Joel Chaisson

St. Charles Parish (Paroisse de Saint-Charles) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana.

In 1682, French explorers René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti traveled the entire length of the Mississippi River and as their expedition passed what is present-day Hahnville on the west bank; they encountered indigenous Quinipissa villagers.

In 1699, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, along with his younger brother, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville returned to the area claiming it for France.

They found an indigenous Bayagoula settlement near the river's intersection with a tributary at a site named L’Anse aux Outardes or Bustard’s Cove in present-day New Sarpy on the east bank of the Mississippi River.

It was discovered that the Quinapissa had joined the indigenous Mougoulacha and they later moved to the east bank of the river to form one village with the Bayougoula near L’Anse aux Outardes.

As early as 1718, John Law and the Company of the Indies began recruiting French settlers to settle Louisiana (New France), though not specifically to what would become the German Coast.

The early French settlers were not suited or prepared for the harsh conditions in Louisiana.

In 1719, Jean-Pierre Pury, a director at the Company of the Indies, proposed recruiting Germans and German-speaking Swiss farmers to Louisiana and that same year with a twenty-five-year charter, Law merged the Company of the West with his Company of the Indies.

Also in 1719, a small group of German settlers arrived in the Louisiana French colony and were transported by waterways thirty miles west of New Orleans to a location along the west bank of the Mississippi River, north of Ouachas Lake.

This area of German settlers was called les Allemands or the Germans.

It was originally part of the German Coast, an area along the east bank of the Mississippi River that was settled by numerous German pioneers in the 1720s.

This was historically an area of sugarcane plantations, but the energy industry is now the economic base of the parish.

St. Charles Parish is split by the Mississippi River and includes territory on both sides of the river, the east and west banks.

St. Charles Parish is included in the New Orleans-Metairie metropolitan statistical area.

In 1720, Germans were recruited in early spring to settle in les Allemands.

Roughly four thousand individuals (four hundred and fifty families) mostly from the Rhineland, but also from Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Swedish Pomerania, Alsace–Lorraine, Belgium, and Switzerland traveled across France to Lorient in Brittany and then made the voyage to Louisiana on March 7, 1721.

The settlers arrived in Old Biloxi on June 4, 1721, and on December 15, 1721, French Governor Bienville issued an order for boats to transport the recently arrived German-speaking settlers including newly named Commandant Charles Frederic d'Arensbourg, born Karl Friedrich von Arensburg, to the already established villages of Hoffen, Marienthal, and Augsburg on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

The settlers left for the settlements in January 1722 and of the roughly four thousand individuals that initially began the trip in Europe, when they reached their port of embarkation in March 1722, a Company of the Indies official counted only three hundred and thirty settlers because many of them perished due to the harsh conditions of their long journey to Louisiana.

d'Arensbourg's land grant concession on the west bank of the river near present-day Taft, was named Karlstein after him and with its founding, the original four settlements in "les Allemands" were established.

Besides the area being named "les Allemands", the collective name that the settlements were sometimes referred to as was Karlstein, also after Charles Frédérique d'Arensbourg or Karl Friedrich von Arensburg, who was the acknowledged leader of the settlements for more than 55 years.

Over time, "les Allemands" would come to be known as Côté des Allemands or German Coast and is located in present-day St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes.

The German Coast Settlement established in 1722 was the third permanent settlement in what is now the state of Louisiana, after Natchitoches (1714) and New Orleans (1718).

Also in 1722, the "La Grand Ouragan" Hurricane devastated the German Coast and many Germans considered leaving.

In order to prevent this exodus, Governor Bienville decided to grant the settlement of additional lands to settlers on the west bank in addition to the east bank of the river.

Later in 1722 and 1723, some French and German settlers along with newly arrived Canadians moved across the Mississippi River to establish the first east bank settlement at L’Anse aux Outardes or Bustard’s Cove.

The tributary at this site connected the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain via a previously discovered system of waterways through the LaBranche Wetlands.

The granting of additional lands in 1722 and 1723, led to the founding of the Second German Coast in 1730 and the establishment of officially having settlements on both banks of the Mississippi River.

The ecclesiastical parish and chapel, La Paroisse de St. Jean des Allemands, was also founded in 1723 in Karlstein.

A 1724 census revealed that the German families were not only harvesting enough food and raising enough cattle for their families, but they were bringing their surplus to New Orleans markets.

It is apparent from these records that from the beginning of their settlement, German Coast farmers were a major source of food for the city of New Orleans.

The year 1729 saw the first attack by Native Americans on the German villages.

In 1731, as the first decade of settlement on the German Coast ended and the Company of the Indies charter was retrieved by France, Louisiana again became a French colony.

The land farmed by settlers on the German Coast technically belonged to the Company of the Indies until France retrieved its charter.

After France once again owned the land, more landholders began to petition France for individual ownership of property.

In 1740, the ecclesiastical parish and chapel relocated to the present-day site of the church in Destrehan on the east bank of the Mississippi River.

A log cabin structure was built and both the ecclesiastical parish and chapel were renamed St. Charles in honor of St. Charles Borromeo.

The Territory of Louisiana remained under French rule until 1763, when France ceded Louisiana to Spain after losing the Seven Years' War to Great Britain.

The parish was established in 1807, following the Louisiana Purchase by the United States in 1803.

At the 2020 census, its population was 52,549.

The parish seat is Hahnville and the most populous community is Luling.