1719 to 1763
The arrivals.
An imagined installation
Who built the colony?
The arrivals
By the 1740s, most of the people counted in Louisiana were of African descent.
The first ships carrying enslaved Africans reached Louisiana in 1719. During the French period about 6,000 Africans were brought to the colony, about two-thirds of them from the Senegambia region, most in the 1720s. The Code Noir of 1724 set the laws that governed their lives.
A 1746 estimate counted about 3,200 whites and 4,730 people of African descent. By the early 1740s most enslaved people in lower Louisiana had been born in the colony. In the colony’s own language, a person born here, of European or African descent, was a Creole.
Inside the Record6 entries
1719First slave ships from Africa reach Louisiana1724Louisiana Code Noir issued1729Natchez attack Fort Rosalie1731Company of the Indies gives up Louisiana; slave trade nearly stops17461746 estimate: African-descended people outnumber whites1763About 200 free Black people at the end of French ruleNext chapter · 1764 to 1803