Various Groups That Settled in Louisiana Colony

Various groups that settled in Louisiana Colony

French Settlers

- members of Iberville’s expedition – all men

o officers, soldiers, sailors, Canadians

o laborers and cabin boys

- laborers who could make maps or draw plans for the cities J. Law planned to build

- others came to work the land

o they were offered concessions (grants of land)

o these settlers offered contracts to laborers who were called engages (indentured servants) – these engages agreed to work for a certain # of years in exchange for a passage to LA.

- By 1708 there were 28 women and 25 children

- Prisoners were sent to LA – they were called forcats – this was not a favorable practice.

- Ursuline Nuns were talked into moving to LA to work in hospitals and educate young girls.

- Young marriageable girls were sent by the company – they were given a small trunk filled with clothing and the kinds of goods needed to establish a household. The trunks were called cassetts or caskets – the girls were then referred to as the ‘Casket girls’.

Native Americans

- they were bought or captured and used as enslaved workers

Hunters & Fur Trappers

- most were not counted as settlers by the French – they were called Coureurs de bois or runners of the woods

- the men who were willing to register with the French were called voyageurs

Germans

- 700 Germans fled to LA to escape war in their country (Germany)

- they settled on the western end of Lake Pontchartrain in an area named the German Coast

- they were farmers that supplied N.O. during the city’s early years

Africans

- many from the west coast of Africa where they were captured and sold into slavery

- they brought with them agricultural skills

- because of their knowledge of growing rice – rice became an important food source in the colony

- Bienville established the Code Noir (Black Code) o set of laws that regulated the behavior of slaves and laid out rules for their masters

Caribbean Islanders

- pirates that joined the expedition while it was in the Caribbean resupplying

Creole’s

- outnumbered the French-born colonist by the time France lost control of the colony

- the Creole’s had a French cultural identity so they remained loyal to France when Spain took control of the colony