Bouligny, known as
Dominique or its Spanish form
Domingo, was born in
New Orleans,
Louisiana (New Spain), on August 22, 1773. His father,
Francisco Bouligny, came to Louisiana as a military official when the territory was transferred from France to Spain and became a high-ranking official in Spanish Louisiana. His mother was Marie-Louise Le Sénéchal d'Auberville, who belonged to a prominent of New Orleans
Creole family. He was the couple's second child and eldest son. In 1786, when he was 12, Bouligny joined Spain's Louisiana Regiment as a cadet earning a commission as sublieutenant two years later. When the
War of the First Coalition broke out in Europe, Bouligny was assigned to the Louisiana Regiment's artillery corps, he later was put in command of a squadron of gunboats sent up the Mississippi to the
District of Illinois, and oversaw the initial construction of
Fort San Fernando De Las Barrancas. In December 1795, he was promoted to lieutenant. He resigned from the regiment in 1803 when it departed the territory following Louisiana's return to French rule. After the
Sale of Louisiana in 1803, Bouligny (and other colonial residents) assumed U.S. citizenship. Having resigned his Spanish military commission, Bouligny turned his attention to his large sugarcane plantation upriver from New Orleans where he also produced
tafia rum. In 1805, Bouligny was elected to the House of Representatives for the
Territory of Orleans as one of seven representatives from Orleans County. He was reelected to the house in 1807. During his second term, he served on the committee that drafted the
civil code of 1808. That same year, he was appointed as a major in the territorial militia's Fourth Regiment. In 1813, after Louisiana was admitted to the Union as a state, Bouligny became a member of the Orleans Parish
police jury, which oversaw administration of the parish. In 1824, the Louisiana state legislature elected Bouligny to the
U.S. Senate to complete the term of
Henry Johnson who had been elected governor. Bouligny served in the Senate from November 19, 1824, to March 4, 1829, and aligned himself with
Henry Clay and the
National Republican Party. where he supported several tariff bills, including the
Tariff of Abominations, which he felt benefited Louisiana's sugarcane industry. Rising Jacksonian sentiment doomed Bouligny's chances for reelection in 1829, and the Louisiana legislature elected
Edward Livingston senator on the fifth round of balloting. Bouligny returned to Louisiana and, after contemplating running for mayor of New Orleans against incumbent
Denis Prieur, he began divesting from his plantation in favor of property within the City of New Orleans. ==Personal life==