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Lower Louisiana

French colonial Louisiana
La Louisiane
District of New France

 

 

1682–1762


1802–1803

 

 

Flag Coat of arms
Flag of New France (until 1760) Coat of arms
Location of New France
New France before the Treaty of Utrecht.
Capital Mobile (1702–1720)
Biloxi (1720–1722)
Nouvelle Orleans (after 1722)
History
 •  Established 1682
 •  Split west to Spain 1762
 •  Split east to Great Britain 1763
 •  Returned by Spain 15 October 1802
 •  Louisiana Purchase 30 April 1803
 •  Transferred to the United States 20 December 1803
Political subdivisions Upper Louisiana;
Lower Louisiana

Louisiana (French: La Louisiane; by 1879 [?], La Louisiane française) or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. Under French control 1682 to 1762 and 1802 (nominally) to 1803, the area was named in honor of King Louis XIV, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. It originally covered an expansive territory that included most of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River and stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains.

Louisiana was divided into two regions, known as Upper Louisiana (French: la Haute-Louisiane), which began north of the Arkansas River, and Lower Louisiana (French: la Basse-Louisiane). The U.S. state of Louisiana is named for the historical region, although it occupies only a small portion of the vast lands claimed by the French.

Although French exploration of the area began during the reign of Louis XIV, French Louisiana was not greatly developed, due to a lack of human and financial resources. As a result of its defeat in the Seven Years' War, France was forced to cede the eastern part of the territory in 1763 to the victorious British, and the western part to Spain as compensation for that country's loss of Florida. France regained sovereignty of the western territory in the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800. But strained by obligations in Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte decided to sell the territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, ending France's presence in Louisiana.


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Wikipedia

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