<P> Prisoners were set free in Paris in September 1719 onwards, under the condition that they marry prostitutes and go with them to Louisiana . The newly married couples were chained together and taken to the port of embarkation . In May 1720, after complaints from the Mississippi Company and the concessioners about this class of French immigrants, the French government prohibited such deportations . However, there was a third shipment of prisoners in 1721 . </P> <P> The last French and Indian War resulted in the dissolution of New France, with Canada going to Great Britain and Louisiana going to Spain . Only the islands of Saint - Pierre - et - Miquelon are still in French hands . </P> <P> In 1802 Spain returned Louisiana to France, but Napoleon sold it to the United States in 1803 . The French left many toponyms (Illinois, Vermont, Bayous ...) and ethnonyms (Sioux, Coeur d'Alene, Nez Percé ...) in North America . </P> <P> A major French settlement lay on the island of Hispaniola, where France established the colony of Saint - Domingue on the western third of the island in 1664 . Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles", Saint - Domingue became the richest colony in the Caribbean due to slave plantation production of sugar cane . It had the highest slave mortality rate in the western hemisphere . A 1791 slave revolt, the only ever successful slave revolt, began the Haitian Revolution, led to freedom for the colony's slaves in 1794 and, a decade later, complete independence for the country, which renamed itself Haiti . France briefly also ruled the eastern portion of the island, which is now the Dominican Republic . </P>

Which state of us was once a french colony