USA > Alabama > History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the earliest period, v. 1 > Part 14
USA > Georgia > History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the earliest period, v. 1 > Part 14
USA > Mississippi > History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the earliest period, v. 1 > Part 14
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1706 December
1.07
February 27
January 1
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THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER make war upon those savages. The English from Carolina, IV. aided by troops from Great Britain, had continued to advance 1706 upon the Spanish settlements of the Floridas, assisted by large bands of Muscogee Indians, and had overrun the greater por- tion of Middle and East Florida, laying waste the Spanish set- tlements, and forcing the inhabitants and friendly Indians al- most to abandon the country. News reaching Bienville that they had beseiged the fort of Pensacola, which had recently been rebuilt, he advanced from Mobile with one hundred and twenty Canadians ; but, on reaching that place, he found that the thirteen Englishmen and three hundred and fifty Musco- gees, who for two days had lain around the fort to attack it, becoming destitute of provisions, had already retired.
1707 November 24
In the meanwhile, Bienville, in a despatch to the Minister, urged the necessity of sending out more colonial supplies, as the inhabitants had not yet made plantations ample enough, from which to derive a support. He stated that the lands were fertile up the Mobile river, but too unhealthy during the period of cultivating the crops. The want of negroes, horses and oven, also contributed its share in embarrassing the feeble efforts of the Louisiana planter, and failures were often made. HIe informed the Minister, further, that he had intended estab- fishing a fort upon the "Tombeebe," in the vicinity of the Chickasaws, in order to secure the friendship of those Indians, who were the most warlike of all, and who were daily tam- pered with by the English of Carolina, but that the distance to that point, and the general distress of the colony, had pre- vented it; that all the Indians were treacherous, and often
-1
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assassinated the French, for whose strength they had begun CHAPTER to entertain a most contemptible opinion ; that three-fourths IV. 1707 of the soldiers were too young to prosecute a war, and con- stantly deserted, while the Canadians, whom he had declined to discharge, contrary to the orders of Begar, Intendant of Rochefort, were the sole pillars of the colony. In consequence of these things, he had been compelled to abandon the estab- lishment upon the Mississippi. In addition, he stated that La Salle had refused to pay the colonists their just dues, and had withheld payment from those who had been sent to a dis- tance upon important duties.
The continued reports of the malpractices of Bienville, which reached the ears of the Minister, induced the French government to order his arrest. DeMuys was appointed Governor of Louisiana, "to prove the facts charged against this person, to arrest him if they were true, and to send him a prisoner to France." Thus the unjust and singular position was assumed, of leaving to Bienville's successor to decide whether he was guilty or innocent! In the meantime, Bien- ville, hearing of his disgrace at Court, demanded to be dis- missed from his post, to enable him to return to France. This startled the inhabitants of Mobile, who were warmly attached to him, and who immediately petitioned the government that, if Bienville's request should be allowed, that he should imme- diately be sent back to them as their Governor. But DeMuys, his successor and his judge, died. at Havana on his passage out. Diron D'Artaguette was appointed commissary gene- ral in the place of the growling La Salle, whom the government
July 23
12
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CHAPTER had also removed. D'Artaguette, more fortunate than his IV. companion, had reached Mobile in safety, and was directed to investigate the charges against Bienville, without letting him know what they were. However, fortunately for the cause of justice, and perhaps the future welfare of the colony, D'Arta- February 26 guette, in the report of his investigations to the Minister, was 1708 enabled to close by saying, that "all the accusations brought against Bienville were most miserable calumnies." Subjoined to this statement was the attestation of Boisbriant, now Major of the fort at Mobile. But the disappointed and vindictive La Salle renewed his accusations, in which he assured the Minister that an understanding existed between Bienville and the new commissary, and that the report of the latter was not to be believed. At the same time he denounced Barrot, the surgeon of the colony, as " an ignorant man-a drunkard and a rogue, who sold, for his own profit, the medicines be- longing to the King."
1708 August
The following is a statement of the condition of the colony of Louisiana at this period :
GARRISON.
14 superior officers, comprising a midshipman attending ou the commandant.
76 soldiers, comprising four military officers.
13 sailors, comprising four naval officers.
2 Canadians, serving as clerks in the warehouses, by order of Bienville.
1 superintendent of the warehouses.
3 priests, comprising one rector.
--
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6 workmen.
CHAPTER IV.
1 Canadian, serving as interpreter.
6 cabin boys, learning the Indian language, and intended to serve by land and sea as workmen.
. INHABITANTS.
24 inhabitants who have no grants of land, which prevents 1708
August
the majority from working plantations.
28 women.
25 children.
80 slaves, men and women, of various Indian nations.
-
157
TOTAL. 279, of whom six are sick.
In addition to these there are more than 60 Canadians who live in the Indian villages on the Mississippi, without the permission of the Governor, and who destroy, by their evil and libertine life with the Indian women, all that the mission- aries and others have instructed them in the mysteries of religion.
ANIMALS.
50 cows. 40 calves. · 4 bulls.
8 oxen, four of which belong to the King. 1400 hogs and sows. 2000 hens or thereabouts.
In consequence of the death of the recently appointed
204
THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER Governor of Louisiana, and the complete overthrow of the IV. charges brought against the old one, the French govern- ment permitted the latter to continue at his responsible and thankless post. Knowing that the colony could not prosper unless the earth was cultivated, Governor Bienville endeavored in vain to make the whites under him labor in the fields. On the other hand, the savages, whom the French had endeavor- ed to enslave, would escape to their native woods, at the 1708 slightest appearance of coercion. In a despatch to the Minister. October 12 Bienville recommended that the colonists be allowed to send Indians to the West India Islands, and there to exchange them for negroes, asserting that these Islanders would give two Africans for three savages. His proposition was laid before M. Robert, one of the heads of the Bureau of the Minister of November 26 Marine, who pronounced against it, upon the ground that the inhabitants of the West Indies would not part with their good negroes, and that the only way to obtain such was by pur- chases from Guinea. Another idea of Bienville's seemed still more unreasonable. He had given orders to watch several inhabitants of Mobile, to prevent them from leaving the country. As they had "amassed considerable property in the colony, by keeping public-houses, it was but just," said he to the Minister, "to compel them to remain."
1709 May 12
Although discharged from office, La Salle, far from remain- ing quiet, continued to complain of the administration of the colony. He urged the Minister to send thirty females to Mobile, to prevent, by marriage, the debauchery which was committed with Indian women. He said that such an im-
7
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THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
portation would serve to keep at home a number of Canadians CHAPTER who roamed the country in search of female slaves. He IV. agreed in opinion with Bienville that negroes were indispen- sable to the prosperity of the colony ; and in this he was right, for experience has proved that neither South-Carolina, Louisiana, nor any other Southern State, with such low rich lands, and with a humid atmosphere so destructive to the constitutions of the whites, could ever have been successfully brought into cultivation without African labor.
Commissary D'Artaguette, visiting the country lying be- tween Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi river, now a portion of New Orleans, found there seven Frenchmen, who had each planted an acre of Indian corn, brought from the Illinois, and which grew most luxuriantly. He wrote to the Minister, as Iberville and Bienville had often done before, urging the establishment of colonies upon that river, and for their protection against the floods, the erection of embankments along the margin.
Although La Salle had died at Mobile early in the year 1710, a short time after the death of his second wife, who, like the first, had been reared in the hospitals, yet Bienville failed not to find those who were equally willing to comment, in the most illiberal manner, upon his administration. Ma- rigny, an officer of the garrison, in a despatch to the Minister, accused him with disregarding the interests of the colony. La Vente, the curate, who appeared officiously desirous to attend to the temporal as well as the spiritnal affairs of Louisiana, also abused him without measure, attributing to him every
1709
1710
206
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CHAPTER misfortune which attended the inhabitants of Mobile. Ile IV. assured the Minister, that if the permission of the government could be obtained, they had determined to form a colony upon 1710 Dauphin Island, where there were twenty fortified houses, for the purpose of catching fish, and being more convenient to the supplies which might be sent to them from Pensacola and France. Under these repeated assaults, Bienville lost the dignity and patience which had formerly characterized his conduct, and now retorted upon his adversaries with con- siderable acrimony. In one of his despatches, he said, that " the curate, La Vente, endeavored to excite everybody against him ;" that the curate was " not ashamed to keep an open shop and sell like an avaricious Jew." Verily, this father must have been a man who possessed too much malig- nity, avarice and bad temper, to have been a successful mis- sionary in the holy cause in which he was ostensibly engaged.
December
Thus the year 1710 closed with such controversies, while Bienville had been obliged to distribute his men among the Indian towns to procure something to eat .* How unfortu- nate that the colonists, like mere children, should have depended upon the mother country for every thing which went into their mouths, when moderate industry, bestowed higher up the Tombigby and Alabama rivers, upon the more elevated and less sickly lands, would have ensured them an abundance.
* Histoire de la Louisiane, par Charles Gayarre, vol. 1, pp. 78-91.
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THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER V.
THE COLONY OF LOUISIANA GRANTED TO CROZAT.
THE high floods having inundated the settlements around CHAPTER Fort St. Louis de la Mobile, Bienville determined to place his V. people upon more elevated ground. All the inhabitants, except the garrison of the fort, removed upon the Mobile river, where, upon the site of the present beautiful and wealthy commer- 1711 March cial emporium of Alabama, they established themselves. Here Bienville built a new wooden fort, which, in a few years, was destroyed to give place to an extensive fortress of brick, called, in French times, Fort Conde, and, in English and Spanish times, Fort Charlotte. The seat of government was perma- nantly fixed here, and the leading characters of the colony made Mobile their head-quarters. Only a small garrison was left at the old settlement at the mouth of Dog river, which, however, continued to guard that point for several years after this period.
The Chickasaws having again engaged in a war with the Choctaws, at the instance of the English, and thirty of the former tribe being at Mobile at the time, they implored Bien- ville to have them safely conducted home, through the coun-
12*
“
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CHAPTER try of their enemies. Desiring to acquire the confidence of V. the Chickasaws by acts of kindness that would induce them to break up their alliance with the Carolinians, Bienville readily granted their request, and despatched his brother, Chateaugné, with thirty soldiers, to escort them. He was successful in his mission, and returned to Mobile without having met with any serious adventures.
1711 October 27
The colony of Louisiana still remained in a precarious situ- ation. It is true, the inhabitants had to some extent begun the cultivation of tobacco, the first samples of which were sup- posed to be superior to the quality raised in Virginia. Wheat came up most luxuriantly, but the damp atmosphere de- stroyed it when it commenced maturing. Notwithstanding the long war which had existed between France and England, no attacks of the enemy had been directed against any part of the Louisiana colony, until about this time, when a pirate ship from Jamaica disembarked on Dauphin Island, and plun- dered the inhabitants of nearly all which they possessed. Not long afterwards, this first and last act of hostility during the present war, was succeeded by the arrival of a ship which came upon a more agreeable mission. She brought large supplies for the colony, and when she hoisted her sails to re- turn to France, D'Artaguette, the commissary general, an ac- complished man, who well understood his business, became a passenger on board of her, to the regret of all the inhabitants. who ardently desired him to remain longer with them.
... "
17:1
The following is a statement of the colonial disbursements of the year 1711 :
THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
209
PAYMENTS.
CHAPTER
To 12 workmen on the fortification, - 4,480 livres. V.
" 23 naval officers, soldiers and cabin boys, 4,572
" superior officers, 19,988
" medicine chest, 506
" wax candles in the chapel, 270
1711
" presents to the Indians, - 4,000 -
" maintenance of military companies, - 27,688
61,504 livres.
D'Artaguette, the colonial commissary, had a prosperous voyage to France, and arrived there "at the time," to use the eloquent language of Gayarre, "when the star of Louis XIV., which had shed such brilliant glory around for half a century, was almost extinguished, and the doors of the old cathedral of St. Dennis had already opened in expectation of receiving the great monarch, whom age and misfortune urged rapidly towards the tomb." The country, too, over which he had so long reigned, was then groaning under the effects of the long, bloody and expensive wars which he had waged. The report which D'Artaguette now made of the unhappy condition of the colony of Louisiana, induced the French government to number that fruitless and extravagant bantling among its other misfortunes. It determined to hand the colony over to the care of a company, or to some rich merchant, with a grant of its exclusive commerce and other important privileges. Ac- cordingly, an opulent merchant, named Antione Crozat, en- tered into a contract with the King of France. The King
₹
210
THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER granted to him, for the term of fifteen years, the exclusive V. commerce of all the country known as the colony of Louisi- 1712 September 14 ana, embracing the country upon the Alabama and Tombig- by, with their various tributary streams; of all the islands at and near their entrance to the sea ; of all the lakes, rivers and islands connected with the lakes Pontchartrain, Mauripas, Borne, de .; of all the country upon the Mississippi and its nu- merous tributaries, from the sea as high up as the Illinois river, together with that of Texas. He also ceded to him " forever," all the lands which he could establish himself upon, all the ma- nufactures which he could put into operation, and all the struc- tures which he should erect. The King also granted to him the proceeds of all the mines which he might find and work. and agreed to appropriate fifty thousand livres annually to- September 14 ward the payment of his officers and troops in Louisiana.
For all these privileges, Crozat obligated, on his part, to appropriate one-fourth of the proceeds of the mines of precious metals to the King's use; to forfeit the lands which were granted to him "forever," if the improvements or manufac- tures which he placed upon them should be abandoned by him or should cease to exist ; to send a vessel annually to Guinea for slaves for the colony, and to send every year two ships from France, with a certain number of emigrants to Lou- September 14 isiana ; and, at the expiration of nine years, to pay the salaries of the King's officers in the colony during the remainder of his time, with the privilege of nominating those officers for his majesty's appointment.
All this country was to be a dependency upon the goverhi-
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THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
ment of New France. The ordinances and usages of the CHAPTER Provost and Viscount of Paris were to rule the colony, in · V. connection with a council similar to that which then existed in St. Domingo.
About the time that France thus abandoned our soil and the few white inhabitants upon it, to the wealthy Parisian merchant, the King, by the treaty of Utrecht, ceded to Eng- land the country of Nova Scotia, with its ancient boundaries.
The population of Louisiana. now turned over to Crozat, consisted of twenty-eight families, twenty negroes, seventy-five Canadians, and two companies of infantry of fifty men each. September 14 1:12 the whole numbering three hundred and twenty-four soul -. They were scattered over the colony, and separated by large rivers and expansive lakes, protected by only six forts of mise- rable construction, built of stakes, trees and earth, and portions . of them covered with palm leaves. These forts were situated as follows: one upon the Mississippi, one upon Ship Island, one upon Dauphin Island, Que at Biloxi, one at the old and the other at the new settlement of Mobile.
At length, a vessel of fifty guns disembarked, on Dauphin Island, the officers intended for the government of Louisiana under Crozat's charter. Among them were Lamotte Cadil- lac, the new Governor : Duelos, the Commissary General : Lebas, the Comptroller ; and Dirigoin and Laloire de Ursins. directors of the affairs of Crozat in the colony. Governor Ca- dillac had served with distinction in the wars of Canada, and brought with him to the colony of Louisiana his daughter,
1713 May 17
:
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THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER whom he attempted, as we shall see, to marry to Bienville. V. He was a man of poor judgment, of week feelings, and much selfishness. To interest him in the deepest manner, in accom- plishing his various schemes of colonial aggrandizement, Crozat had promised him a portion of his profits. But Cadillac, in his first despatch to the Minister, began to complain of every- 1713 May 17 body and of every thing appertaining to the colony ; and all his other documents to that high functionary were, likewise, filled with carping epithets, which could only emanate from a selfish and childish mind like his. Dauphin Island, which, he said, had been represented to him as a terrestrial paradise, he assured the Minister, was a poor and miserable spot, sup- porting but a few improvements, with a few fig trees and sapless vines of the grape and lemon. Wheat did not grow upon the whole continent, having been abandoned upon the borders of Lake Pontchartrain and at Natchez, where one Larigne had endeavored to raise it. Other colonial officers, July 15 also, hastened to complain. Duclos wrote to the Minister that twelve girls had lately arrived from France, who were too ugly and badly formed to secure the affections of the men, and that but two of them had yet found husbands. He was afraid that the other ten would remain on hand a long time. He thought proper to suggest, that those who sent girls to the colony in future, should attach more importance to beauty than to virtue, as the Canadians were not serupulous as to the lives which their spouses may have formerly led. But if they were only to be offered girls as ugly as these, they would
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THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
rather attach themselves to Indian females, particularly in the CHAPTER Illinois country, where the Jesuit priests sanctioned such alli- V. ances by the marital ceremony.
Duclos again wrote to the Minister, accusing Cadillac with having appropriated the presents intended for the Indians, to his own use, and recommended that the Governor should, in future, be required to confer with Bienville in relation to the distribution of those presents; the latter, he remarked, having for so many years, by justice, honor and good advice, so hap- pily conciliated the different tribes. On the same day Cadil- lac wrote to the Minister, the Count Pontchartrain, that the inhabitants knew nothing of the culture of silk, tobacco and indigo, but confined their attention to the production of Indian corn and vegetables. That the commerce of the colony con- sisted merely in skins of deer, bear, and other animals, and lumber. That the coureurs de bois hunted for peltry and slaves, which they brought to Mobile and sold, and that the peltry was then re-sold, together with vegetables and poultry, to the Spaniards at Pensacola, or to ships which touched upon the coast, while the Indian slaves were employed to saw out lumber and till the earth. But the very next day Cadillac made another despatch, in which he pronounced the country to be good for nothing, and the inhabitants " a mass of rapscallions from Canada, a cut-throat set, without subordi- nation, with no respect for religion, and abandoned in vice with Indian women, whom they prefer to French girls." He complained that upon arriving at Mobile he found the garri- sons dispersed in the woods and Indian villages, where they
1713 October 25
October 25
»
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THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER went in search of bread ; that Bienville, his brother Cha- V. teaugne, and their cousin Boisbriant, the Major of Mobil ... came to the colony too young to know how to drill soldier -. and had not since learned any thing of proper discipline ; and that the soldiers all had Indian wives, who cooked for them and waited upon them-all of which he pronounced to be in- tolerable. He believed that the colony presented but two objects of commerce-trade with the Spaniards of Mexico and 1713 the working of precious mines, if the latter could be discovered; but that, unfortunately, Dirigoin, one of Crozat's directors, was a man of no capacity, while Lebas, the comptroller, was extremely dissipated. He desired more trade's-people, sailors, Canadians and artizans to be sent out, and a church to be erected at Mobile. But the latter the inhabitants would be delighted not to have. Indeed, a majority of the gentlemen. priests and missionaries, had not taken sacrament for eight years, the soldiers had not kept Palm Sunday, but followed the example of Bienville and his adherents; that the sea captain who brought out the twelve girls had seduced more than half of them upon the passage, which was the cause of their not having married respectable persons in the colony, and he contended that it was best, under the circumstances, that the soldiers should be allowed to marry them, for fear that their poverty would drive them to prostitution. In rela- tion to the council which was to co-operate in the goverment of the colony, Cadillac said that it had not convened for the want of suitable members. To this string of complaints were added many others in a subsequent despatch, among which
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were the following : That Bienville had governed the colony CHAPTER for years without having discovered any mines, which he (Ca- v. 1714 dillae) could have done in a short time ; that Duclos was February 20 guilty of great impudence and presumption in eensuring his official acts : that the French government was entirely too lenient to its colonial officers and soldiers, who threatened to revolt and burn up Crozat's establishment ; and that libertin- ism was carried to such an extent, that even the boys had In- dian mistresses! In again alluding to the council, he stated that Duclos had nominated for Attorney-General a store-keeper; for Couneillor, the chief surgeon : for Secretary, Door-keeper and Notary, one Roquet, a low soldier ; and that the AAssem- bly, which for the present was to meet at his house, wanted nothing but the bonnet and robe to make it perfect ! He said that if the Minister did not crush the cabals formed against him by Bienville and his clan, who kept up an intercourse with the inhabitants of Pensacola, to whom they sold and from whom they bought, that Crozat would be compelled to abandon his colonial project. He denied that he had with- held grants of land to the inhabitants, but admitted that his requirement that such grants as he had given should be sub- jeet to the ratification of the King, gave great dissatisfaction. He concluded this remarkable despatch with the assertion that none of the lands were worth granting !
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