "[[sea mark|seamark]]" in French. By 1721, they built a {{convert|62|ft|m|adj=on}} wooden lighthouse-type structure here to guide ships on the river.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lch/research/la18hu.php#18 |first=David |last=Roth |title=Louisiana Hurricane History: 18th century (1722–1800) |publisher=Tropical Weather—National Weather Service—Lake Charles, Louisiana |date=2003 |access-date=May 7, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090805171217/http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lch/research/la18hu.php#18 |archive-date=August 5, 2009}}</ref> A royal ordinance of 1722—following the Crown's transfer of the [[Illinois Country]]'s governance from Canada to Louisiana—may have featured the broadest definition of Louisiana: all land claimed by France south of the [[Great Lakes]] between the [[Rocky Mountains]] and the [[Allegheny Mountains|Alleghenies]].<ref name="Ekberg-French Roots">{{cite book|last=Ekberg|first=Carl|title=French Roots in the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times|date=2000|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana and Chicago, Ill.|isbn=9780252069246|pages=32–33|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NOdf3FRXms0C&pg=PA216|access-date=November 29, 2014|archive-date=February 20, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220153427/https://books.google.com/books?id=NOdf3FRXms0C&pg=PA216|url-status=live}}</ref> A generation later, trade conflicts between Canada and Louisiana led to a more defined boundary between the French colonies; in 1745, Louisiana governor general [[Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnial|Vaudreuil]] set the northern and eastern bounds of his domain as the [[Wabash River|Wabash]] valley up to the mouth of the [[Vermilion River (Wabash River tributary)|Vermilion River]] (near present-day [[Danville, Illinois]]); from there, northwest to [[Starved Rock State Park|''le Rocher'']] on the [[Illinois River]], and from there west to the mouth of the [[Rock River (Mississippi River)|Rock River]] (at present day [[Rock Island, Illinois]]).<ref name="Ekberg-French Roots" /> Thus, [[Vincennes, Indiana|Vincennes]] and [[Peoria, Illinois|Peoria]] were the limit of Louisiana's reach; the outposts at [[Ouiatenon]] (on the upper Wabash near present-day [[Lafayette, Indiana]]), Chicago, [[Fort Miami (Indiana)|Fort Miami]]s (near present-day [[Fort Wayne, Indiana]]), and [[Prairie du Chien]], Wisconsin, operated as dependencies of Canada.<ref name="Ekberg-French Roots" /> The settlement of [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]] (along the Red River in present-day northwest Louisiana) was established in 1714 by [[Louis Juchereau de St. Denis]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Dunn. "History of Natchitoches."|url=https://www2.latech.edu/~bmagee/louisiana_anthology/texts/dunn-m/dunn--history_of_natchitoches.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-06-07|website=LA Tech University|archive-date=June 7, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607164455/https://www2.latech.edu/~bmagee/louisiana_anthology/texts/dunn-m/dunn--history_of_natchitoches.html}}</ref> making it the oldest permanent European settlement in the modern state of Louisiana. The French settlement had two purposes: to establish trade with the Spanish in [[Texas]] via the Old San Antonio Road, and to deter Spanish advances into Louisiana. The settlement soon became a flourishing river port and crossroads, giving rise to vast cotton kingdoms along the river that were worked by imported African slaves. Over time, planters developed large plantations and built fine homes in a growing town. This became a pattern repeated in New Orleans and other places, although the commodity crop in the south was primarily sugar cane. [[File:Atchafalaya Basin.jpg|thumb|French Acadians, who came to be known as [[Cajuns]], settled in southern Louisiana, especially along the banks of its major bayous.]] Louisiana's French settlements contributed to further exploration and outposts, concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries, from Louisiana to as far north as the region called the [[Illinois Country]], around present-day [[St. Louis, Missouri]]. The latter was settled by French colonists from Illinois. Initially, [[Mobile, Alabama|Mobile]] and then [[Biloxi, Mississippi|Biloxi]] served as the capital of La Louisiane.<ref>{{cite web|date=February 1, 2018|title=LA claims 1st Mardi Gras; here's what really happened|url=https://www.al.com/living/2018/02/louisiana_again_claiming_1st_m.html|access-date=2021-06-07|website=al|language=en|archive-date=February 23, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200223141703/https://www.al.com/living/2018/02/louisiana_again_claiming_1st_m.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=History of Biloxi, Mississippi|url=https://biloxi.ms.us/visitor-info/history/|access-date=2021-06-07|website=City of Biloxi Government|language=en-US|archive-date=June 2, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140602034923/https://biloxi.ms.us/visitor-info/history/|url-status=live}}</ref> Recognizing the importance of the Mississippi River to trade and military interests, and wanting to protect the capital from severe coastal storms, France developed New Orleans from 1722 as the seat of civilian and military authority south of the Great Lakes. From then until the United States acquired the territory in the [[Louisiana Purchase]] of 1803, France and Spain jockeyed for control of New Orleans and the lands west of the Mississippi. In the 1720s, German immigrants settled along the Mississippi River, in a region referred to as the [[German Coast]]. France ceded most of its territory east of the Mississippi to [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] in 1763, in the aftermath of [[Great Britain in the Seven Years War|Britain's victory in the Seven Years' War]] (generally referred to in North America as the [[French and Indian War]]). This included the lands along the Gulf Coast and north of Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River, which became known as British West Florida. The rest of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, as well as the "isle of New Orleans", had become a colony of Spain by the [[Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762)]]. The transfer of power on either side of the river would be delayed until later in the decade. In 1765, during Spanish rule, several thousand [[Acadians]] from the French colony of [[Acadia]] (now [[Nova Scotia]], New Brunswick, and [[Prince Edward Island]]) made their way to Louisiana after having been [[Expulsion of the Acadians|expelled]] from Acadia by the British government after the French and Indian War. They settled chiefly in the southwestern Louisiana region now called [[Acadiana]]. The governor [[Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cazorla-Granados |first=Francisco J. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1224992294 |title=El gobernador Luis de Unzaga (1717–1793) : precursor en el nacimiento de los EE.UU. y en el liberalismo |date=2019 |others=Frank Cazorla, Rosa María García Baena, José David Polo Rubio |isbn=978-84-09-12410-7 |location=Málaga |oclc=1224992294|pages=49, 52, 62, 74, 83, 90, 150, 207}}</ref> eager to gain more settlers, welcomed the Acadians, who became the ancestors of Louisiana's [[Cajun]]s. Spanish Canary Islanders, called [[Isleños]], emigrated from the [[Canary Islands]] of Spain to Louisiana under the Spanish crown between 1778 and 1783.<ref name=":9" /> In 1800, France's [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon Bonaparte]] reacquired Louisiana from Spain in the [[Third Treaty of San Ildefonso|Treaty of San Ildefonso]], an arrangement kept secret for two years. ===Expansion of slavery=== {{Main|History of slavery in Louisiana}} [[File:Nouvelle-France map-en.svg|thumb|250px|left|Map of [[New France]] (blue color) in 1750, before the [[French and Indian War]]]] [[Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville]] brought the first two African slaves to Louisiana in 1708, transporting them from a French colony in the West Indies. In 1709, French financier [[Antoine Crozat]] obtained a monopoly of commerce in [[La Louisiane]], which extended from the [[Gulf of Mexico]] to what is now [[Illinois]]. According to historian [[Hugh Thomas (writer)|Hugh Thomas]], "that concession allowed him to bring in a cargo of blacks from Africa every year".<ref>''The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870'' by Hugh Thomas. 1997: Simon and Schuster. p. 242-43</ref> Physical conditions, including disease, were so harsh there was high mortality among both the colonists and the slaves, resulting in continuing demand and importation of slaves.<ref>{{cite web|title=Antebellum slavery|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html#:~:text=Unsanitary+conditions,+inadequate+nutrition+and,plantations+were+the+most+deadly|url-status=live|access-date=April 16, 2021|website=PBS|archive-date=May 22, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210522212621/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html#:~:text=Unsanitary+conditions,+inadequate+nutrition+and,plantations+were+the+most+deadly}}</ref> Starting in 1719, traders began to import slaves in higher numbers; two French ships, the ''Du Maine'' and the ''Aurore'', arrived in New Orleans carrying more than 500 black slaves coming from Africa. Previous slaves in Louisiana had been transported from French colonies in the West Indies. By the end of 1721, New Orleans counted 1,256 inhabitants, of whom about half were slaves. In 1724, the French government issued a law called the [[Code Noir]] ("Black Code" in English) which regulated the interaction of whites (blancs) and blacks (noirs) in its colony of Louisiana (which was much larger than the current state of Louisiana).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/code-noir-of-louisiana|title=Code Noir of Louisiana—Know Louisiana|access-date=April 30, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170518041714/http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/code-noir-of-louisiana|archive-date=May 18, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> The law consisted of 57 articles, which regulated religion in the colony, outlawed "interracial" marriages (those between people of different skin color, the varying shades of which were also defined by law), restricted [[manumission]], outlined legal punishment of slaves for various offenses, and defined some obligations of owners to their slaves. The main intent of the French government was to assert control over the slave system of agriculture in Louisiana and to impose restrictions on slaveowners there. In practice, the Code Noir was exceedingly difficult to enforce from afar. Some priests continued to perform interracial marriage ceremonies, for example, and some slaveholders continued to manumit slaves without permission while others punished slaves brutally. Article II of the Code Noir of 1724 required owners to provide their slaves with religious education in the state religion, [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholicism]]. Sunday was to be a day of rest for slaves. On days off, slaves were expected to feed and take care of themselves. During the 1740s economic crisis in the colony, owners had trouble feeding their slaves and themselves. Giving them time off also effectively gave more power to slaves, who started cultivating their own gardens and crafting items for sale as their own property. They began to participate in the economic development of the colony while at the same time increasing independence and self-subsistence. Article VI of the Code Noir forbade mixed marriages; however, the Code did little to protect slave women from rape by their owners, overseers or other slaves. On balance, the code benefitted the owners but had more protections and flexibility than did the institution of slavery in the southern [[Thirteen Colonies]]. The Louisiana Black Code of 1806 made the cruel punishment of slaves a crime, but owners and overseers were seldom prosecuted for such acts.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=The law of slavery—Master–slave legal relationships |url=https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24164 |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141007003400/https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24164 |archive-date=October 7, 2014 }}</ref> Fugitive slaves, called [[maroons]], could easily hide in the backcountry of the bayous and survive in small settlements.<ref>{{cite web|title=More Than A Runaway: Maroons In Louisiana|url=https://www.wwno.org/podcast/tripod-new-orleans-at-300/2015-12-10/more-than-a-runaway-maroons-in-louisiana|access-date=2021-06-07|website=WWNO|language=en|archive-date=June 7, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607165130/https://www.wwno.org/podcast/tripod-new-orleans-at-300/2015-12-10/more-than-a-runaway-maroons-in-louisiana|url-status=live}}</ref> The word "maroon" comes from the Spanish "cimarron", meaning "fugitive cattle".<ref>{{cite web|title=History of the Maroons|url=https://cyber.harvard.edu/eon/marroon/history.html|access-date=2021-06-07|website=cyber.harvard.edu|archive-date=February 6, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210206165224/https://cyber.harvard.edu/eon/marroon/history.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In the late 18th century, the last Spanish governor of the Louisiana territory wrote: {{blockquote|Truly, it is impossible for lower Louisiana to get along without slaves and with the use of slaves, the colony had been making great strides toward prosperity and wealth.<ref name="The Slave Trade p. 548" />}} [[File:Free Woman of Color with daughter NOLA Collage.jpg|thumb|[[Free people of color|Free woman of color]] with [[mixed-race]] daughter; late 18th-century collage painting, New Orleans]] When the United States [[Louisiana Purchase|purchased Louisiana]] in 1803, it was soon accepted that enslaved Africans could be brought to Louisiana as easily as they were brought to neighboring [[Mississippi]], though it violated U.S. law to do so.<ref name="The Slave Trade p. 548">Hugh Thomas, ''The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870'', Simon and Schuster, 1997, p. 548.</ref> Despite demands by United States Rep. [[James Hillhouse]] and by the pamphleteer [[Thomas Paine]] to enforce existing federal law against slavery in the newly acquired territory,<ref name="The Slave Trade p. 548" /> slavery prevailed because it was the source of great profits and the lowest-cost labor. At the start of the 19th century, Louisiana was a small producer of sugar with a relatively small number of slaves, compared to [[Saint-Domingue]] and the West Indies. It soon thereafter became a major sugar producer as new settlers arrived to develop plantations. [[William C. C. Claiborne]], Louisiana's first United States governor, said African slave labor was needed because white laborers "cannot be had in this unhealthy climate."<ref>Thomas (1997), ''The Slave Trade'', p. 549.</ref> Hugh Thomas wrote that Claiborne was unable to enforce the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, which the U.S. and Great Britain enacted in 1807. The United States continued to protect the domestic slave trade, including the coastwise trade—the transport of slaves by ship along the Atlantic Coast and to New Orleans and other Gulf ports. By 1840, New Orleans had the biggest slave market in the United States, which contributed greatly to the economy of the city and of the state. New Orleans had become one of the wealthiest cities, and the third largest city, in the nation.<ref>Walter Johnson, ''Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market'', Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999, p.2</ref> The ban on the African slave trade and importation of slaves had increased demand in the domestic market. During the 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 owners as slaveholders moved west for new lands.<ref>[http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=3 In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience—The Domestic Slave Trade, New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Study of Black Culture, 2002] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104201729/http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=3 |date=November 4, 2013 }}, accessed April 27, 2008</ref><ref>Peter Kolchin, ''American Slavery: 1619–1877'', New York: Hill and Wang, 1994, pp. 96–98</ref> With changing agriculture in the Upper South as planters shifted from tobacco to less labor-intensive mixed agriculture, planters had excess laborers. Many sold slaves to traders to take to the Deep South. Slaves were driven by traders overland from the Upper South or transported to New Orleans and other coastal markets by ship in the [[coastwise slave trade]]. After sales in New Orleans, steamboats operating on the Mississippi transported slaves upstream to markets or plantation destinations at Natchez and Memphis. Interestingly, for a slave-state, Louisiana harbored escaped Filipino slaves from the [[Manila Galleon]]s.<ref name="Bishops2001">{{cite book|author=Catholic Church. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7A05Cl-FcwgC&pg=PA8|title=Asian and Pacific Presence: Harmony in Faith|date=December 2001|publisher=United States Conference of Catholic Bishops|isbn=978-1-57455-449-6|page=8|access-date=December 3, 2021|archive-date=May 10, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510080011/https://books.google.com/books?id=7A05Cl-FcwgC&pg=PA8|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Pang|first1=Valerie Ooka|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wZyIYK1M1ikC&q=Filipinos%20in%20Louisiana&pg=PA287|title=Struggling to be heard: the Unmet Needs of Asian Pacific American Children|last2=Cheng|first2=Li-Rong Lilly|date=1999|publisher=NetLibrary, Inc|isbn=0-585-07571-9|page=287|oclc=1053003694|access-date=December 3, 2021|archive-date=November 23, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123163307/https://books.google.com/books?id=wZyIYK1M1ikC&q=Filipinos%20in%20Louisiana&pg=PA287|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Holt|first1=Thomas Cleveland|last2=Green|first2=Laurie B.|last3=Wilson|first3=Charles Reagan|date=October 21, 2013|title=Pacific Worlds and the South|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jajYn4iXLBoC&pg=PA120|journal=The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Race|volume=24|page=120|isbn=978-1469607245 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Westbrook|first=Laura|title=Mabuhay Pilipino! (Long Life!): Filipino Culture in Southeast Louisiana|url=http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/pilipino1.html|access-date=2020-05-23|website=Folklife in Louisiana|archive-date=May 18, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180518005511/http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/Pilipino1.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The members of the Filipino community were then commonly referred to as ''Manila men,'' or ''Manilamen,'' and later ''Tagalas'',<ref name="Welch2014">{{cite web|last=Welch|first=Michael Patrick|date=October 27, 2014|title=NOLA Filipino History Stretches for Centuries|url=https://www.neworleans.me/journal/detail/761/NOLA-Filipino-History-Stretches-for-Centuries|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118011323/https://www.neworleans.me/journal/detail/761/NOLA-Filipino-History-Stretches-for-Centuries|archive-date=January 18, 2021|access-date=July 4, 2019|website=New Orleans & Me|publisher=WWNO|location=New Orleans}}</ref> as they were free when they created the oldest settlement of Asians in the United States in the village of [[Saint Malo, Louisiana]],<ref name="Welch2014" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Unveiling of St. Malo Historical Marker|url=http://filipinola.com/event/unveiling-of-st-malo-historical-marker/|last=Randy Gonzales|date=September 14, 2019|website=Filipino La.|language=en|access-date=2020-05-23|archive-date=December 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211202235456/http://filipinola.com/event/unveiling-of-st-malo-historical-marker/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite web|title=From Manila to the Marigny: How Philippine pioneers left a mark at the 'end of world' in New Orleans|url=https://nola.verylocal.com/from-manila-to-the-maringny-how-philippine-pioneers-left-a-mark-at-the-end-of-world-in-new-orleans/89392/|last=Hinton|first=Matthew|date=October 23, 2019|website=Very Local New Orleans|access-date=December 3, 2021|archive-date=October 6, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211006203418/https://nola.verylocal.com/from-manila-to-the-maringny-how-philippine-pioneers-left-a-mark-at-the-end-of-world-in-new-orleans/89392/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Filipino American History Month Resolution|url=http://fanhs-national.org/filam/resolution/|website=FANHS National|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-23|archive-date=October 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211002190239/http://fanhs-national.org/filam/resolution/|url-status=live}}</ref> the inhabitants of which, even joined the United States in the [[War of 1812]] against the British Empire while they were being led by the French-American [[Jean Lafitte]].<ref name=":0" /> ===Asylum and influence of Creoles from Saint-Domingue=== {{further|Saint-Domingue Creoles}} [[File:Agostino_Brunias_-_The_linen_market_at_Saint-Domingue,_1804.png|right|thumb|upright=1.5|[[Saint-Domingue Creoles]]]] Spanish occupation of Louisiana lasted from 1769 to 1800.<ref>{{cite web|title=Louisiana: European Explorations and the Louisiana Purchase|url=https://www.loc.gov/static/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/lapurchase.pdf|access-date=June 7, 2021|website=Library of Congress|page=4|archive-date=May 23, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210523081214/https://www.loc.gov/static/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/lapurchase.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Beginning in the 1790s, waves of immigration took place from [[Saint-Domingue]] as refugees poured over following a [[Haitian Revolution|slave rebellion]] that started during the [[French Revolution]] of [[Saint-Domingue]] in 1791. Over the next decade, thousands of refugees landed in Louisiana from the island, including Europeans, Creoles, and Africans, some of the latter brought in by each free group. They greatly increased the French-speaking population in New Orleans and Louisiana, as well as the number of Africans, and the slaves reinforced [[African culture]] in the city.<ref>"[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ht0017) The Slave Rebellion of 1791] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160205164427/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd%2Fcstdy%3A%40field%28DOCID+ht0017%29 |date=February 5, 2016 }}". [[Library of Congress Country Studies]].</ref> [[Anglo-Americans|Anglo-American]] officials initially made attempts to keep out the additional [[gens de couleur libres|Creoles of color]], but the [[Louisiana Creole people|Louisiana Creoles]] wanted to increase the Creole population: more than half of the refugees eventually settled in Louisiana, and the majority remained in [[New Orleans]].<ref>''The Bourgeois Frontier : French Towns, French Traders and American Expansion,'' by Jay Gitlin (2009). Yale University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-300-10118-8}}, pg 54</ref> [[Pierre Clément de Laussat]] ([[List of colonial governors of Louisiana|Governor]], 1803) said: "Saint-Domingue was, of all our colonies in the Antilles, the one whose mentality and customs influenced Louisiana the most."<ref>[http://www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/detail.cfm;jsessionid=f8301053021342952617924?migration=5&topic=2&id=463576&type=image&bhcp=1 Sieur de Bienville] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117095126/http://www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/detail.cfm;jsessionid=f8301053021342952617924?migration=5&topic=2&id=463576&type=image&bhcp=1 |date=January 17, 2013 }}, "In Motion", African American Migration Experience, accessed July 22, 2012</ref> [[File:Anonymous portrait of Jean Lafitte, early 19th century, Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas.JPG|thumb|upright|French pirate [[Jean Lafitte]], who operated in New Orleans, was born in [[Port-au-Prince]] around 1782.<ref>[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/neworleans.html Saving New Orleans] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120530043826/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/neworleans.html |date=May 30, 2012 }}, ''Smithsonian'' magazine, August 2006. Retrieved February 16, 2010.</ref>]] ===Purchase by the United States=== {{Main|Louisiana Purchase|Territory of Orleans|Republic of West Florida|Neutral Ground (Louisiana)}} When the United States won its independence from Great Britain in 1783, one of its major concerns was having a European power on its western boundary, and the need for unrestricted access to the Mississippi River. As American settlers pushed west, they found that the [[Appalachian Mountains]] provided a barrier to shipping goods eastward. The easiest way to ship produce was to use a [[flatboat]] to float it down the [[Ohio River|Ohio]] and Mississippi rivers to the port of New Orleans, where goods could be put on ocean-going vessels. The problem with this route was that the Spanish owned both sides of the Mississippi below [[Natchez, Mississippi|Natchez]]. Napoleon's ambitions in Louisiana involved the creation of a new empire centered on the [[Caribbean]] [[sugar trade]]. By the terms of the [[Treaty of Amiens]] of 1802, Great Britain returned control of the islands of [[Martinique]] and [[Guadeloupe]] to the French. Napoleon looked upon Louisiana as a depot for these sugar islands, and as a buffer to U.S. settlement. In October 1801 he sent a large military force to take back Saint-Domingue, then under control of Toussaint Louverture after the [[Haitian Revolution]]. When the army led by Napoleon's brother-in-law Leclerc was defeated, Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana.<ref>{{cite web|last=Blakemore|first=Erin|title=Why France Sold the Louisiana Purchase to the US|url=https://www.history.com/news/louisiana-purchase-price-french-colonial-slave-rebellion|access-date=2021-06-07|website=HISTORY|date=August 23, 2018 |language=en|archive-date=May 12, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210512093700/https://www.history.com/news/louisiana-purchase-price-french-colonial-slave-rebellion|url-status=live}}</ref> [[File:Louisiane 1800.png|thumb|Map of Louisiana in 1800]] [[Thomas Jefferson]], third president of the United States, was disturbed by Napoleon's plans to re-establish French colonies in North America. With the possession of New Orleans, Napoleon could close the Mississippi to U.S. commerce at any time. Jefferson authorized [[Robert Livingston (1746–1813)|Robert R. Livingston]], U.S. minister to France, to negotiate for the purchase of the city of New Orleans, portions of the east bank of the Mississippi,<ref>{{cite web|title=Founders Online: From Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, 18 April 1802|url=http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-37-02-0220|url-status=live|access-date=2021-06-07|website=National Archives and Records Administration|language=en|archive-date=May 6, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506133626/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-37-02-0220}}</ref> and free navigation of the river for U.S. commerce. Livingston was authorized to pay up to $2{{spaces}}million. An official transfer of Louisiana to French ownership had not yet taken place, and Napoleon's deal with the Spanish was a poorly kept secret on the frontier. On October 18, 1802, however, Juan Ventura Morales, acting intendant of Louisiana, made public the intention of Spain to revoke the right of deposit at New Orleans for all cargo from the United States. The closure of this vital port to the United States caused anger and consternation. Commerce in the west was virtually blockaded. Historians believe the revocation of the right of deposit was prompted by abuses by the Americans, particularly smuggling, and not by French intrigues as was believed at the time. President Jefferson ignored public pressure for war with France, and appointed [[James Monroe]] a special envoy to Napoleon, to assist in obtaining New Orleans for the United States. Jefferson also raised the authorized expenditure to $10{{spaces}}million.<ref name=":5">{{cite web|title=The Louisiana Purchase|url=https://www.monticello.org/thomas-jefferson/louisiana-lewis-clark/the-louisiana-purchase/|access-date=2021-06-07|website=Monticello|language=en|archive-date=March 21, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190321075505/https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/louisiana-purchase|url-status=live}}</ref> However, on April 11, 1803, French foreign minister [[Talleyrand]] surprised Livingston by asking how much the United States was prepared to pay for the entirety of Louisiana, not just New Orleans and the surrounding area (as Livingston's instructions covered). Monroe agreed with Livingston that Napoleon might withdraw this offer at any time (leaving them with no ability to obtain the desired New Orleans area), and that approval from President Jefferson might take months, so Livingston and Monroe decided to open negotiations immediately. By April 30, they closed a deal for the purchase of the entire Louisiana territory of {{convert|828000|sqmi|km2|sigfig=2}} for sixty million [[French franc|Francs]] (approximately $15{{spaces}}million).<ref name=":5" /> Part of this sum, $3.5{{spaces}}million, was used to forgive debts owed by France to the United States.<ref>Peter Kastor, ''The Nation's Crucible: The Louisiana Purchase and the Creation of America'', (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004) 40</ref> The payment was made in United States [[Government bond|bonds]], which Napoleon sold at face value to the Dutch firm of [[Hope & Co.|Hope and Company]], and the [[Barings Bank|British banking house of Baring]], at a discount of {{frac|87|1|2}} per each $100 unit.<!--recte "percent"?--> As a result, France received only $8,831,250 in cash for Louisiana. English banker [[Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton|Alexander Baring]] conferred with Marbois in Paris, shuttled to the United States to pick up the bonds, took them to Britain, and returned to France with the money—which Napoleon used to wage war against Baring's own country. [[File:Flickr - USCapitol - Louisiana Purchase, 1803.jpg|thumb|Louisiana Purchase, 1803]] When news of the purchase reached the United States, Jefferson was surprised. He had authorized the expenditure of $10{{spaces}}million for a port city, and instead received treaties committing the government to spend $15{{spaces}}million on a land package which would double the size of the country. Jefferson's political opponents in the [[Federalist Party (United States)|Federalist Party]] argued the Louisiana purchase was a worthless desert,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AsY9Vh9X8ZYC&q=worthless+desert |title=The American pageant: a history of the republic—Thomas A. Bailey, David M. Kennedy—Google Books |access-date=April 23, 2014 |isbn=9780669339055 |last1=Bailey |first1=Thomas A |last2=Kennedy |first2=David M |year=1994 |publisher=D.C. Heath |archive-date=February 20, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220153248/https://books.google.com/books?id=AsY9Vh9X8ZYC&q=worthless+desert |url-status=live }}</ref> and that the U.S. constitution did not provide for the acquisition of new land or negotiating treaties without the consent of the federal legislature. What really worried the opposition was the new states which would inevitably be carved from the Louisiana territory, strengthening western and southern interests in [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]], and further reducing the influence of New England Federalists in national affairs. President Jefferson was an enthusiastic supporter of westward expansion, and held firm in his support for the treaty. Despite Federalist objections, the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]] ratified the Louisiana treaty on October 20, 1803. By statute enacted on October 31, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson was authorized to take possession of the territories ceded by France and provide for initial governance.<ref>{{cite web|title=A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002/llsl002.db&recNum=282|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220085715/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002%2Fllsl002.db&recNum=282|archive-date=December 20, 2016|access-date=December 2, 2019|website=Library of Congress}}</ref> A transfer ceremony was held in New Orleans on November 29, 1803. Since the Louisiana territory had never officially been turned over to the French, the Spanish took down their flag, and the French raised theirs. The following day, [[General James Wilkinson]] accepted possession of New Orleans for the United States. The Louisiana Territory, purchased for less than three cents an acre, doubled the size of the United States overnight, without a war or the loss of a single American life, and set a precedent for the purchase of territory. It opened the way for the eventual expansion of the United States across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Shortly after the United States took possession, the area was divided into two territories along the [[33rd parallel north]] on March 26, 1804, thereby organizing the [[Territory of Orleans]] to the south and the [[District of Louisiana]] (subsequently formed as the [[Louisiana Territory]]) to the north.<ref>{{cite web|title=A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875|url=http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002/llsl002.db&recNum=320|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220091706/http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002%2Fllsl002.db&recNum=320|archive-date=December 20, 2016|access-date=December 2, 2019|website=Library of Congress}}</ref> ===Statehood=== {{Main|Admission to the Union|List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union|Seminole Wars|Adams–Onís Treaty}}Louisiana became the eighteenth U.S. state on April 30, 1812; the Territory of Orleans became the State of Louisiana and the Louisiana Territory was simultaneously renamed the [[Missouri Territory]].<ref>{{cite web|title=A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002/llsl002.db&recNum=738|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170105021747/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002%2Fllsl002.db&recNum=738|archive-date=January 5, 2017|access-date=December 2, 2019|website=Library of Congress}}</ref> At its creation, the state of Louisiana did not include the area north and east of the Mississippi River known as the [[Florida Parishes]]. On April 14, 1812, Congress had authorized Louisiana to expand its borders to include the Florida Parishes,<ref>{{cite web|title=A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002/llsl002.db&recNum=745|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202191512/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002%2Fllsl002.db&recNum=745|archive-date=February 2, 2017|access-date=December 2, 2019|website=Library of Congress}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=An Act to enlarge the limits of the State of Louisiana |author= |work=en.wikisource.org |date=April 14, 1812 |access-date=October 21, 2021 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Act_to_enlarge_the_limits_of_the_State_of_Louisiana |archive-date=October 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211021231725/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Act_to_enlarge_the_limits_of_the_State_of_Louisiana |url-status=live }}</ref> but the border change required approval of the state legislature, which it did not give until August 4.<ref>{{cite web |title=Giving the Assent of the Legislature to an Enlargement of the Limits of the State of Louisiana |author= |work=en.wikisource.org |date=August 4, 1812 |access-date=October 21, 2021 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Giving_the_Assent_of_the_Legislature_to_an_Enlargement_of_the_Limits_of_the_State_of_Louisiana |archive-date=October 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211021231724/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Giving_the_Assent_of_the_Legislature_to_an_Enlargement_of_the_Limits_of_the_State_of_Louisiana |url-status=live }}</ref> For the roughly three months in between, the northern border of eastern Louisiana was the course of [[Bayou Manchac]] and the middle of [[Lake Maurepas]] and [[Lake Pontchartrain]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Admission of the State of Louisiana |author=United States Congress |work=en.wikisource.org |date=April 8, 1812 |access-date=October 21, 2021 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Admission_of_the_State_of_Louisiana_(act) |archive-date=October 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211021231712/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Admission_of_the_State_of_Louisiana_(act) |url-status=live }}</ref> From 1824 to 1861, Louisiana moved from a political system based on personality and ethnicity to a distinct two-party system, with Democrats competing first against [[Whig Party (United States)|Whigs]], then [[Know Nothing]]s, and finally only other [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]].<ref>{{cite book|first = John M.|last = Sacher|title =A Perfect War of Politics: Parties, Politicians, and Democracy in Louisiana, 1824–1861|isbn = 9780807128480|publisher = Louisiana State University Press|date = 2003}}</ref> ===Secession and the Civil War=== {{Main|Ordinance of Secession|Confederate States of America|Louisiana in the American Civil War}} [[File:'Signing the Ordinance of Secession of Louisiana, January 26, 1861', oil on canvas painting by Enoch Wood Perry, Jr., 1861.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.35|'Signing the Ordinance of Secession of Louisiana, January 26, 1861', oil on canvas painting, 1861]] [[File:New Orleans h76369k.jpg|right|thumb|[[Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip|''Capture of New Orleans'']], April 1862, colored lithograph of engraving]] According to the 1860 census, 331,726 people were enslaved, nearly 47% of the state's total population of 708,002.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20041019003356/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php Historical Census Browser, 1860 US Census, University of Virginia], accessed October 31, 2007</ref> The strong economic interest of elite whites in maintaining the slave society contributed to Louisiana's decision to secede from the Union on January 26, 1861.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/louisianas-secession-from-the-union|title=Louisiana's Secession from the Union|work=64 Parishes|access-date=|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171115015107/http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/louisianas-secession-from-the-union|archive-date=November 15, 2017|url-status=live|last = Sacher|first = John M.|date = July 27, 2011 }}</ref> It followed other U.S. 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 [[American Civil War|Civil War]], a result of Union strategy to cut the Confederacy in two by controlling the [[Mississippi River]]. 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.<ref>{{cite web|title=Munson, Underwood, Horn, Fairfield and Allied Families – Louisiana|url=http://www.brazoriaroots.com/pi715.htm|access-date=December 23, 2020|website=Brazoriaroots.com|archive-date=February 20, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220154000/http://www.brazoriaroots.com/pi715.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=About Louisiana|url=https://myhammond.com/louisiana/|access-date=December 23, 2020|website=My Hammond {{!}} My Ponchatoula|archive-date=September 24, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180924123340/http://myhammond.com/louisiana/|url-status=live}}</ref> === Post–Civil War to mid–20th century === [[File:State of Louisiana 1892.jpg|thumb|Consolidated Bond of the State of Louisiana, issued 6. July 1892]] Following the American Civil War and emancipation of slaves, violence rose in the southern U.S. as the war was carried on by insurgent private and paramilitary groups. During the initial period after the war, there was a massive rise in black participation in terms of voting and [[African-American officeholders during and following the Reconstruction era|holding political office]]. Louisiana saw the United States' first and second black governors with [[Oscar Dunn]] and [[P. B. S. Pinchback|P.B.S. Pinchback]], with 125 black members of the state legislature being elected during this time, while [[Charles E. Nash]] was elected to represent the state's [[Louisiana's 6th congressional district|6th Congressional District]] in the U.S. House of Representatives. Eventually former Confederates came to dominate the state legislature after the end of [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]] and federal occupation in the late 1870s, and black codes were implemented to regulate [[freedmen]] and increasingly restricted the right to vote. They refused to extend voting rights to African Americans who had been free before the war and had sometimes obtained education and property (as in New Orleans). Following the [[Memphis riots of 1866]] and the [[New Orleans riot]] the same year, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed that provided suffrage and full citizenship for freedmen. Congress passed the [[Reconstruction Acts|Reconstruction Act]], establishing military districts for those states where conditions were considered the worst, including Louisiana. It was grouped with [[Texas]] in what was administered as the [[Fifth Military District]].<ref>{{cite web|title=U.S. Army. 5th Military District.|url=http://archives.nolalibrary.org/~nopl/mss/orders1867and1868.htm|url-status=live|access-date=2021-06-20|website=NOLA Library|archive-date=June 24, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624210547/http://archives.nolalibrary.org/~nopl/mss/orders1867and1868.htm}}</ref> 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 and the free labor market. White [[insurgents]] mobilized to enforce [[white supremacy]], first in [[Ku Klux Klan]] chapters. By 1877, when federal forces were withdrawn, white Democrats in Louisiana and other states had regained control of state legislatures, often by paramilitary groups such as the [[White League]], which suppressed black voting through intimidation and violence. Following Mississippi's example in 1890, in 1898, the white Democratic, planter-dominated legislature passed a new constitution that effectively [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disfranchised]] people of color by raising barriers to voter registration, such as [[poll tax (United States)|poll taxes]], residency requirements and [[literacy tests]]. The effect 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.<ref>{{Cite journal|ssrn=224731 |title=Richard H. Pildes, Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon, Constitutional Commentary, Vol.17, 2000, p.12-13, Accessed 10 Mar 2008 |journal=SSRN Electronic Journal |doi=10.2139/ssrn.224731 |year=2000 |last1=Pildes |first1=Richard H |hdl=11299/168068 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> [[File:Negro boy sitting on sugarcane truck, Morganza, Louisiana.jpg|thumb|A young African American man in [[Morganza, Louisiana|Morganza]], 1938]] The state population in 1900 was 47% African American: a total of 652,013 citizens. Many in New Orleans were descendants of Creoles of color, the sizeable population of free people of color before the Civil War.<ref>[http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php Historical Census Browser, 1900 US Census, University of Virginia], accessed March 15, 2008 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070823030234/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |date=August 23, 2007 }}</ref> By 1900, two years after the new constitution, only 5,320 black voters were registered in the state. Because of disfranchisement, 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.<ref>[https://ssrn.com/abstract=224731 Richard H. Pildes, "Democracy, Anti-Democracy and the Canon", ''Constitutional Commentary'', Vol. 17, p.12] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121211213/https://ssrn.com/abstract=224731 |date=November 21, 2018 }}, accessed March 10, 2008</ref> Blacks were excluded from the political system and also unable to serve on juries. White Democrats had established one-party Democratic rule, which they maintained in the state for decades deep into the 20th century until after congressional passage of the 1965 [[Voting Rights Act]] provided federal oversight and enforcement of the constitutional right to vote. [[File:CrowleyConcertBand1938RussellLee.jpg|thumb|National Rice Festival, [[Crowley, Louisiana]], 1938]] In the early decades of the 20th century, thousands of African Americans left Louisiana in the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] north to industrial cities for jobs and education, and to escape Jim Crow society and [[lynchings]]. The [[boll weevil]] infestation and agricultural problems cost many sharecroppers and farmers their jobs. The mechanization of agriculture also reduced the need for laborers. Beginning in the 1940s, blacks went west to California for jobs in its expanding defense industries.<ref>[http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=9 "African American Migration Experience: The Great Migration", ''In Motion'', New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104202248/http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=9 |date=November 4, 2013 }}, accessed April 24, 2008</ref> In 1920 the state had no continuous paved roads running east to west or north to south which traversed the entire state.<ref>McKinney, Karen JS. "Getting Out of the Mud: Louisiana and Good Roads before 1928". ''Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association'', vol. 60, no. 3, 2019, p. 292. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/26864715 JSTOR website] Retrieved 17 June 2023.</ref> During some of the [[Great Depression]], Louisiana was led by Governor [[Huey Long]]. He was elected to office on populist appeal. His public works projects provided thousands of jobs to people in need, and he supported education and increased suffrage for poor whites, but Long was criticized for his allegedly demagogic 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 when he was [[Assassination of Huey Long|assassinated]] in the state capitol in 1935.<ref>{{cite news |last=Glass|first=Andrew|date=September 8, 2017|title=Huey Long assassinated, Sept. 8, 1935|url=https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/08/huey-long-assassinated-sept-8-1935-242325|work=Politico|access-date=June 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200513093913/https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/08/huey-long-assassinated-sept-8-1935-242325|archive-date=May 13, 2020}}</ref> === Mid–20th century to present === Mobilization for [[World War II]] created jobs in the state. But thousands of other workers, black and white alike, migrated to California for better jobs in its burgeoning defense industry. Many African Americans left the state in the [[Second Great Migration (African American)|Second Great Migration]], from the 1940s through the 1960s to escape social oppression and seek better jobs. 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 in communities where they could vote.<ref>[http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=9 "African American Migration Experience: The Second Great Migration", ''In Motion'', New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104202248/http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=9 |date=November 4, 2013 }}, accessed April 24, 2008</ref> On November 26, 1958, at [[Chennault Air Force Base]], a USAF B-47 bomber with a [[nuclear weapon]] on board developed a fire while on the ground. The aircraft wreckage and the site of the accident were contaminated after a limited explosion of non-nuclear material.<ref>Rebecca Grant. [http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2011/August%202011/0811dome.aspx The Perils of Chrome Dome] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190902133753/http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2011/August%25202011/0811dome.aspx |date=September 2, 2019 }}, ''Air Force Magazine'', Vol. 94, No. 8, August 2011.</ref> In the 1950s the state created new requirements for a citizenship test for voter registration. Despite opposition by the [[Dixiecrats|States' Rights Party]] (Dixiecrats), downstate black voters had begun to increase their rate of registration, which also reflected the growth of their middle classes. In 1960 the state established the Louisiana State Sovereignty Commission, to investigate civil rights activists and maintain segregation.<ref>Adam Fairclough, ''Race & Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915–1972'', University of Georgia Press, 1999</ref> Despite this, gradually black voter registration and turnout increased to 20% and more, and it was 32% by 1964, when the first national civil rights legislation of the era was passed.<ref>[http://www.naacpldf.org/content/pdf/reauthorization/Louisiana_VRA_Report.pdf Debo P. Adegbile, "Voting Rights in Louisiana: 1982–2006", March 2006, p. 7] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080626001257/http://www.naacpldf.org/content/pdf/reauthorization/Louisiana_VRA_Report.pdf |date=June 26, 2008 }}, accessed March 19, 2008</ref> The percentage of black voters ranged widely in the state during these years, from 93.8% in [[Evangeline Parish]] to 1.7% in [[Tensas Parish]], for instance, where there were intense white efforts to suppress the vote in the black-majority parish.<ref name="thernstrom">[http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.23861/pub_detail.asp Edward Blum and Abigail Thernstrom, "Executive Summary"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090417211312/http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.23861/pub_detail.asp |date=April 17, 2009 }}, ''Bullock-Gaddie Expert Report on Louisiana'', February 10, 2006, p.1, American Enterprise Institute, accessed March 19, 2008</ref> Violent attacks on civil rights activists in two mill towns were catalysts to the founding of the first two chapters of the [[Deacons for Defense and Justice]] in late 1964 and early 1965, in [[Jonesboro, Louisiana|Jonesboro]] and [[Bogalusa, Louisiana|Bogalusa]], respectively. Made up of veterans of World War II and the [[Korean War]], they were armed self-defense groups established to protect activists and their families. Continued violent white resistance in Bogalusa to blacks trying to use public facilities in 1965, following passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]], caused the federal government to order local police to protect the activists.<ref name="nyt">{{cite news |title=Robert Hicks, Leader in Armed Rights Group, Dies at 81 |author=Douglas Martin |date=April 24, 2010 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/25hicks.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=September 4, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171018103407/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/25hicks.html |archive-date=October 18, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> Other chapters were formed in Mississippi and Alabama. By 1960 the proportion of African Americans in Louisiana had dropped to 32%. The 1,039,207 black citizens were still suppressed by segregation and disfranchisement.<ref>[http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php Historical Census Browser, 1960 US Census, University of Virginia], accessed March 15, 2008 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070823030234/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |date=August 23, 2007 }}</ref> 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 more than 37,000 people. Based on official census figures, the African American population in 1970 stood at 1,085,109, a net gain of more than 46,000 people compared to 1960. During the latter period, some people began to migrate to cities of the [[New South]] for opportunities.<ref>[http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2004/05demographics_frey.aspx William H. Frey, "The New Great Migration: Black Americans' Return to the South, 1965–2000"; May 2004, p. 3, The Brookings Institution] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118184428/http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2004/05demographics_frey.aspx |date=January 18, 2012 }}, accessed March 19, 2008</ref> Since that period, blacks entered the political system and began to be elected to office, as well as having other opportunities. On May 21, 1919, the [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution]], giving women full rights to vote, was passed at a national level, and was made the law throughout the United States on August 18, 1920. Louisiana finally ratified the amendment on June 11, 1970.<ref>{{cite web|title=Louisiana and the 19th Amendment (U.S. National Park Service)|url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/louisiana-and-the-19th-amendment.htm|url-status=live|access-date=September 26, 2020|website=National Park Service|archive-date=October 16, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201016194808/https://www.nps.gov/articles/louisiana-and-the-19th-amendment.htm}}</ref> [[File:Katrina-new-orleans-flooding3-2005.jpg|thumb|View of flooded New Orleans in the aftermath of [[Hurricane Katrina]]]] Due to its location on the Gulf Coast, Louisiana has regularly suffered the effects of tropical storms and damaging hurricanes. On August 29, 2005, New Orleans and many other low-lying parts of the state along the [[Gulf of Mexico]] were hit by the catastrophic [[Hurricane Katrina]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Hurricane Katrina|url=https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/hurricane-katrina|access-date=September 26, 2020|website=HISTORY|date=August 9, 2019 |archive-date=September 22, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200922203715/https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/hurricane-katrina|url-status=live}}</ref> It caused widespread damage due to breaching of levees and large-scale flooding of more than 80% of the city. Officials had issued warnings to evacuate the city and nearby areas, but tens of thousands of people, mostly African Americans, stayed behind, many of them stranded. Many people died and survivors suffered through the damage of the widespread floodwaters. In July 2016 the [[shooting of Alton Sterling]] sparked protests throughout the state capital of Baton Rouge.<ref>{{cite web|title=Alton Sterling protesters treated 'like animals' in Baton Rouge prison, advocacy group claims|url=https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/article_83d4ec44-626c-11e7-86ae-dbcc39e06536.html|access-date=September 26, 2020|website=The Advocate|date=July 8, 2017 |archive-date=November 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109012549/https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/article_83d4ec44-626c-11e7-86ae-dbcc39e06536.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=BRPD officer injured in Alton Sterling protest can pursue negligence claim against organizer|url=https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/courts/article_8115e746-20e3-11ea-bac9-e3b6fc6aca74.html|access-date=September 26, 2020|website=The Advocate|date=December 17, 2019 |archive-date=September 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200918033728/https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/courts/article_8115e746-20e3-11ea-bac9-e3b6fc6aca74.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In August 2016, [[2016 Louisiana floods|an unnamed storm]] dumped trillions of gallons of rain on southern Louisiana, including the cities of [[Denham Springs, Louisiana|Denham Springs]], [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana|Baton Rouge]], Gonzales, St. Amant and [[Lafayette, Louisiana|Lafayette]], causing catastrophic flooding.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/08/19/no-name-storm-dumped-three-times-as-much-rain-in-louisiana-as-hurricane-katrina/ |title=No-name storm dumped three times as much rain in Louisiana as Hurricane Katrina |newspaper=Washington Post |author=Jason Samenow |date=August 19, 2016 |access-date=August 19, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160820130720/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/08/19/no-name-storm-dumped-three-times-as-much-rain-in-louisiana-as-hurricane-katrina/ |archive-date=August 20, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref> An estimated 110,000 homes were damaged and thousands of residents were displaced.<ref>{{cite news|author1=Baton Rouge Area Chamber|title=BRAC's preliminary analysis of potential magnitude of flooding's impact on the Baton Rouge region|url=http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/theadvocate.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/8/b5/8b5eec1c-662d-11e6-ae3d-7b8d8a55b473/57b739d469a16.pdf.pdf|access-date=August 22, 2016|work=Baton Rouge Area Chamber|date=August 18, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160916162329/http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/theadvocate.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/8/b5/8b5eec1c-662d-11e6-ae3d-7b8d8a55b473/57b739d469a16.pdf.pdf|archive-date=September 16, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":0b">{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/08/16/this-man-bought-108-pounds-of-brisket-to-cook-for-the-displaced-baton-rogue-victims/|title=This man bought 108 pounds of brisket to cook for the displaced Baton Rouge victims|last=Cusick|first=Ashley|date=August 16, 2016|newspaper=The Washington Post|issn=0190-8286|access-date=August 20, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819182516/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/08/16/this-man-bought-108-pounds-of-brisket-to-cook-for-the-displaced-baton-rogue-victims/|archive-date=August 19, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2019, three [[Louisiana black church fires|Louisiana black churches]] were destroyed by arson.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Szekely|first=Peter|date=April 11, 2019|title=Son of sheriff's deputy charged with burning three Louisiana black churches|work=Reuters|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-louisiana-fires-idUSKCN1RN0E9|access-date=September 26, 2020|archive-date=September 27, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200927101358/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-louisiana-fires-idUSKCN1RN0E9|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last1=Blinder|first1=Alan|last2=Fausset|first2=Richard|last3=Eligon|first3=John|date=April 11, 2019|title=A Charred Gas Can, a Receipt and an Arrest in Fires of 3 Black Churches|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/us/holden-matthews-black-church-fires.html|access-date=September 26, 2020|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=April 17, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417094254/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/us/holden-matthews-black-church-fires.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Eliott C. McLaughlin|title=Prosecutor adds hate crimes to charges against Louisiana church fire suspect|url=https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/us/louisiana-church-fires-suspect-bail-hearing/index.html|access-date=September 26, 2020|website=CNN|date=April 15, 2019|archive-date=April 17, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417203034/https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/us/louisiana-church-fires-suspect-bail-hearing/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The first case of [[COVID-19 pandemic in Louisiana|COVID-19 in Louisiana]] was announced on March 9, 2020.<ref>{{cite web|last=Finch|first=Chris|title=Louisiana confirms presumptive case of coronavirus in New Orleans area|url=https://www.ksla.com/2020/03/09/gov-edwards-confirms-positive-case-coronavirus-jefferson-parish/|url-status=live|access-date=September 25, 2020|website=KSLA|date=March 9, 2020 |archive-date=November 6, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201106044513/https://www.ksla.com/2020/03/09/gov-edwards-confirms-positive-case-coronavirus-jefferson-parish/}}</ref> As of October 27, 2020, there had been 180,069 confirmed cases; 5,854 people have died of COVID-19.<ref>{{cite web|title=Louisiana Coronavirus COVID-19 {{!}} Department of Health {{!}} State of Louisiana|url=https://ldh.la.gov/Coronavirus/|access-date=October 27, 2020|website=ldh.la.gov|archive-date=June 7, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200607075257/http://www.ldh.la.gov/Coronavirus/|url-status=live}}</ref>{{update inline|date=July 2023}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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