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and its largest city is New Orleans<\/a>.<\/p>\n Louisiana became the eighteenth U.S. state on April 30, 1812<\/p>\n Louisiana was named after Louis XIV, King of France from<\/a> 1643 to 1715. \u00a0When Ren\u00e9-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle<\/a> claimed the territory drained by the Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane.\u00a0\u00a0 Roughly, Louis + ana carries the idea of “related to Louis.” \u00a0Once part of the French Colonial Empire, the Louisiana Territory stretched from present-day Mobile Bay to just north of the present-day Canada\u2013United States border, including a small part of what is now the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n Louisiana is bordered to the west by Texas; to the north by Arkansas; to the east by Mississippi; and to the south by the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n The state may properly be divided into two parts, the uplands of the north, and the alluvial along the coast.<\/p>\n The alluvial region includes low swamp lands, coastal marshlands and beaches, and barrier islands that cover about 20,000 square miles. \u00a0This area lies principally along the Gulf of Mexico<\/a> and the Mississippi River<\/a>, which traverses the state from north to south for a distance of about 600 miles and empties into the Gulf of Mexico; the Red River<\/a>; the Ouachita River<\/a> and its branches; and other minor streams.<\/p>\n The breadth of the alluvial region along the Mississippi is from 10 to 60 miles, and along the other rivers, the alluvial region averages about 10 miles across. \u00a0The Mississippi River flows along a ridge formed by its own natural deposits.<\/p>\n The higher and contiguous hill lands of the north and northwestern part of the state have an area of more than 25,000 square miles. \u00a0They consist of prairie and woodlands. \u00a0The elevations above sea level range from 10 feet at the coast and swamp lands to 50 and 60 feet at the prairie and alluvial lands. \u00a0In the uplands and hills, the elevations rise to Driskill Mountain, the highest point in the state at only 535 feet above sea level.<\/p>\n The southern coast of Louisiana in the United States is among the fastest-disappearing areas in the world. \u00a0This has largely resulted from human mismanagement of the coast.\u00a0 Artificial levees block spring flood water that would bring fresh water and sediment to marshes. \u00a0Swamps have been extensively logged, leaving canals and ditches that allow saline water to move inland. \u00a0Canals dug for the oil and gas industry also allow storms to move sea water inland, where it damages swamps and marshes. \u00a0Rising sea waters have exacerbated the problem. \u00a0Some researchers estimate that the state is losing a land mass equivalent to 30 football fields every day. \u00a0There are many proposals to save coastal areas by reducing human damage, including restoring natural floods from the Mississippi. \u00a0Without such restoration, coastal communities will continue to disappear.\u00a0 And as the communities disappear, more and more people are leaving the region.\u00a0 Since the coastal wetlands support an economically important coastal fishery, the loss of wetlands is adversely affecting this industry.<\/p>\n Louisiana was inhabited by Native Americans for many millennia before the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century. \u00a0Excavated and dated sites stretch from approximately 3500 BC into the arrival of the first Europeans.\u00a0 Multiple cultures succeeded one another, including cultures that had trading links that stretched as far north as the Hopewell cultures in present-day Ohio.\u00a0 Those interested in detailed information regarding the early Native American societies and cultures of Louisiana are encouraged to investigate further.<\/p>\n By 1000 in the northwestern part of the state, the Fourche Maline<\/a> culture had evolved into the Caddoan Mississippian<\/a> culture. \u00a0The Caddoan Mississippians occupied a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeast Texas, and northwest Louisiana. \u00a0Archaeological evidence has demonstrated that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present. \u00a0The Caddo and related Caddo-language speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact were the direct ancestors of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma of today.\u00a0 Significant Caddoan Mississippian archaeological sites in Louisiana include Belcher Mound Site in Caddo Parish<\/a> and Gahagan Mounds Site in Red River Parish<\/a>.<\/p>\n The first European explorers to visit Louisiana came in 1528 when a Spanish expedition led by P\u00e1nfilo de Narv\u00e1ez<\/a> located the mouth of the Mississippi River. \u00a0In 1542, Hernando de Soto<\/a>‘s expedition skirted to the north and west of the state (encountering Caddo and Tunica groups) and then followed the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico in 1543. \u00a0Spanish interest in Louisiana faded away for a century and a half.<\/p>\n In the late 17th century, French and French Canadian expeditions established a foothold on the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast. \u00a0With its first settlements, France laid claim to a vast region of North America and set out to establish a commercial empire and French nation stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.<\/p>\n In 1682, the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle named the region Louisiana to honor King Louis XIV of France. \u00a0The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas<\/a> (at what is now Ocean Springs, Mississippi, near Biloxi), was founded in 1699 by Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville<\/a>, a French military officer from Canada. \u00a0By then the French had also built a small fort at the mouth of the Mississippi at a settlement they named La Balise<\/a> (or La Balize). \u00a0By 1721 they built a 62-foot wooden lighthouse-type structure here to guide ships on the river.<\/p>\n The settlement of Natchitoches<\/a> (along the Red River in present-day northwest Louisiana) was established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis<\/a>, making it the oldest permanent European settlement in the modern state of Louisiana. \u00a0The French settlement had two purposes: to establish trade with the Spanish in Texas via the Old San Antonio Road, and to deter Spanish advances into Louisiana. \u00a0The settlement soon became a flourishing river port and crossroads, giving rise to vast cotton kingdoms along the river that were worked by imported African slaves. \u00a0Over time, planters developed large plantations and built fine homes in a growing town. \u00a0This became a pattern repeated in New Orleans and other places, although the commodity crop in the south was primarily sugar cane.<\/p>\n Louisiana’s French settlements contributed to further exploration and outposts, concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries, from Louisiana to as far north as the region called the Illinois Country, around present-day St. Louis, Missouri<\/a>. \u00a0The latter was settled by French colonists from Illinois.<\/p>\n Initially, Mobile<\/a> and then Biloxi<\/a> served as the capital of La Louisiane. \u00a0Recognizing the importance of the Mississippi River to trade and military interests, and wanting to protect the capital from severe coastal storms, France developed New Orleans from 1722 as the seat of civilian and military authority south of the Great Lakes. \u00a0From then until the United States acquired the territory in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803<\/a>, France and Spain jockeyed for control of New Orleans and the lands west of the Mississippi.<\/p>\n France ceded most of its territory to the east of the Mississippi to Great Britain in 1763, in the aftermath of Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War<\/a> (generally referred to in North America as the French and Indian War). \u00a0The rest of Louisiana, including the area around New Orleans and the parishes around Lake Pontchartrain<\/a>, had become a colony of Spain by the Treaty of Fontainebleau<\/a> (1762).<\/p>\n In 1765, during Spanish rule, several thousand French-speaking refugees from the region of Acadia<\/a> (now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, Canada) made their way to Louisiana after having been expelled from their homelands by the British during the French and Indian War. They settled chiefly in the southwestern Louisiana region now called Acadiana<\/a>. The Spanish, eager to gain more Catholic settlers, welcomed the Acadian refugees, the ancestors of Louisiana’s Cajuns<\/a>.<\/p>\n Spanish Canary Islanders, called Isle\u00f1os, emigrated from the Canary Islands<\/a> of Spain to Louisiana under the Spanish crown between 1778 and 1783.<\/p>\n In 1800, France’s Napoleon Bonaparte<\/a> reacquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso<\/a>, an arrangement kept secret for two years.<\/p>\n When the United States won its independence from Great Britain in 1783, one of its major concerns was having a European power on its western boundary, and the need for unrestricted access to the Mississippi River. \u00a0As American settlers pushed west, they found that the Appalachian Mountains provided a barrier to shipping goods eastward. The easiest way to ship produce was to use a flatboat to float it down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the port of New Orleans, where goods could be put on ocean-going vessels. \u00a0The problem with this route was that the Spanish owned both sides of the Mississippi below Natchez<\/a>.<\/p>\n Napoleon’s ambitions in Louisiana involved the creation of a new empire centered on the Caribbean sugar trade. \u00a0By the terms of the Treaty of Amiens of 1802<\/a>, Great Britain returned ownership of the islands of Martinique<\/a> and Guadeloupe<\/a> to the French. \u00a0Napoleon looked upon Louisiana as a depot for these sugar islands, and as a buffer to U.S. settlement. \u00a0In October 1801 he sent a large military force to take back Saint-Domingue<\/a> (later-day Haiti<\/a>), then under control of Toussaint Louverture<\/a> after a slave rebellion.<\/p>\n When the army led by Napoleon’s brother-in-law Leclerc<\/a> was defeated, Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana.<\/p>\n Thomas Jefferson<\/a>, third President of the United States, was disturbed by Napoleon’s plans to re-establish French colonies in America. \u00a0With the possession of New Orleans, Napoleon could close the Mississippi to U.S. commerce at any time. \u00a0Jefferson authorized Robert R. Livingston, U.S. Minister to France<\/a>, to negotiate for the purchase of the City of New Orleans, portions of the east bank of the Mississippi, and free navigation of the river for U.S. commerce. Livingston was authorized to pay up to $2 million.<\/p>\n On October 18, 1802, however, Juan Ventura Morales, Acting Intendant of Louisiana<\/a>, made public the intention of Spain to revoke the right of deposit at New Orleans for all cargo from the United States. \u00a0The closure of this vital port to the United States caused anger and consternation. \u00a0Commerce in the west was virtually blockaded. \u00a0President Jefferson ignored public pressure for war with France, and appointed James Monroe<\/a> a special envoy to Napoleon, to assist in obtaining New Orleans for the United States. \u00a0Jefferson also raised the authorized expenditure to $10 million.<\/p>\n However, on April 11, 1803, French Foreign Minister Talleyrand<\/a> surprised Livingston by asking how much the United States was prepared to pay for the entirety of Louisiana, not just New Orleans and the surrounding area. \u00a0Monroe agreed with Livingston that Napoleon might withdraw this offer at any time, and that approval from President Jefferson might take months, so Livingston and Monroe decided to open negotiations immediately. \u00a0By April 30, they closed a deal for the purchase of the entire Louisiana territory of 828,000 square miles for 60 million Francs (approximately $15 million).<\/p>\n When news of the purchase reached the United States, Jefferson was surprised. \u00a0He had authorized the expenditure of $10 million for a port city, and instead received treaties committing the government to spend $15 million on a land package which would double the size of the country. \u00a0Jefferson’s political opponents in the Federalist Party argued the Louisiana purchase was a worthless desert, and that the Constitution did not provide for the acquisition of new land or negotiating treaties without the consent of the Senate. \u00a0What really worried the opposition was the new states which would inevitably be carved from the Louisiana territory, strengthening Western and Southern interests in Congress, and further reducing the influence of New England Federalists<\/a> in national affairs. \u00a0President Jefferson was an enthusiastic supporter of westward expansion, and held firm in his support for the treaty. \u00a0Despite Federalist objections, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana treaty on October 20, 1803.<\/p>\n The Louisiana Territory, purchased for less than 3 cents an acre, doubled the size of the United States overnight, without a war or the loss of a single American life, and set a precedent for the purchase of territory. It opened the way for the eventual expansion of the United States across the continent to the Pacific.<\/p>\n Louisiana became the eighteenth U.S. state on April 30, 1812.<\/p>\n The strong economic interest of elite whites in maintaining the slave society contributed to Louisiana’s decision to secede from the Union in January 26, 1861.\u00a0 It followed other Southern states in seceding after the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. \u00a0Louisiana’s secession was announced on January 26, 1861, and it became part of the Confederate States of America.<\/p>\n The state was quickly defeated in the Civil War, a result of Union strategy to cut the Confederacy in two by seizing the Mississippi. \u00a0Federal troops captured New Orleans on April 25, 1862. \u00a0Because a large part of the population had Union sympathies (or compatible commercial interests), the Federal government took the unusual step of designating the areas of Louisiana under Federal control as a state within the Union, with its own elected representatives to the U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n Mobilization for World War II created jobs in the state. \u00a0But thousands of other workers, black and white alike, migrated to California for better jobs in its burgeoning defense industry. \u00a0Many African Americans left the state in the Second Great Migration<\/a>, from the 1940s through the 1960s to escape social oppression and seek better jobs. \u00a0The mechanization of agriculture in the 1930s had sharply cut the need for laborers. \u00a0They sought skilled jobs in the defense industry in California, better education for their children, and living in communities where they could vote.<\/p>\n On May 21, 1919, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution<\/a>, giving women full rights to vote, was passed at a national level, and was made the law throughout the United States on August 18, 1920. \u00a0Louisiana finally ratified the amendment on June 11, 1970.<\/p>\n Due to its location on the Gulf Coast, Louisiana has regularly suffered the effects of tropical storms and damaging hurricanes. \u00a0In August 2005, New Orleans and many other low-lying parts of the state along the Gulf of Mexico were hit by the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina<\/a>. \u00a0It caused widespread damage due to breaching of levees and large-scale flooding of more than 80% of the city. \u00a0Officials had issued warnings to evacuate the city and nearby areas, but tens of thousands of people, mostly African Americans, stayed behind, many of them stranded. \u00a0Many people died and survivors suffered through the damage of the widespread floodwaters.<\/p>\n The total gross state product in 2010 for Louisiana was US$213.6 billion, placing it 24th in the nation. \u00a0Its per capita personal income is $30,952, ranking 41st in the United States.<\/p>\n The state’s principal agricultural products include seafood (it is the biggest producer of crawfish<\/a> in the world, supplying approximately 90%), cotton, soybeans, cattle, sugarcane, poultry and eggs, dairy products, and rice. \u00a0Industry generates chemical products, petroleum and coal products, processed foods and transportation equipment, and paper products. \u00a0Tourism is an important element in the economy, especially in the New Orleans area earning an estimated $5.2 billion per year.<\/p>\n The Port of South Louisiana<\/a>, located on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is the largest volume shipping port in the Western Hemisphere and 4th largest in the world, as well as the largest bulk cargo port in the world.<\/p>\n Major roadways in Louisiana include: I-10<\/a>, I\u201112<\/a>, I-20<\/a>, I-49<\/a>, I-55<\/a>, I-59<\/a>, future\u00a0 I-69<\/a>.\u00a0 There are multiple spurs and loops associated with these main arteries.\u00a0 There are also approximately 16 fignificant United States highways in Louisiana: US 11, US 51, US 61, US 63, US 65, US 165, US 167, US 71, US 171, US 371, US 79, US 80, US 84, US 90, US 190, US 425.<\/p>\n The Intracoastal Waterway<\/a> is an important means of transporting commercial goods such as petroleum and petroleum products, agricultural produce, building materials and manufactured goods.<\/p>\n Three Amtrak routes serve Louisiana: City of New Orleans<\/a>, Sunset Limited<\/a>, and the Crescent<\/a>.<\/p>\n Major airports in Louisiana include: Alexandria International Airport<\/a>, Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport<\/a>, Lafayette Regional Airport<\/a>, Lake Charles Regional Airport<\/a>, Monroe Regional Airport<\/a>, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport<\/a>, and Shreveport Regional Airport<\/a>.<\/p>\n The flag of Louisiana consists of a “pelican in her piety,” the heraldic charge representing a mother pelican “in her nest feeding her young with her blood, on an azure field with the state motto reworded to “Union Justice Confidence.” \u00a0This version of the flag was first adopted in 1912 and it was last modified in 2006.<\/p>\n Prior to 1861, the state of Louisiana had no official flag, though a flag similar to the present one was often used unofficially.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/09\/New-Orleans-300x197.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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Geography:<\/h2>\n
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History:<\/h2>\n
Native American Cultures:<\/h3>\n
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European Exploration and Colonization:<\/h3>\n
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Louisiana Purchase:<\/h3>\n
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Statehood:<\/h3>\n
Secession and the Civil War:<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nModern Times:<\/h3>\n
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Economy:<\/h2>\n
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Transportation:<\/h2>\n
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Flag of Louisiana:<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\n
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