The following is a chronological look at the history of Louisiana, reprinted from the MSN Encarta Learning Zone web site article entitled "Louisiana Outline." Portions of "Louisiana Outline" are used with the permission of Microsoft Corporation as made available through Encarta® Online; and author Carl Brasseaux, of the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

The most current version of "Louisiana Outline" can be accessed at www.encarta.msn.com. Please do not reproduce without permission from the publisher or the author.

Author Carl Brasseaux can be reached at ULL's Center for Louisiana Studies by calling 337-482-6027.

Early Inhabitants

Louisiana had a sizable prehistoric population. Many ceremonial mounds still stand throughout the state as reminders of the Hopewell culture (about AD 1-800) and the Mississippian culture (about AD 800-1500), both popularly called Mound Builders, whose people lived in highly organized farming communities. Archaeologists believe that some mounds located at a site called Watson Brake near Monroe in northeast Louisiana were built more than 5,000 years ago and may be the oldest known remnants of human construction in North America.

In the age of European exploration, beginning in the 16th century, the region was inhabited by peoples of three Native American language groups: the Caddoan, Muskogean, and Tunican. Caddoan peoples included the Caddo, Natchitoches, Yatasi, and Adai. They lived in the northwestern part of the present state. The Muskogean peoples, who included the Houma, Choctaw, Acolapissa, and Taensa, lived in east central Louisiana on or near the Mississippi River. Most of the Tunicans, including the Chitimacha, Atakapa, and several smaller groups, lived along the Gulf Coast; the small Koroa group inhabited northeastern Louisiana. Eventually many of these peoples moved away, as did the Caddo in the 1830s, or were greatly reduced by war, disease, or intermarriage. As some groups disappeared, others migrated into Louisiana in waves occurring in the mid-1760s and mid-1790s. The Chitimacha, Houma, Tunica-Biloxi, Coushatta, and Choctaw still have communities in Louisiana.

European Discovery and Settlement

The first Europeans who entered the area were from Spain. Among them were the Hernando de Soto expedition (1539-1543) that explored large parts of the southern United States and came through Louisiana in 1542. The diseases brought by de Soto and his troops were devastating to the Native Americans, who lacked immunity to them. Their population dropped drastically in the years after the Spaniards' departure.

For almost 150 years there was no further significant European activity in Louisiana. Then, in 1682, the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, traveled down the Mississippi River to its mouth and claimed for France all the land drained by the river and its tributaries. La Salle named that vast region Louisiane (in English, Louisiana) in honor of the reigning French king, Louis XIV.

The 18th Century - French Rule

The French built forts and settlements along the Gulf Coast and in the Mississippi Valley, including Biloxi (1699), Mobile (1702), and Natchitoches (1714), which was the first permanent white settlement in the area of the present state. Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans), another early French settlement, was established in 1718 to secure the lower Mississippi against France's rival colonial powers, Spain and Great Britain. In 1722, New Orleans became the capital of Louisiana. By then the colony also included several settlements farther upstream along the Mississippi.

Louisiana struggled as a royal colony from 1699 to 1712. As a result of fighting between France and Great Britain during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), the colonists were cut off from France for years at a time. In 1712 the financially beleaguered French monarchy gave control of Louisiana to wealthy French financier Antoine Crozat. The population remained quite small throughout his proprietorship.

In 1717 the slow-growing colony came under the control of the Compagnie d'Occident (Company of the West), headed by Scottish financier John Law. Law gained great influence at the French court through his establishment of what became the French national bank. Because the bank invested heavily in the Company of the West and because Louisiana was the company's greatest asset, Law needed to develop the colony rapidly to maintain public confidence in the bank. He undertook a promotional campaign that brought in several thousand settlers. Many were German indentured workers who sold their services for a specified period, after which they gained their freedom. The settlers also included convicts who were forced to migrate to the colony. According to one company official, 7,020 Europeans went to the colony between October 1717 and May 1721. Because Law's company had acquired the Compagnie du Senegal (Company of Senegal), which held the French monopoly on the slave trade, black slaves from Africa were brought to Louisiana in 1719. About 3,000 slaves arrived between 1720 and 1731.

Law's promotional literature led immigrants to anticipate quick profits from mining and other endeavors that would require little effort and investment. However, the harsh world they found was dramatically different. Many people died because the overwhelmed colonial government could not meet their needs for food, clothing, and shelter. Most of the survivors stayed because they lacked the means to return to Europe. Although a few large plantations were established, most of the immigrants tilled small subsistence farms, sometimes with slave labor. These farmers engaged in small-scale production of tobacco and indigo for export.

Law's promotional scheme, known as the Mississippi Bubble or Mississippi Scheme, fell apart in 1720 as word of the brutal colonial conditions reached France. The company survived, however, and continued to administer the colony until 1731. In that year, as a result of French warfare with the Natchez people who lived on the east bank of the Mississippi, Louisiana was returned to the French monarchy.

Louisiana remained a French colony until the early 1760s but was always a heavy economic burden. With the British conquest of the French colonies in Canada during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Louisiana no longer had any strategic value to France. In 1762 France transferred the colony to Spain in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, to induce Spain to enter the war as a French ally. However, the following year the French and Spanish lost the war, and in the peace treaty Great Britain took nearly all of Louisiana east of the Mississippi. Spain kept the larger western part, along with the Ile d'Orléans (Isle of Orleans), the area around New Orleans. The Spanish part alone retained the name Louisiana.

Spanish Rule

The transfer to Spain surprised and angered the colony's largely French population. The colonists' disappointment turned to despair when the first Spanish governor, Antonio de Ulloa, who arrived at New Orleans in March 1766, attempted to impose a harsher rule on the colony. In late October 1768 insurgents arose and drove Ulloa from the colony. General Alejandro O'Reilly restored Spanish control in August 1769.

O'Reilly quickly established the Spanish government that would administer the colony for the next 34 years. Most of the population and local administrators, however, remained French. Although the Spanish tried to tip the balance by bringing in hundreds of Spanish colonists in 1779, most immigrants in the Spanish period were French-speaking refugees from political upheavals in France, Canada, and the West Indies. The two most important groups were the Acadians, about 3,000 of whom came from eastern Canada and refugees from Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) fleeing that island's black revolution (1791-1803). The Acadians, or Cajuns as they came to be known, settled in frontier areas west of New Orleans, becoming the dominant cultural group in rural south Louisiana.

Louisiana had some involvement in the American Revolution (1775-1783), in which the United States rebelled against Great Britain. Because Great Britain was Spain's chief colonial rival in North America, the Spanish in New Orleans worked to undermine the British by supplying the United States with arms, ammunition, and provisions. In 1779 Spain formally declared war on Great Britain. Spanish forces, consisting of Louisiana militia, subsequently captured all of the major British settlements in West Florida, which included the Gulf Coast area between the Perdido and Mississippi rivers. Under the terms of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which concluded the war, Great Britain ceded both East and West Florida to Spain.

Following the revolution, Louisiana finally began to attain a level of modest prosperity. In addition, New Orleans emerged as the commercial gateway to the North American interior. Just as Louisiana was beginning to achieve its economic potential, Spain gave it back to France by another secret treaty in 1800. Spain, however, retained West Florida. France, in turn, sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803.

The 19th Century - Territorial Period

The United States in 1804 split Louisiana into two parts: the District of Louisiana (renamed Territory of Louisiana in 1805), comprising land north of the 33rd parallel (the northern border of present-day Louisiana); and the Territory of Orleans, comprising land to the south. William C. C. Claiborne became governor of the Territory of Orleans. He faced the challenge of transplanting American democracy to a territory that had little experience with self-rule. In 1809 Claiborne also had to deal with a second wave of Saint-Domingue refugees. Ten thousand refugees arrived at New Orleans in a six-month period, doubling its population. This influx helped preserve for decades-and, to some extent, to the present day-the French character of New Orleans.

In 1810 American settlers in West Florida proclaimed their independence from Spain and requested annexation by the United States. Claiborne assumed control over that region as far east as the Pearl River.

Statehood

On April 30, 1812, the Territory of Orleans entered the federal Union as the 18th state, the state of Louisiana. It included the annexed part of West Florida. Claiborne became the first state governor, and New Orleans continued as the capital.

Less than two months later the War of 1812 erupted between the United States and Britain. In 1814, near the end of the war, the British launched a campaign to capture strategic points along the lower Mississippi and the Gulf Coast. On January 8, 1815, a large British force stormed heavily defended New Orleans, but was thrown back by forces commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson. The decisive United States victory, though won after the signing of the peace treaty, preserved the boundaries of the young republic. Historical evidence indicates that Britain would not have ratified the treaty if it had won at New Orleans.

Agricultural and Commercial Development

After the War of 1812, settlers from the United States migrated in a steady stream to Louisiana, mainly from other parts of the South. By 1820, with a population of 153,407, Louisiana was thoroughly settled by whites except for some northern and western areas. One region that remained largely unsettled was the upper Red River valley, where a huge logjam north of Natchitoches made the river unnavigable. In the 1830s the logjam, known as the Great Raft, was cleared. By 1840, when the population reached 352,411, settlement of northwestern Louisiana was well under way. By 1860 the population had grown to 708,002, about half of whom were black slaves.

Between 1815 and 1860 Louisiana's most prosperous farmers cultivated cotton or sugarcane. Cotton, which was less labor intensive than sugarcane, was grown by many small farmers as well as by proprietors of large plantations with many slaves. By 1850 cotton was grown in most parts of the state, with concentrations in the Mississippi Valley, and, to a lesser degree, the Red, Ouachita, and Tensas river valleys. Sugar plantations predominated in the bayou country of southern Louisiana. Sugar was consistently more profitable than cotton before 1860, but the climate kept it from becoming a staple crop in the northern parts of the state. Rice, grown at first along the Mississippi and in the bayou country as food for slaves, became a major commercial crop in the late 19th century, following the introduction of steam technology and irrigation techniques into the prairie country of southwestern Louisiana by Midwestern immigrants.

Growth of New Orleans

During this period, New Orleans developed into one of the nation's leading commercial centers. Between 1830 and 1860 it was also the second leading American port of entry for immigrants. New Orleans was the major market for Louisiana and other Gulf Coast areas and also for vast portions of the rapidly developing Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. By 1820, with a population of 27,176, New Orleans surpassed Charleston, South Carolina, as the largest city in the South; by 1860 its population reached 168,675. This growth was in spite of frequent yellow fever epidemics that were especially lethal to the European immigrants, who were most responsible for the city's rapid growth.

Between 1815 and 1840 the volume of the city's commercial traffic swelled astoundingly from $20 million to $200 million as New Orleans moved into second place, after New York City, as the nation's leading port. Enormous quantities of cotton, tobacco, grain, and meat came down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers by steamboat, while sugar, coffee, and numerous imported manufactured items were shipped upriver to pioneer settlers.

Beginning about 1835 the building of canals and railroads connecting the Midwest with the Northeast resulted in the diversion of much of the Midwest's grain and meat produce to Northeastern cities. As a result, New Orleans came to rely increasingly on cotton and sugar as export commodities. Another indication of the city's closer ties with the South was that the slave trade became increasingly important in the city's commerce.

The growing political and economic power of New Orleans proved a liability because the remainder of the state pressured politicians to relocate the state capital. In 1849 the capital was moved to Baton Rouge.

The Civil War

Slavery was one of the most divisive political issues in the Congress of the United States in the first half of the 19th century. Many Congress members from the Northern states pressed to end slavery, both because they considered it immoral and because white labor could not compete with unpaid black labor. Members from the Deep South (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida) believed that slavery was essential to their agricultural system and that the North was trying to dominate the national economy. By the 1850s, Southerners saw their power slipping in Congress, the clamor for abolition of slavery was at a high pitch, and many in the South came to believe that secession from the Union was the only way to protect "Southern rights," including the right to own slaves.

Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860 as the candidate of the Republican Party, which opposed the spread of slavery. South Carolina had threatened to secede if the Republicans won, and in December 1860 it did so. Other Southern states began to follow, and war looked imminent. Louisiana withdrew from the Union on January 26, 1861, the sixth state to do so. Shortly thereafter the seceded states formed a confederacy, the Confederate States of America, and began mobilizing for war. The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery bombarded a federal fort in Charleston harbor.

Louisiana was remote from most of the action in the war, which occurred to the north and east. The Confederates erected forts on the Mississippi below New Orleans to protect the city and keep the port open. One year later, in April 1862, a fleet of Union Navy ships under Captain David G. Farragut entered the mouth of the Mississippi. After bombarding the forts, Farragut slipped past them and occupied the city without a struggle on April 26. This was a costly loss to the Confederacy, for New Orleans was not only the South's largest city, it had also been an important supply center.

Continuing upriver after taking New Orleans, Farragut's forces captured Baton Rouge. The Confederate state government withdrew to Opelousas and later to Shreveport, where it remained for the duration of the war. Baton Rouge did not become the capital again until 1882.

The Union made New Orleans the capital of all federally held territory in Louisiana and placed it under martial law, enforced by the controversial Union Major General Benjamin F. Butler. Butler's arbitrary rule provoked charges of corruption, earned him the nickname Beast Butler, and caused his dismissal as governor.

In August 1862 Confederate troops attempted to recapture Baton Rouge. Failing, they entrenched themselves at Port Hudson, 32 km (20 mi) upriver from Baton Rouge. Port Hudson fell to Union forces in July 1863, by which time it was the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi. However, western and northern Louisiana remained under Confederate control for the remainder of the war.

Reconstruction and Its Aftermath

Under the terms of Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction of December 1863, a civil government was established over the federally held parts of Louisiana in 1864. A new state constitution was drafted, abolishing slavery.

The civil government, which assumed statewide jurisdiction at the war's end, came to be dominated by ex-Confederates. Blacks were denied the right to vote. In addition, numerous laws were passed, including the notorious Black Codes, that sharply restricted the rights and freedoms of Louisiana's black population.

A bloody race riot in 1866 induced the federal government to impose political changes in Louisiana. In 1867 and 1868 Congress passed so-called Reconstruction Acts over President Andrew Johnson's veto. The Reconstruction Acts restored federal military rule over ten ex-Confederate states, including Louisiana, and made readmission to the Union conditional on the adoption of state constitutions acceptable to Congress. Thus, in March 1868, a new constitution was drafted in New Orleans; it provided voting rights for adult males of all races, and guaranteed full civil rights to blacks. It also disfranchised (denied the vote to) many ex-Confederates. It was approved by the Louisiana voters, a majority of whom were black, and Louisiana was formally readmitted to the Union on June 25, 1868. Whites would have been a majority if they had registered but, perhaps because of apathy, racism, or official dissuasion, about one-half of eligible whites had stayed away from the voter registration offices in 1867 and 1868.

For about eight years following readmission, the majority of officeholders in the state were former slaves, pro-Union white Southerners, and white Northern immigrants, who banded together under the banner of the Republican Party. The latter two groups were labeled scalawags and carpetbaggers, respectively, by their enemies. Blacks who were prominent in this period included Blanche K. Bruce, the first black U.S. senator; P. B. S. Pinchback, the first black state governor; Joseph H. Rainey and Jefferson Long, U.S. congressmen; Oscar J. Dunn, lieutenant governor; and Antoine Dubuclet, state treasurer.

Many white Louisianians worked to undermine Republican rule by political and economic action, as well as by violence through organizations like the Ku Klux Klan (northern Louisiana), the Knights of the White Camellia (southern Louisiana), and the White League. These organizations engaged in such tactics as burning of homes and flogging or lynching of blacks considered dangerous. The White League was particularly vicious, assassinating Republican officials and driving black laborers from their homes. The league's activities culminated in the bloody Battle of Liberty Place in New Orleans in 1874, where 3,500 league members took over the city hall, statehouse, and arsenal, and left only when federal troops arrived. As a consequence, a federal army of occupation remained in the state until the end of the Reconstruction period in 1877.

In the early 1870s the Republican domination of state politics became increasingly precarious. Many Republican supporters, particularly blacks, were intimidated into not voting. In addition, presidential and congressional pardons gave the vote back to many Louisiana ex-Confederates. In the election for governor in 1876, Stephen B. Packard, a Republican, opposed Francis R. T. Nicholls of the Democratic Party. Following the vote counting, both sides claimed victory. Louisiana's electoral votes for president were also claimed by both sides. The Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, needed those votes and also those of two other Southern states, Florida and South Carolina, to win the presidency.

It is thought that the Republicans and the Southern Democrats struck a deal to settle the election. Whatever the agreement may have been, the Republicans did not challenge the seating of Nicholls as governor, and the Democrats did not challenge the awarding of the electoral votes to Hayes. Then, when Hayes took office in 1877, he called off the federal troops that had been on station in New Orleans. Reconstruction was over. Louisiana was under one-party rule by the Democrats, which did not end until Republican David C. Treen became governor in 1980. The party took various measures to consolidate its power, largely at the expense of the state's black population. Eventually, a new state constitution in 1898 made most blacks ineligible to vote through a combination of poll taxes, literacy tests, and property qualifications.

Late 19th-Century Economic Developments

The Freedmen's Bureau, a federal agency, provided some help to former slaves from 1865 to 1869. Accomplishments of the bureau across the South included the establishment of a system of free public schools for blacks; the expenditure of about $20 million in various types of relief and assistance; and some improvement in the social, economic, and political status of Southern blacks.

Most freed blacks, lacking the means to become economically self-sufficient, were compelled to work the lands of others. At the conclusion of the Civil War, much of the land in Louisiana remained in the hands of the prewar owners. Many Louisiana farmers and planters, however, lost their properties during the decade following the conflict, as labor problems and economic depressions took their toll. Many Northerners, business leaders, and merchants bought these properties through public auctions. Reconstruction-era farmers of all backgrounds cultivated their lands by means of the sharecropping system. Under this system, landowners provided their tenants with equipment and advanced them credit for necessities. The sharecroppers, who were equally divided between whites and blacks by the end of the 19th century, worked the land for a percentage of the crop.

By the 1880s Louisiana's production of cotton, rice, and sugar nearly equaled the record crops of the prewar period. However, during this decade and afterward, prices for farm products were consistently low. Often a farmer's profit could not even cover debts to his bankers, local merchant, or landlord. In addition, lack of available capital and the need for ready cash perpetuated archaic, unproductive farming methods throughout the state. As a result, poverty was widespread among the state's farming population, particularly among sharecroppers and small farmers.

Populism

Farmers in this period were suffering throughout the country. Besides the low prices of farm products, major causes of unrest were the growing indebtedness to merchants and banks and excessive freight rates imposed by the railroads. In the 1870s and 1880s American farmers under midwestern leadership formed self-help groups such as the Grange and Farmers' Alliances. When these organizations decided that agricultural grievances had to be addressed with political action, the dominance of the Democrats in the South was threatened. This threat was complicated by the fact that the Democrats stood for white power, while the farmers' groups were willing to attract black farmers to their cause. The movement nationwide was called populism and resulted in an important third political party, the People's Party. In Louisiana the party reached its height in the elections of 1894 and 1896. Its candidate, John Pharr, lost the governorship race in 1896 through massive, blatant vote fraud and violent intimidation. Twenty-one lynchings occurred in Louisiana that year, one-fifth of the total for the entire nation. Demoralized, the populist movement lost its momentum in Louisiana by 1900.

Revival of New Orleans

At New Orleans, river traffic, which had practically ceased during the Civil War, revived after the war, following the resumption of large-scale cotton production throughout the South. Prospects of increased foreign trade were enhanced by the completion in 1879 of a system of jetties that permanently deepened the channel at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The jetties made it easier for large oceangoing vessels to enter the mouth of the river. New Orleans further benefited from considerable railroad building that occurred in Louisiana, as well as outside the state.

By the early 20th century, New Orleans had regained its position as one of the nation's leading ports. The city's commercial growth was further stimulated by the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 and the consequent burgeoning of trade with Latin America.

The 20th Century - Development of Mineral Resources

By 1900 Louisiana's population was 1,381,625, of whom 287,104 lived in New Orleans. Outside New Orleans the population was overwhelmingly rural and agrarian. From 1900 to 1910 substantial oil deposits were discovered, and, in the next decade, sources of natural gas were uncovered in various parts of the state. The large-scale exploitation of oil and gas resources resulted in much industrial activity in northern Louisiana, particularly at Shreveport. In 1938 more major oil deposits were discovered in the tidelands off the coast. Large-scale exploitation of the offshore deposits, as well as of major coastal deposits, was begun shortly after World War II (1939-1945). The mining of sulfur and salt in southern Louisiana, which began in the 19th century, also stimulated economic growth.

Agrarian Unrest and Huey P. Long

While the development of Louisiana's mineral resources gave a new measure of strength to the economy, widespread poverty continued to prevail among the farm population. During World War I (1914-1918) a sharp rise in the price of cotton brought about some improvement in the farmers' lives, but then their situation worsened as cotton prices declined sharply in the early 1920s. The farm recession lingered through the decade.

During the agricultural recession of the 1920s, Huey P. Long rapidly rose in Louisiana politics. In part, Long's rise was made possible by the hard times and agrarian discontent. Long was known as "Kingfish" and possessed a blunt, freewheeling, even brutal manner that appealed to many poor white Louisianians, particularly in rural parishes. Championing the interests of small farmers and laborers against those of powerful corporations, particularly the Standard Oil Company, Long was elected governor in 1928. In 1930 he was elected U.S. senator from Louisiana, but he remained governor and did not take his Senate seat until 1932, when his choice for successor became governor. Long maintained almost dictatorial control over the state government until his assassination in 1935.

During Long's political ascendancy, a vast program of public works was instituted in Louisiana, some with state funds, but most with federal assistance. These programs helped to alleviate the economic effects of the disastrous worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s. At the time of his death, however, Long was serving his own political ends by blocking badly needed federal relief and public works programs. After his death, considerable federal funds were spent to relieve the effects of the depression in Louisiana.

Long's political machine-an organization to control public offices and patronage-continued under the leadership of his brother, Earl K. Long, and his son, Russell Long. From 1928 to 1960, the real contest for governor of Louisiana was fought in the primary elections between the Long and anti-Long factions of the Democratic Party. The flamboyant, populist, often corrupt Long faction candidates advocated continuous expansion of state services; they were opposed by reformers who stressed their personal integrity and fiscal conservatism.

World War II and the Postwar Decades

During World War II the need for raw materials stimulated the development of Louisiana's mineral resources. A prominent feature of that development was the establishment along the Gulf Coast, as well as in other parts of the state, of huge chemical and petrochemical plants. Increasing mineral production and expanded industrial activity characterized the postwar decades as well. Many farmers, displaced by the mechanization of agriculture or simply seeking better opportunities, took jobs in such rapidly expanding industrial centers as Baton Rouge and Lake Charles. By 1950 the state's urban population exceeded its rural population. Some farmers, especially blacks, left the state to move to large Western and Northern cities, especially Chicago, Illinois, and Oakland, California. Thousands of poor Cajuns and blacks migrated to the Golden Triangle area of southeastern Texas, taking jobs in the refineries and shipyards of Beaumont, Orange, and Port Arthur.

Racial Integration

Between 1898 and 1954 racial segregation was required by law in all Louisiana public schools. Following the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring such segregation illegal, the state legislature passed a series of laws and resolutions designed to maintain segregation. When the federal courts declared these laws unconstitutional, integration began under court order in two New Orleans primary schools in the fall of 1960. Boycotts and rioting by whites that accompanied this initial integration received worldwide publicity. Desegregation of Roman Catholic schools was begun in 1962 on order of the archbishop of New Orleans, who excommunicated several vocal opponents of his integration order. The first desegregation of the state's public high schools occurred in 1963, and schools outside the larger cities were first desegregated in 1964. The civil rights issue dominated Louisiana politics during most of the 1960s.

By 1971, however, the issue of equal rights for blacks seemed largely at rest. In the Democratic primary race for the governor's seat, champions of the old white supremacy concept were overwhelmed by young candidates stressing racial harmony, an end to political corruption, and attention to Louisiana's economic advancement. The general election between the Democratic winner, Edwin W. Edwards, and his surprisingly strong Republican opponent, David C. Treen, marked a return to the political styles and issues of the Long years, with Edwards as the flamboyant populist and Treen as the reformer. This was the posture of all elections for governor from 1971 to 1995. The 1971 election also marked a shift of political control from the predominantly rural and Protestant northern parishes to the more urban and Catholic southern section of Louisiana.

The Late 20th Century

During the first two terms of Edwards (1972-1980), Louisiana had unprecedented economic prosperity as a result of the oil boom. Under Edwards's leadership, the state focused its economic hopes on the oil industry, despite forecasts that the state's oil reserves were declining and the industry's future in the state was less than promising. State taxes were reduced as revenues from oil royalties and oil industry taxes became the government's main source of income. For a brief period, state revenues exceeded expenditures. The Edwards administration used the surpluses to create the largest state bureaucracy per capita in the nation. Treen won the governorship in 1979 on a reform platform, but was unable to get the cooperation of the pro-Edwards legislature. In 1983 Edwards ran against Treen and was again elected governor. In 1985 he and several associates were indicted for fraud and racketeering in a hospital construction scandal. The first trial ended in a hung jury; at the second trial, in 1986, Edwards was acquitted.

The highly publicized Edwards trial coincided with the state's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Oil prices had begun a gradual decline in 1981, producing a ripple effect in the Louisiana economy. In December 1985 the world petroleum market virtually collapsed, as did the oil-based south Louisiana economy. In the 1987 primary, Edwards lost the nomination to Democratic Congressman Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer, who became governor in 1988.

Like the Treen administration before it, Roemer's reform administration was unable to get its programs through the legislature. In October 1988 Roemer called for a special legislative session to enact a sweeping fiscal reform program. Although the state was burdened with a $1 billion debt and leading newspapers, television stations, and business interests supported the program, it met a resounding defeat. A watered-down version was also defeated by the legislature in March 1989.

The Edwards faction advocated state-sanctioned gambling as the route to economic recovery for Louisiana. The faction was opposed by proponents of economic diversification. The gambling advocates eventually won, despite widespread grass-roots opposition. This generated resentment among the voters. This resentment grew with a precipitous rise in state and local taxes, the continuing economic malaise, and the growing influence of special interest groups. Rumblings of a grass-roots political upheaval were first felt in the strong 1990 senatorial campaign of David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan member, against Louisiana's senior U.S. senator, J. Bennett Johnston. The voter rebellion gathered strength following Edwards's defeat of Duke in the 1991 campaign for governor.

Edwards declined to run again in 1995. The rapid growth of the gambling industry, the perceived indifference of state politicians, and FBI allegations of corruption in the legislature led to the election in 1995 of Republican Mike Foster. Foster was an outspoken opponent of gambling and, as governor, worked to remove the pro-Edwards leadership in the legislature.

In 1999 Foster was reelected by a large margin. The following year, a jury convicted former governor Edwards and four associates, including his son Stephen, of racketeering, extortion, and conspiracy charges in the awarding of casino licenses. Edwards appealed the convictions.