History of Louisiana

The territory of Louisiana roughly 10,000 years ago; first traces of permanent settlement, ushering in the Archaic period, appear at about 5,500 years ago (Mound Builders).

The area formed part of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. The Marksville culture emerges about 2,000 years ago out of the earlier Tchefuncte culture. It is considered ancestral to the Natchez and Taensa peoples. About 1,000 years ago, the Mississippian culture emerged from the Woodland period. The emergence of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex coincides with the adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization beginning in c. 1200 CE. The Mississippian culture mostly disappeared before the 16th century, with the exception of some Natchez communities that maintained Mississippian cultural practices into the 18th century.

European influence begins in the 16th century, and La Louisiane (named for Louis XIV of France) became a colony of the Kingdom of France in 1682 and passed to Spain in 1763. It became part of the United States following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Antebellum Louisiana was a leading slave state; in 1860, 47% of the population was enslaved. Louisiana seceded from the Union (American Civil War) on 26 January 1861. New Orleans, the largest city in the entire South and strategically important as a port city, was taken by Federal troops on 25 April 1862. During the Reconstruction Era, Louisiana was part of the Fifth Military District. In 1898, the white Democratic, planter-dominated legislature passed a new disfranchising constitution, whose effect was immediate and long lasting. The disfranchisement of African Americans did not end until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

Louisiana

Louisiana (ⁱ/luːˌiːziˈænə/ or ⁱ/ˌluːziˈænə/; French: État de Louisiane, [lwizjan]; Louisiana Creole: Léta de la Lwizyàn) is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Louisiana is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are the local government's equivalent to counties. The largest parish by population is East Baton Rouge Parish, and the largest by land area is Plaquemines. Louisiana is bordered by Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, Texas to the west, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south.

Much of the state's lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh and swamp. These contain a rich southern biota; typical examples include birds such as ibis and egrets. There are also many species of tree frogs, and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish. In more elevated areas, fire is a natural process in the landscape, and has produced extensive areas of longleaf pine forest and wet savannas. These support an exceptionally large number of plant species, including many species of orchids and carnivorous plants.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (April 13 [O.S. April 2] 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father who was principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776). He was elected the second Vice President of the United States (1797–1801) and the third President (1801–09). Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, which motivated American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation. He produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national level.

Primarily of English ancestry, he was born and educated in Virginia. He graduated from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg and practiced law. During the American Revolution, he represented Virginia in the Continental Congress that adopted the Declaration, drafted the law for religious freedom as a Virginia legislator, and served as a wartime governor (1779–1781). He became the United States Minister to France in May 1785, and subsequently the nation's first Secretary of State in 1790–1793 under President George Washington. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the First Party System. In 1796, he was elected vice president. With Madison, he anonymously wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798–1799, which sought to embolden states' rights in opposition to the national government by nullifying the Alien and Sedition Acts.