An overview
The history of the present US state of Louisiana started about a thousand years ago when the indigenous people of the area inhabited it. The first permanent settlement is reported back to the archaic period,5500 years ago. People started inhabiting the Mississippi region around 800 ad, referred to as the woodland period. Other civilizations emerging around the same time included the Marksville and the tchefuncte cultures, which were ancestors of the people of Natchez and taensa.
Europeans started arriving in the late 1500s. It soon became a french colony and was named la Louisiane, after the french king Louis XIV. Spain then occupied Louisiana around the 1770s. The Us proposed the Louisiana purchase treaty in 1803, according to which the area would be divided into two territories, the Orlean territory, and the Louisiana district.
The united states won the battle of New Orleans against Europe, and Louisiana officially became the 18th state of the US ON 30th April 1812. However, the western Louisiana regions were in constant disputes with the Spanish texas till the ratification of the adam onis treaty of 1819.
Read also: what-year-was-the-louisiana-purase?
The purchase of Louisiana by the united states from the french government is considered the most incredible real estate deal in the entire history of humankind. After much bargaining, the US finally approved to pay 15 million dollars to France for the Louisiana territory.
The purchase happened in 1803, under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Louisiana was spread across 828000 square miles stretching from the rocky mountains to the Mississippi river and from the border of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
