Chapter 29

Having found in our "History of Louisiana," the feeble commencement of the culture of the sugar cane in that country, we thought it not beside our purpose, and likely to be agreeable to our readers, to trace it to its present strong and flourishing condition; to show the causes of its increase, and its immense value to those who have embarked their fortunes in it; to those by whom its produce is consumed, and finally to the revenue of the government. All these matters, doubtless, will be carefully examined and considered by the public councils whose right and duty it is to decide upon them.

We return to our history; the colony seems now to have attracted the attention of the mother country, and liberal assistance was given to advance its population.

"The ships landed also sixty poor girls, who were brought over at the king's expense. They were the last succour of this kind, which the mother country supplied. They were given in marriage to such soldiers whose good conduct entitled them to a discharge. Land was allotted to each couple, with a cow and calf, a cock and five hens; a gun, axe, and hoe. During the three first years, rations were allowed them, with a small quantity of powder, shot, and grain for seed."

This was in 1751.

An anecdote is recorded, exhibiting at once a feature of aboriginal justice, and the strength of parental affection in the "poor Indian."

"In a quarrel between a Choctaw and a Colapissa, the former told the latter his countrymen were the dogs of the French--meaning their slaves. The Colapissa, having a loaded musket in his hands, discharged its contents at the Choctaw, and fled to New-Orleans. The relations of the deceased came to the Marquis de Vaudreuil to demand his surrender: he had in the mean while gone to the German coast. The Marquis, having vainly tried to appease them, sent orders to Renaud, the commandant of that post, to have the murderer arrested; but he eluded the pursuit. His father went to the Choctaws and offered himself a willing victim: the relations of the deceased persisted in their refusal to accept any compensation in presents. They at last consented to allow the old man to atone, by the loss of his own life, for the crime of his son. He stretched himself on the trunk of an old tree, and a Choctaw severed his head from the body, at the first stroke. This instance of paternal affection was made the subject of a tragedy by Leblanc de Villeneuve, an officer of the troops lately arrived from France. This performance is the only dramatic work which the republic of letters owes to Louisiana."

In the same year the white men furnished a subject for a tragedy far more cruel and vindictive than the self-immolation of an Indian father, and far less just and amiable.

"During the summer, some soldiers of the garrison of Cat Island, rose upon and killed Roux, who commanded there. They were exasperated at his avarice and cruelty. He employed them in burning coal, of which he made a traffic, and for trifling delinquencies had exposed several of them, naked and tied to trees in a swamp, during whole nights, to the stings of musquetoes. Joining some English traders in the neighbourhood of Mobile, they started in the hope of reaching Georgia, through the Indian country. A party of the Choctaws, then about the fort, was sent after and overtook them. One destroyed himself; the rest were brought to New-Orleans, where two were broken on the wheel--the other, belonging to the Swiss regiment of Karrer, was, according to the law of his nation, followed by the officers of the Swiss troops in the service of France, sawed in two parts. He was placed alive in a kind of coffin, to the middle of which two sergeants applied a whip saw. It was not thought prudent to make any allowance for the provocation these men had received."

The removal of the Acadians from their country; stripping them of their lands and goods; permitting them to carry nothing away but their household furniture and money, of which they had but little; laying waste their fields and their dwellings, and consuming their fences by fire, was another awful tragedy performed by civilized man upon the weak and defenceless, upon the pretences of policy. It was an act of British inhumanity; the sufferings of these miserable outcasts and wanderers are described by our author.

"Thus beggared, these people were, in small numbers and at different periods, cast on the sandy shores of the southern provinces, among a people of whose language they were ignorant, and who knew not theirs, whose manners and education were different from their own, whose religion they abhorred, and who were rendered odious to them, as the friends and countrymen of those who had so cruelly treated them, and whom they considered as a no less savage foe, than he who wields the tomahawk and the scalping knife.

"It is due to the descendants of the British colonists, to say, that their sires received with humanity, kindness, and hospitality, those who so severely smarted under the calamities of war. In every province the humane example of the legislature of Pennsylvania was followed, and the colonial treasury was opened to relieve the sufferers; and private charity was not outdone by the public. Yet but a few accepted the proffered relief, and sat down on the land that was offered them.

"The others fled westerly, from what appeared to them a hostile shore--wandering till they found themselves out of sight of any who spoke the English language. They crossed the mighty spine, and wintered among the Indians. The scattered parties, thrown off on the coast of every colony from Pennsylvania to Georgia, united, and trusting themselves to the western waters, sought the land on which the spotless banner waved, and the waves of the Mississippi brought them to New-Orleans."

The practice of _shipping off_ individuals who were obnoxious to the dominant party, seems to have obtained in Louisiana at a very early period; and, as we shall see, became a favourite process in the administration of justice. A pretty strong case of this employment of physical force, without any consultation with the officers of the law, or any regard to the civil rights of the people, occured in 1759. We shall give it to our readers.

"Diaz Anna, a Jew from Jamaica, came to New-Orleans, on a trading voyage. We have seen, that by an edict of the month of March, 1724, that of Louis the Thirteenth, of the 13th of April, 1615, had been extended to Louisiana. The latter edict declared, that Jews, as enemies of the Christian name, should not be allowed to reside in Louisiana; and if they staid in spite of the edict, their bodies and goods should be confiscated: Rochemore had the vessel of the Israelite and her cargo seized. Kerlerec sent soldiers to drive away the guard put on board the vessel, and had her restored to the Jew. Imagining he had gone too far to stop there, he had Belot, Rochemore's secretary, and Marigny de Mandeville, de Lahoupe, Bossu, and some other officers, whom he suspected to have joined the ordonnateur's party, arrested, and a few days after shipped them for France."

Thus far we have seen this province under the dominion of France, and gradually ameliorating its condition under her government. We come now to the period when a new master was to be given to it, or rather, when it was to be given to a new master. It is thus that kings have used territories and their people, their industry and their wealth, as subjects of diplomatic traffic and political accommodation. "On the 3d of November 1763, a secret treaty was signed between the French and Spanish kings, by which the former ceded to the latter the part of the province of Louisiana which lies on the western side of the Mississippi, with the city of New-Orleans, and the island on which it stands." When the rumours of this cession reached the colonists, it produced the deepest distress; they had a dread of passing "under the yoke of Spain." Official intelligence of the event was not received until October 1764, when an order came from the king to deliver possession of the ceded territory to the governor of the Catholic king. "This intelligence plunged the inhabitants in the greatest consternation;" especially as it estranged them from their kindred and friends in the eastern part of the province--transferring them to a foreign potentate. Every effort was made by meetings and memorials to avert the calamity. The actual delivery was delayed; and a hope was entertained that the cession might be rescinded, for two years had elapsed since the direction had been given to surrender the province to Spain. In the summer of 1766, intelligence was received that Don Ulloa had arrived at Havana, to take the possession, for Spain, of Louisiana. Soon after he landed at New-Orleans, and was received "with dumb respect." He declined exhibiting his powers, and of course delayed to receive the possession of the country. In 1768 the council insisted that Don Ulloa should produce his powers or depart from the province; he chose the latter alternative, and sailed for Havana, and from thence to Spain. In the following year a governor of a different temperament was sent from Spain, attended by a strong military force, with a large supply of arms and ammunition. On the 24th of July, Don Alexander O'Reilly landed on the levee. "The inhabitants immediately came to a resolution to choose three gentlemen to wait on him, and inform him that the people of Louisiana were determined to abandon the colony, and had no other favour to ask from him, but that he would allow them two years to remove themselves and their effects." O'Reilly received the deputies with great politeness; made professions of his desire to promote the interests of the colonists, and said every thing he thought would flatter the people. At this time the Spanish armament had not reached the city; it cast anchor on the 16th of August. In the afternoon of the 18th, the Spaniards disembarked; the French flag was lowered, and the Spanish was seen flying in its place in the middle of the square. We have been thus particular in narrating these events, because they were the precursors of a proceeding of military violence, astonishing _even for that day_, and under circumstances of open disaffection and opposition to the government; for some of the planters had taken up arms on the arrival of O'Reilly.

One of the first acts of O'Reilly's administration was to take a census of the inhabitants of New-Orleans. The aggregate population was 3190, of every age, sex, and colour; of these 1902 were free; 1225 slaves, and sixty domesticated Indians; the number of houses was 468; the whole province contained but 13,538 inhabitants.

We have seen that the cession of the province had created the utmost discontent; and the arrival of O'Reilly was considered as a general calamity. The transfer had been impeded and resisted by all the means in the power of the colonists. Although Don Ulloa had not ventured to execute his commission with the force at his command, he had, nevertheless, "set about building forts and putting troops into them." On the other side, plans of resistance were contemplated by the people; and assistance looked for from their English neighbours in West Florida; and in the fall of 1768 Don Ulloa was, as we have seen, ordered away. By this brief retrospect, the temper of the colonists, on the arrival of O'Reilly, will be understood, and will serve as a key to his proceedings. He resolved to lose nothing by timidity and hesitation. In the reckless pride and unbridled passions of military despotism, he disdained to temporize, or endeavour to sooth the irritated feelings of the people, or to conciliate their confidence, or calm their fears. He had been accustomed to rely upon no power but that of the sword, and to respect no authority but a military commission. To him the _law_ was a subject of scorn, and the civil rights of citizens or subjects an idle tale. He looked upon his five thousand troops, with their arms and ammunition, and he saw there the only power be respected, or would condescend to use to maintain his government. Such principles led or drove him to a course of desperate violence, having then no parallel in any country pretending to a government of laws, or any civil rights. We shall give his proceedings in the language of our historian.

"Towards the last day of August, the people were alarmed by the arrest of Foucault, the commissary-general and ordonnateur, De Noyant and Boisblanc, two members of the superior council; La Freniere, the attorney-general, and Braud, the king's printer. These gentlemen were attending O'Reilly's leve, when he requested them to step into an adjacent apartment, where they found themselves immediately surrounded by a body of grenadiers, with fixed bayonets, the commanding officer of whom informed them they were the king's prisoners. The two first were conveyed to their respective houses, and a guard was left there: the others were imprisoned in the barracks.

"It had been determined to make an example of twelve individuals; two from the army, and an equal number from the bar; four planters, and as many merchants. Accordingly, Marquis and De Noyant, officers of the troop; La Freniere, the attorney-general, and Doucet, (lawyers,) Villere, Boisblanc, Mazent, and Petit, (planters,) and John Milhet, Joseph Milhet, Caresse and Poupet, (merchants,) had been selected.

"Within a few days, Marquis, Doucet, Petit, Mazant, the two Milhets, Caresse, and Poupet, were arrested and confined.

"Villere, who was on his plantation at the German coast, had been marked as one of the intended victims; but his absence from the city rendering his arrest less easy, it had been determined to release one of the prisoners on his being secured. He had been apprized of the impending danger, and it had been recommended to him to provide for his safety by seeking the protection of the British flag waving at Manshac. When he was deliberating on the step it became him to take, he received a letter from Aubry, the commandant of the French troops, assuring him he had nothing to apprehend, and advising him to return to the city. Averse to flight, as it would imply a consciousness of guilt, he yielded to Aubry's recommendation, and returned to New-Orleans; but as he passed the gate, the officer commanding the guard arrested him. He was immediately conveyed on board of a frigate that lay at the levee. On hearing of this, his lady, a grand daughter of La Chaise, the former commissary-general and ordonnateur, hastened to the city. As her boat approached the frigate, it was hailed and ordered away. She made herself known, and solicited admission to her husband, but was answered she could not see him, as the captain was on shore, and had left orders that no communication should be allowed with the prisoner. Villere recognised his wife's voice, and insisted on being permitted to see her. On his being refused, a struggle ensued, in which he fell, pierced by the bayonets of his guards. His bloody shirt thrown into the boat, announced to the lady that she had ceased to be a wife; and a sailor cut the rope that fastened the boat to the frigate.

"O'Reilly's assessors heard and recorded the testimony against the prisoners, and called on them for their pleas.

"The prosecution was grounded on a statute of Alfonso the eleventh, which is the first law of the seventh title of the first partida, and denounces the punishment of death and confiscation of property against those who excite any insurrection against the king or state, or take up arms under pretence of extending their liberty or rights, and against those who give them any assistance.

"Foucault pleaded he had done nothing, except in his character of commissary-general and ordonnateur of the king of France in the province, and to him alone he was accountable for the motives that had directed his official conduct. The plea was sustained; he was not, however, released; and a few days afterwards, he was transported to France.

"Brand offered a similar plea, urging he was the king of France's printer in Louisiana. The only accusation against him, was that he had printed the petition of the planters and merchants to the superior council, soliciting that body to require Ulloa to exhibit his powers or depart. He concluded that he was bound, by his office, to print whatever the ordonnateur sent to his press; and he produced that officer's order to print the petition. His plea was sustained and he was discharged.

"The other prisoners declined also the jurisdiction of the tribunal before which they were arraigned: their plea was overruled. They now denied the facts with which they were charged, contended that if they did take place, they did so while the flag of France was still waving over the province, and the laws of that kingdom retained their empire in it, and thus the facts did not constitute an offence against the laws of Spain; that the people of Louisiana could not bear the yokes of two sovereigns; that O'Reilly could not command the obedience, nor even the respect of the colonists, until he made known to them his character and powers; and that the Catholic king could not count on their allegiance, till he extended to them his protection.

"It had been determined at first, to proceed with the utmost rigour of the law against six of the prisoners; but, on the death of Villere, it was judged sufficient to do so against five only. The jurisprudence of Spain authorizing the infliction of a less severe punishment than that denounced by the statute, when the charge is not proved by two witnesses to the same act, but by one with corroborating circumstances.--Accordingly two witnesses were produced against De Noyant, La Freniere, Marquis, Joseph Milhet, and Caresse. They were convicted; and O'Reilly, by the advice of his assessor, condemned them to be hanged, and pronounced the confiscation of their estates.

"The most earnest and pathetic entreaties were employed by persons in every rank of society, to prevail on O'Reilly to remit or suspend the execution of his sentence till the royal clemency could be implored. He was inexorable; and the only indulgence that could be obtained, was, that death should be inflicted by shooting, instead of hanging. With this modification, the sentence was carried into execution on the twenty-eighth of September.

"On the morning of that day, the guards, at every gate and post of the city, were doubled, and orders were given not to allow any body to enter it. All the troops were under arms, and paraded the streets or were placed in battle array along the levee and on the public square. Most of the inhabitants fled into the country. At three o'clock of the afternoon, the victims were led, under a strong guard, to the small square in front of the barracks, tied to stakes, and an explosion of musketry soon announced to the few inhabitants who remained in the city, that their friends were no more.

"Posterity, the judge of men in power, will doom this act to public execration. No necessity demanded, no policy justified it. Ulloa's conduct had provoked the measures to which the inhabitants had resorted. During nearly two years, he had haunted the province as a phantom of dubious authority. The efforts of the colonists, to prevent the transfer of their natal soil to a foreign prince, originated in their attachment to their own, and the Catholic king ought to have beheld in their conduct a pledge of their future devotion to himself. They had but lately seen their country severed, and a part of it added to the dominion of Great Britain; they had bewailed their separation from their friends and kindred; and were afterwards to be alienated, without their consent, and subjected to a foreign yoke. If the indiscretion of a few of them needed an apology, the common misfortune afforded it.

"A few weeks afterwards, the proceedings against the six remaining prisoners were brought to a close. One witness only deposing against any of them, and circumstances corroborating the testimony, Boisblanc was condemned to imprisonment for life; Doucet, Mazent, John Milhet, Petit, and Poupet, were condemned to imprisonment for various terms of years. All were transported to Havana, and cast into the dungeons of the Moro Castle."

O'Reilly was not satisfied with this bloody vengeance on the individuals who had incurred his resentment and offended his pride. The "Superior council" in a body must be prostrated by his power.

"A proclamation of O'Reilly, on the twenty-first of November, announced to them that the evidence received during the late trials, having furnished full proof of the part the superior council had in the revolt during the two preceding years, and of the influence it had exerted in encouraging the leaders, instead of using its best endeavours to keep the people in the fidelity and subordination they owed to the sovereign, it had become necessary to abolish that tribunal, and to establish, in Louisiana, that form of government and mode of administering justice prescribed by the laws of Spain, which had long maintained the Catholic king's American colonies in perfect tranquillity, content, and subordination."

A year after these deeds of military heroism, O'Reilly took passage for Europe. But what said his royal master, the King of Spain, for such outrages upon the lives and liberty of his newly acquired subjects? We are told in one short paragraph--"Charles III. _disapproved_ of O'Reilly's conduct, and he received on his landing at Cadiz, an order prohibiting his appearance at court." Well, it is something that his conduct was _disapproved_ of, and not rewarded with new honours and powers. Some _sovereigns_ might have done this.

We pass from these distressing and disgraceful scenes, and find nothing of peculiar interest in our History, until we come to the period of our revolution. Although in 1778, the people of Louisiana could have had no prophetic vision to warn them that they would become a member of the American Republic, they felt and manifested a friendly disposition toward us, and rendered us efficient aid in the struggle then carrying on for our independence.

"During the month of January, Captain Willing made a second visit to New-Orleans. Oliver Pollock now acted openly as the agent of the Americans, with the countenance of Galvez, who now, and at subsequent periods, afforded them an aid of upwards of seventy thousand dollars out of the royal treasury. By this means, the posts occupied by the militia of Virginia on the Mississippi, and the frontier inhabitants of the state of Pennsylvania, were supplied with arms and ammunition."