French Louisiana French Louisiana The term French Louisiana refers to two distinct regions: Each term has been in use for many years. Colonial French Louisiana was a part of New France. Beginning in 1682 this region, known in French as "la Louisiane française", functioned as an administrative district of New France. It extended from the Gulf of Mexico to Vincennes, now in Indiana. France ceded the region to Spain and Britain in 1763 after the French and Indian War, regained it by treaty in 1800, and sold it to the United States in 1803 through the Louisiana Purchase. Greater New Orleans and
West Florida Controversy bear in mind that in the transfer [of Louisiana to the United States] the identical language was employed that had been used in 1800, so that the government of the United States was subrogated, in express terms, to the rights of France and of Spain. … The United States insisted that by the treaty of 1800 Spain ceded the disputed territory [of West Florida], as part of Louisiana, to France, and that France, in turn, in 1803, ceded it to the United States. Spain, with equal earnestness and persistence, maintained that her cession to France comprehended what was at that