Writing and Printing

History of Louisiana

The history of the area that is now the U.S. state of Louisiana, can be traced back thousands of years to when it was occupied by indigenous peoples. The first indications of permanent settlement, ushering in the Archaic period, appear about 5,500 years ago. The area that is now Louisiana formed part of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. The Marksville culture emerged about 2,000 years ago out of the earlier Tchefuncte culture. It is considered ancestral to the Natchez and Taensa peoples. Around the year 800 CE, 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 circa 1200 CE. The Mississippian culture mostly disappeared around the 16th century, with the exception of some Natchez communities that maintained Mississippian cultural practices into the 1700s. European influence began in the 1500s, and La Louisiane (named after Louis XIV of France) became a colony of the Kingdom of France in 1682, before passing to Spain in 1763. Louisiana became part of the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803. The U.S. would divide that area into two territories, the Territory of Orleans, which formed what would become the boundaries of Louisiana, and the District of Louisiana. Louisiana was admitted as the 18th state of the United States on April 30, 1812. The final major battle in the War of 1812, the Battle of New Orleans, was fought in Louisiana and resulted in a U.S. victory. Antebellum Louisiana was a leading slave state, where by 1860, 47% of the population was enslaved. Louisiana seceded from the Union on January 26, 1861, joining the Confederate States of America. New Orleans, the largest city in the entire South at the time, and strategically important port city, was taken by Union troops on April 25, 1862. After the defeat of the Confederate Army in 1865, Louisiana would enter the Reconstruction era (1865–1877). During Reconstruction, Louisiana was subject to U.S. Army occupation, as part of the Fifth Military District. Following Reconstruction in the 1870s, white Democrats had regained political control in the state. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional.

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸Francia
• ▸Brahmi script
• ▸Interior design

Uncatalogued shelf

Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.