The name "Baton Rouge" came from the French and translates to "Red Stick". In 1699, the French explorer Sieur d'lberville led an exploration party of about 200 people up the Mississippi River. On March 17, on the east bank of the river (which is now the campus of Southern University), the exploration team saw a cypress pole decorated rather gruesomely with bloody animal and fish heads, which they later learned was a boundary marker between the hunting territories of the Bayogoula and Houma tribes.
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