St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana Plantation House. Present-day St. John the Baptist Parish includes the third permanent settlement in what is now the state of Louisiana, after Natchitoches (1714) and New Orleans (1718). It was considered part of the German Coast http://www.gachgs.com/. The area was settled in the early 1720s by a group of German colonists. Many families established towns close to the Mississippi River in the areas now known as Lucy, Garyville, and Reserve. The area was under the French regime until 1763, when France ceded Louisiana to Spain after the Seven Years' War (the French and Indian War). At the beginning of the
France in the Seven Years' War the Spanish involvement did not provide the relief to the French that had been hoped. Instead French troops were needed to bolster Spanish efforts to invade Portugal, and became bogged down there. Spain also suffered defeats in Cuba and the Philippines in 1762, and by the end of the year both Spain and France were urgently seeking peace. France began asserting control over the Ohio Country as early as 1749, issuing warnings and threats to British colonial traders active in the region. When the French began constructing a series of forts in the Ohio River watershed in 1753, the British