The collapse of the indigo industry at the end of the eighteenth century was soon followed by the birth of the sugar industry, which production skyrocketed with the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the large influx of slaves, including thousands brought from Saint Domingue (Haiti).
Sugar Mill
Cotton was also cultivated with success in Louisiana but it required a great amount of work and its value in the markets of Europe was inferior to the cotton of Surinam, Cayenne, the West Indian Islands, and the Indies. When Louisiana entered the Union as a State, sugar became the main crop of the farmers of the Lower Mississippi River. The arrival of the first steamboat in 1812 soon turned New Orleans into the second most active port of the United States after New York.