1763 - Spanish Louisiana
During the French and Indian War (1756–1763), King Carlos III of Spain supported his Bourbon cousin, Louis XV of France, only to lose important colonies in Cuba and the Floridas to the victorious British. Likewise, the French had lost their northern colony of Canada to Great Britain, so as partial compensation to Spain for its losses, France ceded the rest of its North American territory—Louisiana—to Spain with the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau, which was kept secret until France could negotiate peace with the British. The French preferred Louisiana to be under Spanish control than in the hands of Great Britain.
The history of the interior of Florida, a land stretching from the Georgia-Florida coast to the Mississippi River, formed part of the diplomacy between European powers, the United States, and the American Indians of the area. Although Europeans competed for many frontier areas in North America, the Mississippi River Valley and its adjacent territories became a focal point for control in the late 18th century.
pain governed the colony of Louisiana for nearly four decades, from 1763 through 1802, returning it to France for a few months until the Louisiana Purchase conveyed it to the United States in 1803. Under kings Carlos III and Carlos IV, the administration of Spain’s Atlantic empire was strengthened and improved through a number of policies called the Bourbon Reforms. In Louisiana the period began amid uncertainty and a major rebellion, but it ended with an unprecedented degree of prosperity. By disbursing large annual subsidies and employing competent administrators who were culturally sensitive to the colony’s French-speaking Creole population, the Spanish managed to accomplish what their French predecessors had never done—make Louisiana a relatively stable, growing outpost, even as the turbulent age of Atlantic revolutions unfolded.
The period was also marked by the dramatic expansion of slavery in the young colony. The unprecedented arrival of thousands of enslaved Africans, combined with Spain’s liberal manumission policies, contributed to the growth of a caste of free people of color. Many of them lived in New Orleans, which developed significantly during the Spanish period and was largely rebuilt in the wake of catastrophic fires in 1788 and 1794. Driving these demographic changes was the lower Mississippi Valley’s plantation economy, which accelerated in the mid-1790s as cotton and sugar replaced tobacco and indigo as the region’s major cash crops. Trade and credit connections multiplied—both upriver toward the expanding American West and downriver toward the Gulf—as New Orleans grew into a vital port integrated into the Atlantic economy. By the time Louisiana was sold (over Spanish objections) to the United States, it had been transformed from a sparsely settled military buffer zone into a dynamic commercial center.
The Spanish tenure at New Orleans was marked with the administration of a multi-ethnic frontier composed of Frenchmen, Cajuns (Acadian refugees from French Canada) and Métis, various Indian tribes, Anglo-Americans, and Black runaway slaves from the United States as well as Spaniards, Canary Islanders, and Caribbean Blacks who served in the Spanish army. The Spanish improved the commercial interests in Louisiana and rebuilt the wooden French Quarter with stone after it burned down in the middle 1790s.
The Cathedral, the Cabildo, the Plaza de Armas in present-day Jackson Square and other buildings in New Orleans represent the peak of Spanish colonial administration of the Mississippi Valley. Under provisions of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, New Orleans became part of the United States. In regard to its Spanish colonial heritage, the multi-cultural theme at Jean Lafitte Historical Park is ironically underscored by the fact that the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, during the War of 1812, took place on Juan Rodríguez's plantation. Rodriguez, a plantation owner, also traded in the Caribbean and, at one time, was an associate of Jean Lafitte.
Likewise, the Spanish occupation of San Luis de los Ilinueses (St. Louis) resulted in a history of diplomacy and commerce as the United States expanded toward the Mississippi. Arkansas Post, too, was part of a large Spanish trade network begun by French coureurs de bois among the many Indian tribes along the Mississippi-Missouri-Arkansas river drainages.
After France transferred Louisiana to Spain, the trading post continued to serve as a point of contact among the many Spanish Indian allies who cooperated to impede the Anglo-Americans and their Indian allies from advancing westward. After France transferred Louisiana to Spain, the trading post continued to serve as a point of contact among the many Spanish Indian allies who cooperated to impede the Anglo-Americans and their Indian allies from advancing westward.
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