Louisiana was inhabited by Native Americans when European explorers arrived in the 17th century. Settlement and
colonization began in the 18th century. Some current place names, including Atchafalaya, Natchitouches (now spelled
Natchitoches), Caddo, Houma, Tangipahoa, and Avoyel (Avoyelles), are from Native American dialects.
Several native tribes inhabited the region (using current parish boundaries to describe approximate locations):
The Atakapa in southwestern Louisiana
in Vermilion, Cameron, Lafayette, Acadia, Jefferson Davis, and Calcasieu parishes.
The Chitimacha in the southeastern
parishes of Iberia, Assumption, St Mary, lower St. Martin, Terrebonne, Lafourche,St. James, St. John the Baptist,
St. Bo St. Charles, Jefferson, Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines.
The Bayougoula, part of the Choctaw
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.
The Houma in East and West Feliciana,
and Pointe Coupee parishes (about 100 miles (160 km) north of the town named for them).
The Avoyel, part of the Natchez
nation, in parts of Avoyelles and Concordia parishes along the Mississippi River.
The Tunica in northeastern parishes
of Tensas, Madison, East Carroll and West Carroll.
The remainder of central and north Louisiana was home to a substantial portion of the Caddo nation.
Exploration and Settlement
The first European explorers to visit Louisiana came in 1528. The Spanish expedition (led by Panfilo de Panfilo
de Narváez) located the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1541, Hernando de Soto's expedition crossed the
region. Then Spanish interest in Louisiana lay dormant. In the late 17th century, 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.
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 States were part of Louisiana: Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma,
Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, 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 Louisiana Purchase territory.
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 Natchitoches. 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, 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 Peoria, Illinois and present-day St. Louis, Missouri. See also: French colonization of the Americas
Initially Mobile, Alabama and Biloxi, Mississippi functioned as the capital of the colony; recognizing the importance
of the Mississippi River to trade and military interests, France made New Orleans the seat of civilian and military
authority in 1722. From then until the Louisiana Purchase made the region part of the United States on December
20, 1803, France and Spain would trade control of the region's colonial empire.
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 colony of Spain by the Treaty of Fontainebleau of 1762.
During the period of Spanish rule, several thousand French-speaking refugees from the region of Acadia made their
way to Louisiana following British expulsion; settling largely in the southwestern Louisiana, the Acadian refugees
were welcomed by the Spanish, and descendants came to be called Cajuns.
In 1800, France's Napoleon Bonaparte acquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso, an arrangement
kept secret for some two years.
Then in 1803, Bonaparte sold the territory to the United States, which (see Louisiana Purchase) divided it into
two territories: the Orleans Territory (which became the state of Louisiana in 1812) and the District of Louisiana
(which consisted of all the land not included in Orleans Territory). The Florida Parishes were annexed from Spanish
West Florida by proclamation of President James Madison in 1810. The western boundary of Louisiana with Spanish
Texas remained in dispute until the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819, with the Sabine Free State serving as
a neutral buffer zone as well as a haven for criminals.
Louisiana was a slave state. It also had one of the largest free black populations in the United States. In the
American Civil War, Louisiana seceded from the Union on January 26, 1861. New Orleans was captured by Federal troops
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.
