That version of history overlooks one or two things.
To begin with, the Spanish were in Florida, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona, and the French were in Louisiana well before 1733, the year the British settled Georgia, the last of the "original" 13. I count 18 colonies, not 13.
In fact, the colonial history of the United States began in the Spanish Caribbean, not along the British Atlantic. Spain had explored from the Atlantic (Ponce de Leon, 1513) to the Pacific (Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, 1543) long before the British even thought about settling Jamestown (1607).
Santo Domingo was the first permanent city founded by Europeans in the Americas, dating from 1496. It became the base from which Spain explored and conquered Central and South America.
Frenchmen settled on the Acadian peninsula (1604) and established a presence in what would become the United States (Penobscot, Maine, 1613) early in our colonial history.
Spanish explorers from the Caribbean and French trappers and traders from colonial Canada had already seen half the country before British explorers began pushing across the mountains toward the Mississippi River.
In fact, it could be said that south Louisiana's colonial history began with Anton de Alaminos, who first traveled to the New World on Columbus' second voyage and was the pilot who led the first Europeans to the Mississippi River in 1518. These Spaniards were looking for a way from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific and continued to sail some distance to the west of the Mississippi. It's conceivable that they were the first Europeans to set foot in Acadiana.
There is also a chance that an ill-fated voyage by Panfilo Narvaez touched our shore. Narvaez and his band sailed safely past the mouth of the Mississippi on the last day of October, 1528. He noted that "fresh water ... came into the sea continually and with great violence." But, as he sailed to the west, his boats sank, disappeared at sea, or were wrecked on the shore. One of them, commanded by Cabeza de Vaca, may have been off the coast of Louisiana when it capsized on Nov. 8 and a few survivors struggled ashore at a place they called Bad Luck Island.
Most historians think Bad Luck Island was today's Galveston Island, but there are some dissenters.
For example, Donald E. Sheppard writes in his history, Cabeza de Vaca's Journey, that de Vaca wrecked on Chandeleur Island off the southeast Louisiana coast, "a very large island at the time." and that he survived to spend the next five years on the island and nearby mainland,
"He would then flee west, across the Mississippi River, to [present day] Donaldsonville, finding several other survivors there," according to Sheppard, " then, with two others, he stopped by Opelousas then headed for Mexico, Spain's nearest outpost on the continent."
Academic historians generally give light regard to Sheppard's work, but if his account is true, Spanish explorers trekked through south Louisiana sometime in the early 1530s.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jhbradshaw@bellsouth.net or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.
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