History of slavery in Louisiana History of slavery in Louisiana Following Robert Cavelier de La Salle establishing the French claim to the territory and the introduction of the name "Louisiana", the first settlements in the southernmost portion of Louisiana (New France) were developed at present-day Biloxi (1699), Mobile (1702), Natchitoches (1714), and New Orleans (1718). Slavery was then established by European colonists. The institution was maintained by the Spanish (1763–1800) when the area was part of New Spain, by the French when they briefly reacquired the colony (1800-03), and by the United States following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Due to its complex history, Louisiana
History of St. Louis (1763–1803) service of Jean Francois Le Dee and Pierre Laclède to build trading posts in the Illinois Country. Fur trading was becoming a more lucrative profession and many more started to travel up the Mississippi River for the same reason. Shortly before the upriver departure of Laclède in August 1763, word arrived that France had ceded its territory on the east bank of the Mississippi to Great Britain according to the Treaty of Paris (1763), giving new significance to the trading posts on the west bank. The group led by Laclède included his young stepson Auguste Chouteau and roughly twenty boatmen