St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana: History
=== Pre-history ===
St. Tammany was originally inhabited by numerous Indian peoples, including the Colapissas, Bayou Goulas, Chickasaw, Biloxi, Choctaw and Pensacola nations (although Frederick S. Ellis, in his book St. Tammany Parish: L'autre Côté du Lac, claims that the regionally prominent Choctaw tribe did not arrive in the area until after it had begun to be settled by Europeans).
In 1699, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, a French explorer, was the first European to visit the area of present-day St. Tammany Parish. While exploring lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas, Iberville wrote in his journal, "The place where I am is one of the prettiest I have seen, fine level ground bare of canes. The land north of the lakes is a country of pine trees mixed with hard woods. The soil is sandy and many tracks of buffalo and deer can be seen."
After the 18th-century founding and development of New Orleans, French settlers began to enter the region. The primary industry was the production of pitch, tar, turpentine and resin from the forests.
After France was defeated in the French and Indian War, St. Tammany (along with the other future "Florida Parishes") became part of British West Florida. During this period, the area comprising today's St. Tammany attracted British loyalists who wanted to escape persecution in the Thirteen Colonies. After Great Britain was defeated in the American Revolutionary War, West Florida was governed by the Spanish. The West Florida period ended with the West Florida revolt, which precipitated annexation by the United States.
In 1810, President James Madison annexed West Florida as part of the United States and had Governor William C. C. Claiborne incorporate the area into the Territory of Orleans. Claiborne established the boundaries of the Florida Parishes with the creation of its first four parishes: East Baton Rouge, Feliciana, St. Helena, and St. Tammany. St. Tammany Parish was named after the Delaware Indian Chief Tamanend (c.1628-1698), who made peace with William Penn and was generally renowned for his goodness. Among the nine Louisiana parishes named after saints, St. Tammany is the only one whose eponym is not a saint of the Catholic Church, the ecclesiastical parishes of which had formed the basis for the state's civil parishes. Tamanend is not known to have been Roman Catholic or Christian, but he had been popularly revered as a "Patron Saint of America" since the post-Revolutionary period, long after his death. …