Winding through Time: The Forgotten History and Present-Day Peril of Bayou Manchac

7. An International Boundary

39  7 An International Boundary THE FRENCH CONTROLLED LOUISIANA until the mid-eighteenth century, by which time they had become embroiled on many international fronts. The colony had become a burden on their fiscal resources, so in late 762, French monarch Louis XV secretly ceded the Isle of Orleans and the Louisiana territory west of the Mississippi to his Spanish cousin Charles III. Three months later, having lost New France (Canada) in the French and Indian War, France From 763 to 783 Bayou Manchac was an international boundary between the British Manchac District and the Spanish District of Manchac or Iberville. WINDING THROUGH TIME 40 relinquished its territories east of the Mississippi River to Great Britain, including (with Spain’s agreement) Florida. These transactions dramatically redrew the colonial map of North America. The narrow, winding channel of Bayou Manchac became an international border between the colonies of England and Spain; the boundary line ran exactly down its midstream. ...