This is a list of the colonial governors of Louisiana, from the founding of the first settlement by the French in 1699 to the territory's acquisition by the United States in 1803.
The French and Spanish governors administered a territory which was much larger than the modern U.S. state of Louisiana, comprising Louisiana (New France) and Louisiana (New Spain), respectively. As part of the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso (1800), Spain retroceded Louisiana to the French Republic, but Spain continued to administer the territory until 1803 when French officials arrived shortly before the sale of Louisiana to the United States.
At the same time, there are parts of present-day Louisiana which were historically administered by other European powers, with the most prominent example being the area known as the Florida Parishes, north of Lake Pontchartrain and east of the Mississippi River. This territory was originally part of French Louisiana, but it was administered by the Kingdom of Great Britain from 1763 to 1783, following the British victory in the French and Indian War, and then by Spain from 1783 until the West Florida Revolt in 1810.
# | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Took office | Left office |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Sauvolle (1671–1701) | 1699 | 1701 (Died in office) | |
2 | Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville (1680–1767) | 1701 | 1713 | |
3 | Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac (1658–1730) | 1713 | 1716 | |
4 | Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville (1680–1767) | 1716 | 1717 | |
5 | Jean-Michel de Lepinay (c. 1665–1721) | 1717 | 1718 | |
6 | Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville (1680–1767) | 1718 | 1724 | |
7 | Pierre Dugué de Boisbriand (1675–1736) | 1724 | 1726 | |
8 | Étienne Perier (1686–1766) | 1726 | 1733 | |
9 | Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville (1680–1767) | 1733 | 1743 | |
10 | Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil-Cavagnial (1698–1778) | 1743 | 1753 | |
11 | Louis Billouart (1704–1770) | 1753 | 1763 | |
12 | Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie (1726–1765) | 1763 | 1765 (Died in office) | |
13 | Charles Philippe Aubry (c. 1720–1770) | 1765 | 1768 |
# | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Took office | Left office |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Antonio de Ulloa (1716–1795) | 1766 | 1768 | |
2 | Charles Philippe Aubry (c. 1720–1770) | 1768 | 1769 | |
3 | Alejandro O'Reilly (1722–1794) | 1769 | 1769 | |
4 | Luis de Unzaga (1721–1790) | 1770 | 1777 | |
5 | Bernardo de Gálvez (1746–1786) | 1777 | 1785 | |
6 | Esteban Rodríguez Miró (1744–1795) | 1785 | 1791 | |
7 | Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet (1748–1807) | 1791 | 1797 | |
8 | Manuel Gayoso de Lemos (1747–1799) | 1797 | 1799 | |
9 | Francisco Bouligny (1736–1800) | 1799 | 1799 | |
10 | Sebastián Calvo de la Puerta y O'Farrill (1751–1820) | 1799 | 1801 | |
— | Nicolás María Vidal (Acting Civil Governor) (1739–1806) | 1799 | 1801 | |
11 | Juan Manuel de Salcedo (1743–c. 1810) | 1801 | 1803 |
# | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Took office | Left office |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Pierre Clément de Laussat [a] (1756–1835) | 1803 | 1803 | |
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The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. This consisted of most of the land in the Mississippi River's drainage basin west of the river. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq mi now in the Central United States. However, France only controlled a small fraction of this area, most of which was inhabited by Native Americans; effectively, for the majority of the area, the United States bought the preemptive right to obtain Indian lands by treaty or by conquest, to the exclusion of other colonial powers.
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, Virginia, and more substantially with the founding of the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America.
West Florida was a region on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico that underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. As its name suggests, it was formed out of the western part of former Spanish Florida, along with lands taken from French Louisiana; Pensacola became West Florida's capital. The colony included about two thirds of what is now the Florida Panhandle, as well as parts of the modern U.S. states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
East Florida was a colony of Great Britain from 1763 to 1783 and a province of the Spanish Empire from 1783 to 1821. The British gained control over Spanish Florida in 1763 as part of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War. Deciding that the colony was too large to administer as a single unit, British officials divided Florida into two colonies separated by the Apalachicola River: the colony of East Florida, with its capital located in St. Augustine; and West Florida, with its capital located in Pensacola. East Florida was much larger and comprised the bulk of the former Spanish colony and most of the current state of Florida. It had also been the most populated region of Spanish Florida, but before control was transferred to Britain, most residents – including virtually everyone in St. Augustine – left the territory, with most migrating to Cuba.
Pinckney's Treaty, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of Madrid, was signed on October 27, 1795, by the United States and Spain.
The District of Louisiana, or Louisiana District, was an official and temporary United States government designation for the portion of the Louisiana Purchase that had not been organized into the Territory of Orleans or "Orleans Territory". The district officially existed from March 10, 1804, until July 4, 1805, when it was organized as the Louisiana Territory.
The Territory of Mississippi was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that was created under an organic act passed by both upper and lower chambers of the Congress of the United States, meeting at the United States Capitol on Capitol Hill, in the federal national capital city of Washington, D.C.. It was approved and signed into law by second President John Adams 1735-1826, served 1797-1801), on April 7, 1798.
Esteban Rodríguez Miró y Sabater, also known as Esteban Miro and Estevan Miro, was a Spanish army officer and governor of the Spanish American provinces of Louisiana and Florida.
The "Old Southwest" is an informal name for the southwestern frontier territories of the United States from the American Revolutionary War c. 1780, through the early 1800s, at which point the US had acquired the Louisiana Territory, pushing the southwestern frontier toward what is today known as the Southwest.
The Natchez District was one of two areas established in the Kingdom of Great Britain's West Florida colony during the 1770s – the other being the Tombigbee District. The first Anglo settlers in the district came primarily from other parts of British America. The district was recognized to be the area east of the Mississippi River from Bayou Sara in the south and Bayou Pierre in the north.
Louisiana or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. In 1682 the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle erected a cross near the mouth of the Mississippi River and claimed the whole of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River in the name of King Louis XIV, naming it "Louisiana". This land area stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. The area was under French control from 1682 to 1762 and in part from 1801 (nominally) to 1803.
The Republic of West Florida, officially the State of Florida, was a short-lived republic in the western region of Spanish West Florida for just over 2+1⁄2 months during 1810. It was annexed and occupied by the United States later in 1810; it subsequently became part of Eastern Louisiana.
The West Florida Controversy included two border disputes that involved Spain and the United States in relation to the region known as West Florida over a period of 37 years. The first dispute commenced immediately after Spain received the colonies of West and East Florida from the Kingdom of Great Britain following the American Revolutionary War. Initial disagreements were settled with Pinckney's Treaty of 1795.
Three Flags Day commemorates March 9, and 10, 1804, when Spain officially completed turning over the Louisiana colonial territory to France, which then officially turned over the same lands to the United States, in order to finalize the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
Louisiana, or the Province of Louisiana, was a province of New Spain from 1762 to 1801 primarily located in the center of North America encompassing the western basin of the Mississippi River plus New Orleans. The area had originally been claimed and controlled by France, which had named it La Louisiane in honor of King Louis XIV in 1682. Spain secretly acquired the territory from France near the end of the Seven Years' War by the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762). The actual transfer of authority was a slow process, and after Spain finally attempted to fully replace French authorities in New Orleans in 1767, French residents staged an uprising which the new Spanish colonial governor did not suppress until 1769. Spain also took possession of the trading post of St. Louis and all of Upper Louisiana in the late 1760s, though there was little Spanish presence in the wide expanses of what they called the "Illinois Country".
Feliciana Parish, or New Feliciana, French: Paroisse de Félicianne, was a parish of the Territory of Orleans and the state of Louisiana, formed in 1810 from West Florida territory. Given an increase in population, it was divided in 1824 into East Feliciana Parish and West Feliciana Parish.
British West Florida was a colony of the Kingdom of Great Britain from 1763 until 1783, when it was ceded to Spain as part of the Peace of Paris.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the U.S. state of Louisiana:
Spanish West Florida was a province of the Spanish Empire from 1783 until 1821, when both it and East Florida were ceded to the United States.
The Patriot War was an attempt in 1812 to foment a rebellion in Spanish East Florida with the intent of annexing the province to the United States. The invasion and occupation of parts of East Florida had elements of filibustering, but was also supported by units of the United States Army, Navy and Marines, and by militia from Georgia and Tennessee. The rebellion was instigated by General George Mathews, who had been commissioned by United States President James Madison to accept any offer from local authorities to deliver any part of the Floridas to the United States, and to prevent the reoccupation of the Floridas by Great Britain. The rebellion was supported by the Patriot Army, which consisted primarily of citizens of Georgia. The Patriot Army, with the aid of U.S. Navy gunboats, was able to occupy Fernandina and parts of northeast Florida, but never gathered enough strength to attack St. Augustine. United States Army troops and Marines were later stationed in Florida in support of the Patriots. The occupation of parts of Florida lasted over a year, but after United States military units were withdrawn and Seminoles entered the conflict, the Patriots dissolved.