Nearly 6,000 Africans were brought to French Louisiana, where they were put to work along with indentured servants and enslaved Native Americans. Most were shipped from Senegambia, the Bight of Benin and Central Africa (Hall, 1992, p. 60). The majority of the slave force came from Senegambia throughout the colonial period, especially during the French regime when Louisiana and the Concession of Senegal were both under the control of the French West India Company. Under Spanish rule, Louisiana witnessed significant economic expansion associated with increased imports of African captives. In 1795, the colony was home to nearly 20,000 enslaved individuals, of whom most had been born in Africa and 14 per cent lived on the German Coast (Hall, 1992, p. 279; Blume, 1990, p. 87). The origins of the Africans enslaved at Habitation Haydel perfectly reflect the patterns of the slave trade between Africa and Louisiana.  
The African names documented included Senegal (Wolof), Poullard (Fulbe), Nard (Moor), Mandingo, Bambara, Soso (Susu), Temne, Kanga, Kiamba (Chamba), Mina, Igbo, Edo and Congo. Another name was Guinea, which could have designated any portion of the west coast of Africa (see Table). The 1819 inventory of Habitation Haydel listed 61 enslaved persons, 19 of them born in Africa. Of these, 12 were from Senegambia ( 63.1 per cent), 21 per cent were from the Bight of Benin and 15.7 per cent were from Central Africa. In the case of Senegambia, this distribution is close to the calculations made using the transatlantic slave trade database, which estimates the proportion contributed by Senegambia (Sierra Leone included) to the 22,000 Africans landed in Louisiana from 1719 to 1860 at 64.5 per cent (Eltis and Richardson, 2010, p. 220).