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
Filipinos in the French military Filipinos in the French military In 1858, when the Philippines was a Spanish colony, France and Spain invaded Vietnam. A number of French troops involved in this campaign became casualties as a result of contracting illnesses such as cholera, dysentery, tropical diseases, and rickets. In order to deal with the manpower shortage which resulted from this situation, the French consul in Manila, the colonial capital of the Philippines, was given permission by the Spanish government to recruit nine hundred Indians, as Filipinos were then known, for the French navy and a sufficient number of men to form an infantry company