Louisiana's Florida Parishes
Those portions of Southeast Louisiana north of the Bayou Manchac-Amite River-Lake
Maurepas-Pontchartrain and -Borgne confluences, south of the Thirty-first degree North
latitude, east of the Mississippi and west of the Pearl River are popularly styled
the Florida Parishes.
Owing their curious communal name to the British, Spanish and American military occupation
of 1764, 1779 and 1810 respectively, the eight modern parishes of East Baton Rouge,
West Feliciana, East Feliciana, St. Helena, Livingston, Tangipahoa, Washington and
St. Tammany maintain a distinct regional identity linked by geography and a peculiar
common history.
Only the Florida Parishes
- boasts association with every major colonial power occupying Louisiana.
- remained separate and distinct from the original Louisiana Purchase.
- shaped its own destiny through an armed insurrection successfully overthrowing the existing government and leading to the establishment of an independent nation, the original "Lone Star Republic" of West Florida.
- witnessed fierce feud-related violence earning the ominous distinction as home to some of the highest rural homicide rates ever recorded in American history.
Flags which have flown over the Florida Parishes:
Royal Spanish flag of Castile and Leon
French Fleur de Lis Royal Flag
British Union Jack (late 1700s)
Spanish national Flag
U.S. flag (1795-1818)
Flag of the West Florida Republic, 1810
Louisiana Secession flag, 1861
First Confederate national flag
Louisiana state flag