History of Louisiana Timeline

President Thomas Jefferson's administration purchased Louisiana from France for $15 million, doubling the size of the United States and securing control of the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans.

Image source: Louisiana Purchase

Congress organized the southern portion of the Louisiana Purchase as the Territory of Orleans, establishing American civil law institutions while preserving elements of the region's French and Spanish legal heritage.

Image source: Territory of Orleans

Hundreds of enslaved people marched along the Mississippi River toward New Orleans in the largest slave revolt in American history. The uprising was violently suppressed by militia and federal troops within days.

Image source: 1811 German Coast uprising

General Andrew Jackson led American forces to a decisive victory over the British in the final major battle of the War of 1812, fought after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed but before news reached America. The triumph made Jackson a national hero.

Image source: Battle of New Orleans

The steamboat New Orleans arrived in the city of its name after the first successful steam voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, inaugurating the era of river commerce that fueled New Orleans' growth.

Image source: New Orleans (steamboat)

The Territory of Orleans entered the Union as the State of Louisiana, with its constitution blending Anglo-American political structures with the civil-law traditions inherited from France and Spain.

Image source: Louisiana

The state legislature moved the capital from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, where a Gothic Revival capitol building was completed in 1849, shifting political power away from the Crescent City.

Image source: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

A state convention voted overwhelmingly for secession following Abraham Lincoln's election, making Louisiana the sixth state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy.

Image source: Ordinance of Secession

Flag Officer David Farragut's fleet ran past Confederate forts guarding the river approaches and forced the surrender of New Orleans, the Confederacy's largest city and most important port.

Image source: Capture of New Orleans

A Union drive up the Red River aimed at capturing Shreveport and East Texas stalled amid battles at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, ending in retreat and leaving northern Louisiana under Confederate control until war's end.

Image source: Red River campaign

During Reconstruction, Louisiana ratified a new constitution granting voting rights to Black men and establishing integrated public schools, marking the start of a brief period of biracial democratic politics.

Image source: Constitution of Louisiana

White supremacists murdered dozens of Black militiamen in Colfax after a contested election, one of the deadliest incidents of racial violence during Reconstruction and a symbol of its violent collapse.

Image source: Colfax massacre

The withdrawal of federal troops as part of the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in Louisiana, opening the way for Jim Crow segregation, disenfranchisement, and decades of white Democratic rule.

Image source: Compromise of 1877

A new state constitution imposed literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses that effectively stripped most Black Louisianans of the right to vote, entrenching segregation for generations.

Image source: Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era

Huey P. Long won the governorship on a populist platform, launching massive road-building and education programs while consolidating unprecedented political power that transformed Louisiana politics.

Image source: Huey Long

Governor Huey Long championed the construction of the 34-story Art Deco skyscraper in Baton Rouge, then the tallest building in the South, symbolizing his modernizing ambitions for the state.

Image source: Louisiana State Capitol

Huey Long, by then a U.S. senator and prospective presidential candidate, was shot in the new State Capitol and died two days later, abruptly ending his Share Our Wealth movement.

New Orleans industrialist Andrew Higgins mass-produced landing craft used in every major amphibious assault of World War II, including Normandy, transforming the city into an industrial powerhouse.

Image source: Andrew Higgins

Hurricane Betsy flooded large parts of New Orleans and coastal parishes, prompting Congress to authorize the Lake Pontchartrain hurricane protection project that shaped flood defenses for decades.

Image source: Hurricane Betsy

Edwin Edwards began the first of four terms as governor, dominating Louisiana politics for two decades with a colorful, reform-minded, and often controversial career.

Image source: Edwin Edwards

Collapsing world oil prices triggered layoffs in the petroleum industry, a real estate crash, and severe budget crises across south Louisiana, reshaping the state's economic outlook.

Image source: 1980s oil glut

Katrina made landfall near Buras and overwhelmed New Orleans' levee system, flooding 80 percent of the city, killing more than 1,500 Louisianans, and displacing hundreds of thousands in the costliest disaster in U.S. history.

Image source: Hurricane Katrina

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig killed eleven workers and unleashed the largest marine oil spill in history, damaging Louisiana's fishing, tourism, and wetlands economies.

Image source: Deepwater Horizon oil spill