Before this year becomes a mere auld acquaintance, we should remember that 210 years ago, in 1812, Louisiana became an official American state. Before that year, Louisiana was the sprawling territory that had been purchased from France in 1803. That transaction included much of the continent’s mid-section between the Gulf of Mexico and Canada and even had land where buffalo roamed in what would one day be Montana. But in 1812, Louisiana became a legal entity of the United States with set boundaries, the guidance of a national constitution and, an important element in Louisiana history, the first gubernatorial election.
Every Louisiana governor has had to do battle with someone or, at the very least, the state legislature. Louisiana’s first elected governor, WCC Claiborne, faced two major enemies, the British and yellow fever.
Claiborne is a transitional figure in Louisiana history having been both the state’s territorial governor under American rule and the first to be elected once statehood was granted. Thomas Jefferson sent the Virginia native to govern the Louisiana territory. He made enough of a name for himself that in 1813 he defeated Jacques Villere, a Creole whose presence reflected the cultural division of the day.
No one knew the region that would become the state of Louisiana better than Claiborne and he did not like what he saw. “I believe the citizens of Louisiana are, generally speaking, honest and a decided majority of them are attached to the American government,” he wrote to Jefferson. “But they are uninformed, indolent, luxurious, in a word illy fitted to be useful citizens of a Republic.” He complained about the “injustices” many of the youths suffered from because of the “inattention” of their parents.
Education, he said, was in a sorry state, and added that a “university” system should be established.
Then there were the British who, in the same year as Louisiana’s statehood, had started another war with the United States. Much of Claiborne’s first term was spent preparing for attacks.
One battle he could not win was with yellow fever. In 1804, he had lost his wife and daughter to the pestilence. Five years later, his second wife succumbed to the same.
Claiborne was the first American governor to preside over a state that spoke two languages: English and French. He assured that the codes were written both ways. As an Anglo politician, he had to work extra hard to prove himself to the French speaking Creoles.
Claiborne’s name still dots the Louisiana landscape. The avenue named after him in New Orleans rambles across the city connecting Jefferson and St. Bernard perishes at either end. A parish named after Claiborne is on the state’s northern border with the town of Homer as its seat. In Baton Rouge, the state’s land office is located in the Claiborne Building. Former congress member Lindy Boggs’s family name was Claiborne. (In 2012, among the players on the LSU’s football teams was a Claiborne and a Jefferson.)
Claiborne, the first elected governor, is clearly the defining figure in establishing Louisiana as an American state. The new year happens to be a time on the calendar for another gubernatorial election. Louisiana’s constitution has allowed its governors to be powerful and they, the good and the bad, created a generous welfare state that at one point would be funded by big oil.
Because of term limitations there will definitely be a new governor to be elected in 2023, most certainly a Republican. That person, too, will have battles to fight but at least unlike Claiborne – whose administration had to put up “Wanted” signs in New Orleans – there will be no pirates hiding in the swamps.
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