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! ===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. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page