Louisiana is a state in the southern United States of America. Louisiana is located at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico and has an area of 134,264 km², of which 21,440 km² are water bodies. Louisiana has two nicknames: Pelican State because of the heraldic bird and Bayou State because of the swamps.
Other major cities are Lafayette and Shreveport. Louisiana is
the only state in the country whose political subdivisions are
called parishes, which are local governments equivalent to
counties in other states. The most populous parish is East Baton
Rouge Parish, and the largest by area is Plaquemines Parish.
Some urban environments in Louisiana boast a multicultural
and multilingual heritage, showing an intense mix of French
culture (especially from the 18th century), Spanish,
Indo-American (such as the Caddo nation) and African cultures;
This entire ethnic mosaic is considered exceptional in the
United States.
The current state of Louisiana was a
French colony, then a territory under Spanish rule and finally
acquired by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase.
Its pattern of development included the importation of
numerous African slaves in the 17th century, many of them
captured and brought to Louisiana from the same region of West
Africa, thus concentrating its culture. After the Civil War,
Anglo-Americans increased pressure for Anglicization, and in
1915 the English language became the de facto language of the
state, however, it has no official status. Despite everything,
the state of Louisiana has more American Indian tribes than any
other southern state, including four that are federally
recognized, ten recognized by the state, and four that have not
yet received recognition.
1 Baton Rouge - the state capital.
2 Farmerville
3 Lafayette -
the center of Cajun Country.
4 Lake Charles
5 Monroe
6
Natchitoches - oldest settlement in Louisiana.
7 New Orleans -
largest city and premier tourist destination.
8 Ruston
9
Shreveport - largest city in northern Louisiana.
English has only been the official language in Louisiana since 1916. Before that it was French for 200 years. Today English is spoken almost everywhere, but it is not uncommon to hear conversations in French in the southern and rural parts of the country.
Mit dem Flugzeug
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport
(IATA: MSY)
Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (IATA: BTR)
Auf
der Straße
Interstate:
I10 Houston TX - Lake Charles LA - Baton
Rouge LA - New Orleans LA - Slidell LA - Biloxi MS
I20 Dallas TX -
Shreveport LA - Bossier City LA - Jackson MS
I49 Lafayette LA -
Shreveport LA - Texarkana AR
I55 Jackson MS - Hammond LA - LaPlace LA
I59 Hattiesburg MS - Slidell LA
Louisiana is part of the southern states and is located on the Gulf of Mexico. The location is characterized by large swamps and rivers with large deltas, which is why much of Louisiana's area is wetland. In the north of the state, Louisiana borders the Ouachita Mountains with the Driskill Mountain, the only higher elevation in the state. Rivers originate there, some of which flow into the Mississippi River.
The state territory of Louisiana extends from 29° to 33° latitude (about 440 km) and from 88° to 94° longitude (about 470 km). Louisiana has an area of 134,246 km², making it the 32nd largest state in the United States in terms of area, ahead of Mississippi and after Alabama.
Louisiana borders Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Sabine River to the west with Texas. In the south, the approximately 550 km long coastline runs with the Gulf of Mexico.
Louisiana is divided into 64 parishes (districts, called counties in other states). The largest parish is Vernon Parish in the west with 3441 km². The smallest parish is Orleans Parish in the southeast with 468 km².
250 million years ago, before the Gulf of Mexico existed, there was
only one large continent, Pangea. As Pangea slowly drifted apart, the
Gulf of Mexico formed and joined the Atlantic Ocean. Louisiana now
slowly evolved from water to land over millions of years and grew in
extent. The oldest rocks are found in northern Louisiana, in the
Kisatchie National Forest. They are from the Tertiary Age and are 60
million years old.
The delta of the Mississippi River has become
larger and larger due to sediments and is now one of the largest river
deltas in the world.
Between the Tertiary rocks in the north and
the newly arrived sediments at the Mississippi River Delta runs a long
belt in central Louisiana that was formed in the Pleistocene. The
formation of the belt is widely associated with sea level rise and fall
during past ice ages. Because the rocks in the Kisatchie National Forest
formed much earlier than the Mississippi River Delta, rivers and canyons
formed there, which is why there is higher land there than in the flat
coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico.
In the early formation
phase of the Gulf of Mexico, when there was no connection to the
Atlantic, high evaporation rates led to the formation of numerous salt
domes. There are several hundred of these salt domes in Louisiana, the
most famous of which is Avery Island. Salt domes are used for salt
mining and drilling for oil and gas.
The flora in Louisiana is varied. The tree species Pinus echinata, Pinus elliottii and marsh pine are common; hardwoods grow on the alluvial soils of Louisiana. Important tree species, some of which are native, include the red cedar, copper beech and walnut family. In Louisiana, orchids and several species of hyacinths, as well as Isoetes louisianensis and Schwalbea, have been listed under "Vulnerable Status" since 2003. In the south, Tillandsia usneoides, also known as Spanish moss, is particularly widespread; in the north it rarely occurs.
In Louisiana, there is a rich fauna that was created by varied
swamps, forests and prairies. Deer, squirrels and rabbits as well as
bears are hunted commercially as wild animals. The muskrat, coypu, mink
and opossum, as well as the bobcat and skunk are used as natural rangers
in the forests. Louisiana is home to many different species of wildfowl,
such as quail, turkey, woodcock, and various waterfowl, of which the
Florida duck and wood duck are native to Louisiana. The coastal beaches
of the Gulf of Mexico are home to sea turtles. Whales and various
species of fish are native to the shores. Many freshwater fish are
present in the lakes and lagoons.
Five sea turtle species are
considered endangered: the hawksbill sea turtle, Atlantic ridley sea
turtle, leatherback sea turtle, loggerhead sea turtle and green turtle.
In 2003, a total of 23 other animal species were threatened in
Louisiana.
Louisiana has a subtropical climate
characterized by hot, humid periods with average rainfall and mostly
mild winters. The average annual temperature in Louisiana is about 20.6
degrees Celsius; in summer it is usually over 30 degrees hot. In winter,
temperatures very rarely drop below freezing, otherwise the average mild
winter temperature is 12.6 degrees Celsius. There is significant
rainfall throughout the year with New Orleans and Baton Rouge receiving
about 1500mm of rain over a year, with an average number of 8.7 rainy
days per month. Despite the high number of rainy days per month, the sun
shines an average of 3.9 hours per day even in January. In summer the
sun shines for more than eight hours a day; the sunniest month is July.
Humidity in Louisiana is usually over 70%.
In the summer months,
Louisiana is regularly hit by strong hurricanes with wind speeds of over
120 km/h.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the mainland
at over 200 km/h. In Louisiana alone, 469 people died. St. Bernard
Parish in the southeast and the region around New Orleans were hit
particularly hard.
Louisiana was named in honor of Louis XIV, king of France (1643-1715). When René Robert Cavelier de La Salle claimed this territory watered by the Mississippi River for France, he called it La Louisiane, which means "The Land of Louis." Louisiana was also part of Spanish Louisiana which was a large part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Already part of the United States, the Louisiana Territory extended from New Orleans to the current border with Canada.
The history of the state of Louisiana can be traced back to the
periods when it was first inhabited by humans. The first known
settlement in Louisiana was about 5,500 years ago. About 2,000 years
ago, the Marksville culture formed in Louisiana, the bearers of which
became the ancestors of the Natchez and Taensa tribes. Around 1000 BCE,
the Woodland Period began, during which the Mississippian culture
formed. Around 1000, the Plaquemines culture formed, which was part of
the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. The Mississippian culture almost
disappeared by the 16th century, and only among the Natchez Indians did
its elements survive into the 18th century.
European penetration
began in the 16th century, and in 1682 the French founded a colony and
named it La Louisiane in honor of King Louis XIV. In 1763, France ceded
Louisiana to Spain. Later it passed back into the possession of France,
but in 1803 French Louisiana was sold to the United States. The American
government divided the acquired territory into several "territories", of
which the Orleans Territory roughly coincided with the territory of the
modern state of Louisiana. On April 30, 1812, Louisiana became the 18th
state of the United States. That same year, the war with England began,
the final battle of which was the Battle of New Orleans. During the
interwar period, Louisiana was the leading slave state. By 1860, 47% of
the state's population were slaves. In 1860, conflict between the North
and the South began, and on January 26, 1861, Louisiana seceded from the
Union and joined the Confederacy. By that time, New Orleans was the
largest city in the South and a strategically important port, so the
federal army captured it on April 25, 1862. When the Civil War was lost,
the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) began. During this time, Louisiana
was under military occupation and belonged to the 5th Military District.
In the 1870s, the Democrats managed to return to power in the state.
During the Progressive Era, African Americans were gradually deprived of
many civil rights, a situation that lasted until the beginning of the
civil rights struggle in the 1960s. The dominance of conservatives ended
with the coming to power of Governor Huey Long in 1928, after which the
state experienced a long period of struggle between the "Longites" and
"Anti-Longites".
The first people, hunters and gatherers known as Paleo-Indians,
appeared in Louisiana approximately 8,000 to 10,000 years before the
present, during the last Ice Age. They hunted mammoths and other large
animals using stone-tipped spears, many of which have been found in
Louisiana. Only one Paleo-Indian site is known in the state, the John
Pierce site. As the glaciers retreated, the megafauna died out, the area
became covered with forests, people became more sedentary, and their
numbers increased. In addition to spearheads, people learned to make
axes and knives. They now hunted mainly deer, bears, and panthers, and
also learned to fish and collect shells. They learned to make canoes and
even established some semblance of trade with the inhabitants of modern
Tennessee and Georgia. This led to the formation of the Mesoamerican
culture (also known as the Archaic period), which existed from 6500 to
2000 years BCE. At this time, there were already small settlements, now
known as Poverty Point or Catahoula. The former gave the name to the
Poverty Point culture.
Around 200 BCE, the Marksville culture
began to form in Louisiana under the influence of the Hopewell culture
from the north. People began to live in larger and more permanent
settlements, began to build burial mounds, and began to make
Hopewell-type pottery. People at this time collected wild plants and sea
shells, but they had already probably learned to grow some plants in
small gardens. They learned to store food in jars and baskets and
mastered cooking in ceramic pots. Over time, the Hopewell influence
weakened, there were fewer mounds, and the pottery began to differ from
that of the more northern culture. Around 400 AD, the Hopewell influence
completely disappeared, and a new era began, known as the Trouville-Coll
Period.
During this period, high mounds were also built, but not
as burial mounds, but as temples. They looked like flat-topped pyramids,
were used for centuries, and were often expanded over time. Mound
burials were also practiced, but without many grave goods. It was during
this period that the bow and arrow appeared in Louisiana. Louisianans
learned to grow corn, which had already been mastered in Mexico. Around
800, the Trouville people in the northwest of the state changed and
formed the Caddo culture through interactions with people from what is
now Texas and Oklahoma. In the rest of the state, by 1000, another way
of life, known as the Plaquemine culture, had formed.
Simultaneously with the Caddo and Plaquemine cultures, but further
north, a large Mississippian culture was formed, the influence of which
spread throughout the southeast of the continent. In Louisiana, no large
settlements of this culture have been found, although they are found in
Alabama and Georgia. However, between 1000 and 1600, the Mississippians
penetrated Louisiana, bringing with them their pottery technologies and
their methods of building ceremonial complexes. Thus, some Mississippian
traditions penetrated the Plaquemine culture. The Mississippian culture
influenced the formation of the Tunica, Chitimacha and Muscogee tribes,
and the Plaquemine culture formed the Taensa and Natchez tribes.
By the 18th century, the Indians of Louisiana were divided into six
large linguistic groups: Atakapa, Caddo, Tunica, Natchez, Muscogee and
Chitimacha. Some of them eventually disappeared (like the Natchez),
while others, like the Caddo, retained both their language and culture.
The Atakapa tribes lived in western Louisiana on the Sabine River, their
culture gradually declined, and by the beginning of the 19th century,
only a few settlements remained. The Caddo group lived on the Red River
and consisted of three tribal confederations: Hasinai, Kadohadacho, and
Natchitoches. They already had a social organization and a priestly
class. The Tunica group lived further east, partly in Arkansas and
Mississippi, with a center on the site of modern Vicksburg. They also
had settlements, although they led a somewhat more nomadic lifestyle. In
the mid-18th century, they migrated south and partially mixed with other
tribes.
The Natchez group lived in eastern Louisiana and
consisted of three tribes: the Taensa on the west bank of the river, the
Natchez on the east, and the Avoyle. The latter later mixed with the
Tunica tribes. In the 1540s, the Spanish described the Natchez as a
numerous people, but by 1600 the French found them already small in
number, probably suffering from wars and diseases. This tribe was the
most warlike, with a complex system of military rituals. The Chitimacha
tribes inhabited the Mississippi Delta. They were large tribes, but they
gradually died out, fighting among themselves and with their neighbors.
The Chitimacha had the highest level of development of social life and
culture.
The arrival of Europeans led to the migration of Indian
tribes, and many of them moved to the Mississippi River from the east of
the continent. This is how the Biloxi, Koasati, and Choctaw tribes
appeared in Louisiana. At present, the Indians of Louisiana number about
16 thousand people (according to the 1990 census), which makes this
state the third in the United States in terms of the number of Indians.
According to the law of 1934, three tribes are recognized by the federal
government, have self-government and use support programs.
In 1519, the governor of Spanish Jamaica sent Alonso Alvarez de
Pineda on an expedition to map the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Pineda
discovered a large river, which he called Rio de las Palmas, although it
has not been proven that this was the Mississippi. Pineda recommended
founding a settlement there, but he was not heeded, and throughout the
16th century the Spaniards visited the banks of the Mississippi only by
chance: after 1528, Cabeza de Vaca passed through (although he did not
mention the river), and in 1542, Hernando de Soto, who called the river
"Rio Grande". The latter left a detailed description of the nature and
inhabitants of these places.
In the north of the continent, the
French founded the colony of New France in the 1630s, and in the 1670s
they heard about the existence of a large river in the west. In 1672,
the expedition of Jacques Marquette reached the river, which the Indians
called the Mississippi, and went down it to the Arkansas River. In 1682,
the expedition of Cavelier de La Salle followed the same route, reaching
the site of modern-day New Orleans by April, where on April 9, La Salle
declared the lands to be the property of the French king, and named the
territory "Louisiana" in honor of King Louis XIV. La Salle then returned
to France, received permission to found a colony on the Mississippi
River, and in 1684 set out from the Caribbean, but was unable to find
the mouth of the river, and built a fort in Texas. From there, he set
out to find the Mississippi, but a conspiracy arose among his entourage,
and La Salle was eventually killed on March 19, 1687. In 1689, the
Spanish found his fort abandoned.
The failure of La Salle's expedition did not stop France from trying
to colonize the Mississippi Valley. The French Chancellor, Louis de
Pontchartrain, was determined to continue the effort, and he had the
influential Marquis de Vauban on his side, who believed that France
needed a base from which to attack Spanish convoys. Together, they
managed to convince Louis XIV that they should make an effort to
colonize. One motive was rivalry with Spain and England, which had
already established colonies in the Carolinas and Pensacola. Another was
to provide support for colonies in the Caribbean. A third was the
concept of mercantilism, which implied that a state should be as
independent as possible from the economies of neighboring states.
The king chose Pierre Le Moyne, better known by his title
d'Iberville, to lead the expedition. He bought four ships, recruited 200
colonists, and took two companies of marines. His brother, Jean-Baptiste
de Bienville, became his deputy. On September 24, 1698, the ships left
the harbor of La Rochelle and landed somewhere near present-day Biloxi.
From there, he sent a detachment to search for the mouth of the
Mississippi, which they discovered on March 2, 1699, the holiday of
Mardi Gras. D'Iberville established a camp, which he called Pointe Mardi
Gras, celebrated mass there, and went up the Mississippi. They found an
Indian settlement with a red pole in the center, so d'Iberville called
it "Baton Rouge" (Red Pole). After exploring several more settlements,
the French returned to the first camp. All the Indians they encountered
behaved friendly, from which they erroneously concluded that all
Mississippi Indians were harmless. D'Iberville decided that the
settlement would be better founded on the ocean shore, and built a small
fort on the site of what is now Biloxi Bay, Mississippi. It was named
Fort Maurepas. Construction was completed in May 1699, after which
d'Iberville returned to France, and Bienville remained at the fort, and
soon undertook another expedition to the Mississippi River. This time he
met a British ship, which was also looking for a place for a colony.
Bienville claimed that this territory belonged to the French king, and
the British captain decided to refrain from conflict. The place where
this happened became known as the "English U-turn". This event forced
the French to hurry with the colonization of the Mississippi River, and
they built a small fort on the banks of the river, the exact location of
which is now unknown.
Soon, an epidemic of fever in Fort Maurepas
forced d'Iberville to move it to a new location, on the high bank of the
Mobile River. Here in the spring of 1702, Fort Saint-Louis-de-la-Mobile
was founded, which became the temporary capital of the Louisiana colony.
But this place also turned out to be unhealthy, so in 1709 the
settlement was moved further east, to the site of the modern city of
Mobile. France faced many problems from the very beginning: it was
difficult to govern the colony, it was difficult to attract migrants
there, and the sandy soil produced poor harvests. Many of the settlers
were military men, unaccustomed to farming. There were almost no women
in the colony, and families did not work out. As a result, only a few
hundred people lived in the colony for the entire first decade of the
18th century. In 1706, d'Iberville died in the war and the colony was
left without a leader. Bienville took d'Iberville's place, although he
did not receive the official title of governor. France bore the costs of
maintaining the colony, but did not receive any income, which worried
the government. At that time, the practice of transferring colonies to
private management, similar to the way Carolina was governed by "lords
proprietors," was already known. France decided to adopt this practice,
and in September 1712, the king granted the colony to Antoine Crozat,
Marquis du Châtel, by personal charter. He appointed Antoine de La Mothe
Cadillac as governor, who arrived in Mobile on May 17, 1713, and became
the first formal governor of Louisiana. He formed a Supreme Council to
help him govern the colony (this council later became the equivalent of
the Supreme Court). Cadillac established the cultivation of tobacco and
indigo, and indigo later became the colony's most important product. At
first, he worked successfully with Bienville, but then their
relationship deteriorated (Bienville claimed that this was because he
refused to marry Cadillac's daughter). Cadillac explored the lands
inland and founded trading posts there. He sought to establish trade
with the English and Spanish colonies. In 1714, he founded Fort
Saint-Jean-Baptiste on the Red River, which eventually became the city
of Natchitoches and is now the oldest European settlement in Louisiana.
Cadillac also sent ambassadors to Mexico City, where he negotiated
trade. The Spanish organized an expedition that founded several missions
in Texas and defined the border between Spanish Texas and French
Louisiana. Trade between Louisiana and the Spanish colonies was
technically illegal, but it was profitable and therefore not hindered.
Cadillac had no sympathy for Louisiana and its inhabitants, envied
Bienville's popularity, and often clashed with both the Louisianians and
Bienville. Complaints about Cadillac began to come to France, so in 1716
Crozat recalled him. By this time, Crozat had already spent 1 million
livres on the colony, and these expenses worried him. At the same time,
Louis XIV died, and the underage Louis XV became king under the regent
Duke of Orleans. He and his ministers selected a successor to Cadillac,
who was Jean-Michel de Lépine. But he, too, could not find a common
language with Bienville and the Louisianians, conflicts began again, so
Crozat decided to get rid of the colony and, at his request, his charter
was revoked in August 1717. The government found no one willing to
become the owner of Louisiana, so it created a special joint-stock
Western Company. It took over management at the end of 1717, and
Bienville remained the manager, becoming subordinate to the company.
Already in 1718, John Law, the creator of the Royal Bank, decided to
invest the bank's funds in the development of Louisiana, created the
Indian Company, which bought the rights to Louisiana, and Law became the
actual owner of the colony. He did not interfere in the management,
which gave Bienville some freedom of action, and the first thing he
decided to do was to found a city on the banks of the Mississippi River.
In 1718, he chose a place, brought 50 people there, cleared the area and
founded a city, which was named La Nouvelle-Orléans in honor of the Duke
of Orleans. In 1720, Adrien de Paget planned the quarter now known as
the French Quarter. In 1721, New Orleans became the capital of the
colony and quickly began to turn into an economic center. Two years
later, 300 people lived there, and by 1728, 1,000.
Under the
control of the Indian Campaign, Louisiana began to develop rapidly: by
1720, New Orleans, Biloxi, Dauphin Island, Mobile, Natchez, and
Natchitoches were founded. In 1721, the colony was divided into 9
districts, each under the control of a commandant and a judge. In 1722,
Baton Rouge was founded, and in 1723, Poste de Rapids (Alexandria).
Since 1717, people convicted of petty theft, vagrancy, and debt began to
be exiled to the colony. This created the image of Louisiana as a
"prison colony" for a time. From 1721, Law invited Germans to the
colony, and resettled almost 2,000 of them. They settled first in Biloxi
and on the Arkansas River. They were also given land on the Mississippi
River above New Orleans, which became known as the "German Coast." When
Alsace and Lorraine passed to France in 1740, Louisiana received
migrants from that territory as well. Swiss who had served in the French
army also began to settle in the colony.
At the same time,
excessive spending ruined the Royal Bank, the shares of the Indian
Company were worthless, and Law soon fled France. The government
assigned Bienville to manage the colony temporarily, until a decision
was made on its reorganization.
In 1723, Jacques de la Chaise
arrived in the colony on behalf of the government. He, too, was unable
to reach an agreement with Bienville, which is why Bienville was
recalled to France in 1725. His absence immediately complicated
relations with the Natchez Indians: in November 1729, they attacked a
French fort and killed several people and took some captive. In
response, a French detachment of 700 people besieged the settlement of
White Apple and achieved the release of the prisoners. The French made
several more raids against the Natchez Indians, almost completely
destroying this tribe. In 1731, the last Natchez were sent to San
Domingo and sold into slavery. The Board of the Indian Campaign did not
approve of the governor's actions, considering them too cruel. The
Natchez War had undermined the colony's economy, and the Indian Company
saw no way to make any profit from it, so at their request, on January
23, 1731, the royal charter was revoked by Louis XV and Louisiana became
a crown colony.
The government decided to turn to Bienville for help and appointed
him governor of the colony. He returned to Louisiana in March 1733 and
immediately carried out a number of reforms: he improved the army's
supplies, recruited new recruits and built new barracks. He returned
everyone who had fled their land during the Natchez War to their homes.
At this time, a conflict began with the Chickasaw Indians, who lived in
the area of modern Memphis: Bienville demanded that they hand over the
hiding Natchez Indians, but they refused. On April 1, 1736, Bienville's
detachment set out from Mobile, arrived in Tombecbe and joined up with
the allied Choctaw Indians there. On May 26, he attacked the Indian
fortification and the Battle of Aquia took place, in which Bienville
suffered heavy losses and retreated. Returning to New Orleans, he
learned that another French force, under Pierre d'Artaguiette, had been
defeated by the Indians at the Battle of Ogoula Chetoqui, and that
Artaguiette himself had been captured and burned by the Indians. By
1739, Bienville had raised an army of 3,500 men from the French and
allied Indians, built a fort on the Mississippi River as a base, and
after a series of skirmishes, forced the Chickasaws to make peace.
By 1740, Bienville had tired of Louisiana and wanted to return to
France; in 1741, the government accepted his resignation, and in 1743,
the Marquis de Vaudreuil arrived in the colony. His arrival began an era
of stability and territorial growth for the colony. Vaudreuil was a good
administrator, managed to establish good relations with the colonists,
and was remembered by Louisianians as the "Grand Marquis." He introduced
paper money, which was banned in 1745 but remained in circulation until
the end of French rule. Relations with the Indians remained difficult:
the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes quickly realized that they could
support France or Britain based on who gave the most gifts, and
Louisiana did not have the resources to compete with Britain in this
area. In 1747 and 1748, the Chickasaw raided French settlements, but the
governor did not retaliate. In 1752, the raid was repeated, and this
time Vaudreuil responded by burning several Chickasaw settlements and
making a peace treaty with them. For his services, he was appointed
Governor General of New France that same year, and Louis Billoard de
Kerlerec was appointed Governor General of Louisiana.
Louisiana's
problems began in the late 1750s, when a war with Britain, known as the
French and Indian War, broke out. There was no fighting on the colony's
territory, but it suffered from isolation and a decline in trade. The
war was going badly for France, and in 1763 the Peace of Paris was
signed. France ceded all of Canada to Britain, and Spain ceded Florida.
Britain did not dare take all of Louisiana, but insisted that the colony
be ceded to Spain. The Spanish government considered this reasonable
compensation for France dragging Spain into the war in 1761.
The Louisianians were unhappy with the transfer to Spanish rule and
asked the government to reverse the decision, but the king refused.
Governor Kerlerec returned to France, and Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie
assumed temporary control. But he died in 1765 and was replaced by
Charles-Philippe Aubry, the commander of the garrison. In March 1766,
the Spanish governor Antonio de Ulloa arrived in the colony, but did not
formally assume control until January 1767, but he did not even appear
in New Orleans, where Aubry continued to command. Ulloa attempted to
bring the colony's economy into line with Spanish standards, in
particular by allowing trade only with Spanish ports and only through
Spanish ships. This caused discontent among the Louisianians, who were
accustomed to trading with the islands of the French West Indies.
Dissatisfaction with Spanish policy resulted in the Louisiana Rebellion:
on October 27, 1768, New Orleans residents captured the city and
demanded that Ulloa leave the colony. The Supreme Council declared the
governor's powers invalid on the grounds that he had never presented his
credentials. Aubrey condemned the rebellion but did nothing to suppress
it. Ulloa left for Cuba, and the rebels sent a delegation to Paris
asking to return the colony to French rule. The king refused. A myth
subsequently arose that this rebellion was the first American uprising
for independence and that the rebels wanted to proclaim a republic,
although in reality they had no such intentions.
In response to
the rebellion, the Spanish government sent 2,000 troops to Louisiana
under the command of Irishman Alexander (Alejandro) O'Reilly. He arrived
in August 1769 and triumphantly entered New Orleans, where he began
investigating the causes of the rebellion. The Supreme Council assured
him that this was not a protest against the king, but only against the
governor. O'Reilly pardoned everyone except the ringleaders. There were
13 of the latter, six of whom he sentenced to death on October 24, 1769.
The Irishman's cruelty shocked the colony, but in the future O'Reilly
proved himself an able administrator, he brought order to the army and
government, and carried out reforms, creating a system that worked
effectively until the end of the colonial era. He established trade with
Cuba and reduced duties for those who agreed to trade with Spanish
ports. He repaired many forts and formed a colonial militia. In 1769, he
conducted a census, which showed that 14,000 people lived in the colony,
3,500 of whom lived in New Orleans. He abolished French laws and
introduced Spanish ones, which became known as the "O'Reilly Code". In
1770, O'Reilly handed over his post to Luis de Unzaga and left for Cuba.
The new governor realized that the colony's well-being depended on trade
with the English colonies, and did not interfere with this trade,
although it was formally illegal. In 1777, Unzaga was replaced by
Bernardo de Galvez, who achieved an increase in the military contingent
in the colonies and an improvement in the pay of officials. At that
time, the American War of Independence was already underway, which Spain
approved of, since it weakened Britain. Without formally entering the
war, Spain supplied the Americans with weapons and useful goods for
almost 4 years. New Orleans became the main center of this secret
activity. Since 1776, Louisiana had been supplying goods up the
Mississippi and Ohio River, and further through Pennsylvania to George
Washington's army. When the American captain James Willing raided
Florida in 1777, Gálvez allowed him to enter New Orleans, although this
soured relations with the colonial authorities in British Florida. In
the summer of 1779, Spain officially entered the war with Britain. In
September, Gálvez's army attacked Baton Rouge, and on September 21, the
British garrison capitulated. In March 1780, he attacked Mobile and
easily captured it. In October 1780, Gálvez gathered an army of 4,000
men and prepared to attack Pensacola, the last British stronghold in
West Florida, but a hurricane thwarted his efforts, so the expedition
had to be repeated in 1781. Pensacola surrendered on May 10. The war
ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, under which Spanish Louisiana
annexed West Florida. Impressed by Galvez's victories, the French poet
Julien Poidra wrote a poem that became his first literary attempt and
marked the beginning of Louisiana French literature.
During
Spanish times, Louisiana was the largest producer of sugar (4 million
pounds a year, worth $320,000), as well as indigo, tobacco, timber, and
rice, but it remained an unprofitable colony: the king spent $537,000
annually on civil servants' salaries, receiving only $100,000 from
customs duties. Salaries remained the colony's largest source of income:
they were delivered every four months on three ships from Mexico.
In late 1802, Governor Juan Manuel de Salcedo suspended duty-free passage of American goods into New Orleans because the three-year agreement had expired. This caused discontent among Ohioans, and there was even talk of taking New Orleans from the Spanish by force. Meanwhile, in Europe, France and Spain concluded the Treaty of San Ildefonso (October 1, 1800), under which Spain returned Louisiana to France. The treaty was kept secret so that France could gather troops to control Louisiana. News of the treaty alarmed President Jefferson, who feared that the presence of the French in Louisiana would lead to rivalry and, as a result, a rapprochement between the United States and Britain, which he disliked. In 1803, he sent James Monroe to Paris to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans. In response, Napoleon offered to sell the United States all of Louisiana. Monroe had no instructions for such a case, but he decided to act on his own responsibility and on April 30, 1803, concluded a treaty to purchase Louisiana for $15 million. It was unclear exactly which territories the United States acquired, since the boundaries of Louisiana were never precisely defined. President Jefferson doubted the constitutionality of such a deal, but Congress eventually formulated a legal justification. In fact, France sold Louisiana before it took control of it. It was not until November 30, 1803, that the Spanish formally transferred Louisiana to France, and for 20 days the colony remained under formal French control. During this time, Spanish laws were replaced by French ones. On December 20, 1803, in New Orleans, at St. Louis Cathedral, a ceremony was held to transfer Louisiana to the United States, attended by General Wilkinson and William Claiborne, Governor of the Mississippi Territory.
On March 26, 1804, Congress passed a law establishing the Orleans
Territory, separated from French Louisiana. Authority in the territory
belonged to a governor, appointed by the president for three years. He
was also the commander-in-chief of the militia. There was much debate in
Congress about this law: some believed that the Louisianians were not
ready for self-government and their territory should be perceived as
conquered, others drew attention to the fact that the law established a
form of government unfamiliar to U.S. laws, and still others believed
that the law formed a despotic form of government that did not
correspond to the terms of the treaty on the purchase of this territory.
The law, however, was passed and went into effect on October 1, 1804.
In August 1804, President Jefferson appointed Claiborne governor of
the Orleans Territory for a term of three years. Claiborne had to govern
a large territory where the people spoke different languages, belonged
to different cultures and knew nothing about self-government. The
population of Louisiana preferred French or at least Spanish rule, but
not American. Louisianans knew Americans poorly, and mostly in a bad
way; they did not like the judicial system, as well as the right to
vote, which they perceived more as an obligation than a privilege.
Planters were unhappy with the prohibition of importing slaves from
abroad in 1804. American judges did not know the local languages,
customs and traditions, and the lack of local lawyers did not allow a
sufficient number of judges to be appointed from among local residents.
Finally, they did not like the fact that the government divided
Louisiana into the Orleans Territory and the Louisiana District.
One of the pamphlets of that time said that Claiborne fell on them
(Louisianians) from the sky, without knowing the country, its
inhabitants, their habits and traditions, their language itself and
their laws. Nevertheless, Claiborne's hard work and honesty won the
favor of the French-speaking Louisianians.
Governor Claiborne had
almost unlimited powers. He created a Legislative Council and with its
help divided the Orleans Territory into 12 parishes. In 1808, a
temporary code was drawn up, known as the Digest of 1808, which was in
effect until 1824. In 1806, new slave laws were issued, which differed
slightly from the previous Black Code. President Jefferson doubted that
the Louisianians were ready for self-government, but Congress thought
otherwise and in 1805 passed a resolution to form a territorial
government of two houses. In 1807, this Office decided to return to the
old name "parish" instead of the American "district".
At first, the border between Louisiana and Spanish Texas remained
undefined. The American government sometimes called the Rio Grande and
sometimes the Sabine River the boundary of Louisiana, while the Spanish
considered the Arroyo Hondo to be the boundary. The situation almost
came to war in 1806, but General Wilkinson negotiated the creation of a
neutral zone between the Sabine and Arroyo Hondo. This zone lasted until
1819, when the boundary along the Sabine River was agreed upon.
The Louisiana Purchase did not specify the boundaries between this area
and Florida, so the American government believed that West Florida
belonged to Louisiana (although Jefferson did not attempt to occupy
Baton Rouge and Mobile). By 1810, Americans already made up the majority
of the population of West Florida. That same year, they rebelled,
declared independence, but at the same time asked the American president
to annex them to the United States. Governor Claiborne entered Florida
and officially annexed it to Louisiana, dividing it into four parishes.
Two years later, when Louisiana became a state, its eastern border was
the Pearl River. Subsequently, the territory between the Pearl and
Perdido rivers was also occupied by the Americans and divided between
Mississippi and Alabama.
Early in his tenure, Claiborne warned the government that a slave rebellion was possible in Louisiana. Minor unrest had occurred under the French, but now there were more slaves, the successful Haitian Revolution was already known, and rumors of an imminent war with England gave hope for a successful rebellion. In 1811, this rebellion, known as the German Coast Rebellion, actually took place, although it is unknown how it was planned or what its goals were. One of the leaders, Jupiter, claimed during the investigation that they were simply going to New Orleans to kill whites. There were about 500 rebels, they formed companies, they had banners and drums, uniforms with epaulettes, but they were armed almost exclusively with agricultural implements. Nevertheless, it was the largest black rebellion in US history. A detachment from Baton Rouge was sent against the rebels, and in New Orleans, General Wade Hampton raised a militia and went out to meet the rebels, but the settlers of the western bank were the first to cross the Mississippi and quickly defeated the Negro detachment. About 70 Negroes died, 27 were captured and put on trial. 21 were sentenced to death.
By 1810, the population of the Orleans Territory numbered 76,000 people, which was more than the 60,000 required for statehood under the law of 1787, so in 1811, Congress gave the order to convene a constitutional convention and draft a constitution for the future state. The convention was convened on November 4, 1811. The convention gathered 43 delegates, of whom 26 had French surnames. The convention took the 1799 Kentucky Constitution and adapted it to its own needs. This constitution gave the governor great powers, but limited him to a single term of four years. A legislative assembly was formed with an upper and lower house. Only white taxpayers, about a third of the state's population, had the right to vote, but in practice only half of that number actually participated in the vote. The constitution had no mechanism for amendments; any change implied the adoption of a new constitution by a new convention. The Constitution of 1812 was officially adopted on January 22, 1812, and ultimately lasted until 1845.
On April 8, 1812, the US Congress approved the new Constitution of
Louisiana and admitted it to the Union, and two weeks later the disputed
part of the Florida territory was annexed to Louisiana. Moreover, April
30 became the official day of annexation. Louisiana became the 18th
state of the Union. William Claiborne won the first gubernatorial
election in the state. Allan Magruder and Jean Detréant became the first
senators from Louisiana in the US Congress, but the latter refused the
post and Thomas Posey became senator. Julien Poidra became the president
of the state senate and one of three members of the Electoral College
from Louisiana.
At that very time, the war with England began,
and Claiborne understood well that due to its strategic location, New
Orleans would certainly be attacked by the enemy. The local Creole
population took a passive position, not believing that the Americans
would be able to hold the city. At the same time, a problem arose with
the pirates of Jean Lafitte, who were hiding in Barataria Bay. It was
only in 1814 that the British command began planning to capture New
Orleans, where General Andrew Jackson led the defense. He assembled an
army of Americans, Creoles, Lafitte's pirates, and even Choctaw Indians.
The British managed to get almost to New Orleans itself and capture
Jacques Villeret's plantation; on December 23, Jackson approached the
plantation and attacked the enemy in the darkness of the night, forcing
them to pause for a while. In a few days, he built fortifications and
received additional troops. On January 8, 1815, the British launched a
general offensive and the Battle of New Orleans took place: the British
attack was repelled with heavy losses. At that time, no one knew that on
December 24, 1814, a peace treaty was signed in Ghent. News of peace
arrived only on March 13.
When Louisiana became a state, the Federalist Party was already
leaving politics, its remaining representatives in Congress were against
the annexation of Louisiana, so this party never formed in the state.
For some time, there were no political parties in the generally accepted
sense of the word in Louisiana. The first elections reflected conflicts
between Creoles and "Anglo-Saxons". In the elections of 1816, Jacques
Villeré won, and Claiborne became a federal senator (he died soon
after). In the elections of 1820, two Creoles and two Americans
competed, and Thomas Robertson won. In the elections of 1824, "American"
Henry Johnson won again, beating two Creoles, Marigny and Villeré. That
same year, Andrew Jackson ran for president, and this led to the
emergence of a two-party system in Louisiana - supporters and opponents
of Jackson. Subsequently, other party differences arose: Catholics
versus Protestants, planters versus farmers, cotton producers versus
sugar producers, the province versus New Orleans, etc. In 1828, Jackson
won the presidential election (particularly in Louisiana), and Pierre
Derbigny became governor. This time, the state was split between
supporters of Henry Clay, the leader of the Whig Party, and Jackson.
Derbigny died in an accident, and the state was temporarily headed
by the president of the senate (due to the lack of a lieutenant
governor), and in 1831 Andre Roman was elected, whose governorship
coincided with the years of economic prosperity. The influx of migrants
forced the number of counties to increase from 28 to 34 by 1830 and to
48 by 1845. Under Roman, the first railroad was built in the state.
In the spring of 1834, the Whig Party was formed in Louisiana, and
the state moved to a two-party system of Democrats versus Whigs. The
1834 election was won by Edward White, who was supported by the Whigs.
In the 1838 election, two Creoles ran and the Whig candidate, Roman, won
again, and in 1840, the Whig William Harrison won the presidential
election. In 1842, Alexander Mouton, the Democratic candidate, became
governor, the first Democratic governor in Louisiana history. By that
time, the reform movement known as Jacksonian Democracy had become
popular in the United States. Many states had already adopted universal
suffrage for whites, while in Louisiana, almost half of the white
population did not vote. The Panic of 1837 also increased the desire for
reform. By the mid-1840s, the Whigs could no longer fight to preserve
the 1812 constitution and agreed to a new constitutional convention. The
convention lasted in 1844 and 1845 and drafted the Louisiana
Constitution of 1845. It resolved to establish public schools and the
University of Louisiana, created the office of lieutenant governor, and
introduced universal suffrage for whites. There was heated debate over
the election of the Legislative Assembly: it was eventually decided that
the number of senators would be proportional to the population
(including blacks), and the number of members of the House of
Representatives would be proportional to the number of voters. This did
not allow the planters to pass any law they liked through the Assembly,
but gave them the opportunity to block any law they did not like. The
new constitution did not satisfy anyone, and in 1851 it was decided to
convene a new convention.
The 1852 convention took measures to
develop railroads, lifted the ban on monopolies, and allowed the state
government to subsidize banks. The New Orleans Delta newspaper suggested
that the Whigs needed banks to steal money and railroads to export it.
Under the new constitution, both houses of the Legislature were based on
the state's population. This meant that counties with large numbers of
plantations (and large numbers of blacks) would dominate politics. This
was a major achievement for the Whig Party, but on a national scale, the
party was already losing popularity.
In mid-June 1845, negotiations were underway to annex Texas to the
United States, so General Zachary Taylor was ordered to leave Fort Jesup
and move his army to the Louisiana-Texas border. Taylor was born in
Virginia, but had lived in Louisiana since 1840. When Texas decided to
annex, Taylor's army entered Texas and advanced to the Mexican border.
General Edmund Gaines, commander of the Western Military Department,
asked the Louisiana governor to reinforce Taylor's detachment with
militia. The Louisianians responded enthusiastically to this request,
and 1,500 people immediately volunteered for the army. The War
Department accepted the Louisianians into service, although it
reprimanded Gaines for acting without the sanction of his superiors.
Gaines, however, stated that the situation on the frontier and the
possible war with Mexico justified his actions. The volunteers served
three months of service and returned to Louisiana, but in March 1846,
relations with Mexico deteriorated again, on April 25, clashes with the
Mexican army began, the American-Mexican War began, and on April 26,
Taylor requested 4 regiments of Louisiana volunteers to strengthen his
army. The news came to New Orleans on May 2, the legislature allocated $
100,000 to equip the regiments, and General Gaines recruited volunteers
1,000 more than requested, and not for 3 months of service, as Taylor
requested, but for 6 months. As a result, Gaines put almost 12,000
people under arms, but the War Department refused to accept all of them
for service, disbanded some of the regiments and recalled Gaines to
Washington. This led to a conflict between Gaines and the
administration, with the Louisianians supporting Gaines and condemning
the War Department and President Polk. Gaines was given a ceremonial
send-off at the St. Charles Hotel. Only about 5,000 Louisianians arrived
in Texas, where they were disbanded after three months and returned,
much to the dismay of the entire state. The state later awarded the gold
sword to Generals Scott, Worth, and Taylor after the war.
The
situation with the volunteers was discussed by the legislature at its
last session in January 1848, when it met in New Orleans. The state
capital was then moved to Baton Rouge, and the January 1850 session met
there.
In the 1850s, the Whig Party ceased to exist, but the Republican
Party emerged, which was opposed to slavery, and southerners decided
that northern abolitionists would now seek to destroy slavery, despite
the guarantees in the Constitution. The Republicans at that time were
exclusively a party of the northern states, with no representatives in
the South. In Louisiana, the nativist Know Nothing Party, which was
voted for by those who were not satisfied with either the Republicans or
the Democrats, had a strong position. It arose mainly as a reaction to
the migration of Irish to Louisiana in the 1840s, after the Irish
famine. In the elections of 1856, they tried to promote their candidate
Paul Derbigny for governor, but the Democrat Robert Wickliffe won.
The financial crisis of 1857 did not seriously affect Louisiana,
which gave southerners an opportunity to discuss the advantages of the
institution of slavery. In 1859, John Brown's rebellion in Virginia
alarmed the Southerners, and although Northern politicians distanced
themselves from the rebellion, Northern newspapers began to portray him
as a martyr. From this point on, Louisiana began to seriously consider
the possibility of secession. In 1860, Thomas Overton Moore won the
gubernatorial election, and in the same year, Republican Abraham Lincoln
won the presidential election. He had no supporters in Louisiana;
Louisianans voted for John Breckinridge, Stephen Douglas, and John Bell,
and Breckinridge received the majority.
Immediately after
Lincoln's election, in December 1860, Governor Moore called a
legislative session and called for immediate secession. At the session,
it was decided to call a convention on this issue and funds were
allocated for arming the militia. The elections to the convention were
held on January 7, and about two-thirds of the delegates were in favor
of immediate secession. The third of the population that wanted to come
to an agreement with the North quickly realized the inevitability of
secession and joined the secessionists in the name of unity. Governor
Moore confiscated the federal arsenals in Baton Rouge and Forts Jackson
and St. Philip before the convention was convened. On January 26, 1861,
the convention voted for secession by a majority of votes.
Despite this, Louisiana still considered itself part of America, and
George Washington's birthday was solemnly celebrated on February 22.
On March 4, 1861, President Lincoln was inaugurated in Washington.
In early April, a commission from the southern states arrived in
Washington, in which Andre Roman represented Louisiana. The commission
wanted to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict, but on April 8,
the president refused to receive it. On April 12, the shelling of Fort
Sumter began, and the Civil War began.
Many Louisianians believed that secession would not lead to war, but
when Louisiana joined the Confederacy, war became inevitable. Many
enlisted in the spring of 1861, and several Louisiana infantry regiments
were sent to Virginia and fought in the First Battle of Bull Run in
July. By November, 25,000 Louisianians had enlisted, and the state sent
between 50,000 and 60,000 men to arms during the war. There were no
battles in the state at first, but many Louisianians died at the Battle
of Shiloh in April 1862. Wounded men also arrived in the state from
battles in the east: the Peninsula Campaign, the Northern Virginia
Campaign, and the Maryland Campaign.
On April 25, 1862, Admiral
Farragut's fleet broke through to New Orleans. General Mansfield Lovell
began evacuating the city, and Farragut was unable to stop him, and it
was not until April 27 that the Federal army entered the city. General
Benjamin Butler assumed command of the city, and at the end of the year
he was replaced by Nathaniel Banks. In July 1863, General Grant took
Vicksburg, securing control of the entire Mississippi River, and Banks
drove Richard Taylor's army out of the southwestern part of the state
and on May 27, 1863, attacked Port Hudson, but was repulsed. This
fortification withstood several more attacks (events known as the Siege
of Port Hudson), but after the fall of Vicksburg, it was abandoned by
the Southerners.
In the spring of 1864, Banks decided to invade
Texas along the Red River and began the so-called Red River Campaign,
but his offensive failed. This was the last major battle in Louisiana.
President Lincoln had already developed a plan to restore civil
authority to the southern states, and the new President Johnson followed
suit. This began the so-called Era of Presidential Reconstruction.
General Banks ordered the election of a governor and the formation of a
staff of officials, and Michael Hahn became the new governor. Banks also
called a new constitutional convention, which drafted the Constitution
of 1864. It was approved in September, and it contained a ban on
slavery, although it did not give blacks the right to vote. The new
government developed laws regarding blacks, known as "Black Codes",
which in many ways restricted blacks and in which insulting a white
person by a black person remained a punishable crime. In addition, the
use of convict labor was allowed for the first time in Louisiana, which
in many ways resembled the old institution of slavery. To counteract
this policy, the Louisiana Republican Party was created, which in 1866
organized a march demanding greater rights for blacks, which led to
riots, the police used weapons, and during the New Orleans Riot, about
200 people were killed and wounded. These events forced Congress to
change its policy and take measures to protect the rights of blacks in
the South. In 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, which began
the era of the so-called Radical Reconstruction or Congressional
Reconstruction. The entire territory of the South was divided into
military districts, and Louisiana ended up in the Fifth Military
District, commanded by Philip Sheridan. He deprived all whites who had
previously supported the Confederacy of the right to vote, and at the
same time gave the right to vote to blacks. In 1868, a constitutional
convention was convened, elected under these new rules. Henry Clay
Warmoth, a former federal army officer, became the new governor, and
Oscar Dunn, a black man, became lieutenant governor. The new government
changed the laws regarding blacks and even allowed interracial marriage.
The Democratic Party realized that it could only regain power if it
prevented blacks from voting, and a mimicry of the Ku Klux Klan, the
Knights of the White Camellia, emerged in Louisiana to prevent
Republicans from voting using threats and terror. In response, the
Republicans passed a law giving them the right to disregard votes cast
involuntarily (which in turn gave them the ability to change the
election results in their favor). The white population gradually began
to perceive the Republicans as invaders who lacked any legitimacy.
The Republicans in Louisiana soon split into two factions, and in
the gubernatorial election of 1872, one faction supported William
Kellogg and the other supported the Democratic candidate John McEnery,
and both candidates received an equal number of votes, but the federal
government intervened and declared Kellogg the winner. Twenty days
before he took office, Pinckney Pinchback, the first black governor in
U.S. history, became acting governor. Kellogg effectively controlled
only New Orleans, and the province was in a state of anarchy. A
paramilitary organization, the White League, was formed, which
threatened to force Republican officials to resign from office. Only the
small New Orleans police force resisted them.
When the unrest
intensified in the summer of 1874, some former Confederate generals
(Longstreet and Beauregard) proposed a plan for equal coexistence, but
neither the Republicans nor the Democrats accepted it. By the end of the
summer, the Republicans were holding on to power with the efforts of
4,000 troops commanded by Longstreet, while the White League already
numbered about 8,000 people. When it became known that a steamship
carrying weapons for the White League would arrive in New Orleans,
Longstreet led the police to the waterfront to prevent the unloading.
This led to the so-called Battle of Liberty Place: a shootout between
the military and the League, during which the police retreated and the
League captured government buildings. Governor Kellogg fled and asked
President Grant for help. A few days later, federal troops entered the
city and restored order. These events showed that the Republicans could
only maintain power in the state by force of arms.
The
gubernatorial election of 1876 again resulted in a tie between two
candidates: Packard and Nichols, both of whom declared themselves
winners. At the same time, the presidential election was in a difficult
situation, and the parties came to an agreement (the Compromise of
1877): Rutherford Hayes, a Republican, became president in exchange for
abandoning the policies of Reconstruction. The federal government did
not support Packard, and Nichols became governor of Louisiana. Thus, the
Democrats returned to power in Louisiana for about a century. Louisiana
was the last state in the South to complete Reconstruction.
With the coming to power of Democratic President Francis Nichols, the
Gilded Age, also known as the Bourbon Era, began in the state. The
Democrats realized that they could not return the state to the state of
1860, and realized that changes were necessary. Slavery no longer
existed, but blacks remained in a subordinate position. Meanwhile, by
1880, 88,024 blacks had the right to vote (2,573 more than whites), and
in 1888 there were 128,150 (3,743 more people). The Democrats remained
in power mainly because they controlled the voting process, and the
federal government did not interfere with this process.
Within
the Democratic Party, the most powerful faction was the "Lottery Group",
which organized lotteries in Louisiana, received huge profits, and spent
them on bribing officials. Its owners were Northerners, but it supported
the Democrats and managed to control the entire press of the state.
Governor Nichols tried to revoke the lottery group's license in 1879,
but his decision was appealed and overturned, and at the same time the
"group" began to call for a new constitutional convention. This
convention met that year, under the chairmanship of Lieutenant Governor
Wiltz. The convention drafted the Constitution of 1879, which reduced
the property tax, reduced the interest on the state's foreign debt,
expanded the powers of the governor at the expense of the legislature,
and formalized a system of public schools. These schools, however, were
so poorly funded that Louisiana's educational system became the worst in
the country. Louisiana was the only state where literacy (white and
black) declined: from 49% in 1880 to 38.5% in 1900 and to 13.5% in 1930.
However, it was at the 1879 convention that the University of the South
was established. At the same time, the Lottery Group managed to take
revenge on Governor Nichols by shortening his term in office by a year,
and also passed a special law preventing the revocation of their
license. In 1880, Wiltz became governor, but he died of tuberculosis in
1881, and Samuel McEnery became governor. McEnery served as governor
from 1881 to 1888, a period sometimes called the Era of Classic
Bourbonism. McEnery worked closely with the Lottery Group, and the level
of government corruption became so high that it caused protests within
the Democratic Party itself, and as a result, Francis Nichols was again
nominated for governor in 1888. He managed to get rid of the former
treasurer Burke, who fled to London, and the state treasury was found to
be short $ 1,268,000. Burke went down in history as the biggest swindler
in Louisiana history. The "lottery ring" managed to get its license
extended until 1919, for which it promised to pay the state $1.2 million
annually.
A segregation law was passed during the 1890 session,
requiring equal but separate conditions for travel on public
transportation. Informal segregation had existed before, but now it
became a legal norm. This decision was appealed to the Supreme Court
(the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896), but the court found the law
constitutional. This decision became the impetus for segregation in all
other areas of life in Louisiana.
During these years, lynching
was widespread in Louisiana; between 1882 and 1952, 391 such cases were
recorded. There were even cases of lynching of whites (migrants from
Italy). Louisiana was the fourth-largest state in the country in
lynchings, behind Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas, but second only to
Mississippi in per capita lynchings. Most lynchings occurred in the
1890s, then began to decline, increased slightly from 1914 to 1919, and
then declined again, and increased slightly during the Great Depression.
Lynchings ceased during World War II, as they did elsewhere in the
country. Ironically, it was during the peak years of lynchings that the
most famous Louisianian in the United States was a lawyer: planter
Edward Douglass White was elected to the Supreme Court in 1894, and
served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1910 to 1921. He was
the only Louisianian in the history of the Supreme Court.
At the very beginning of the 20th century, oil was discovered in the
United States. First, in January 1901, it was discovered in Texas, and
in August of the same year, the first commercial oil production began in
Louisiana. In 1902, another field was found in Anne's La Butte. By 1922,
Louisiana was producing 35.3 million barrels of oil, 8% of all US
production. Almost all of the oil produced was processed at the Baton
Rouge refinery. The presence of offshore oil was assumed, but it was not
produced until World War II. Natural gas was often found during the
search for oil, but at first it was not known how to store and transport
it. Often it was simply flared. From 1900 to 1904, William Wright Hurd
was governor, who improved the prison system in the state, but he had no
other significant achievements. In 1904, former Democratic Senator
Newton Blanchard became governor and became the first progressive
politician. In his inaugural address, he declared, "The Negro is here.
He is a man and he is a citizen." He condemned the practice of lynching
and demanded better schools for blacks, as well as better institutions
for African Americans in general. Under him, in 1906, the system of
party conventions was replaced by a system of party primaries. However,
real progressive reforms never came. From 1908 to 1928, the state's
politics were influenced by an alliance of Upper Louisiana planters and
the New Orleans political machine. The so-called Regular Democratic
Organization (RDO) was formed in New Orleans, which in many ways copied
New York's Tammany Hall. This alliance managed to get its candidates
elected governor three times out of five.
The exception was
Luther Hall, who became governor in 1912, defeating two candidates from
the RDO. He did not become an outstanding administrator, but his
election showed that the elites could no longer ignore corruption,
ineffective administration and the imperfection of the educational
system. In 1916, John Parker tried to become governor from the
Progressive Party - he lost, but managed to win in 1920, when he had
already switched to the Democratic Party, remaining a progressive in his
outlook. Under his governorship, Louisiana broke with its conservative
past; Parker was a businesslike and honest man. Under his rule, a new
Constitution was developed (1921), a tax on oil production was
introduced for the first time, and the design of a highway system began
for the first time. On the other hand, Parker's activities irritated the
provincial population; like many professionals, he did not really
believe in the abilities of the average person, did not know how to
communicate with ordinary people and did not have personal charisma.
Immigrants did not like him. Parker's era became a transitional era from
the era of reactionary planters to the era of neo-populism.
One of the most prominent figures in the history of Louisiana was
politician Huey Long, who was governor from 1928 to 1932 and then a
senator in Congress from 1932 to 1935. Under his rule, many reforms were
carried out and Louisiana changed so much that one can speak of a new
phase in its history. Long took part in the gubernatorial elections of
1924, during which he used a radio appearance and a campaign tour around
the state for the first time. He did not win, but came in third place,
and immediately began preparing for the elections of 1928. This time,
his competitors were weaker and he easily won the elections. Fulfilling
his promises, he improved roads, improved schools for whites and blacks,
provided free school textbooks and raised pensions. In 1934, he
abolished the tax for voters, which increased the number of voters. As
if to symbolize the break with the past, the government under Long moved
from the old Gothic mansion to the new modern Capitol building.
Long had to overcome the resistance of conservatives, but over time the
majority of society was on his side, and only a small group of cotton
planters remained his enemies. In 1930, Long easily won the Senate
election, but left Louisiana only when he was able to ensure the
transfer of power to his supporter Oscar Allen. He nominally became
governor, but real power remained with Long. The state continued to
build bridges, roads, and schools. Louisiana State University became one
of the best in the South. On the other hand, Long achieved an
exceptional centralization of power and almost single-handedly appointed
officials to administrative positions. Once, when asked if he had read
the Louisiana Constitution, he replied, “I am the Louisiana
Constitution.” He was increasingly compared to Hitler and Mussolini.
Long helped elect Franklin Roosevelt to the presidency, and the two
were friends for a time, but their relationship deteriorated as Long
began to criticize the New Deal, believing that the president cared too
little about ordinary people. In 1934, he proposed his own "wealth
sharing" plan, surprising and angering Roosevelt, who began to support
his political opponents. Rumors of conspiracies within the Louisiana
government itself also began to circulate. On September 8, 1935, Long
was shot and killed in his office by Carl Austin Weiss, the nephew of
Judge Benjamin Pavey, a political opponent of Long. During his seven
years of de facto rule, Long managed to make Louisiana's roads the
second best in the country, and its system of care for the sick and
elderly became better than the national average. The state's debts grew,
but this did not lead to bankruptcy, as his opponents predicted. Long
truly wielded dictatorial powers, but this was not an exception in
Louisiana history; Governors Thomas Moore, Henry Warmoth, and Murphy
Foster had previously wielded similar powers. Long succeeded in making
Louisiana a leader in many areas and an example to follow, but he did so
by violating fundamental principles of American society.
After Long's death, his supporters (the "Longites") tried to continue
governing Louisiana in his dictatorial style, but they lacked the
ability to do so. Even during his lifetime, Long promoted mediocre
officials (like Allen) to major positions and pushed capable
administrators, such as his brother Earl Long, to secondary positions.
As a result, a struggle for leadership began among the Longites;
throughout the end of 1935, they tried to put together a coalition of
their supporters, but they failed. As a result, by the 1936 elections,
they were able to nominate Richard Leche and Earl Long. Taking advantage
of the popularity of Long's name and his image of a martyr, they were
able to easily defeat the competition.
Leche went down in history
as the most corrupt governor of Louisiana, but at the same time managed
to achieve a lot: he did not quarrel with the president and supported
Roosevelt in the 1936 elections, for which the state received large
funds under the New Deal program. He continued to build roads, bridges,
and schools, and raised teachers' salaries. Under his leadership, a
large and modern Charity Hospital was opened in New Orleans. On the
other hand, the Long era has accustomed politicians to cynicism and
unscrupulousness. Under Leche, every official was required to give 10%
of his salary to the Longit foundation, it was allowed to combine
government positions, there were inappropriate embezzlement of money,
but Leche retained his popularity, and the presidential administration
was on his side. This did not save him from the journalists, who in 1939
fanned a major political scandal around the abuses of the
administration, and Tax Inspector Elmer Airey, who had once defeated Al
Capone, took over the treatment. Realizing that he had no chance to
justify himself, Leche resigned and Earl Long took his place.
The
scandal of 1939 marked the beginning of a powerful campaign against the
Longites. Sam Houston Jones became the opposition candidate in the
presidential election, and Earl Long became the Longite candidate. Long
won in the first round, but Jones won in the second by a small margin of
votes. In 1940, he became governor and immediately repealed many of the
laws passed under Long. He decentralized power in the state,
transferring many functions to the parishes. Jones went down in history
as a capable governor, he managed to fix the corrupt and costly system
of government of the state, he brought back the democratic system of
checks and balances, which had almost disappeared under Long. In 1944,
his term ended, but he supported the candidacy of Jimmy Davis, who
eventually won the gubernatorial election.
During his 4 years as
governor, Davis did nothing remarkable, and was often absent from
Louisiana altogether, but he managed to balance the budget and open
several new colleges. In 1948, Earl Long participated in the elections
again: he correctly assumed that the population was tired of the
inaction of his opponents and nostalgic for the achievements of the Long
era, and the scandals of the pre-war era had already been forgotten. He
managed to win and immediately increased spending on education and
healthcare, as well as on road construction, while raising taxes. Tax
collections doubled, although they remained among the lowest in the
country. At the same time, he made a deal with the mafia, allowing
casinos and slot machine halls to open. He was even going to adopt a new
constitution, but the legislature did not give its consent. By the end
of his first term, Long's popularity began to decline, and the
opposition candidate, Robert Cannon, became governor in the 1952
elections.
The Longit government increased the state's foreign
debt, so Cannon focused on financial reforms. He succeeded in
introducing an amendment to the state constitution, according to which
the consent of 2/3 of the votes of both chambers of the legislature was
required to raise taxes. He began to control expenses more strictly,
which allowed him to maintain all social programs and even achieve a
budget surplus. His most important achievement was a number of measures
to protect the rights of civil servants. He limited the rights of the
governor and gave New Orleans more independence, protecting it from
interference by the state authorities. Louisiana became the first state
to introduce automatic vote counting, which helped combat electoral
irregularities. Together with the superintendent of the state police,
Francis Krevenberg, Kennon began the fight against illegal gambling,
casinos and brothels, and managed to drive this business deep
underground. However, being a Democrat, Kennon did not support the
Democratic Party, and in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections he
supported Republican Dwight Eisenhower.
After Kennon's election,
Earl Long's political career seemed to be over, but in 1955 he suddenly
managed to win the election again. He again tried to raise taxes and
restrict the rights of civil servants, but Kennon's reforms thwarted
him. By 1959, his rhetoric had become so aggressive that rumors arose
that he was mentally ill. In May 1959, he was committed to a mental
hospital at the request of his wife. He managed to get released, but he
continued his eccentricities. The opposition demanded his resignation,
but supporters claimed that he simply needed a rest.
Louisiana's population during this era grew from 2.68 million in 1950
to 3.36 million in 1960. Two-thirds of the population was white and
one-third black, making Louisiana the second-largest black state in the
country. The migration of African Americans from the countryside to the
cities led to a sharp increase in their population in New Orleans. The
Longites' economic programs had improved the lot of blacks, so Earl Long
hoped that they would vote for him and worked to increase the number of
black voters: during his first governorship, the number of blacks
eligible to vote increased from 7,000 to 110,000. Few noticed that Long
achieved this 17 years before President Johnson passed the Voting Act of
1965. In turn, the opposition began to target black voters,
disenfranchising them for, for example, grammatical errors on the
registration form. In 1953, Baton Rouge saw one of the earliest protests
against segregation on public transportation, when a boycott of city
buses forced bus companies to make some concessions. In 1954, the
Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case known as Brown v. Topeka that
segregation violated the 14th Amendment and ordered that it be abolished
“as soon as possible.” The federal government stayed out of Louisiana’s
racial affairs for another seven years, but by 1958 it was clear that
desegregation was inevitable, and it would begin in New Orleans, when
the city’s mayor convinced the city to abolish segregation on public
transportation that year. That same year, Earl Long desegregated
Louisiana State University, which became the first university in the
South to be desegregated. Thus, the mayor and governor managed to show
that desegregation in Louisiana could be done peacefully, without
outbreaks of violence.
The race issue became the main issue in
the gubernatorial elections of 1959-1960, which coincided with the
presidential election of 1960. The Longites lost this election, showing
that their time was over (Earl Long died suddenly that same year), and
former governor Jimmy Davis, an opponent of desegregation, won, and many
top positions were staunch segregationists. The governor announced that
in September 1960, schools would operate segregated, but the state's
supreme judge declared this decision unconstitutional and required the
school board to desegregate, which led to the so-called New Orleans
school crisis. The board was forced to give in. In response, the
legislature passed several laws that transferred schools completely
under state control. The court declared these laws unconstitutional. On
November 14, the first black children (including Ruby Bridges) entered
white schools for the first time under the protection of federal police.
On November 16, segregationists marched in New Orleans, which was broken
up by the police. By December, the riots had died down, and in July
1961, Victor Schiro became mayor, who obeyed the federal court's
decision and did not oppose desegregation.
Several candidates
from different groups competed in the gubernatorial election, and John
McKeithen, a little-known state official, won. He copied Earl Long in
many ways: he raised taxes and spent money on social projects, but did
not try to create a dictatorship. He resigned himself to the
inevitability of desegregation and formed a special commission to
resolve racial issues, thereby reducing racial unrest to a minimum. He
supported the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and even appointed some
blacks to important administrative positions. That same year, President
Lyndon Johnson visited New Orleans and called for harmonious race
relations. By 1971, 200,000 black children were attending integrated
schools. McKeithen was so popular that a special amendment to the
Constitution allowed him to run for a second term (1967-1970).
The state's population grew from 3.26 million in 1960 to 3.64 million in
1970, while the number of farmers decreased by a quarter, and they
became only 5% of the population. New Orleans residents began to move to
the suburbs, which led to a decrease in its population for the first
time in history. The city was left mostly poor, which reduced the income
of city authorities, and this worsened the work of city structures,
increased crime and pollution.
In 1965, Louisiana was hit by
Hurricane Betsy, which initially moved from Florida to North Carolina,
but suddenly turned south, passed through Miami, headed for Texas, and
on September 9, turned sharply north and passed through southwestern
Louisiana. The destruction was greater than from previous hurricanes in
1893 and 1915. By September 10, the hurricane had passed, but flooding
began. All together, it took the lives of 82 people and caused damage
worth $ 1 billion.
The 1971 election was again a multi-candidate affair, with many
candidates, including members of the Long family, and Edwin Edwards
narrowly defeating Republican David Treen, showing the growing
popularity of the Republican Party in the state. Edwards became as
colorful a figure as Huey Long had once been, and was able to win the
favor of the press. By that time, the 1921 Louisiana Constitution had
already become the worst in the country, so in 1973, at Edwards's
initiative, a constitutional convention was convened in Baton Rouge to
draft a new Constitution. It went into effect in January 1975. It was
short, specific, and clearly prohibited racial and sexual
discrimination.
Rising oil prices in the 1970s dramatically
increased state revenues. In 1974, the budget for the first time in
history was $1 billion, in 1978 - $3 billion, and in 1980 - $4 billion.
This allowed for increased spending on education, tourism, government
salaries, and a huge increase in health care. Despite this, the state
remained in last place in literacy rates and average income. In 1976,
Edwards easily won the election and became governor again. Under his
rule, blacks increasingly occupied positions in government and in the
Democratic Party, which in turn began to tilt the sympathies of the
white population toward the more conservative Republican Party. As a
result, in 1979, a Republican, Senator David Treen, won the
gubernatorial election for the first time.
Trine was a
disappointment to many of his supporters. One of his first laws required
that creationism be taught in schools along with evolutionism, which
irritated school teachers, and the U.S. Supreme Court in Edwards v.
Aguilar declared the law unconstitutional, violating the First
Amendment. In addition, under Treen, Louisiana hosted the 1984 World's
Fair, which was a failure, bankrupting many investors, and the state
lost $140 million. In 1983, Edwin Edwards decided to run for
re-election, and his bright personality and the support of African
Americans allowed him to win: on October 22, he became governor, the
first in history to be elected to a third term.
During his third
term, Edwards faced a severe economic crisis: overproduction of oil led
to a drop in prices for this product, which caused the state's revenues
to fall, and the governor did not have money for the promised programs.
He had to raise taxes, but there was still not enough money, and in
1983-1984, expenses exceeded revenues by $100 million. As a result,
Louisiana was in a severe economic depression for the next three years,
and Louisiana had the highest unemployment rate throughout the second
half of the 1980s. Edwards was forced to cut spending, but still could
not balance the budget. In addition, Edwards was faced with corruption
charges. Everything foreshadowed a difficult election campaign for him
in 1987. The election was held on October 24, and Charles Roemer, a
little-known state official, unexpectedly won.
Roemer took office in April 1987, when Louisiana was still in a
depression, had the highest unemployment rate in the country, and had a
growing foreign debt. Roemer had to cut spending on education, health
care, highway construction, and police. He managed to cut the budget
deficit in half. The opposition proposed legalizing casinos, but Roemer
wanted to reduce business taxes and raise taxes on individuals.
Nevertheless, in 1989-1990, he had to agree to legalization, and in
1991, the Louisiana Lottery opened. It added an additional $150 million
to the budget. At the same time, under Roemer, the Legislature banned
abortion, despite the dominance of pro-life Democrats. Roemer vetoed the
bill, the Assembly overrode it, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared the
law unconstitutional.
On November 16, 1991, the gubernatorial
election was held. Everyone was sure that Edwards would not be able to
win after three terms, but he managed to win the election again and
became governor for the fourth time. He managed to balance the budget,
but again he could not avoid corruption scandals. Overspending on the
Medicaid program was revealed, and after the legalization of casinos,
suspicions arose that officials were receiving money from the gambling
business. Disappointment in Edwards led to him refusing to run for
re-election in 1995, so the race was between Treen, Roemer and
Democratic Senator Michael Foster. Foster won, but at the same time, the
Republicans captured the majority in the House of Representatives for
the first time.
In the mid-1990s, the US Attorney's Office
obtained permission to install listening devices in the home of former
Governor Edwards, and the FBI searched his home, which resulted in
evidence of his involvement in corruption schemes. Prosecutors arrested
him and charged him with 26 felonies, the most serious of which were
extortion charges against casinos. In January 2000, a federal trial
began in Baton Rouge, and in January 2001, the court found Edwards
guilty, sentenced him to 10 years in prison, and ordered him to pay a
$250,000 fine. Edwards was released in 2010.
The economic crisis
of the 1980s led to a demographic crisis in the 1990s. The 1990 census
showed that the state's population had grown by only 13,000 people over
the decade, reaching 4,219,973. Due to migration, Louisiana lost almost
half a million people and one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The balance between blacks and whites changed, and the proportion of the
poor and elderly population increased. The state government remained the
largest employer, and the conservative takeover in 1995 meant that many
administrative positions would be cut. By 2000, the problems were the
same: Louisiana remained at the bottom of the list in education, health
care, economic activity, and quality of life. It was considered the
state with the worst air and water pollution. At the same time,
political scandals slightly improved the class of politicians, forced
some reforms, and brought a younger generation to power.
In the 2003 gubernatorial election, Louisiana's first female
governor, a Democrat, Kathleen Blanco, who had previously served as
lieutenant governor under Foster, won. She became quite popular in her
early years when she increased funding for education and health care. In
2004, for the first time since the Reconstruction era, a Republican
senator from Louisiana, David Vitter, entered the U.S. Senate. Vitter's
victory, in turn, helped George W. Bush win the 2004 presidential
election. Bush received 56% of the vote in Louisiana and won nine
electoral votes from the state.
In 2005, Louisiana experienced
the greatest tragedy in its history: Hurricane Katrina. It began as a
small cyclone in the western Atlantic and touched down in Florida on
August 25, although it caused minor damage. On August 26, Governor
Blanco declared a state of emergency. On August 27, the hurricane became
a Category 3 hurricane, and on August 28, a Category 5 hurricane, and
the evacuation of New Orleans began that same day, so that by the 29th,
a million people had been evacuated. On August 29, the hurricane passed
through New Orleans, damaged many houses and caused flooding, and the
water protection structures could not withstand the load. All
neighborhoods of the city were flooded, except for the French Quarter
(80%). In the state, 1.5 thousand people died, 250,000 houses were
destroyed. Many Louisianians, having lost their homes, left the state
forever. Many New Orleanians moved to other cities in the state, which
is why Baton Rouge became the largest city in the state for some time. A
month later, on September 24, the west of Louisiana was affected by the
second hurricane, Rita . The disaster affected the demographics of the
state: from 2000 to 2010, its population grew from 4,468,976 to
4,533,372 people, although natural growth should have increased the
population by 400,000 people. Because of this, Louisiana lost several
seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The hurricane strengthened
the position of Republicans in the state: Governor Blanco received a lot
of criticism because of the events during the hurricane and did not run
for re-election for a second term. Republican Robert Jindle (an
Indian-American) became governor in 2007, and many seats in the state
senate also went to Republicans. In 2011, Jindle was re-elected for a
second term. In the first years, the governor had enough funds
transferred to restore the state, but they gradually ran out, and after
2011, it was necessary to cut spending and privatize some of the state's
property. In the 2012 presidential election, Jindle supported Mitt
Romney, and he himself seemed like a strong candidate for the 2016
elections.
On April 20, 2010, Louisiana experienced a major
environmental disaster: the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling
station. About 5 million barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.
Despite the help of specialists from all over the world, the leak was
stopped only by June 15. The entire coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama suffered from pollution.
In the 2012 presidential
election, Republican Mitt Romney won in the state (57.8%), who received
the votes of eight electors from Louisiana. At the same vote, an
amendment to the state constitution was approved, expanding the rights
of gun owners.
In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump
won (58.1%), who received the votes of eight electors.
In the
2020 presidential election, Trump won again (58.5%) and received eight
electoral votes. Republican Bill Cassidy was re-elected to the U.S.
Senate from Louisiana. The same vote determined that the state
constitution does not recognize abortion as a human right and will not
protect that right.
The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of
Louisiana as of July 1, 2013 was 4,625,470, an increase of 2.0% since
the 2010 Census. The state's population density is 40.5 inhabitants per
square kilometer.
In July 2005, the estimated population in
Louisiana was 4,523,628, which represents an increase of 0.4% compared
to the previous year and an increase of 1.2% compared to the year 2000.
This includes a natural increase since the last census of 129,889 people
(i.e. 350,818 births minus 220,929 deaths) and a decrease due to net
migration of 69,373 people. Immigration from outside the United States
resulted in a net gain of 20,174 people, and migration within the
country resulted in a net loss of 89,547 people. The population center
(closest geographic point to all inhabitants, on average) of Louisiana
is located in the parish of Pointe Coupee in the city of New Roads.
Protestantism 59% - 2,831,563
Catholicism 26% - 1,247,807
Other
religions 2% - 95,985
No religion 13% - 623,903
Louisiana has a particular culture due to French and, to a lesser
extent, Spanish colonization. The most spoken languages today are
English and Spanish. As for the French dialect known as Cajun (from the
French term Acadien, which designated the settlers from the
French-Canadian colony of Acadia) it has been reduced today to 7% of
speakers, although there are initiatives by the state government to
promote its use by considering it as a hallmark of the state.
A
worse fate has befallen the vestigial Spanish, brought in the 18th
century by Canarian and Andalusian emigrants, which today has
practically disappeared. Spanish, however, is constantly growing in
number of speakers, due to Latin American immigration, especially
Mexican and Central American, particularly to the city of New Orleans.
Even so, French remains the most studied foreign language in the state's
schools.
The vast majority of the population is of the Christian
religion, of which 58% are from various Protestant groups and 26% are
from the Catholic Church, those of other religions are 2% and the
non-religious are 14% of the population.
Louisiana is known for
its music, particularly jazz, blues and Cajun music. Likewise, the
gospel hymn When the Saints Go Marching In is often associated with New
Orleans, although it is not native to the city.
Universities in
the state include Louisiana State University, Southeastern Louisiana
University and Tulane University.
The French colony of La Louisiane struggled for decades to survive.
Conditions were harsh, the climate and soil were unsuitable for certain
crops that the colonists were familiar with, and they suffered from
regional tropical diseases. Both the colonists and the slaves they
imported had high mortality rates. The colonists continued to import
slaves, which resulted in a high proportion of Africans native to West
Africa, who continued to practice their culture in the new environment.
As historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall describes, they developed a marked
Afro-Creole culture in the colonial era.
In the late 18th and
early 19th centuries, New Orleans received a large influx of white and
mixed-race refugees fleeing the violence of the Haitian Revolution, many
of whom brought their slaves with them, adding another infusion of
African culture. to the city, since in Saint-Domingue there were more
slaves from Africa than in the United States. They greatly influenced
the African-American culture of the city in terms of dance, music and
religious practices.
Louisiana currently has two major league sports teams: the New
Orleans Saints of the National Football League since 1967 and the New
Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association since 2002.
Previously, the New Orleans Buccaneers played in the ABA in the 1960s. ,
and the New Orleans Jazz the NBA in the 1970s.
In college sports,
the LSU Tigers of college football have won 11 Southeastern Conference
championships, six Sugar Bowls and three national championships.
Meanwhile, the Sugar Bowl is a postseason game played in New Orleans,
hosted by the champion of the Southeastern Conference.
New
Orleans has hosted seven editions of the Super Bowl, as well as the BCS
National Championship Game, the NBA All-Star Game and the NCAA Men's
Basketball Division I Championship.
The New Orleans Classic, a
POGA Tour golf tournament, has been played since 1938. NOLA Motorsports
Park is a road course that will host the IndyCar Series in 2014.