Louisiana

The "Louisiana Territory" claimed by France during the colonial era was the entire Mississippi Valley. Just before accepting defeat in its imperial struggle with Great Britain in North America, France gave Spain (by the first secret treaty of San Ildefonso, 1762) all its claims west of the Mississippi and the "Isle of Orleans." The latter comprised the town of New Orleans and the surrounding area east of the Mississippi bounded on the north by Bayou Manchac and the chain of lakes. In the treaty of 1763 ending the Seven Years' War, Britain received France's claim to all of the Louisiana Territory east of the Mississippi, including West Florida but excluding the Isle of Orleans, which the French pretended still to want but which they immediately turned over to Spain in accordance with the secret treaty.

During the Revolution, New Orleans was first a source of covert Spanish logistical support for the colonists. After Spain's declaration of war on Great Britain, it was a base for Governor de Galvez's expeditions to capture British posts up the Mississippi to Natchez and along the Gulf of Mexico to Pensacola. All this was to strengthen Spain's subsequent claim to much more of "West Florida" than even the most enthusiastic Spaniard could have hoped to get. (Subsequent events are traced briefly in the introduction to the section on alabama.)

In addition to colonial sites in Baton Rouge and New Orleans (covered below separately), there are several sites of historical interest in other parts of Louisiana. In the present village of Phoenix, on the left bank of the Mississippi on State Highway 39, some 38 miles below New Orleans, is the site of Fort Iberville (1700), also known as Fort de la Boulaye, in Plaquemines Parish. In the American Cemetery in Natchitoches, head of navigation of the Red River, the site of the ruins of Fort Saint-Jean Baptiste (1714) is a State Historic Site. After painstaking archaeological work, the state turned the site into a replica of the original fort. Fort Saint-Jean Baptiste State Historic Site features a church, a trading warehouse, a powder magazine, slave quarters, the commandant's house, barracks, a guardhouse, bastions, and assorted huts. Phone: (318) 356-5555. Near Robeline is a historic park preserving the site of the Presidio de Nuestra Señora del Pillar de Los Adais, built in 1721 to protect Spanish territory from the French and capital of the province of Texas until 1773.

The Louisiana Office of Tourism offers free travel brochures and roadmaps, which are obtainable from its helpful website, www.louisianatravel.com, or by calling (225) 342-8100. The Louisiana Historical Association is located in Lafayette. Phone: (337) 482-6027.

Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge, Mississippi River. One of the earliest French settlements in the Mississippi Valley, Baton Rouge was a link in the chain of posts along the river from New Orleans to Natchez. Its military importance was overshadowed by Fort Manchac, a few miles downstream, but Baton Rouge was a major trading post and depot. As part of West Florida it passed to the British in 1763, then to the Spanish twenty years later. Spanish rule was overthrown and the Spanish governor killed in a local uprising in September 1810, when the lone-star flag of the Republic of West Florida was raised over Fort San Carlos. About a month later the United States formally declared West Florida to be United States territory as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Under the sixth flag in the history of Baton Rouge to that date (to come were two more, during the Civil War), a major military post of the United States was established. It was maintained, with a temporary change in management in 1861 to 1862, until 1879. By 1825 the Pentagon Buildings and an arsenal had been completed on the site of Fort San Carlos. After Louisiana State University was given the land by the federal government in 1902 the Pentagon Buildings were converted into dormitories, then into apartment houses when the university moved to its present location in the southern part of the city. A marble tablet on Building D of the Pentagon Buildings is inscribed: "On this site stood the Spanish fort captured by the Republic of West Florida, September 23, 1810." The Old Arsenal Museum is nearby on the grounds of the Huey Long State Capitol skyscraper. Phone: (225) 342-0401.

New Orleans

New Orleans. Controlling the mouth of the Mississippi River, although more than 100 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans soon became the capital of French Louisiana. (The capital was at Mobile, Alabama, then Biloxi, Mississippi, before being established in New Orleans in 1723.) The town had been founded in 1718 by Jean Baptiste Lemoyne, Sieur de Bienville, and it was a sorry place of about one hundred hovels in a malarious patch of swampy ground. In the early years of the American Revolution New Orleans was an important source of supplies for the Patriot cause. The remarkable Oliver Pollock (c. 1737–1823) had the covert help of Spanish authorities in sending gunpowder and other items first to Fort Pitt, and later to George Rogers Clark in the Old Northwest.

Pollock's supply role became less critical when the French and Spanish allied themselves openly with America (in May 1778 and June 1779, respectively), but in July 1779 he raised $300,000 by mortgaging his private property to buy supplies for the colonists. Prior to this he had forwarded $70,000 worth of supplies on his own credit. After the Revolution, Pollock spent eighteen months in custody for failure to satisfy his creditors. After being repaid by state and United States authorities, he left New Orleans to end his long life in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

Of architectural interest are Casa Hove, 723 Toulouse Street, and Madame John's Legacy, 632 Dumaine Street, both dating from the 1720s and vying for distinction as the oldest house in the Mississippi Valley. (A fire destroyed most of the city in 1788.) Part of the original Ursuline Convent, completed in 1734, is preserved in the rectory of St. Mary's Italian Church. The Place D'Armes, transformed in 1856 from a dusty parade ground into the garden park called (Andrew) Jackson Square, is faced by the Basilica of St. Louis (1794) and the Cabildo (1795). Both are the third structures on the same site.

Rampart Street's name comes from the ramparts between Forts St. Jean and Bourgogne, between Barracks and Iberville Streets. Fort St. Ferdinand was built during the Spanish occupation in what is now Beauregard (originally Congo) Square. These and other fortifications were destroyed in 1803 to eradicate suspected causes of the periodic epidemics of yellow fever that swept this subtropical metropolis. On Lake Pontchartrain at the mouth of Bayou St. John are the foundations of Spanish Fort, the first fort in the immediate area of New Orleans. Only a redoubt at first, it was enlarged by the Spanish as a brick structure and garrisoned by Andrew Jackson's troops in the War of 1812.

Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve focuses attention on the the multiracial culture of eighteenth-century New Orleans. The visitors center, located in the Customs House in the old French Quarter, offers films on the various cultures that created New Orleans, as well as programs on folklore and traditional crafts. The park also includes three Acadian Cultural Centers that examine the Acadians who settled this region in the eighteenth century, including the famous smuggler and pirate Jean Lafitte; the Barataria Unit, which seeks to preserve what is left of the ecology and wildlife of the bayous; and the Chalmette Battlefield, celebrating the United States victory over the British in the War of 1812. The Faubourg Promenade Walk takes the visitor through the historic Garden District as well as to the "City of the Dead" in St. Louis Cemetery. These tours require reservations; phone: (504) 589-2326.

Start at the visitors center, which is down a passageway behind the French Market on the 900 block of Decatur Street. Phone: (504) 589-3882; http://www.nps.gov/jela/.

The Jackson Barracks Military Museum, 6400 St. Claude Avenue, contains weapons, uniforms, and other military items from the Revolutionary War. Phone: (504) 278-8242.