Louisiana has a rich, colorful historical background. Early Spanish explorers were Alvárez Piñeda, 1519; à lvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, 1528; and Hernando de Soto in 1541. Sieur de la Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi and claimed all the land drained by it and its tributaries for Louis XIV of France in 1682.. Louisiana became a French crown colony in 1731 but was ceded to …