Populating the Barrera: Spanish Immigration Efforts in Colonial Louisiana

As the French and Indian war ended, Spain acquired the huge and undefined French province of Louisiana. It accepted the colony to protect other Spanish North American possessions farther to the west and south, particularly silver-rich Mexico. For nearly forty years, Spain struggled against the encroachment of Great Britain and later the United States to hang on to this vast territory inhabited largely by Native Americans. This study explains the efforts initiated by Louisiana’s governors to bring in settlers, the changes made in the Catholic Crown’s immigration policies to accommodate immigrants, and the results of their work.