129-682: Miamisburg Mound is a conical Native American Mound in Miamisburg , Ohio . At 65 feet (20 m) tall and 800 feet (240 m) in circumference, it is the largest burial mound in the Eastern United States . Built atop a hill overlooking the Miami River , it is believed to have been built by the Adena Culture between 800BC and 100AD. An excavation in 1869 unearthed several skeletons surrounded by clay and charcoal and
258-482: A lost race that had inhabited America even before the Native Americans. This idea is now referred to as the "mound builder myth" and still has supporters in society today. The book grew in popularity because of Priest's views on Native Americans. "It tapped into the widely accepted view of those times that Native Americans were merely bloodthirsty savages, bent on the destruction of all but their own race. It
387-682: A slave rebellion that started during the French Revolution of Saint-Domingue in 1791. Over the next decade, thousands of refugees landed in Louisiana from the island, including Europeans, Creoles, and Africans, some of the latter brought in by each free group. They greatly increased the French-speaking population in New Orleans and Louisiana, as well as the number of Africans, and the slaves reinforced African culture in
516-465: A "sister culture" of the Mississippian horizon, or one of the "Mississippianised" cultures adjacent to the main area of the mound building cultures. This culture was also mostly extinct in the 17th century, but remnants may have survived into the first half of the 18th century. While this culture shows strong Mississippian influences, its bearers were most likely ethnolinguistically distinct from
645-618: A Spanish expedition led by Pánfilo de Narváez located the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1542, Hernando de Soto 's expedition skirted to the north and west of the state (encountering Caddo and Tunica groups) and then followed the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico in 1543. Spanish interest in Louisiana faded away for a century and a half. In the late 17th century, French and French Canadian expeditions, which included sovereign, religious and commercial aims, established
774-562: A collection of ceremonial goods, including pipes and animal effigies. Charles F. Kettering bought the mound and turned it into a park in 1920. It was turned over to the Ohio Historical Society for preservation in 1929. The site is managed locally by the city of Miamisburg. Stairs have been built allowing access to the top of the mound and providing impressive views of the Dayton area . Mound Laboratories , originally part of
903-535: A continuation of site usage. During the Terminal Coles Creek period (1150 to 1250 CE), contact increased with Mississippian cultures centered upriver near the future St. Louis, Missouri . This resulted in the adaption of new pottery techniques , as well as new ceremonial objects and possibly new social patterns during the Plaquemine period. As more Mississippian cultural influences were absorbed,
1032-584: A first-hand description in his Historia de la Florida (published in 1605, Lisbon, as La Florida del Inca ) describing how the Indians had built mounds and how the Native American mound cultures practiced their traditional way of life. De la Vega's accounts also include vital details about the Native American tribes' systems of government present in the southeast, tribal territories, and the construction of mounds and temples. A few French expeditions in
1161-551: A foothold on the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast. With its first settlements, France laid claim to a vast region of North America and set out to establish a commercial empire and French nation stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. In 1682, the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle named the region Louisiana to honor King Louis XIV of France. The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas (now Ocean Springs, Mississippi ),
1290-587: A formation of 11 mounds from 3 feet (0.91 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m) tall, connected by ridges to form an oval nearly 900 feet (270 m) across. In the Americas, the building of complex earthwork mounds started at an early date, well before the pyramids of Egypt were constructed. Watson Brake was being constructed nearly 2,000 years before the better-known Poverty Point , and the building continued for 500 years. Middle Archaic mound construction seems to have ceased about 2800 BCE. Scholars have not ascertained
1419-558: A growing town. This became a pattern repeated in New Orleans and other places, although the commodity crop in the south was primarily sugar cane. Louisiana's French settlements contributed to further exploration and outposts, concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries, from Louisiana to as far north as the region called the Illinois Country , around present-day St. Louis, Missouri . The latter
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#17327727612371548-438: A hunter-gatherer culture, rather than a more settled culture based on agricultural surpluses. The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure is Monks Mound at Cahokia , near present-day Collinsville, Illinois . This community was the center of the Mississippian culture. This mound appears to have been the main ceremonial and residential mound for the religious and political leaders; it is more than 100 feet (30 m) tall and
1677-406: A hunter-gatherer society, the people of which occupied this area only on a seasonal basis. Successive generations organized to build the complex mounds over 500 years. Their food consisted mostly of fish and deer, as well as available plants. Poverty Point, built about 1500 BCE in what is now Louisiana, is a prominent example of Late Archaic mound-builder construction (around 2500 BCE – 1000 BCE). It
1806-578: A representation of a man in flowing robes. When translated, once again by McCarty, the inscription was found to include the entire Ten Commandments , and the robed figure was identified as Moses . Naturally enough, it became known as the Decalogue Stone . Rather than being found beneath only a foot or two of soil, the Decalogue Stone was claimed to have been buried beneath a forty-foot-tall stone mound. Instead of modern Hebrew typography,
1935-505: A rich southern biota , including birds such as ibises and egrets , many species of tree frogs —such as the state-recognized American green tree frog —and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish . More elevated areas, particularly in the north, contain a wide variety of ecosystems such as tallgrass prairie , longleaf pine forest and wet savannas ; these support an exceptionally large number of plant species, including many species of terrestrial orchids and carnivorous plants . Over half
2064-473: A single moment. Never dried, never froze, never slept, never rested. The antiquarian author William Pidgeon in 1858 created fraudulent surveys of mound groups that did not exist. Beginning in the 1880s, the supposed origin of the earthworks with a race of giants was increasingly recognized as spurious. Pidgeon's fraudulent claims about the archaeological record were shown to be a hoax by Theodore Lewis in 1886. A major factor contributing to public acceptance of
2193-606: A special envoy to Napoleon, to assist in obtaining New Orleans for the United States. Jefferson also raised the authorized expenditure to $ 10 million. However, on April 11, 1803, French foreign minister Talleyrand surprised Livingston by asking how much the United States was prepared to pay for the entirety of Louisiana, not just New Orleans and the surrounding area (as Livingston's instructions covered). Monroe agreed with Livingston that Napoleon might withdraw this offer at any time (leaving them with no ability to obtain
2322-555: A then-current understanding of pre-Columbian civilizations, including the formative Mesoamerican civilizations such as the (Pre-Classic) Olmec , Maya , and Zapotec . Lafcadio Hearn in 1876 wrote about a theory that the mounds were built by people from the lost continent of Atlantis. The Reverend Landon West in 1901 claimed that the Serpent Mound in Ohio was built by God, or by man inspired by him. He believed that God built
2451-530: A war or the loss of a single American life, and set a precedent for the purchase of territory. It opened the way for the eventual expansion of the United States across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Shortly after the United States took possession, the area was divided into two territories along the 33rd parallel north on March 26, 1804, thereby organizing the Territory of Orleans to the south and
2580-689: Is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States . It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states , it ranks 20th in land area and the 25th in population , with roughly 4.6 million residents. Reflecting its French heritage , Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes , which are equivalent to counties , making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties (the other being Alaska and its boroughs ). Baton Rouge
2709-812: Is a Late Woodland culture (700–1200 CE) in the Lower Mississippi Valley in the Southern United States that marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area. Population and cultural and political complexity increased, especially by the end of the Coles Creek period. Although many of the classic traits of chiefdom societies had not yet developed, by 1000 CE, the formation of simple elite polities had begun. Coles Creek sites are found in Arkansas, Louisiana , Oklahoma , Mississippi , and Texas . The Coles Creek culture
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#17327727612372838-642: Is a Latin suffix that can refer to "information relating to a particular individual, subject, or place." Thus, roughly, Louis + ana carries the idea of "related to Louis." Once part of the French colonial empire , the Louisiana Territory stretched from present-day Mobile Bay to just north of the present-day Canada–United States border , including a small part of what are now the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan . The area of Louisiana
2967-467: Is a striking complex of more than 1 square mile (2.6 km ), where six earthwork crescent ridges were built in concentric arrangement, interrupted by radial aisles. Three mounds are also part of the main complex, and evidence of residences extends for about 3 miles (4.8 km) along the bank of Bayou Macon . It is the major site among 100 associated with the Poverty Point culture and is one of
3096-612: Is considered ancestral to the Plaquemine culture. Around 900–1450 CE, the Mississippian culture developed and spread through the Eastern United States, primarily along the river valleys. The largest regional center where the Mississippian culture was first definitely developed is located in Illinois along a tributary of the Mississippi and is referred to as Cahokia . It had several regional variants including
3225-550: Is estimated to have had a population of more than 20,000. The Plaquemine culture is considered ancestral to the historic Natchez and Taensa peoples, whose descendants encountered Europeans in the colonial era. By 1000 in the northwestern part of the state, the Fourche Maline culture had evolved into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. The Caddoan Mississippians occupied a large territory, including what
3354-981: Is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeast Texas , and northwest Louisiana. Archaeological evidence has demonstrated that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present. The Caddo and related Caddo-language speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact were the direct ancestors of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma of today. Significant Caddoan Mississippian archaeological sites in Louisiana include Belcher Mound Site in Caddo Parish and Gahagan Mounds Site in Red River Parish. Many current place names in Louisiana, including Atchafalaya , Natchitouches (now spelled Natchitoches ), Caddo, Houma , Tangipahoa , and Avoyel (as Avoyelles ), are transliterations of those used in various Native American languages. The first European explorers to visit Louisiana came in 1528 when
3483-550: Is now the Eastern United States, stretching as far south as Crystal River in western Florida. During this time, in parts of present-day Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, the Hopewellian Marksville culture degenerated and was succeeded by the Baytown culture . Reasons for degeneration include attacks from other tribes or the impact of severe climatic changes undermining agriculture. The Coles Creek culture
3612-559: Is strong evidence of a growing cultural and political complexity. Many Coles Creek sites were erected over earlier Woodland period mortuary mounds. Scholars have speculated that emerging elites were symbolically and physically appropriating dead ancestors to emphasize and project their own authority. The Mississippian period in Louisiana was when the Plaquemine and the Caddoan Mississippian cultures developed, and
3741-423: Is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico. This site had numerous mounds, some with conical or ridge tops, as well as palisaded stockades protecting the large settlement and elite quarter. At its maximum about 1150 CE, Cahokia was an urban settlement with 20,000–30,000 people. This population was not exceeded by North American European settlements until after 1800. Some effigy mounds were constructed in
3870-631: Is the name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000 to 1650 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky , and western West Virginia . A continuation of the Coles Creek culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Examples include the Medora site in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana; and
3999-585: Is the place of origin of the Mound Builders culture during the Middle Archaic period , in the 4th millennium BC . The sites of Caney and Frenchman's Bend have been securely dated to 5600–5000 BP (about 3700–3100 BC), demonstrating that seasonal hunter-gatherers from around this time organized to build complex earthwork constructions in what is now northern Louisiana. The Watson Brake site near present-day Monroe has an eleven-mound complex; it
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4128-524: Is the state's capital, and New Orleans , a French Louisiana region, is its largest city with a population of about 383,000 people. Louisiana has a coastline with the Gulf of Mexico to the south; a large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River . Much of Louisiana's lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh and swamp . These contain
4257-586: Is unlikely. The spread of the Mississippian culture from the late 1st millennium CE most likely involved cultural assimilation, in archaeological terminology called "Mississippianised" cultures. 19th-century ethnography assumed that the Mound-builders were an ancient prehistoric race with no direct connection to the Southeastern Woodland peoples of the historical period who were encountered by Europeans. A reference to this idea appears in
4386-498: The Anna and Emerald Mound sites in Mississippi. Sites inhabited by Plaquemine peoples continued to be used as vacant ceremonial centers without large village areas much as their Coles Creek ancestors had done, although their layout began to show influences from Middle Mississippian peoples to the north. The Winterville and Holly Bluff (Lake George) sites in western Mississippi are good examples that exemplify this change of layout, but
4515-683: The Du Maine and the Aurore , arrived in New Orleans carrying more than 500 black slaves coming from Africa. Previous slaves in Louisiana had been transported from French colonies in the West Indies. By the end of 1721, New Orleans counted 1,256 inhabitants, of whom about half were slaves. In 1724, the French government issued a law called the Code Noir ("Black Code" in English) which regulated
4644-647: The Grand Village close to present-day Natchez, Mississippi . In 1729 the Natchez revolted and massacred the French colony of Fort Rosalie. The French retaliated by destroying all the Natchez villages. The remaining Natchez fled in scattered bands to live among the Chickasaw , Creek , and Cherokee people . They traveled with them on the trail of tears when federal Indian removal policies after 1830 forced
4773-685: The Manhattan Project , is located across the street and was named for the Miamisburg Mound. Mound Builders Many pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed " Mound Builders ", but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to specific people or archaeological culture but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks that indigenous peoples erected for an extended period of more than 5,000 years. The "Mound Builder" cultures span
4902-713: The Norse colonization of North America . In 1797, Barton reconsidered his position and correctly identified the mounds as part of indigenous prehistory. Notable for the association with the Ten Lost Tribes is the Book of Mormon (1830). This provides a related belief, as its narrative describes two major immigrations to the Americas from Mesopotamia : the Jaredites (ca. 3000 - 2000 BCE) and an Israelite group during 590 BCE (termed Nephites , Lamanites and Mulekites ). While
5031-732: The Plaquemine culture and the Fort Ancient culture , were still active at the time of European contact in the 16th century. One tribe of the Fort Ancient culture has been identified as the Mosopelea , presumably of southeast Ohio, who spoke an Ohio Valley Siouan language . The bearers of the Plaquemine culture were presumably speakers of the Natchez language isolate. The first written description of these cultures were made by members of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto 's expedition, between 1540 and 1542. The namesake cultural trait of
5160-409: The 1560s reported staying with Indian societies who had built mounds. Later explorers to the same regions, only a few decades after mound-building settlements had been reported, found the regions largely depopulated with its residents vanished and the mounds untended. Conflicts with Europeans were dismissed by historians as the major cause of population reduction since few clashes had occurred between
5289-479: The 1560s, likewise noted Native American groups using existing mounds and constructing others. He produced a series of watercolor paintings depicting scenes of native life. Although most of his paintings have been lost, some engravings were copied from the originals and published in 1591 by a Flemish company. Among these is a depiction of the burial of an aboriginal Floridian tribal chief, an occasion of great mourning and ceremony. The original caption reads: Sometimes
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5418-479: The 17th century ( Beaver Wars period). Carbon dating seems to indicate that they were wiped out by successive waves of disease. Because of the disappearance of the cultures by the end of the 17th century, the identification of the bearers of these cultures was an open question in 19th-century ethnography. Modern stratigraphic dating has established that the "Mound builders" have spanned an extended period of more than five millennia so that any ethnolinguistic continuity
5547-643: The Acadians, who became the ancestors of Louisiana's Cajuns . Spanish Canary Islanders, called Isleños , emigrated from the Canary Islands of Spain to Louisiana under the Spanish crown between 1778 and 1783. In 1800, France's Napoleon Bonaparte reacquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso , an arrangement kept secret for two years. Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville brought
5676-659: The Crown's transfer of the Illinois Country 's governance from Canada to Louisiana—may have featured the broadest definition of Louisiana: all land claimed by France south of the Great Lakes between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghenies . A generation later, trade conflicts between Canada and Louisiana led to a more defined boundary between the French colonies; in 1745, Louisiana governor general Vaudreuil set
5805-600: The Earth." Charles Whittlesey , who was one of the foremost archaeologists at that time, pronounced the stone to be authentic. The Newark Holy Stones, if genuine, would provide support for monogenesis , since they would establish that American Indians could be encompassed within Biblical history. After his first expedition, Wyrick uncovered a small stone box that was found to contain an intricately carved slab of black limestone covered with archaic-looking Hebrew letters along with
5934-472: The Indians had not built them." Priest's racism has also been discussed in detail by author Robert Silverberg , archaeologist Stephen Williams , and author Jason Colavito . Later authors placing the Book of Mormon in this context include Silverberg (1969), Brodie (1971), Kennedy (1994), and Garlinghouse (2001). Some nineteenth-century archaeological finds (e.g., earth and timber fortifications and towns,
6063-660: The Middle Mississippian culture of Cahokia, the South Appalachian Mississippian variant at Moundville and Etowah , the Plaquemine Mississippian variant in south Louisiana and Mississippi, and the Caddoan Mississippian culture of northwestern Louisiana, eastern Texas, and southwestern Arkansas. Like the mound builders of the Ohio, these peoples built gigantic mounds as burial and ceremonial places. Fort Ancient
6192-639: The Mississippians, possibly belonging to the Siouan phylum. The only tribal name associated with the Fort Ancient culture in the historical record is the Mosopelea , recorded by Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin in 1684 as inhabiting eight villages north of the Ohio River. The Mosopelea is most likely identical to the Ofo ( Oufé , Offogoula ) recorded in the same area in the 18th century. The Ofo language
6321-533: The Mound Builders was the building of mounds and other earthworks. These burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds , flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of complex villages. The early earthworks built in Louisiana around 3500 BCE are the only ones known to have been built by
6450-602: The Mound Builders were not identical to the Southeast Woodland Native Americans of the 18th century. It is now thought that the most likely bearers of the Plaquemine culture , a late variant of the Mississippian culture, were ancestral to the related Natchez and Taensa peoples. The Natchez language is a language isolate. The Natchez are known to have historically occupied the Lower Mississippi Valley . They are first mentioned in French sources of around 1700, when they were centered around
6579-431: The Native Americans out of the Southeast and west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory (admitted in the early 20th century as the state of Oklahoma . The Natchez language became extinct in the 20th century, with the death in 1957 of the last known native speaker, Nancy Raven . Based on the idea that the origins of the mound builders lay with a mysterious ancient people, various other suggestions were belonging to
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#17327727612376708-422: The Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites were all of Jewish origin coming from Israel around 590 BCE, the Jaradites were a non-Abrahamic people separate in all aspects, except in a belief in Jehovah, from the Nephites. The Book of Mormon depicts these settlers building magnificent cities, which were destroyed by warfare about CE 385. The Book of Mormon can be placed in the tradition of the "Mound-Builder literature" of
6837-467: The Plaquemine area as a distinct culture began to shrink after CE 1350. Eventually, the last enclave of purely Plaquemine culture was the Natchez Bluffs area, while the Yazoo Basin and adjacent areas of Louisiana became a hybrid Plaquemine-Mississippi culture. This division was recorded by Europeans when they first arrived in the area. In the Natchez Bluffs area, the Taensa and Natchez people had held out against Mississippian influence and continued to use
6966-436: The Seven Years' War (generally referred to in North America as the French and Indian War ). This included the lands along the Gulf Coast and north of Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River, which became known as British West Florida. The rest of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, as well as the "isle of New Orleans", had become a colony of Spain by the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762) . The transfer of power on either side of
7095-609: The Spanish "cimarron", meaning which means "fierce" or "unruly." In the late 18th century, the last Spanish governor of the Louisiana territory wrote: Truly, it is impossible for lower Louisiana to get along without slaves and with the use of slaves, the colony had been making great strides toward prosperity and wealth. When the United States purchased Louisiana in 1803, it was soon accepted that slaves could be brought to Louisiana as easily as they were brought to neighboring Mississippi , though it violated U.S. law to do so. Despite demands by United States Rep. James Hillhouse and by
7224-418: The United States acquired the territory in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, France and Spain jockeyed for control of New Orleans and the lands west of the Mississippi. In the 1720s, German immigrants settled along the Mississippi River, in a region referred to as the German Coast . France ceded most of its territory east of the Mississippi to Great Britain in 1763, in the aftermath of Britain's victory in
7353-403: The United States, was disturbed by Napoleon's plans to re-establish French colonies in North America. With the possession of New Orleans, Napoleon could close the Mississippi to U.S. commerce at any time. Jefferson authorized Robert R. Livingston , U.S. minister to France, to negotiate for the purchase of the city of New Orleans, portions of the east bank of the Mississippi, and free navigation of
7482-419: The United States. The payment was made in United States bonds , which Napoleon sold at face value to the Dutch firm of Hope and Company , and the British banking house of Baring , at a discount of 87 + 1 ⁄ 2 per each $ 100 unit. As a result, France received only $ 8,831,250 in cash for Louisiana. English banker Alexander Baring conferred with Marbois in Paris, shuttled to the United States to pick up
7611-421: The United States. The closure of this vital port to the United States caused anger and consternation. Commerce in the west was virtually blockaded. Historians believe the revocation of the right of deposit was prompted by abuses by the Americans, particularly smuggling, and not by French intrigues as was believed at the time. President Jefferson ignored public pressure for war with France, and appointed James Monroe
7740-535: The Upper South or transported to New Orleans and other coastal markets by ship in the coastwise slave trade . After sales in New Orleans, steamboats operating on the Mississippi transported slaves upstream to markets or plantation destinations at Natchez and Memphis. Unusually for a slave-state, Louisiana harbored escaped Filipino slaves from the Manila Galleons . The members of the Filipino community were then commonly referred to as Manila men, or Manilamen, and later Tagalas , as they were free when they created
7869-409: The Upper South to the Deep South, two thirds of them in the slave trade. Others were transported by their owners as slaveholders moved west for new lands. With changing agriculture in the Upper South as planters shifted from tobacco to less labor-intensive mixed agriculture, planters had excess laborers. Many sold slaves to traders to take to the Deep South. Slaves were driven by traders overland from
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#17327727612377998-436: The West Indies, Germany, and Ireland. It experienced an agricultural boom, particularly in cotton and sugarcane, which were cultivated primarily by slaves from Africa. As a slave state, Louisiana was one of the original seven members of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War . Louisiana's unique French heritage is reflected in its toponyms, dialects, customs, demographics, and legal system. Relative to
8127-409: The age of the earthworks. In his book, Antiquities Discovered in the Western States (1820), Atwater claimed that "Indian remains" were always found right beneath the surface of the earth, while artifacts associated with the Mound Builders were found fairly deep in the ground. Atwater argued that they must be from a different group of people. The discovery of metal artifacts further convinced people that
8256-413: The best-known early examples of earthwork monumental architecture. Unlike the localized societies during the Middle Archaic, this culture showed evidence of a wide trading network outside its area, which is one of its distinguishing characteristics. Horr's Island , Florida, now a gated community next to Marco Island , was excavated by Michael Russo in 1980. He found an Archaic Indian village site. Mound A
8385-458: The biggest slave market in the United States, which contributed greatly to the economy of the city and of the state. New Orleans had become one of the wealthiest cities, and the third largest city, in the nation. The ban on the African slave trade and importation of slaves had increased demand in the domestic market. During the decades after the American Revolutionary War, more than one million enslaved African Americans underwent forced migration from
8514-406: The bonds, took them to Britain, and returned to France with the money—which Napoleon used to wage war against Baring's own country. When news of the purchase reached the United States, Jefferson was surprised. He had authorized the expenditure of $ 10 million for a port city, and instead received treaties committing the government to spend $ 15 million on a land package which would double
8643-419: The characters on the stone were blocky and appeared to be an ancient form of the Hebrew alphabet. Finally, the stone bore no resemblance to any modern Masonic artifact. In 1870, Whittlesey declared finally that the Holy Stones and other similar artifacts were "Archaeological Frauds." In 19th-century America, many popular mythologies surrounding the origin of the mounds were in circulation, typically involving
8772-402: The city. Anglo-American officials initially made attempts to keep out the additional Creoles of color , but the Louisiana Creoles wanted to increase the Creole population: more than half of the refugees eventually settled in Louisiana, and the majority remained in New Orleans . Pierre Clément de Laussat ( Governor , 1803) said: "Saint-Domingue was, of all our colonies in the Antilles,
8901-402: The culture, the Atchafalaya Basin Mounds in St. Mary Parish, the Fitzhugh Mounds in Madison Parish, the Scott Place Mounds in Union Parish, and the Sims site in St. Charles Parish. Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture that is represented by its largest settlement, the Cahokia site in Illinois east of St. Louis, Missouri . At its peak Cahokia
9030-402: The deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it. Maturin Le Petit , a Jesuit priest, met the Natchez people , as did Le Page du Pratz (1758), a French explorer. Both observed them in the area that today is known as Mississippi. The Natchez were devout worshippers of
9159-436: The desired New Orleans area), and that approval from President Jefferson might take months, so Livingston and Monroe decided to open negotiations immediately. By April 30, they closed a deal for the purchase of the entire Louisiana territory of 828,000 square miles (2,100,000 km ) for sixty million Francs (approximately $ 15 million). Part of this sum, $ 3.5 million, was used to forgive debts owed by France to
9288-424: The early 2000s. In a January 2023 episode of Tucker Carlson 's Fox Nation show Tucker Carlson Today had a guest who stated that: "They didn't build 'em. Someone before them built 'em". Carlson replied: "That's right" and said there was "skeletal evidence of people who bear no genetic resemblance to the current Indians". On June 29, 1860, David Wyrick, the surveyor of Licking County near Newark , discovered
9417-594: The earthworks as a regular part of North American prehistory was the 1894 report by Cyrus Thomas of the Bureau of American Ethnology . Earlier authors making a similar case include Thomas Jefferson , who excavated a mound and from the artifacts and burial practices, noted similarities between mound-builder funeral practices and those of Native Americans in his time. Louisiana Louisiana (French: Louisiane [lwizjan] ; Spanish: Luisiana [lwiˈsjana] ; Louisiana Creole : Lwizyàn )
9546-730: The first platform mounds at ritual centers were constructed for the developing hereditary political and religious leadership. By 400 the Late Woodland period had begun with the Baytown culture , Troyville culture , and Coastal Troyville during the Baytown period and were succeeded by the Coles Creek cultures . Where the Baytown peoples built dispersed settlements, the Troyville people instead continued building major earthwork centers. Population increased dramatically and there
9675-520: The first people in the area of Louisiana to make large amounts of pottery. These cultures lasted until 200 AD. The Middle Woodland period started in Louisiana with the Marksville culture in the southern and eastern part of the state, reaching across the Mississippi River to the east around Natchez, and the Fourche Maline culture in the northwestern part of the state. The Marksville culture
9804-540: The first two African slaves to Louisiana in 1708, transporting them from a French colony in the West Indies. In 1709, French financier Antoine Crozat obtained a monopoly of commerce in La Louisiane , which extended from the Gulf of Mexico to what is now Illinois . According to historian Hugh Thomas , "that concession allowed him to bring in a cargo of blacks from Africa every year". Starting in 1719, traders began to import slaves in higher numbers; two French ships,
9933-481: The great Mississippian culture . De Soto observed people living in fortified towns with lofty mounds and plazas and surmised that many of the mounds served as foundations for priestly temples. Near present-day Augusta, Georgia , de Soto encountered a group ruled by a queen, Cofitachequi . She told him that the mounds within her territory served as burial places for nobles. The artist Jacques le Moyne , who had accompanied French settlers to northeastern Florida during
10062-534: The great flood disappeared, Noah and his ark landed in America. While surveying the land, Noah also discovered mounds that had been constructed before the waters rose. Upon seeing this, Noah questioned where these agricultural phenomena came from. "Surveying the various themes of mound builder origins, he could not decide whether the mounds were the work of Polynesians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Scandinavians, Welsh, Scotts, or Chinese, although he felt certain
10191-411: The hand tools available, move the soil long distances, and finally, workers to create the shape with layers of soil as directed by the builders. However early mounds found in Louisiana preceded such cultures and were products of hunter-gatherer cultures. From about 800 CE, the mound-building cultures were dominated by the Mississippian culture , a large archaeological horizon, whose youngest descendants,
10320-474: The height of their owners estimated at 14 feet (4.3 m). President Abraham Lincoln referred to the giants whose bones fill the mounds of America. But still there is more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus first sought this continent – when Christ suffered on the cross – when Moses led Israel through the Red-Sea – nay, even, when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker – then as now, Niagara
10449-474: The influence of New England Federalists in national affairs. President Jefferson was an enthusiastic supporter of westward expansion, and held firm in his support for the treaty. Despite Federalist objections, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana treaty on October 20, 1803. By statute enacted on October 31, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson was authorized to take possession of the territories ceded by France and provide for initial governance. A transfer ceremony
10578-475: The interaction of whites (blancs) and blacks (noirs) in its colony of Louisiana (which was much larger than the current state of Louisiana). After the Sale of Louisiana , French Law survived in the Louisiana, such as the prohibition and outlaw of any cruel punishment. Fugitive slaves, called maroons , could easily hide in the backcountry of the bayous and survive in small settlements. The word "maroon" comes from
10707-528: The islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe to the French. Napoleon looked upon Louisiana as a depot for these sugar islands, and as a buffer to U.S. settlement. In October 1801 he sent a large military force to take back Saint-Domingue, then under control of Toussaint Louverture after the Haitian Revolution . When the army led by Napoleon's brother-in-law Leclerc was defeated, Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana. Thomas Jefferson , third president of
10836-553: The modern state of Louisiana. The French settlement had two purposes: to establish trade with the Spanish in Texas via the Old San Antonio Road, and to deter Spanish advances into Louisiana. The settlement soon became a flourishing river port and crossroads, giving rise to vast cotton kingdoms along the river that were worked by imported African slaves. Over time, planters developed large plantations and built fine homes in
10965-533: The more general genre of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories , specifically involving Vikings , Atlantis , and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel , summarised by Feder (2006) under the heading of "The Myth of a Vanished Race". Benjamin Smith Barton in his Observations on Some Parts of Natural History (1787) proposed the theory that the Mound Builders were associated with "Danes", i.e. with
11094-775: The mound and placed it as a symbol of the story of the Garden of Eden . More recently, Black nationalist websites claiming association with the Moorish Science Temple of America , have taken up the Atlantean (" Mu ") association of the Mound Builders. Similarly, the " Washitaw Nation ", a group associated with the Moorish Science Temple of America established in the 1990s, has been associated with mound-building in Black nationalist online articles of
11223-548: The mounds being built by a race of giants . A New York Times article from 1897 described a mound in Wisconsin in which a giant human skeleton measuring over 9 feet (2.7 m) in length was found. In 1886, another New York Times article described water receding from a mound in Cartersville, Georgia , which uncovered acres of skulls and bones, some of which were said to be gigantic. Two thigh bones were measured with
11352-521: The natives and the Europeans in the area during the same period. The most widely accepted explanation today is that new infectious diseases brought from the Old World, such as smallpox and influenza , had decimated most of the Native Americans from the last mound-builder civilization, as they had no immunity to such diseases. The Fort Ancient culture of the Ohio River valley is considered
11481-451: The next century. However, there were also other European accounts, earlier than 1560, that give a first-hand description of the enormous earth-built mounds being constructed by Native Americans. One of them was Garcilaso de la Vega (c.1539–1616), a Spanish chronicler also known as " El Inca " because of his Incan mother. He was the record-keeper of the noted De Soto expedition that landed in present-day Florida on May 31, 1538. Garcilaso gave
11610-647: The northern and eastern bounds of his domain as the Wabash valley up to the mouth of the Vermilion River (near present-day Danville, Illinois ); from there, northwest to le Rocher on the Illinois River , and from there west to the mouth of the Rock River (at present day Rock Island, Illinois ). Thus, Vincennes and Peoria were the limit of Louisiana's reach; the outposts at Ouiatenon (on
11739-637: The oldest settlement of Asians in the United States in the village of Saint Malo, Louisiana , the inhabitants of which, even joined the United States in the War of 1812 against the British Empire while they were being led by the French-American Jean Lafitte . Spanish occupation of Louisiana lasted from 1769 to 1800. Beginning in the 1790s, waves of immigration took place from Saint-Domingue as refugees poured over following
11868-513: The one whose mentality and customs influenced Louisiana the most." When the United States won its independence from Great Britain in 1783, one of its major concerns was having a European power on its western boundary, and the need for unrestricted access to the Mississippi River. As American settlers pushed west, they found that the Appalachian Mountains provided a barrier to shipping goods eastward. The easiest way to ship produce
11997-559: The pamphleteer Thomas Paine to enforce existing federal law against slavery in the newly acquired territory, slavery prevailed because it was the source of great profits and the lowest-cost labor. At the start of the 19th century, Louisiana was a small producer of sugar with a relatively small number of slaves, compared to Saint-Domingue and the West Indies. It soon thereafter became a major sugar producer as new settlers arrived to develop plantations. William C. C. Claiborne , Louisiana's first United States governor, said African slave labor
12126-462: The peoples adopted extensive maize agriculture, cultivating different strains of the plant by saving seeds, selecting for certain characteristics, etc. The Plaquemine culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana began in 1200 and continued to about 1600. Examples in Louisiana include the Medora site , the archaeological type site for the culture in West Baton Rouge Parish whose characteristics helped define
12255-460: The period and has been called "the most famous and certainly the most influential of all Mound-Builder literature". Josiah Priest 's 1833 400-page publication American Antiquities centered around his study of the Bible and antiquarian journals, supplemented by information from his travels. After visiting earthworks in Ohio and New York, Priest concluded that these mounds could be traced back to
12384-642: The period of roughly 3500 BCE (the construction of Watson Brake ) to the 16th century CE, including the Archaic period ( Horr's Island ), Woodland period ( Caloosahatchee , Adena and Hopewell cultures ), and Mississippian period . Geographically, the cultures were present in the region of the Great Lakes , the Ohio River Valley, Florida, and the Mississippi River Valley and its tributary waters. The first mound building
12513-528: The poem "The Prairies" (1832) by William Cullen Bryant . The cultural stage of the Southeastern Woodland natives encountered in the 18th and 19th centuries by British colonists was deemed incompatible with the comparatively advanced stone, metal , and clay artifacts of the archaeological record. The age of the earthworks was also partly over-estimated. Caleb Atwater 's misunderstanding of stratigraphy caused him to significantly overestimate
12642-585: The pressure for Anglicization , and in 1921, English was shortly made the sole language of instruction in Louisiana schools before a policy of multilingualism was revived in 1974. Louisiana has never had an official language, and the state constitution enumerates "the right of the people to preserve, foster, and promote their respective historic, linguistic, and cultural origins." Based on national averages, Louisiana frequently ranks low among U.S. states in terms of health, education, and development, with high rates of poverty and homicide . In 2018, Louisiana
12771-403: The reason, but it may have been because of changes in river patterns or other environmental factors. With the 1990s dating of Watson Brake and similar complexes, scholars established that pre-agricultural, pre-ceramic American societies could organize to accomplish complex construction during extended periods, invalidating scholars' traditional ideas of Archaic society. Watson Brake was built by
12900-447: The rest of the southern U.S., Louisiana is multilingual and multicultural, reflecting an admixture of Louisiana French ( Cajun , Creole ), Spanish , French Canadian , Acadian , Saint-Domingue Creole , Native American , and West African cultures (generally the descendants of slaves stolen in the 18th century); more recent migrants include Filipinos and Vietnamese. In the post–Civil War environment , Anglo-Americans increased
13029-697: The rising sun, invoking thanks and blowing tobacco smoke to the four cardinal directions". The most complete reference for these earthworks is Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley , written by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin H. Davis. It was published in 1848 by the Smithsonian Institution, which had commissioned the survey. Since many of the features that the authors documented have been destroyed or diminished by farming and development, their surveys, sketches, and descriptions are still used by modern archaeologists . All of
13158-429: The river for U.S. commerce. Livingston was authorized to pay up to $ 2 million. An official transfer of Louisiana to French ownership had not yet taken place, and Napoleon's deal with the Spanish was a poorly kept secret on the frontier. On October 18, 1802, however, Juan Ventura Morales, acting intendant of Louisiana, made public the intention of Spain to revoke the right of deposit at New Orleans for all cargo from
13287-555: The river would be delayed until later in the decade. In 1765, during Spanish rule, several thousand Acadians from the French colony of Acadia (now Nova Scotia , New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island ) made their way to Louisiana after having been expelled from Acadia by the British government after the French and Indian War. They settled chiefly in the southwestern Louisiana region now called Acadiana . The governor Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga , eager to gain more settlers, welcomed
13416-486: The same sites as their ancestors. The Plaquemine culture is considered directly ancestral to these historic period groups encountered by Europeans. Groups who appear to have absorbed more Mississippian influence were identified as those tribes speaking the Tunican , Chitimachan , and Muskogean languages . Following the description by Jacques le Moyne in 1560, the mound-building cultures seem to have disappeared within
13545-517: The shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals. The most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, ranges from 1 foot (0.30 m) to just over 3 feet (0.91 m) tall, 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, more than 1,330 feet (410 m) long, and shaped as an undulating serpent . Between 1540 and 1542, Hernando de Soto , the Spanish conquistador , traversed what became the southeastern United States. There he encountered many different mound-builder peoples who were perhaps descendants of
13674-463: The sites that they identified as located in Kentucky came from the manuscripts of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque . Radiocarbon dating has established the age of the earliest Archaic mound complex in southeastern Louisiana. One of the two Monte Sano Site mounds, excavated in 1967 before being destroyed for new construction at Baton Rouge, was dated at 6220 BP (plus or minus 140 years). Researchers at
13803-557: The size of the country. Jefferson's political opponents in the Federalist Party argued the Louisiana purchase was a worthless desert, and that the U.S. constitution did not provide for the acquisition of new land or negotiating treaties without the consent of the federal legislature. What really worried the opposition was the new states which would inevitably be carved from the Louisiana territory, strengthening western and southern interests in U.S. Congress , and further reducing
13932-490: The so-called "Keystone" in a shallow excavation at the monumental Newark Earthworks , which is an extraordinary set of ancient geometric enclosures created by Indigenous people. There he dug up a four-sided, plumb-bob -shaped stone with Hebrew letters engraved on each of its faces. The local Episcopal minister John W. McCarty translated the four inscriptions as "Law of the Lord," “Word of the Lord," “Holy of Holies," and "King of
14061-478: The state is forested. Louisiana is situated at the confluence of the Mississippi river system and the Gulf of Mexico. Its location and biodiversity attracted various indigenous groups thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the 17th century. Louisiana has eighteen Native American tribes—the most of any southern state—of which four are federally recognized and ten are state-recognized. The French claimed
14190-561: The state. The city of modern–day Epps developed near it. The Poverty Point culture may have reached its peak around 1500 BC, making it the first complex culture, and possibly the first tribal culture in North America. It lasted until approximately 700 BC. The Poverty Point culture was followed by the Tchefuncte and Lake Cormorant cultures of the Tchula period , local manifestations of Early Woodland period . The Tchefuncte culture were
14319-456: The sun . Having a population of some 4,000, they occupied at least nine villages and were presided over by a paramount chief , known as the Great Sun, who wielded absolute power. Both observers noted the high temple mounds that the Natchez had built so that the Great Sun could commune with God, the sun. His large residence was built atop the highest mound, from "which, every morning, he greeted
14448-481: The territory in 1682, and it became the political, commercial, and population center of the larger colony of New France . From 1762 to 1801 Louisiana was under Spanish rule, briefly returning to French rule before being sold by Napoleon to the U.S. in 1803. It was admitted to the Union in 1812 as the 18th state. Following statehood, Louisiana saw an influx of settlers from the eastern U.S. as well as immigrants from
14577-533: The time thought that such hunter-gatherer societies were not organizationally capable of this type of construction. It has since been dated as about 6500 BP or 4500 BCE, although not all agree. Watson Brake is located in the floodplain of the Ouachita River near Monroe in northern Louisiana. Securely dated to about 5,400 years ago (around 3500 BCE), in the Middle Archaic period, it consists of
14706-456: The upper Wabash near present-day Lafayette, Indiana ), Chicago, Fort Miamis (near present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana ), and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin , operated as dependencies of Canada. The settlement of Natchitoches (along the Red River in present-day northwest Louisiana) was established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis , making it the oldest permanent European settlement in
14835-403: The use of a plaster-like cement, ancient roads, metal points and implements, copper breastplates, head-plates, textiles, pearls, native North American inscriptions, North American elephant remains etc.) were well-publicized at the time of the publication of the Book of Mormon and there is the incorporation of some of these ideas into the narrative. References are made in the Book of Mormon to
14964-592: Was a burial mound that dated to 3400 BCE, making it the oldest known burial mound in North America. The oldest mound associated with the Woodland period was the mortuary mound and pond complex at the Fort Center site in Glade County, Florida. Excavations and dating in 2012 by Thompson and Pluckhahn show that work began around 2600 BCE, seven centuries before the mound-builders in Ohio. The Archaic period
15093-650: Was an early marker of political and social complexity among the cultures in the Eastern United States. Watson Brake in Louisiana, constructed about 3500 BCE during the Middle Archaic period , is the oldest known and dated mound complex in North America. It is one of 11 mound complexes from this period found in the Lower Mississippi Valley. These cultures generally had developed hierarchical societies that had an elite. These commanded hundreds or even thousands of workers to dig up tons of earth with
15222-484: Was built about 5400 BP (3500 BC). These discoveries overturned previous assumptions in archaeology that such complex mounds were built only by cultures of more settled peoples who were dependent on maize cultivation. The Hedgepeth Site in Lincoln Parish is more recent, dated to 5200–4500 BP (3300–2600 BC). Nearly 2,000 years later, Poverty Point was built; it is the largest and best-known Late Archaic site in
15351-496: Was followed by the Woodland period ( circa 1000 BCE). Some well-understood examples are the Adena culture of Ohio , West Virginia , and parts of nearby states. The subsequent Hopewell culture built monuments from present-day Illinois to Ohio; it is renowned for its geometric earthworks. The Adena and Hopewell were not the only mound-building peoples during this period. Contemporaneous mound-building cultures existed throughout what
15480-599: Was formerly classified as Muskogean but is now recognized as an eccentric member of the Western Siouan phylum. The late survival of the Fort Ancient culture is suggested by the remarkable amount of European-made goods in the archaeological record. Such artifacts would have been acquired by trade even before direct European contact. These artifacts include brass and steel items, glassware, and melted down or broken goods reforged into new items. The Fort Ancient peoples are known to have been severely affected by disease in
15609-403: Was founded in 1699 by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville , a French military officer from New France . By then the French had also built a small fort at the mouth of the Mississippi at a settlement they named La Balise (or La Balize) , " seamark " in French. By 1721, they built a 62-foot (19 m) wooden lighthouse-type structure here to guide ships on the river. A royal ordinance of 1722—following
15738-422: Was held in New Orleans on November 29, 1803. Since the Louisiana territory had never officially been turned over to the French, the Spanish took down their flag, and the French raised theirs. The following day, General James Wilkinson accepted possession of New Orleans for the United States. The Louisiana Territory, purchased for less than three cents an acre, doubled the size of the United States overnight, without
15867-426: Was inconceivable to Priest and like-minded men that a race so lazy and inept could conceive and build such huge, elaborate structures." Priest speculated that the original dwellers could be the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel . The reasoning Priest gives for his conclusion that there was an even earlier settler than the Native Americans relies upon his interpretation of the Biblical flood story. According to Priest, after
15996-690: Was named after the Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site in Avoyelles Parish . These cultures were contemporaneous with the Hopewell cultures of present-day Ohio and Illinois , and participated in the Hopewell Exchange Network. Trade with peoples to the southwest brought the bow and arrow . The first burial mounds were built at this time. Political power began to be consolidated, as
16125-565: Was needed because white laborers "cannot be had in this unhealthy climate." Hugh Thomas wrote that Claiborne was unable to enforce the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, which the U.S. and Great Britain enacted in 1807. The United States continued to protect the domestic slave trade, including the coastwise trade—the transport of slaves by ship along the Atlantic Coast and to New Orleans and other Gulf ports. By 1840, New Orleans had
16254-437: Was ranked as the least healthy state in the country, with high levels of drug-related deaths . It also has had the highest homicide rate in the United States since at least the 1990s. Louisiana was named after Louis XIV , King of France from 1643 to 1715. When René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory drained by the Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane . The suffix –ana (or –ane)
16383-464: Was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Co[n]temporary with the whole race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong, and fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and Mastodon – now so long dead, that fragments of their monstrous bones, alone testify, that they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara. In that long – long time, never still for
16512-463: Was settled by French colonists from Illinois. Initially, Mobile and then Biloxi served as the capital of La Louisiane. Recognizing the importance of the Mississippi River to trade and military interests, and wanting to protect the capital from severe coastal storms, France developed New Orleans from 1722 as the seat of civilian and military authority south of the Great Lakes. From then until
16641-558: Was to use a flatboat to float it down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the port of New Orleans, where goods could be put on ocean-going vessels. The problem with this route was that the Spanish owned both sides of the Mississippi below Natchez . Napoleon's ambitions in Louisiana involved the creation of a new empire centered on the Caribbean sugar trade . By the terms of the Treaty of Amiens of 1802, Great Britain returned control of
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