Part 155

"The court of France had been engaged in wars and political intrigues, and nothing toward colonizing Louisiana had been effected since the disastrous expedition of La Salle. Twelve years had elapsed, but his discoveries and his unfortunate fate had not been forgotten. At length, in 1698, an expedition for colonizing the region of the Lower Mississippi was set on foot by the French king. It was placed under the command of M. D'Iberville, who had been an experienced and distinguished naval commander in the French wars of Canada, and a successful agent in establishing colonies in Canada, Acadie and Cape Breton. … With his little fleet of two frigates, rating 30 guns each, and two smaller vessels, bearing a company of marines and 200 colonists, including a few women and children, he prepared to set sail from France for the mouth of the Mississippi. The colonists were mostly soldiers who had served in the armies of France and had received an honorable discharge. They were well supplied with provisions and implements requisite for opening settlements in the wilderness. It was on the 24th day of September, 1698, that this colony sailed from Rochelle." On the 2d of the following March, after considerable exploration of the coast, west from the Spanish settlement at Pensacola, Iberville found the mouth of the Mississippi, being confirmed in the identification of it by discovery of a letter, in the hands of the Indians, which Tonti had written to La Salle thirteen years before. "Soon afterward, Iberville selected a site and began to erect a fort upon the northeast shore of the Bay of Biloxi, about fifteen miles north of Ship Island. Here, upon a sandy shore, and under a burning sun, upon a pine barren, he settled his colony, about 80 miles northeast from the present city of New Orleans. … Having thus located his colony, and protected them [by a fort] from the danger of Indian treachery and hostility, he made other provision for their comfort and security, and then set sail for France, leaving his two brothers, Sauvolle and Bienville, as his lieutenants." The following September an English corvette appeared in the river, intending to explore it, but was warned off by the French, and retired. During the summer of 1699 the colonists suffered terribly from the maladies of the region, and M. Sauvolle, with many others, died. {2045} "Early in December following D'Iberville returned with an additional colony and a detachment of troops, in company with several vessels of war. Up to this time, the principal settlements had been at Ship Island and on the Bay of Biloxi; others had been begun at the Bay of St. Louis and on the Bay of Mobile. These were made as a matter of convenience, to hold and occupy the country; for his principal object was to colonize the banks of the Mississippi itself." Iberville now built a fort and located a small colony at a point about 54 miles above the mouth of the river, and about 38 miles below the present city of New Orleans. The next year, having been joined by the veteran De Tonti with a party of French Canadians from the Illinois, Iberville ascended the river nearly 400 miles, formed a friendly alliance with the Natchez tribe of Indians, and selected for a future settlement the site of the present city of Natchez. "In the spring of 1702 war had been declared by England against France and Spain, and by order of the King of France the headquarters of the commandant were removed to the western bank of the Mobile River. This was the first European settlement within the present State of Alabama. The Spanish settlement at Pensacola was not remote; but as England was now the common enemy, the French and Spanish commandants arranged their boundary between Mobile and Pensacola Bays to be the Perdido River. … The whole colony of Southern Louisiana as yet did not number 30 families besides soldiers. Bilious fevers had cut off many of the first emigrants, and famine and Indian hostility now threatened the remainder." Two years later, Iberville was broken in health by an attack of yellow fever and retired to France. After six further years of hardship and suffering, the colony, in 1710, still "presented a population of only 380 souls, distributed into five settlements, remote from each other. These were on Ship Island, Cat Island, at Biloxi, Mobile, and on the Mississippi. … Heretofore the settlements of Louisiana had been a dependence on New France, or Canada, although separated by a wilderness of 2,000 miles in extent. Now it was to be made an independent government, responsible only to the crown, and comprising also the Illinois country under its jurisdiction. The government of Louisiana was accordingly placed [1711] in the hands of a governor-general. The headquarters, or seat of the colonial government, was established at Mobile, and a new fort was erected upon the site of the present city of Mobile. … In France it was still believed that Louisiana presented a rich field for enterprise and speculation. The court, therefore, determined to place the resources of the province under the influence of individual enterprise. For this purpose, a grant of exclusive privileges, in all the commerce of the province, for a term of 15 years, was made to Anthony Crozat, a rich and influential merchant of France. His charter was dated September 26th, 1712. At this time the limits of Louisiana, as claimed by France, were very extensive. As specified in the charter of Crozat, it was 'bounded by New Mexico on the west, by the English lands of Carolina on the east, including all the establishments, ports, havens, rivers, and principally the port and haven of the Isle of Dauphin, heretofore called Massacre; the River St. Louis, heretofore called Mississippi, from the edge of the sea as far as the Illinois together with the River St. Philip, heretofore called Missouri, the River St. Jerome, heretofore called Wabash, with all the lands, lakes, and rivers mediately or immediately flowing into any part of the River St. Louis or Mississippi.' Thus Louisiana, as claimed by France at that early period, embraced all the immense regions of the United States from the Alleghany Mountains on the east to the Rocky Mountains on the west, and northward to the great lakes of Canada."

_J. W. Monette, History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, book 2, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

Louisiana: A. D. 1717-1718. Crozat's failure and John Law's Mississippi Bubble. The founding of New Orleans.

"Crozat's failure was, in the nature of things, foreordained. His scheme, indeed, proved a stumbling-block to the colony and a loss to himself. In five years (1717) he was glad to surrender his monopoly to the crown. From its ashes sprung the gigantic Mississippi Scheme of John Law, to whom all Louisiana, now including the Illinois country, was granted for a term of years. Compared with this prodigality Crozat's concession was but a plaything. It not only gave Law's Company proprietary rights to the soil, but power was conferred to administer justice, make peace or war with the natives, build forts, levy troops and with consent of the crown to appoint such military governors as it should think fitting. These extraordinary privileges were put in force by a royal edict, dated in September, 1717. The new company [called the Western Company] granted lands along the river to individuals or associated persons, who were sometimes actual emigrants, sometimes great personages who sent out colonists at their own cost, or again the company itself undertook the building up of plantations on lands reserved by it for the purpose. One colony of Alsatians was sent out by Law to begin a plantation on the Arkansas. Others, more or less flourishing, were located at the mouth of the Yazoo, Natchez and Baton Rouge. All were agricultural plantations, though in most cases the plantations themselves consisted of a few poor huts covered with a thatch of palm-leaves. The earliest forts were usually a square earthwork, strengthened with palisades about the parapet. The company's agricultural system was founded upon African slave labor. Slaves were brought from St. Domingo or other of the West India islands. By some their employment was viewed with alarm, because it was thought the blacks would soon outnumber the whites, and might some day rise and overpower them; but we find only the feeblest protest entered against the moral wrong of slavery in any record of the time. Negroes could work in the fields, under the burning sun, when the whites could not. Their labor cost no more than their maintenance. The planters easily adopted what, indeed, already existed among their neighbors. Self-interest stilled conscience. The new company wisely appointed Bienville governor. Three ships brought munitions, troops, and stores of every sort from France, with which to put new life into the expiring colony. It was at this time (February, 1718) that Bienville began the foundation of the destined metropolis of Louisiana. The spot chosen by him was clearly but a fragment of the delta which the river had been for ages silently building of its own mud and driftwood. {2046} It had literally risen from the sea. Elevated only a few feet above sea-level, threatened with frequent inundation, and in its primitive estate a cypress swamp, it seemed little suited for the abode of men, yet time has confirmed the wisdom of the choice. Here, then, a hundred miles from the Gulf, on the alluvial banks of the great river, twenty-five convicts and as many carpenters were set to work clearing the ground and building the humble log cabins, which were to constitute the capital, in its infancy. The settlement was named New Orleans, in honor of the Regent, Orleans, who ruled France during the minority of Louis XV.

_S. A. Drake, The Making of the Great West, pages 126-128._

ALSO IN: A. McF. Davis, Canada and Louisiana (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 5, chapter 1).

_A. Thiers, The Mississippi Bubble, chapters 3-8._

_C. Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, volume 1, chapter 1._

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1720.

LOUISIANA: A. D 1719-1750. Surrendered to the Crown. Massacre of French by the Natchez, and destruction of that tribe. Unsuccessful war with the Chickasaws.

"The same prodigality and folly which prevailed in France during the government of John Law, over credit and commerce, found their way to his western possessions; and though the colony then planted survived, and the city then founded became in time what had been hoped,—it was long before the influence of the gambling mania of 1718-19-20 passed a way. Indeed the returns from Louisiana never repaid the cost and trouble of protecting it, and, in 1732, the Company asked leave to surrender their privileges to the crown, a favor which was granted them. But though the Company of the West did little for the enduring welfare of the Mississippi valley, it did something; the cultivation of tobacco, indigo, rice, and silk, was introduced, the lead mines of Missouri were opened, though at vast expense and in hope of finding silver; and, in Illinois, the culture of wheat began to assume some degree of stability and of importance. In the neighborhood of the river Kaskaskia, Charlevoix found three villages, and about Fort Chartres, the head quarters of the Company in that region, the French were rapidly settling. All the time, however, during which the great monopoly lasted, was, in Louisiana, a time of contest and trouble. The English, who, from an early period, had opened commercial relations with the Chickasaws, through them constantly interfered with the trade of the Mississippi. Along the coast, from Pensacola to the Rio del Norte, Spain disputed the claims of her northern neighbor: and at length the war of the Natchez struck terror into the hearts of both white and red men. Amid that nation … D'Iberville had marked out Fort Rosalie [on the site of the present city of Natchez], in 1700, and fourteen years later its erection had been commenced. The French, placed in the midst of the natives, and deeming them worthy only of contempt, increased their demands and injuries until they required even the abandonment of the chief town of the Natchez, that the intruders might use its site for a plantation. The inimical Chickasaws heard the murmurs of their wronged brethren, and breathed into their ears counsels of vengeance; the sufferers determined on the extermination of their tyrants. On the 28th of November, 1729, every Frenchman in that colony died by the hands of the natives, with the exception of two mechanics: the women and children were spared. It was a fearful revenge, and fearfully did the avengers suffer for their murders. Two months passed by, and the French and Choctaws in one day took 60 of their scalps; in three months they were driven from their country and scattered among the neighboring tribes; and within two years the remnants of the nation, chiefs and people, were sent to St. Domingo and sold into slavery. So perished this ancient and peculiar race, in the same year in which the Company of the West yielded its grants into the royal hands. When Louisiana came again into the charge of the government of France, it was determined, as a first step, to strike terror into the Chickasaws, who, devoted to the English, constantly interfered with the trade on the Mississippi. For this purpose the forces of New France, from New Orleans to Detroit, were ordered to meet in the country of the inimical Indians, upon the 10th of May, 1736, to strike a blow which should be final." D'Artaguette, governor of Illinois, was promptly at the rendezvous, with a large force of Indians, and a small body of French, but Bienville, from the southern province, proved dilatory. After waiting ten days, D'Artaguette attacked the Chickasaws, carried two of their defenses, but fell and was taken prisoner in the assault of a third; whereupon his Indian allies fled. Bienville, coming up five days afterwards, was repulsed in his turn and retreated, leaving D'Artaguette and his captive companions to a fearful fate. "Three years more passed away, and again a French army of nearly 4,000 white, red and black men, was gathered upon the banks of the Mississippi, to chastise the Chickasaws. From the summer of 1739 to the spring of 1740, this body of men sickened and wasted at Fort Assumption, upon the site of Memphis. In March of the last named year, without a blow struck, peace was concluded, and the province of Louisiana once more sunk into inactivity. Of the ten years which followed we know but little that is interesting."

_J. H. Perkins, Annals of the West, pages 61-63._

ALSO IN: _M. Dumont, Historical Memoirs (French's Historical Collections of Louisiana, part 5)._

_C. Gayarre, Louisiana; its Colonial History and Romance, 2d series, lectures 5-7._

_S. G. Drake, Aboriginal Races of North America, book 4, chapter 5._

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1728. The Casket Girls. Wives for the colonists.

"In the beginning of 1728 there came a vessel of the company with a considerable number of young girls, who had not been taken, like their predecessors, from houses of correction. The company had given to each of them a casket containing some articles of dress. From that circumstance they became known in the colony under the nickname of the 'filles à la cassette', or 'the casket girls.' … Subsequently, it became a matter of importance in the colony to derive one's origin from the casket girls, rather than from the correction girls."

_C. Gayarre, Louisiana; its Colonial History and Romance, page 396._

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1755. Settlement of exiled Acadians.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1755.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1763. East of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, ceded to Great Britain, and west of the Mississippi, with New Orleans, to Spain.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR.

{2047}

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1766-1768. Spanish occupation and the revolt against it. The short-lived republic of New Orleans.

"Spain accepted Louisiana [west of the Mississippi, with New Orleans] with reluctance, for she lost France as her bulwark, and, to keep the territory from England, assumed new expenses and dangers. Its inhabitants loved the land of their ancestry; by every law of nature and human freedom, they had the right to protest against the transfer of their allegiance." Their protests were unavailing, however, and their appeals met the response: "France cannot bear the charge of supporting the colony's precarious existence." In March, 1766, Antonio de Ulloa arrived at New Orleans from Havana, to take possession for the Spanish king. "Ulloa landed with civil officers, three capuchin monks, and 80 soldiers. His reception was cold and gloomy. He brought no orders to redeem the seven million livres of French paper money, which weighed down a colony of less than 6,000 white men. The French garrison of 300 refused to enter the Spanish service, the people to give up their nationality, and Ulloa was obliged to administer the government under the French flag by the old French officers, at the cost of Spain. In May of the same year, the Spanish restrictive system was applied to Louisiana; in September, an ordinance compelled French vessels having special permits to accept the paper currency in pay for their cargoes, at an arbitrary tariff of prices. … The ordinance was suspended, but not till the alarm had destroyed all commerce. Ulloa retired from New Orleans to the Balise. Only there, and opposite Natchez, and at the river Iberville, was Spanish jurisdiction directly exercised. This state of things continued for a little more than two years. But the arbitrary and passionate conduct of Ulloa, the depreciation of the currency with the prospect of its becoming an almost total loss, the disputes respecting the expenses incurred since the session of 1762, the interruption of commerce, a captious ordinance which made a private monopoly of the traffic with the Indians, uncertainty of jurisdiction and allegiance, agitated the colony from one end to the other. It was proposed to make of New Orleans a republic, like Amsterdam or Venice, with a legislative body of 40 men, and a single executive. The people of the country parishes crowded in a mass into the city, joined those of New Orleans, and formed a numerous assembly, in which Lafrénière, John Milhet, Joseph Milhet, and the lawyer Doucet were conspicuous. … On the 25th of October, 1768, they adopted an address to the superior council, written by Lafrénière and Caresse, rehearsing their griefs; and, in their petition of rights, they claimed freedom of commerce with the ports of France and America, and the expulsion of Ulloa from the colony. The address, signed by 500 or 600 persons, was adopted the next day by the council … ; when the French flag was displayed on the public square, children and women ran up to kiss its folds, and it was raised by 900 men, amid shouts of 'Long live the king of France! we will have no king but him.' Ulloa retreated to Havana, and sent his representations to Spain. The inhabitants elected their own treasurer and syndics, sent envoys to Paris, … and memorialized the French monarch to stand as intercessor between them and the Catholic king, offering no alternative but to be a colony of France or a free commonwealth."

_G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), volume 3, pages 316-318._

ALSO IN: _M. Thompson, Story of Louisiana, chapter 4._

_C. Gayarré, History of Louisiana: French Domination, volume 2, lecture 3-6._

LOUISIANA: A. D., 1769. Spanish authority established by "Cruel O'Reilly."