USA > Alabama > Mobile County > Mobile > The founding of Mobile, 1702-1718, studies in the history of the first capital of the province of Louisiana, with map showing its relation to the present city > Part 5
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Place names are among the most lasting of human things, as we see all over America in the Indian names of rivers and mountains. Some aboriginal names survive Mobile, such as Chocolochee and Chucfey Bays, and that most interesting name Chickasabogue,-which points back to some time when the Chickasaws were not confined to Northern Mississippi as in historic days. "Bogue" was the Choctaw word "bok," softened by the French into
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"bayou," meaning the slow, sluggish creek of our Gulf regions. But the Indian names immediately about Mobile are few, indicating that there was not a large native population and that there was an ex- tensive French settlement. Some of the Indian names are given by the French. So Choctaw Point was called for the Indians whom Bienville placed there, and the same is true of Tensaw and Apalache Rivers further east.
The dispatches of Bienville do not give many local details, but the contemporary notes of Penicaut have a great deal of local color. He tells us that he was with Iberville on the first explorations of the Mobile country in 1699 and afterwards. He notes that our Dauphine Island was named Massacre from a large pile of human bones found near its west end, that Deer and Fowl Rivers were named for their game, and Dog River for a dog lost there.
The place names immediately about Mobile are generally French. Thus One Mile Creek is a descrip- tion only : the name is Bayou Marmotte,-so called from a small animal of that name. Similarly, Three Mile Creek is really. Bayou Chateaugue, commem- orating Bienville's sailor brother, one of the most interesting characters in colonial history. On Dau- phine Island are many French names,-one recalling Chateaugue and another merchant Graveline,-and on the opposite coast are Coden, La Batre (Battrie) and others. Bon Secours Bay, which supplies our oysters, was possibly called for the church at Mont- real, Notre Dame de Bon Secours, so dear to all sailors. High up on Bayou Chateaugue, near the present bridge to Toulminville, is a shallow place called The Portage, in early American times the
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northwest boundary of the city. This ford was on the Indian trade route from Mobile to the Choctaw Nation. One of the sources of Dog River is Bayou Durand, commemorating a somewhat later French family, and the district between these streams and Mobile River was in French times well settled by colonists. Preferably they faced the rivers and bayous, for the purpose of hunting, fishing and transportation.
Chickasabogue was apparently known to the French as St. Louis River, and the magnificent ex- panse of land which we call St. Louis Tract was called for this stream. It was an early French grant, like the Mandeville Tract on the bay below the city, although not dating back to the foundation of the city in 1711. This St. Louis Tract was originally granted to D'Artaguiette after the Apalache Indians were moved over to the east side of the Mobile delta about the middle of the century, and mark a genu- ine extension of the Mobile colony. There was an- other grant made somewhat later to Madame De- Lusser, the widow of a distinguished officer who fell in the Chickasaw war, which was within the present city limits and marked the decadence of the city. It extended from the river near Theatre street west- wardly to the present Protestant Orphan Asylum, making a puzzle to modern abstractors of title. Madame DeLusser placed her slaves there for the purpose of cultivation, and this shows how the town must have shrunk towards the end of the French period ; for it takes up what in 1711 and later was a well occupied part of the river front.
The streets all had French names, but only Royal. Dauphin and possibly St. Louis have retained them.
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A dozen or more French names disappeared under the later Spanish rule which furnishes so many of the present names.
The St. Louis, Mandeville and DeLusser Tracts, and Mon Louis Island .- this last a grant by Cadillac, -are probably the only French grants that survive. The population, however, was to remain French dur- ing the succeeding British and Spanish periods and even far down into American times.
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III. UNDER CROZAT AND AFTER.
XVI .- COLONIAL GOVERNMENT.
Colonial administration implies two elements,- the part played by the home government and that by the local officials. France was so centralized that the first was much greater than in English colonization, and at first this was a source of strength. Under Louis XIV the king was supreme, but he had many agents. Originally the royal coun- cil, made up of the dukes and other nobles, was, with the king, the head of the State; but Louis gradually raised bourgeois, like Colbert and Louvois, to high places, making them all but prime ministers. This disgusted St. Simon and the old nobles, but turned out well. The minister of the marine, or navy, were the Pontchartrains, father and then son. For America, colonial control centred at Rochefort, which had an intendant, commissaire ordonnateur, controleur and treasurer, who made this place for France somewhat what the Casa de Contratacion had made Seville for Spain. Le Rochelle, nearby, was one of the great entrepots of France.
After the death of Louis XIV, St. Simon succeed- ed in having the ministers superseded by committees of the council, made up of noblemen. The con- trolling mind of the navy council was Toulouse, a natural son of Louis XIV and a man of ability. But the Regent found these committees cumbersome and gradually drifted back again to ministers of the marine and other departments. During both periods
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there was little change at Rochefort. Even colonial money was struck there when that came in 1721, al- though the nature of the colonial government had then varied again and centred in John Law and his company.
The local machinery in Louisiana knew three dis- tinct periods. The first, that of settlement, extend- ing through the removal to present Mobile, was royal and military. The second was from 1712, when Crozat was granted the colony as a trade ven- ture, like the French and English East India Com- panies. The third,-beyond our present investiga- tion,-was when the Crozat experiment had been improved on in 1717 by founding the Mississippi Company. What of these methods of government ?
Mr. Roosevelt is evidently delighted when, in his "Winning of the West," he comes to tell how American settlers got together under a tree at Wa- tauga and set up a form of government. And justly so, for here were frontiersmen illustrating in modern times Aristotle's maxim that man is a political ani- mal. There is a government wherever people group themselves together in a settled community. It is found even among children. It can be illustrated in the early history of Louisiana as well as at Watauga. It is true there was a different race of men, and they went about it in a different manner. Louis XIV sent over a ready-made government, just as now-a- days we get a ready-made cottage from the manu- facturers. But in both cases it was what the people were used to and it was satisfactory to them. Louis' government represented public opinion at. Mobile as much as that in France.
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Under Iberville and afterwards under Bienville the royal commandant was supreme. There was a garde magasin, afterwards a commissaire in charge of royal property, but the most that he could do was to spy on his superior and trust to reports working to his prejudice in France. So long as the governor was in Louisiana the commissaire had to submit. We find him criticized by the commissaire La Salle from the beginning, and as a result D'Artaguiette was sent over in 1708 to investigate, and he returned four years later and was succeeded by Duclos. Both of these men were friends of Bienville. There was not then even in France the division which seems ob- vious to us between legislative, judicial and execu- tive departments,-for the king, and in Louisiana his representative, was all three. The governor was even notary also and witnessed papers.
Iberville was in 1703 appointed commandant in chief, but was not in Louisiana afterwards and did not establish a system. Bienville was practically in command until 1713, for although in 1707 he was removed, his successor died before reaching America and Bienville held over. A check on him was in- tended in D'Artaguiette, but D'Artaguiette ap- proved Bienville's policy. Cadillac succeeded in 1713, but was not Bienville's equal as an administra- tor, and had to make use of Bienville even against his will. Bienville was the controlling spirit in Louisiana as long as he was in it, no matter who was governor.
We need not think that autocracy was peculiar to the French. Even a third of a century later the English government of George II pursued the same plan, and General Oglethorpe also was a kind of
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Poo Bah in Georgia for a number of years. It is probably essential at the beginning of colonial gov- ernment.
In Georgia the trustees came first and only after- wards was there royal government, while in Louisi- ana the process was reversed. In the English colon- ies, whatever the form of government, it was really but a shield for popular institutions. In Louisiana the question was between royalty and a trading company and there was no growth of a democracy. There were no popular meetings or town councils. Such was the genius of the two races. The ex- haustion of France in the War of the Spanish Suc- cession led Louis XIV to farm out his new province nominally to Antoine Crozat, but Crozat represented a syndicate. It was after all only a partial abdica- tion by the king, for he, while granting a trade mo- nopoly, retained power over the army, navy and forts. The governor was appointed before Crozat's grant, but he retained the same man, Cadillac, who had founded Detroit about the same time that Mo- bile came into existence. The king says in the patent that he had been prevented from building up the trade of Louisiana by constant war, and that Crozat was such a successful merchant that it was hoped he would build up the American trade also. Somewhat as Queen Elizabeth had done in the case of her explorers, the king required that Crozat should turn over to him one-fifth of all gold, silver and precious stones discovered, and one-tenth of all other minerals. The monopoly of trade was for fifteen years, but the property rights were to be in perpetuity, subject to "reunion" in the case of non- compliance with the grant. This patent was duly
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registered by the Parlement of Paris, which was much more than a record office.Some years later it refused to register the grant to John Law.
The governmental relations of Louisiana were now changed under Crozat. The province became nomi- nally connected with Canada, but practically it re- mained independent. Both had the Coutume de Paris as their civil law, but in Louisiana land was held in full ownership and not under a seigneur. In Canada they had a governor and an intendant, somewhat as in each province of France, but there is no separate intendant as yet for Louisiana. D'Ar- taguiette's coming in 1708 marked a change, but this commissaire ordonnateur and his successors at this time had not all the powers of an intendant. The two provinces were made similar, however, by grant- ing to Louisiana in 1712 a Superior Council, such as had long existed in the older colonies. This was a civil body composed of the governor, first councillor, royal lieutenant, two other councillors, attorney- general and clerk (greffier.) It had not only execu- tive, but had legislative, or at least administrative powers, and was a court besides. It heard cases, civil and criminal; from it there was no appeal, but there could be a review from above (cassation). This was the germ of the judicial system of Louisi- ana, and was the closest approach to popular gov- ernment that the colony was to show. It was not elective but would have been fairly representative in any other hands than Cadillac's.
Crozat managed the trade of Louisiana through directors whom he sent out. They were more in touch with the actual life of the colony than were the royal officers; but neither this nor the similar
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administration later under John Law was strictly the government. That rested still with the Regent and was exercised through his ministry of the ma- rine. Ultimately the king resumed the colony, and, after the manner of Canada, established an in- tendant for civil justice and police over against the military governor; but that was in the thirties.
XVII .- EXPANSION.
The strong personality of the Le Moyne brothers dominates the founding of Louisiana and the bril- liant exploitation by John Law occupies a later stage before it settles down to stagnation under royal gov- ernors again. Between the founding and the Mis- sissippi Bubble Crozat and his ill-liked representa- tive Cadillac have been almost forgotten. And yet the five or six years under Crozat were those of first real growth, and were those in which Louisiana re- ceived its greatest expansion. Under the royal gov- ernment which succeeded Law, the story crystallized around the lower Mississippi, but, with the exception of the foundation of the trading post of St. Louis by Chouteau and of Vincennes up the Ouabache, and they were mere outposts; Louisiana did not grow in size after Crozat. It is true he did not formally ac- quire the Illinois as Law did, but it was within his sphere of influence.
The earlier period might be thought of as one of exploration rather than real settlement, except in regard to the capital at Mobile. The Le Moyne brothers and Le Sueur spent the first few years exploring the Mississippi and its tributaries, but the War of the Spanish Succession in Europe prevented anything further. While it was found better to es-
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tablish the capital on the coast, and not on the great river itself, one of the first acts of the French was to build a fort called La Boulaye on the lower Mis- sissippi. This was under St. Denis and Bienville, but after colonial affairs were concentrated at Mo- bile even this fort was abandoned.
The explorations were not merely for geographical reasons. It was, as all these efforts were, somewhat in the nature of a quest for the Golden Fleece. It turned out that there was no gold to be found, and even copper was far away at the sources of the Mis- sissippi; but profitable fleece there was after all in the nature of furs and skins of wild animals. Even beaver skins were brought down the Mississippi in abundance until the Canadian protest caused this to be stopped. With the Indian trade, however, we are not at present concerned. Although this was the original inducement for the settlements, these set- tlements can be considered for their own sakes. And it must not be forgotten that, in addition to the in- terests of geography and Indian trade. there was a third inspiration, both towards exploration and set- tlement. The English colonies bounded Louisiana on the east and the Spaniards of Mexico bounded it on the southwest. In this way from the very first there was a desire not only to define the limits, but to push French occupation as far into the interior as could be held. The voyageurs and afterwards the coureurs de bois afforded excellent agents for this work, and it may be doubted whether the priests, particularly the Jesuits in the North West, who came first, did not help more than the others. There is no doubt that they were devout men and taught religion and incidentally civilization, but they were
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also Frenchmen, and could not, if they had wished, avoid attaching the Indians to the French interest.
Cadillac's chief interest was in trade, and he made vigorous commercial attempts towards Mexico, both by land and sea ; but all he could accomplish was a little in the way of smuggling. Towards Pensacola he was more successful, for the Pensacola garrison was cut off from all Spanish countries and was often in need. Pensacola could exchange Mexican gold and silver for flour and other supplies, while Mobile gave obligations redeemable in kind when the ships came from France.
Cadillac's term was marked by several great steps of expansion. The Natchez in the West, were re- duced to subjection and Fort Rosalie (named for Mme. Pontchartrain) built there on the Mississippi, while in the East among the Alibamons, near our Wetumpka, was established Fort Toulouse, called for the king's natural son, which was to play a great part in international politics. Rosalie's Indian trade was not encouraged by Cadillac, but the fort kept the river communication open with Canada ; Tou- louse kept the four branches of the Muscogees free from English dominance, and even affected the Cherokees in the rear of Carolina. It was to be a sore thorn in the side of the English of Carolina and the future Georgia.
Bienville was efficient in command, but there is reason to think that he was not a good subordinate. He had been the actual instrument for founding Fort Toulouse and was also the one who founded Fort Rosalie shortly afterwards. It was perhaps a stroke of policy when Crozat gave him an-indepen- dent command of the Mississippi and its tributaries
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in 1716. This afforded Bienville the opportunity which he need for influence among all the tribes of the Mississippi Valley, and upon it directly or indi- rectly rests much of his claim to be one of the makers of America. In the West, Natchitoches was occupied the next year, and a garrison stationed there, nominally to guard against the Spaniards, but practically to be a means of an overland smuggling trade with Mexico. St. Denis and then La Harpe were in command at this point for a number of years and did much towards opening the Red River coun- try.
In the other direction there was always close in- timacy between Mobile and Pensacola, despite the official dispute as to the boundary, and even before the short war with Spain there came in 1718 the little known incident of the French occupation of St. Joseph far to the east. This act, which made Pensacola an enclave in French territory, was actually in John Law's time, but before he had taken any steps towards his project of colonizing the Mis- sissippi. The western movement, however, was to cause the abandonment of St. Joseph the next year, and the Spaniards occupied it themselves.
French exploration was marked by maps of value, leading ultimately to the great work of Delisle in the thirties. Probably no small part of the credit for the coast charts should be given to Bienville's brother Serigny, who came in 1719 in command of a squadron and sounded and explored much of the Gulf coast. One cannot fail to marvel at this Le Moyne family. The death of Iberville in 1706 seemed only to draw out the strong qualities of the remaining brothers. Whether we look at Bienville,
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Chateaugue or Serigny, the South has every cause to thank Montreal for her gift.
Attention was to be concentrated henceforth on the Mississippi. The country of the Illinois Indians had been French headquarters even before the founding of Mobile. All voyageurs touched there, as had LeSueur going to the Sioux, and Cadillac passed through on his early expedition in sarch of gold mines. Kaskaskia grew to be a village of some importance, and, while Fort Chartres was actually built by Boisbriant under the direction of Law's Company, this was merely recognizing what had come to be an established post of an earlier date. The only reason Crozat had not built it was because in his day it was nominally attached to Canada. It grew to be a bone of contention between Canada and Louisiana, but ultimately under Law became part of the Gulf colony.
The time of Crozat, therefore, is one well worth studying. In government, trade and external rela- tions it marked a departure, we may say an advance, on what it succeeded, and its basis of operations was Mobile. Crozat copied the provisions of the trading companies of his day, of which the greatest was that of the Indies, and applied them to American condi- tions, and the much better known epoch of John Law, which began with Crozat's surrender in 1718, was in turn merely an expansion of the principles under which Crozat had acted.
XVIII .- THE FIRST LAW BOOK.
On the table lies a law book which might have been Bienville's and was certainly of the edition used by French governors of Louisiana. It comes
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down through Alfred Hennen, and has New Orleans associations, but it was printed 1664 in the estab- lishment of Guillaume de Luyne, law bookseller, at the end of the Hall of Merchants, by the statue of Justice in the Palace, in old Paris on the island. It is a quarto entitled Le Droict Prancois et Cous- tume de la Prevoste & Vicomte de Paris, the text in large print being followed by a small print com- mentary, giving not only royal ordinances, but de- cisions of courts, other coutumes, and opinions of men learned in the law. This is the fmous book known as the Coutume de Paris, early made the law of Canada and other colonies, including Louisiana, by decrees of Louis XIV. This fourth edition is by Maistre Jean Troncon Avocat in Parlement and Seigneur of several districts.
The principal divisions of modern law are Politi- cal, Civil and Criminal, and of these Civil is that which most affects every-day life. This may be sub- divided into the law of persons, property, contracts, torts and procedure. With these we exhaust the usual categories of law. But we find no such divis- ions in English law before Blackstone in the eighteenth century, and it would be vain to expect them in France. Nevertheless, the English Common Law and the French Coutumes ran parallel. This book gives French law before any Code Napoleon ever dreamed of, although the word "code," bor- rowed from the Romans, was not unusual on the Continent. The volume is really made up of the customs prevailing in the district around Paris, dating from the old Teutonic invaders and modified from time to time by new customs and slightly by royal decrees. There were a dozen or more collec-
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tions of customary law throughout France, originat- ing in the different districts in a similar way, and largely modified by the Roman Civil Law. They really made up the local law of France, and it was a question which, if any, would come to dominate the whole country as a Common Law. It is a curi- ous thing, that, although the government ecame highly centralized under Louis XIV, each province retained its customary law. The administration was still with the provincial nobility and magistrates, superintended by the intendants sent by the king from Paris. The Custom of Paris, however, was gaining ground, and the king was making it supreme throughout all the colonies established by the French. In this way it became law for Louisiana.
It concerns itself principally with what we would call Civil Law, and in particular with the status of people and families and of the land which they oc- cupy. The first title, therefore, naturally relates to fiefs, for feudalism was still supreme. It describes the rights of the seigneur, and the rights and duties of his tenants as to crops, dues, military and civil, inheritance, and the like. Land tenure is possibly the most fundamental of all public institutions and was to change very much in America from the feu- dalism of Europe as a part of the modern trend from community to individual control. But in France of that day feudalism, resting on service to a superior, prevailed with little change from the Middle Ages. The seigneur got some profit at every turn. The sys- tem existed in Canada, and seigneuries were said to be the basis of that colony; but the king seemed to feel instinctively that Louisiana colonists, who were to be in competition with the British of the Atlantic,
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must have a freer ownership and greater liberties than the peasants of France. The general tenure, therefore, in Louisiana was roturier, if not franc aleu, corresponding closely to the fee simple owner- ship of England. This division of the Coutume also covers the seigneurs' courts, but these were replaced in America by the Superior Council and other courts. The second title relates to the seigneurial rents and rights (censives et droits), subjects of much the same character.
The third title relates to property, with its divis- ions into movables and immovables,-somewhat like our personal and real property. Title IV is confined to legal proceedings as to property, and Title V also relates to personal actions and also those growing out of mortgage (hypotheque). The sixth is on Prescription, and corresponds to the modern Statute of Limitations. This affected all kinds of property.
Title VII covers Retrait Lagnager, which is a feu- dal right. Title VIII is on suits, executions and some kinds of contracts, particularly those requiring seal. Herein figure especially the rights of the bourgeois, or inhabitants of a city,-and there were bourgeois for Mobile. Mobile was a bourg. Title IX is of Servitudes or Easements,-rights in anoth- er's property. With Title X we reach one of the most important characteristics of French law,-the community or joint ownership of goods between hus- band and wife. This is one of the longest titles and followed naturally by the subject of dower. Then come two short titles as to guardianship and gifts, and next Title XIV on Wills. XV on Successions or Administrations is, without doubt the longest of all.
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