The first documented Native American inhabitants of the Thibodaux area were the Chawasha, a small tribe related to the Chitimacha of the upper Bayou Lafourche.

The colonists gradually began to import Africans in bondage as slaves to work on and develop rice and sugar cane plantations.

[6] The United States acquired Louisiana from France in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase, after Napoleon, then First Consul, decided to sell France's North American possessions due to the failure to regain control of Saint-Domingue (which became the Republic of Haiti) and the impending threat of war with Great Britain.

[7] This settlement was formally incorporated as a town in 1830 under the name "Thibodauxville", in honor of local planter Henry Schuyler Thibodaux, the son of Acadian exiles.

[8] The area was developed in the antebellum period for sugar cane plantations, and Thibodaux was the trading center of the region.

Senator Henry Clay, the "Great Compromiser," visited Thibodaux for several days as part of his campaign for the U.S.

Confederate General Braxton Bragg, the victor at Chickamauga, and his wife had a plantation, "Bivouac," just north of Thibodaux and attended services at St. John's Episcopal Church on Jackson Street, founded by Bishop Leonidas Polk, the owner of "Leighton" plantation and later a Confederate lieutenant general killed in action.

Crump to make the charge, and I can assure you that Rowdy stood the fire of the enemies [sic] guns as well or better than the rider.

The cowardly Yankees could have killed all of us while we were crossing the bridge of [Thibodaux] but they only fired three rounds before they skedaddled and then such a yell; In one hour after we entered the town, the victory was ours...[11]In the late 19th century, after having taken back control of the state government following the Reconstruction era by use of election fraud and violence by paramilitary forces such as the White League, which suppressed black voting, white Democrats continued to consolidate their power over the state government.

In this period, because blacks were skilled sugar workers, they briefly retained more rights and political power than did African Americans in the north of the state who worked as tenant farmers or sharecroppers on cotton plantations.

But from 1880, through the Louisiana Sugar Producers Association, some 200 major planters worked to regain slave conditions and control of workers, adopting uniform pay, withholding 80 percent of the workers' pay until after harvest, and making them accept scrip, redeemable only at plantation stores owned by the planters, rather than cash.

The Knights of Labor organized a chapter in 1886 in Shreveport, Louisiana and attracted many cane workers seeking better conditions.

The governor called in the state militia at the planters' request; they protected strikebreakers and evicted black workers.

A New Orleans newspaper reported that "for three weeks past the negro women of the town have been making threats to the effect that if the white men resorted to arms they would burn the town and [end] the lives of the white women and children with their cane knives.

"[12] Similarly, in the days leading up to the climactic event, it was reported that "[s]ome of the colored women made open threats against the people and the community, declaring that they would destroy any house in the town" and that "[n]ot a few of the negroes boasted that in case a fight was made they were fully prepared for it.

The massacre and subsequent disenfranchisement of blacks in Louisiana at the turn of the century by making voter registration more difficult, and white Democrats' imposition of Jim Crow, ended labor organizing of cane workers until the 1940s.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.47 square miles (14.2 km2), all land.

Richard D'Alton Williams, a well-known 19th-century Irish patriot, poet, and physician, died of tuberculosis in Thibodaux in 1862, and is buried in St. Joseph Cemetery.

A famous Mississippi blues musician, Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones, is buried in Thibodaux, where he often played, and where his manager, Hosea Hill, resided.

[20] In the Louisiana Legislature, Thibodaux is currently represented by District 55 Rep. Bryan Fontenot (R-Thibodaux) and Sen. Bret Allain (R-Jeanerette).