The First West Florida Convention, 1810

The meetings in the Baton Rouge District in 1810 led to violence in September. Philemon Thomas organized the rebels who stormed Fort San Carlos on September 23 and captured Governor Carlos de Hault de Lassus. They raised a white star on a blue field made by Melissa Johnson. Independence was declared September 26, a constitution followed, and Fulwar Skipwith became governor in November with St. Francisville as capital. President Madison proclaimed possession on October 27. St. Francisville gave in on December 6 and Baton Rouge surrendered on December 10.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Port Hudson State Historic Site — 6.0 mi
  The 48-day siege of 1863 on the Mississippi bluffs, where the Louisiana Native Guards and Captain Andre Cailloux led the first assault; earthworks, a six-mile trail and a museum.
• Audubon State Historic Site — 12 mi
  Oakley House, where Audubon taught drawing and painted 32 birds in 1821, and the two cabins behind it where four Black families lived through slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow.
• Louisiana State Capitol — 14 mi
  A 450-foot Art Deco tower Huey Long pushed through in 1930, finished in 14 months, and the hallway where he was shot in 1935; free to enter and ringed by 27 acres of grounds.
• Capitol Park Museum — 14 mi
  The Louisiana State Museum in Baton Rouge: a shrimp trawler and a Civil War submarine, galleries on the slave market, resistance and Jim Crow, and the music from Armstrong to Chenier.

More markers nearby

• Battle of the Plains Store — 2.4 mi
• Town of Zachary — 2.6 mi
• Town of Baker — 4.8 mi
• Port Hudson National Cemetery — 4.9 mi