Editing Louisiana (section)

===Expansion of slavery===
{{Main|History of slavery in Louisiana}}
[[File:Nouvelle-France map-en.svg|thumb|250px|left|Map of [[New France]] (blue color) in 1750, before the [[French and Indian War]]]]
[[Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville]] brought 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 (writer)|Hugh Thomas]], "that concession allowed him to bring in a cargo of blacks from Africa every year".<ref>''The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870'' by Hugh Thomas. 1997: Simon and Schuster. p. 242-43</ref>
Starting in 1719, traders began to import slaves in higher numbers; two French ships, 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.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}}

In 1724, the French government issued a law called the [[Code Noir]] ("Black Code" in English) which regulated 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/code-noir-of-louisiana|title=Code Noir of Louisiana—Know Louisiana|access-date=April 30, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170518041714/http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/code-noir-of-louisiana|archive-date=May 18, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=The law of slavery—Master–slave legal relationships |url=https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24164 |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141007003400/https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24164 |archive-date=October 7, 2014 }}</ref>

Fugitive slaves, called [[maroons]], could easily hide in the backcountry of the bayous and survive in small settlements.<ref>{{cite web|title=More Than A Runaway: Maroons In Louisiana|url=https://www.wwno.org/podcast/tripod-new-orleans-at-300/2015-12-10/more-than-a-runaway-maroons-in-louisiana|access-date=2021-06-07|website=WWNO|language=en|archive-date=June 7, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607165130/https://www.wwno.org/podcast/tripod-new-orleans-at-300/2015-12-10/more-than-a-runaway-maroons-in-louisiana|url-status=live}}</ref> The word "maroon" comes from the Spanish "cimarron", meaning which means "fierce" or "unruly."<ref>{{cite web|title=History of the Maroons|url=https://cyber.harvard.edu/eon/marroon/history.html|access-date=2021-06-07|website=cyber.harvard.edu|archive-date=February 6, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210206165224/https://cyber.harvard.edu/eon/marroon/history.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the late 18th century, the last Spanish governor of the Louisiana territory wrote:
{{blockquote|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.<ref name="The Slave Trade p. 548" />}}

[[File:Free Woman of Color with daughter NOLA Collage.jpg|thumb|[[Free people of color|Free woman of color]] with [[mixed-race]] daughter; late 18th-century collage painting, New Orleans]]
When the United States [[Louisiana Purchase|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.<ref name="The Slave Trade p. 548">Hugh Thomas, ''The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870'', Simon and Schuster, 1997, p. 548.</ref> Despite demands by United States Rep. [[James Hillhouse]] and by the pamphleteer [[Thomas Paine]] to enforce existing federal law against slavery in the newly acquired territory,<ref name="The Slave Trade p. 548" /> 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 was needed because white laborers "cannot be had in this unhealthy climate."<ref>Thomas (1997), ''The Slave Trade'', p. 549.</ref> 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 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.<ref>Walter Johnson, ''Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market'', Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999, p.2</ref> 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 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.<ref>[http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=3 In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience—The Domestic Slave Trade, New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Study of Black Culture, 2002] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104201729/http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=3 |date=November 4, 2013 }}, accessed April 27, 2008</ref><ref>Peter Kolchin, ''American Slavery: 1619–1877'', New York: Hill and Wang, 1994, pp. 96–98</ref>

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 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 Galleon]]s.<ref name="Bishops2001">{{cite book|author=Catholic Church. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7A05Cl-FcwgC&pg=PA8|title=Asian and Pacific Presence: Harmony in Faith|date=December 2001|publisher=United States Conference of Catholic Bishops|isbn=978-1-57455-449-6|page=8|access-date=December 3, 2021|archive-date=May 10, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510080011/https://books.google.com/books?id=7A05Cl-FcwgC&pg=PA8|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Pang|first1=Valerie Ooka|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wZyIYK1M1ikC&q=Filipinos%20in%20Louisiana&pg=PA287|title=Struggling to be heard: the Unmet Needs of Asian Pacific American Children|last2=Cheng|first2=Li-Rong Lilly|date=1999|publisher=NetLibrary, Inc|isbn=0-585-07571-9|page=287|oclc=1053003694|access-date=December 3, 2021|archive-date=November 23, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123163307/https://books.google.com/books?id=wZyIYK1M1ikC&q=Filipinos%20in%20Louisiana&pg=PA287|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Holt|first1=Thomas Cleveland|last2=Green|first2=Laurie B.|last3=Wilson|first3=Charles Reagan|date=October 21, 2013|title=Pacific Worlds and the South|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jajYn4iXLBoC&pg=PA120|journal=The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Race|volume=24|page=120|isbn=978-1469607245|access-date=December 3, 2021|archive-date=February 18, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230218081155/https://books.google.com/books?id=jajYn4iXLBoC&pg=PA120|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Westbrook|first=Laura|title=Mabuhay Pilipino! (Long Life!): Filipino Culture in Southeast Louisiana|url=http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/pilipino1.html|access-date=2020-05-23|website=Folklife in Louisiana|archive-date=May 18, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180518005511/http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/Pilipino1.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The members of the Filipino community were then commonly referred to as ''Manila men,'' or ''Manilamen,'' and later ''Tagalas'',<ref name="Welch2014">{{cite web|last=Welch|first=Michael Patrick|date=October 27, 2014|title=NOLA Filipino History Stretches for Centuries|url=https://www.neworleans.me/journal/detail/761/NOLA-Filipino-History-Stretches-for-Centuries|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118011323/https://www.neworleans.me/journal/detail/761/NOLA-Filipino-History-Stretches-for-Centuries|archive-date=January 18, 2021|access-date=July 4, 2019|website=New Orleans & Me|publisher=WWNO|location=New Orleans}}</ref> as they were free when they created the oldest settlement of Asians in the United States in the village of [[Saint Malo, Louisiana]],<ref name="Welch2014" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Unveiling of St. Malo Historical Marker|url=http://filipinola.com/event/unveiling-of-st-malo-historical-marker/|last=Randy Gonzales|date=September 14, 2019|website=Filipino La.|language=en|access-date=2020-05-23|archive-date=December 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211202235456/http://filipinola.com/event/unveiling-of-st-malo-historical-marker/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite web|title=From Manila to the Marigny: How Philippine pioneers left a mark at the 'end of world' in New Orleans|url=https://nola.verylocal.com/from-manila-to-the-maringny-how-philippine-pioneers-left-a-mark-at-the-end-of-world-in-new-orleans/89392/|last=Hinton|first=Matthew|date=October 23, 2019|website=Very Local New Orleans|access-date=December 3, 2021|archive-date=October 6, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211006203418/https://nola.verylocal.com/from-manila-to-the-maringny-how-philippine-pioneers-left-a-mark-at-the-end-of-world-in-new-orleans/89392/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Filipino American History Month Resolution|url=http://fanhs-national.org/filam/resolution/|website=FANHS National|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-23|archive-date=October 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211002190239/http://fanhs-national.org/filam/resolution/|url-status=live}}</ref> 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]].<ref name=":0" />