USA > Arkansas > A pictorial history of Arkansas, from earliest times to the year 1890. A full and complete account, embracing the Indian tribes occupying the country; the early French and Spanish explorers and governors; the colonial period; the Louisiana purchase; the periods of the territory, the state, the civil war, and the subsequent period. Also, an extended history of each county in the order of formation, and of the principal cities and towns; together with biographical notices of distinguished and prominent citizens > Part 6
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P. 145. "We found the country pleasant enough about that river, though the land did not seem to be any of the best, but still it was delightful to the eye, well planted with fine trees of several sorts, among which is one that M. de La Salle had named copal, being very beautiful, the leaves of it between those of the maple and the lime trees in resemblance, and from it came a gum of a very agreeable scent.
P. 146. "In the same place we saw a great tree, on which the late M. de La Salle had caused crosses and the arms of France to be carved."
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After going to the Cenis Indians, he says :
P. 148. "Then they made us smoke, and brought to us a Frenchman of Provence, who was one of those that had for- saken the late M. de La Salle at his first journey.
P. 153. "Though I thought myself not over-secure among those Indians, and besides had the dissatisfaction of under- standing none of their language, yet I was not unwilling to stay, that I might have an opportunity of seeing the two other Frenchmen, who had forsaken the late M. de La Salle when he first traveled into that country, that I might inquire of them whether they had heard no talk of the Mississippi river, for I still held my resolution of parting from the wicked mur- derers. . As soon as they were gone, I gave a young In- dian a knife to go bid those two other Frenchmen come to me.
P. 155. "They confirmed what I had been told before, that the natives had talked to them of the great river, which was forty (40) leagues off towards the northeast, and that there were people like us that dwelt on the banks of it. This confirmed me in the opinion that it was the river so much sought after, and that we must go that way to return to Canada or towards New England. They told me they would willingly go with us.
P. 157. "We stayed three days longer in that post. The chief wished them to remain and join him in war.
P. 162. "However, we were not to be moved, and only. asked one kindness of him, in obtaining of which there were many difficulties, and it was that he would give us a guide, etc.
P. 163. "Thus there were only seven of us who stuck to- gether to return to Canada, viz: Father Anastasius, M. M. Cavelier, the brother and nephew, the Sieur de Marle, one Teis- sier, a young man born at Paris, whose name was Bartholomew, and I, with six horses and three Indians, who were to be our guides ; a very small number for so great an enterprise, but we put ourselves entirely in the hands of Divine Providence, confiding in God's mercy, which did not forsake us.
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FROM 1543 TO 1700.
P. 165. "The 22d of June, our Indian being somewhat re- covered, we decamped and proceeding along a better way and pleasanter country than we had left behind, and as we en- quired the best we could, of those our Indians concerning the neighboring nations, and those we were going towards, among others they named to us that they called Cappa. M. Cavelier told us, he remembered that he had heard his late brother, M. de La Salle, name that nation, and say that he had seen it as he went from Canada towards the Mississippi. This put us in hopes that we should succeed in our discovery.
P. 173 "The 9th and Ioth of July was spent in visits, and we were informed by one of the Indians that we were not far from a great river, which he described with a stick on the sand and showed it had two branches; at the same time pronouncing the word Cappa, which, as I have said, is a nation near the Mississippi. We then made no longer question that we were near what we had been so long looking after.
"The night between the 19th and 20th, one of our horses breaking loose, was either taken away by the natives or lost in the woods. That did not obstruct our departure, though the loss was grievous to us, and we held on our way till the 24th, when we met a company of Indians with axes going to fetch barks of trees to cover their cottages. They were sur- prised to see us, but having made signs to them to draw near, they came, caressed and presented us with some watermelons they had. They put off their design of going to fetch bark till another time, and went along with us, and one of our guides having gone before in the morning to give notice of our coming at the next village, met with other parcels of In- dians, who were coming to meet us, and expressed extraordin- ary kindness.
"We halted in one of their cottages, which they called 'Des- ert,' because they are in the midst of their fields and gar- dens. There we found several women who had brought bread, gourds, beans and watermelons, a sort of fruit proper
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to quench the thirst, the pulp of it being no better than water.
"We set out again to come to the village, and by the way met with pleasant woods, in which there were abundance of stately cedars. Being come to a river that was between us and the village, and looking over to the farther side, we dis- covered a great cross, and at a small distance from it a house built after the French fashion.
"It is easy to imagine what inward joy we conceived at the sight of that emblem of our salvation. We knelt down, lift- ing up our hands and eyes to heaven to return thanks to the Divine Goodness for having conducted us so happily ; for we made no question of finding French on the other side of the river, and of their being Catholics, since they had crosses. In short, having halted for some time on the bank of that river, we spied several canoes making towards us, and two men clothed coming out of the house we had discovered, who the moment they saw us fired, each of them, a shot to salute us. An Indian, being chief of the village, who was with them, had done so before, and we were not backward in re- turning their salute by discharging all our pieces. When we had passed the river and were all come together, we soon knew each other to be Frenchmen. Those we found were the Sieurs Couture and De Launay, both of them of Rouen, whom M. de Tonti, governor of Fort St. Louis, among the Illinois, had left at that post when he went down the Missis- sippi to look after M. de La Salle; and the nation we were then with was called Accancea.
"It is hard to express the joy conceived on both sides ; ours was unspeakable, for having at last found what we had so earnestly desired, and that the hopes of returning to our dear country were, in some measure, assured by that happy dis- covery. The others were pleased to see such persons as might bring them news of that commander from whom they expected the performance of what he had promised them ; but the account we gave them of M. de La Salle's unfortunate
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death was so affecting that it drew tears from them, and the dismal history of his troubles and disasters rendered them al- most inconsoleable.
"We were conducted to the house, whither all our baggage was (p. 175) honestly carried by the Indians. There was a very great throng of these people, both men and women, which being over, we came to the relation of the particular circumstances of our stories. One was delivered by M. Cavelier, whom we honored as our chief, being brother to him who had been so.
"We were informed by them that they had been six (6), sent by M. de Tonti when he returned from the voyage he had made down the Colbert or Mississippi river, pursuant to the orders sent him by the late M. de La Salle at his departure from France, and that the said Sieur de Tonti had commanded them to build the aforesaid house, and that having never since received any news from the said M. de La Salle, four (4) of them were gone back to M. de Tonti at the foot of the Illi- nois.
"In conclusion it was agreed among us to go away as soon as possible towards the Illinois, and conceal from the Indians the death of M. de La Salle, to keep them still in awe and under submission, while we went away with the first ships that should happen to sail from Canada to France to give an account at Court of what had happened, and procure succor. In the mean time the chief of the Indians came to invite us to eat. We found mats laid on the ground for us to sit on, and all the village met to see us.
"We gave them to understand that we came from M. de La- Salle, who had made settlement on the Bay of Mexico, that we had passed through many nations, which we named, and that we were going to Canada for commodities and would re- turn down the river; that we would bring men to defend them against their enemies and then settle among them, that the nations we had passed through had appointed men to
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guide us, and we desired the same favor of them, with some canoes and provisions, and that we would reward our guide and pay for what they furnished us. The conveniency of an interpreter we then had, gave us the opportunity of making ourselves to be easily understood, and the chief answered our proposal that he would send men to other villages to ac- quaint them with our demand, and to consult with them what was to be done in that case; that as for the rest they were amazed at our having passed through so many nations with- out having been detained or killed, considering what a small number we were. When the discourse was ended, that chief caused meat to be set before us, as dried flesh, bread made of In- dian corn of several sorts, and watermelons; after which he made us smoke and then we returned to our house, where being eased of all those implements, we gave each other an account of our affairs at leisure, and were informed that these people impatiently expected the return of. M. de La Salle, which confirmed us in the resolution of concealing his death. We observed the situation of that post, and were made acquainted with the nature of the country and the manners of those peo- ple, of which I shall give the following remarks :
"The house we were then in was built of pieces of cedar laid one upon another and rounded away at the corners. It is seated on a small eminence, half a musket shot from the vil- lage, in a country abounding in all things. The plains laying on one side of it are stored with beeves, wild goats, deer, tur- keys, bustards, swan, teal and other game.
"The trees produce plenty of fruit, and very good, as peaches, plums, mulberries, grapes and walnuts. They have a sort of fruit they call piaguimina, not unlike our medlars, but much better and more delicious. Such as live near the rivers, as that house is, do not want for fish of all sorts ; and they have Indian wheat, whereof they make bread. There are also fine plains, diversified with several sorts of trees, as I have said before.
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"The nation of the Accanceas consists of four (4) villages. The first is called Otsotchone (O-t-s-o-t-c-h-o-n-e), near which is the second, Toriman (T-o-r-i-m-a-n), both of them seated on the river; the third, Tonguinga (T-o-n-g-u-i-n-g-a), and the fourth, Cappa (C-a-p-p-a), on the bank of the Mis- sissippi. These villages are built after a different manner from the others we had seen before in this point ; that the cot- tages, which are alike as to their material and rounding at the top, are long, and covered with the bark of trees, and so very large that several of them can hold two hundred (200) per- sons belonging to several families.
"The people are not so neat as the Cenis or the Assonis in their houses, for some of them lie on the ground without any- thing under them but some mats or dressed hides. However, some of them have more conveniences, but the generality has not. All these movables consist in some earthen vessels and oval wooden platters, which are neatly made and with which they drive a trade. They are generally very well shaped and active; the women are handsome, or, at least, have a much better presence than those of the other villages we passed through before.
"They make canoes all of one piece, which are well wrought. As for themselves they are very faithful, good natured and warriors like the rest.
"The 25th the elders being assembled, came to see us and told the Sieur Couture, that they desired to sing and dance the calumet or pipe, because the others had sung it, some of them to the late M. de La Salle and the rest to M. Tonti, and, therefore, it was reasonable they should do the same to get a fire lock as well as the others. M. Cavelier was in- formed of it, and he was requested to consent to it to please these Indians, because we stood in need of them." They ob- tained guides of the Indians.
"The 27th we again made them a present, promising a good reward to our guides, and so we prepared to set forth. Little
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Bartholomew, the Parisian, having intimated to us that he would willingly stay in that house because he was none of the ablest of body, we recommended him to the Sieur Couture. We desired those that remained here to keep the secret of M. de La Salle's death, promised to send them relief, left them our horses which were of great use to go a hunting, and gave them fifteen or sixteen pounds of powder, eight hundred balls, three hundred flints, 26 knives, 10 axes and two or three pounds weight of beads.
"We embarked in a canoe belonging to one of the chiefs, being at least twenty (20) persons, as well women as men, and arrived safe without any trouble at a village called Tori- man (T-o-r-i-m-a-n), for we were going down the river. We proposed to these people to confirm what had been granted to us by the others. On the 28th they assembled and granted our request.
"The remaining part of the day was spent in going with Sieur Couture to see the fatal river so much sought after, by us called Colbert when first discovered and Mississippi or Me- chassippi by the natives. It is a very fine river and deep ; the breadth of it about a quarter of a league, and the stream is very rapid. The Sieur Couture assured us that it had two branches or channels, which parted from each other above us and that we had passed its other branch when we came to the first village of the Accanceas, with which natives we still were.
"The 29th we set out from that village and embarked in two canoes to cross the Mississippi. The chief and about a score of young folks bore us company to the next village called Tou- ningua (T-o-u-n-i-n-g-u-a) seated on the bank of that river where we were received in the chief's cottage.
"The 30th we set out for Cappa, the last village of the Ac- canceas, eight leagues distant from the place we had left. We were obliged to cross the river Mississippi several times in this way because it winds very much and we had some foul weather which made it late before we could reach Cappa, etc.
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"August 2d. We made ready to be going. We took leave of the Sieur Couture to whom M. Cavelier made an exhorta- tion encouraging him to persevere and have patience in hopes of the relief we would send him, and so we embarked on the Mississippi in a canoe, being nine (9) in number, that is five (5) of us and four (4) Indians.
"On the 9th we found the banks of the river very high and the earth of them red, yellow and white, and thither the natives came to furnish themselves with it to adorn their bodies on festival days.
"On the 19th we came to the mouth of the river 'Houa- bache' (Wabash), said to come from the country of the Iroquois toward New England. This is a fine river, its waters extraordinarily clear and the current of it gentle. We held our way until the 25th, when the Indians showed us a spring of salt water within a musket-shot of us, and made us go and view it.
"September Ist we passed the mouth of a river called the Missouris, whose waters are always thick. Sunday, 14th of September, 1687, about two in the afternoon, we came in the neighborhood of Fort St. Louis."
De Tonti was not at Fort St. Louis when the party arrived there. He was east in Canada, but on coming to the fort, in the autumn of 1687, found the party there. The following is his account of what transpired there :
P. 70. "I went in company with the Rev. Father Cre- viere as far as Misshemakinac, and afterwards to Fort St. Louis. There I found M. Cavelier, a priest, his nephew and the Father Anastasius, a Recollect, and two men. They con- cealed from me the assassination of M. de La Salle, and upon their assuring me that he was upon the Gulf of Mexico in good health, I received them as if they had been M. de La Salle himself, and lent them more than 700 francs (28 C). M. Cavalier departed in the spring of 1688 to give an account of his voyage at Court,
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
"M. de La Forêt came here in the autumn and went away in the following spring. On the 7th of April, 1688, one named Couture brought to me two Akansas, who danced . the calumet. They informed me of the death of M. de La- Salle, with all the circumstances, which they heard from the lips of M. Cavelier, who had, fortunately, discovered the house I had built at Arkansas, where he said Couture stayed with three (3) Frenchmen. He told me that the fear of not ob- taining from me what he desired had made him (Cavelier) conceal the death of his brother, but that he had told them of it."
The following concluding extracts from Joutel's journal show the return of his party to France, they having, in the autumn of 1688, gone from Fort St. Louis to Quebec, arriv- ing there October 9th :
"The 27th of July (1688), we went aboard a bark to go down the river to Quebec, where we arrived the 29th. Father Anastase carried us to a monastery of the Father of his order, seated half a league from the town on a little river, where we were most kindly received by the Father, guardian, and other religious men, who expressed much joy to see us, and we, still more, for being in a place of safety, after so many perils and toils, for which we returned our humble thanks to Almighty God, our protector.
"We chose rather to take up our lodging there than in town, to avoid the visits and troublesome questions every one would be putting to us with much importunity, which we must have been obliged to bear patiently.
"M. Cavelier and his nephew, whom we had left at Mon- treal, arrived some days after us, and were lodged in the sem- inary.
"We stayed in that monastery till the 2 Ist of August, when we embarked in a large boat, eighteen (18) persons of us, to go down the river of St. Lawrence, aboard a ship that was taking in and fishing of cod; we went aboard it the 30th of
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the same month, and after hearing mass, made ready to sail for our dear country ; arrived safe at Rochelle, on Saturday, the 9th of October, 1688, whence setting out by land the 15th, the same Providence which had protected and conducted us, brought us without any misfortune to Rouen, the 7th of October the same year."
De Tonti made many explorations up and down the Missis- sippi. In 1700, with twenty Canadians, he descended from Rock Fort, Illinois, as far as Natchez, to meet Pierre le Moyne, Sieur de Iberville, who, in 1698, had received a commission from Louis XIV to establish direct intercourse between France and Louisiana, and who, in the autumn of that year, began the work of colonizing the province. Le Moyne's first expedition left France October 24th, 1698, sailing from Brest, consisting of two frigates and two smaller vessels, the frigates being "La Pradine," commanded by Iberville, and "LeMarin," commanded by Le Chevelier de Surgeres, and having a company of natives and 200 settlers. They landed on Dauphin Island on the Alabama coast, in January, 1699; a few huts were put up on Ship Island. On the 27th day of February De Iberville set out with an expedition, including his younger brother Bienville, Father Anastasius Douay and 48 men for the Mississippi, which they entered March 2d. They ascended as high as the mouth of Red river, halt- ing awhile at the Bayagoula village. The Bayagoulas were a tribe of Choctaw affinity, living along the banks of the Mississippi.
In May of 1699 De Iberville built a fort upon a sandy shore at the head of the Biloxi Bay. It was a fort with four bastions, and had twelve cannon. It was the first white set- tlement on the Mississippi and the first fort which the French built, and was all that France had to indicate her claim to the immense sweeps of territory unknown and unexplored which constituted the Province of Louisiana.
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
In the year 1699 Sauvolle, who had come to Louisiana under De Iberville was appointed Governor of Louisiana. He was the first colonial governor, and held the office until he died, July 22d, 1701. He was succeeded by Jean Baptiste le Moyne. Sieur de Bienville, who was then only in the twenty- second year of his age, and who held the office for twenty- six years under three different appointments, to-wit: 1701 to 1712; 1718 to 1724; 1734 to 1743. He was a younger brother of Pierre le Moyne, Sieur de Iberville, and was one of eleven sons of a Canadian family of Montreal, all of whom were distinguished. They were sons of Charles le Moyne, of that city, who had come from Normandy to Canada among the earliest immigrants.
De Tonti never left the gulf regions of Lower Louisiana, and died at Mobile in 1704. When De Iberville entered the Mississippi in March, 1699, and halted at the Bayagoula village, the chief of the tribe then delivered to him the letter written by De Tonti to La Salle in 1685, and left with them with directions to deliver it to the white man whom they should find ascending the river, meaning La Salle, who expected to return by this route ; but De Iberville coming instead, they de- livered it to him. It was dated April 20th, 1685, but the year should evidently be 1686, because De Tonti did not set out on his journey down the river, until October 30th, 1685, after the date given to his letter ; and as the letter speaks of things performed on and during the journey it must necessarily have been written after such incidents had transpired.
The letter was as follows :
APRIL 20th, 1685.
"SIR, ETC :- Having found the column, on which you had placed the arms of France, thrown down, I caused a new one to be erected about seven leagues from the sea. All the na- tions have sung the calumet. These people fear us extremely since your attack upon their village. I close by saying that it gives me great uneasiness to be obliged to return under the
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FROM 1543 TO 1700.
misfortune of not having found you. Two canoes have ex- amined the coast 30 leagues towards Mexico and 25 towards Florida."
If those who were going toward Mexico had gone far enough, they would have found La Salle, as he was then on the coast of Matagorda Bay.
This letter had been safely preserved among the Indians with wonder and amazement for 13 years.
6
CHAPTER III. FROM 1700 TO 1800.
COLONIZATION .- THE COMPANY OF THE WEST .- JOHN LAW'S GRANT. LA HARPE'S JOURNEY. - FORTS .- BIENVILLE AND THE NATCHEZ WAR. FRENCH GOVERNORS .- CESSION TO SPAIN .- SPANISH GOVERNORS. GRANTS OF LANDS .- SETTLEMENT OF THE UPPER PART OF THE PROV- INCE .- RETRO-CESSION TO FRANCE.
DE IBERVILLE was active in bringing colonists to settle the newly acquired region. In October, 1698, he brought the two hundred emigrants from France, as has been mentioned, and again, in 1701, he brought a second company, but so many perished from fevers that, in 1702, only thirty French families remained in Louisiana. His own health was broken through this cause, and he was obliged to leave the country, and died at Havana in 1706, whither he had gone to re- cuperate. His brother, Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, succeeded to the governorship of the province upon the death of Sauvolle, July 22d, 1701, and remained at the head of affairs until 1712, when he was superseded by De La- Mothe Cadillac, who had founded Detroit in 1701.
In the latter part of Bienville's term, the Chevalier du Muys (or as the name is translated by Mr. Edmund J. For- stall, Dumerry), was appointed to succeed him, but having sailed from France, Du Muys died at Havana on the journey, and Bienville remained in office until succeeded by Cadillac.
The following statistics of the colony, of date 1704, are given by a writer, signing himself De La Salle, in a document found in the archives of the Department of the Marine, in Paris, among the documents relating to Louisiana, to-wit:
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BIENVILLE. Governor of the Province of Louisiana.
.
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
"Total population, including the garrison, 180 men ; num- ber of families, 27 ; 3 girls and 7 boys, from I to 10 years of age; 80 houses covered with lataniers, laid out in straight streets ; 190 acres of land, cleared for the building of the city ;* 9 oxen, of which 5 belong to the King; 14 cows; 4 bulls, be- longing to the King."
The first white child born in the Province of Louisiana was Claude Jausset, surnamed Laloire, who grew to manhood, as he is mentioned as living of date 1733.
On the 14th day of September, 1712, Louis XIV. granted to Antoine Crozat, merchant, a monopoly of the entire Loui- siana trade, and Cadillac became his partner, and a sharer in the enterprise. The grant was for all the country drained by the waters emptying directly or indirectly into the Missis- sippi, included in the boundaries of Louisiana. Crozat held this monopoly until 1717, when he surrendered his charter to the Crown, and the territory was transferred to a corporation, with extensive powers, called "The Company of the West." This Company held its charter for fifteen years, and in that time did much to promote the colonization and advancement of the province. John Law, a financier of ability and distinc- tion of this time, was the organizer, and a large supporter of the enterprises of this Company. The charter of the Com- pany was surrendered to the Crown June 23d, 1731.
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