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Gc 976.3 G25r 1755257
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
V
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02305 2530
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/romanceofhistory00gaya_0
ROMANCE
1
OF THE
HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
A SERIES OF LECTURES.
BY
CHARLES GAYARRE.
UTILE DULCI.
NEW-YORK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY.
PHILADELPHIA : GEO. S. APPLETON, 13 CHESNUT-STREET. M DCCC XLVIII.
1755257
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, BY CHARLES GAYARRE, In the Clerk's Office of the United States District Court for the District of Louisiana.
CONTENTS.
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PREFACE
9
FIRST LECTURE.
PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY-EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO IN 1539- HIS DEATH-DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI IN 1673, BY FATHER MARQUETTE AND JOLIET-THEY ARE FOLLOWED IN 1682 BY LA SALLE AND THE CHEVALIER DE TONTI-ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE . 23
SECOND LECTURE.
ARRIVAL OF IBERVILLE AND BIENVILLE-SETTLEMENT OF A FRENCH COLONY IN LOUISIANA-SAUVOLLE, FIRST GOVERNOR-EVENTS AND CHARACTERS IN LOUISIANA, OR CONNECTED WITH THAT COLONY, FROM LA SALLE'S DEATH, IN 1687, TO 1701 . 53
THIRD LECTURE.
SITUATION OF THE COLONY FROM 1701 TO 1712-THE PETTICOAT I.Y- SURRECTION-HISTORY AND DEATH OF IBERVILLE-BIENVILLE, THE SECOND GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA-HISTORY OF ANTHONY CROZAT, THE GREAT BANKER-CONCESSION OF LOUISIANA TO HIM . 119
FOURTH LECTURE.
LAMOTHE CADILLAC, GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA-SITUATION OF THE COLONY IN 1713-FEUD BETWEEN CADILLAC AND BIENVILLE-CHIA- RAFTER OF RICHEBOURG-FIRST EXPEDITION AGAINST THE NATCHEZ -- DE L'EPINAY SUCCEEDS CADILLAC-THE CURATE DE LA VENTE- EXPEDITION OF ST. DENNIS TO MEXICO-HIS ADVENTURES -- JAI .- WAT. THE SURGEON-IN 1717 CROZAT GIVES UP HIS CHARTER-HIS DEATH . . 171
!
PREFACE.
IF every man's life were closely analyzed, accident, or what seems to be so to human apprehension, and what usually goes by that name, whatever it may really be, would be discovered to act a more conspicuous part and to possess a more controlling influence than pre- conception, and that volition which proceeds from long meditated design. My writing the history of Louisi- ana, from the expedition of De Soto in 1539, to the final and complete establishment of the Spanish govern- ment in 1969, after a spirited resistance from the French colonists, was owing to an accidental circumstance, which, in the shape of disease, drove me from a seat I had lately obtained in the Senate of the United States, but which, to my intense regret, I had not the good fortune to occupy. Travelling for health, not from free agency, but a slave to compulsion, I dwelt several years in France. In the peculiar state in which my mind
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10
PREFACE.
then was, if its attention had not been forcibly diverted from what it brooded over, the anguish under which it sickened, from many causes, would soon have not been endurable. I sought for a remedy : I looked into musty archives-I gathered materials-and subsequently be- came a historian, or rather a mere pretender to that name.
Last year, as circumstance or accident would have it, I was invited by the managers of the People's Ly- ceum to deliver a Lecture before their Society. The invitation was flattering, but came in a most inoppor- tune moment. The Legislature was then in session, and, as Secretary of State, my duties and my daily rela- tions with the members of that honorable body were such as to allow me very little leisure. I could not decline, however, the honor conferred upon me ; and with a mind engrossed by other subjects, and with a hurried pen, I wrote the first Lecture, which is now introduced to the reader as the leading one in this vol- ume. It happened to give satisfaction : friends desired its publication : their desire was complied with ; and in the June and July numbers of De Bow's Commer- cial Review, the discourse which I had delivered before the People's Lyceum made its appearance. I attached
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PREFACE.
·
so little importance to this trifling production, the off- spring of an hour's thought, that I was greatly amazed at the encomium it elicited from newspapers, in which it was copied at length, in several parts of the United States.
What ! said I to myself, am I an unnatural father, and has my child more merit than I imagined ? As I was pondering upon this grave question, the last epi- demic took possession of New Orleans by storm. If I ventured into the streets for exercise or occupation, I immediately suffered intolerable annoyance from the stinging darts of Apollo, through the ineffectual texture of iny straw hat, and my eyes were greeted with nothing but the sight of dogs, physicians, and hearses. If I re- mained at home, seeking tranquillity under the protec- tion of the household gods of celibacy, indiscreet visitors would come in, and talk of nothing else but of the dying and the dead. One day I got into a very sinful fit of passion, and summoning up my servant George to my august presence, I said to him, " George, you are a great rascal, are you not?" "Master, I do not know exactly," replied he, scratching his woolly head. " Well, I do know it, George, and I am pleased to give you that wholesome information. But no matter, I forgive you."
12
PREFACE.
" Thank you, master." " I deserve no thanks for what I can't help : but stop, don't go yet ; I have something more to say." ." Master," quoth he, " I wish you would make haste, for the milk is on the fire, and I am afraid it will boil over." "Out upon the milk, man, and listen - to me with all the might of your African ears." George took an attitude of mixed impatience and resignation, and I continued, with more marked emphasis in my tone, and with increased dignity in my gesticulation, " Did you not lately run away for two months, for what reasonable cause, God only knows ; and did you not come back with the face of a whipped dog, telling me that you were satisfied with your experiment of that great blessing, freedom, and that you would not try it any more ? Do not hang down your thick head, as if you meant to push it through that big chest of yours ; but keep this in mind : if, for a whole week, you allow any human body to cross my threshold, I swear (and you know I always keep my word) that I'll kick you away to the abolitionists. Now vanish from my sight." What impression this order produced on this miserable slave, I do not know, but it was strictly executed.
After I had dismissed my sable attendant, I found myself in the same situation that many people frequently
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PREFACE.
find themselves in. I did not know what to do with myself. I had neither a wife nor children to quarrel with ; and as to servants, I hate scolding them-I re- serve that for their betters. As to my books, I thought I had the right to indulge towards them in any of the capricious whims of a lover, and I bent upon their tempting and friendly faces a scowling look of defiance. One thing was settled in my mind ;- I was determined to enjoy the luxury of laziness, and to be, for a while, an indolent, unthinking sort of animal, the good-for- nothing child of a southern latitude. So, I thrust my hands into the pockets of my morning-gown, and lounged through every room in my house, staring curi- ously at every object, as if it had been new to my eyes.
For some time, I amused myself with my small gallery of paintings, and with a variety of trifles, which are the pickings of my travelling days. But alas! with some of them are connected painful recollections of the past ; and, much to my regret, I discovered that my soul, which I thought I had buried ten fathoms deep in the abyss of matter, was beginning to predominate again in my mixed nature. I hastily turned my eyes from a contemplation, which had interfered with the much coveted ease of the brute ; but, as fate would
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* 1 PREFACE.
have it, they settled upon some ancestral portraits. As I gazed at them, I became abstracted, until it really seemed to me that I saw a sorrowful expression steal over their features, as they looked at the last descend- ant of their race. I became moody, and felt that one of my dark fits was coming on.
What was to be done ? I was placed in this awk- ward dilemma, either to eject my brains from my skull, or to stupify them. But my pistols were not loaded, and the exertion to do so would have been too great with Fahrenheit at 100. I felt tempted to get drunk, but unfortunately I can bear no other beverage than water. Smoking would, perhaps, have answered the purpose, if my attempts at acquiring that attainment and all the other qualifications connected with the use of tobacco, had not resulted in a sick stomach. I was in this unpleasant state of cogitation, when that number of De Bow's Review which contains my Lecture on the Romance of the History of Louisiana, caught my sight, as it was lying on my writing desk. I picked it up, and began to fondle my bantling : of course, I be- carne interested, and all my morbid feelings vanished, as it were, by magic. Oh ! how charming it is to have a family ! Ladies, which of you will have me ?
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PREFACE.
But I must not wander from my subject. I say, then, that I had in my left hand De Bow's Review, and, I do not know how, the right one imperceptibly exercised some sort of magnetic influence over my pen, which was reposing close by, and which flew to its fingers, where it stuck. A few minutes after, it was dipped in ink, and running over paper at the rate of fifty miles an hour, and raising as much smoke as any locomotive in the country.
The three other Lectures, which I submit now to the consideration of the reader, are the result of the concatenation of accidents or circumstances which I have related.
When I had finished my composition, like most people who act first and then set themselves to think- ing, I began to guess, as some of my Yankee friends would say, whether I could not apply the fruits of my labor to some practical purpose. I had achieved one thing, it is true-I had rendered seclusion pleasant to myself ; but could I not do more ? Would there not be sweet satisfaction in extracting something useful to my fellow-citizens from the careless and unpretending effusions, the object of which had originally been to accelerate the flight of a few heavy hours, which I des-
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PREFACE.
cried at a short distance, coming upon me with their leaden wings and their gouty feet !
To write history, is to narrate events, and to show their philosophy, when they are susceptible of any such demonstration. When the subject is worthy of it, this is a kind of composition of the highest order, and which affords to genius an ample scope for the display of all its powers. But the information so conveyed, is limit- ed to the few, because not suited to the intelligence of the many. The number of those who have read Taci- tus, Hume, Gibbon, or Clarendon, is comparatively small, when opposed to those who have pored with delight over the fascinating pages of Walter Scott. To relate events, and, instead of elucidating and ana- lyzing their philosophy, like the historian, to point out the hidden sources of romance which spring from them-to show what materials they contain for the dramatist, the novelist, the poet, the painter, and for all the varied conceptions of the fine arts-is perhaps an humbler task, but not without its utility. When history is not disfigured by inappropriate invention, but merely embellished and made attractive by being set in a glittering frame, this artful preparation honies the cup of useful knowledge, and makes it acceptable to
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PREFACE.
the lips of the multitude. Through the immortal writings of Walter Scott, many have become familiar with historical events, and have been induced to study more serious works, who, without that tempting bait, would have turned away from what appeared to them to be but a dry and barren field, too unpromising to invite examination, much less cultivation. To the be- witching pen of the wonderful magician of her roman- tic hills, Scotland owes more for the popular extension of her fame, than to the doings of the united host of all her other writers, warriors, and statesmen.
It was in pursuing such a train of reasoning, that I came to the conclusion that the publication of these Lectures might show what romantic interest there is in the history of Louisiana ; that it might invite some to an investigation which, so far, they perhaps thought would not repay them for the trouble ; and to study with fondness what hitherto had been to them an object of disdainful neglect. I have attempted to accumulate and to heap up together materials for the use of more skilful architects than I am, and have contented myself with drawing the faint outlines of literary compositions, which, if filled up by the hand of genius, would do for Louisiana, on a smaller scale, what has been done for
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PREFACE.
Scotland ; would encircle her waist with the magic zone of Romance, and give her those letters-patent of nobility, which are recorded for ever in the temple of Fame. An humble janitor, I have opened the door to · those realms where flit the dim shadows of the dead, which are said to be anxious to resume life, and which, to the delight of the world, and to the glorification of my native land, might, at the command of some inspired bard, be made to reanimate their deserted bodies.
Ad Aluvium (Mississippi) Deus evocat agmine magno, Scilicet immemores supera ut convexa revisant Rursus et incipiant in corpora velle reverti.
VIRGIL.
I give to the world these nuge seric for what they are worth. As a pastime, I began with shooting arrows at random, and then, gathering inspiration from the growing animation of the sport, I aimed at a particular object. If the bystanders should think that I have not shot too far wide of the mark-if the public, pleased . with one or two good hits, should put on his white kid gloves, and coming up to me with the high-bred cour- tesy of a gentleman, should exchange a polite bow, and by way of encouragement, should utter those delicate compliments which, whether true or not, do honor to
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PREFACE.
the donor and to the donee, (for I hate vulgar praise and coarse incense,) I shall deem it my duty to culti- vate an acquaintance, which may ripen into friendship, and I may, in my endeavors to deserve it, publish another series of Lectures. Well-meant criticism, I shall delight in, as a means of improvement ; vitupera- tion, I do not anticipate from one of so gentle blood ; but absolute silence, I shall consider as a broad hint not to importune him any more, and I promise to act accordingly. The more so, that from the lessons of experience, and from knowledge of the world, I feel every day more disposed to ensconce myself within a nut-shell, and that my ambition has dwindled so much in its proportions, that it would be satisfied to rest for ever, " sub tegmine fagi," with the commission of overseer of a parish road.
NEW ORLEANS, March 1, 1848.
FIRST LECTURE.
THE POETRY,
OR THE
ROMANCE OF THE HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
FIRST LECTURE.
PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY-EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO IN 1539- HIS DEATH-DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI IN 1673, BY FATHER MARQUETTE AND JOLIET-THEY ARE FOLLOWED IN 1682 BY LA SALLE AND THE CHEVALIER DE TONTI-ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
HwING been invited by a Committee, on behalf of the People's Lyceum, to deliver one of their twelve annual Lectures, I was not long in selecting the subject of my labors. My mind had been lately engaged in the composition of the History of Louisiana, and it was natural that it should again revert to its favorite object of thought, on the same principle which impels the mightiest river to obey the laws of declivity, or which recalls and confines to its channel its gigantic volume of waters, when occasionally deviating from its course.
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POETRY-IMAGINATION.
But in reverting now to the History of Louisiana, my intention is not to review its diversified features with the scrutinizing, unimpassioned, and austere judg- ment of the historian. Imposing upon myself a more grateful task, because more congenial to my taste, I shall take for the object of this Lecture, THE POETRY, OR THE ROMANCE OF THE HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
Poetry is the daughter of Imagination, and imagin- ation is, perhaps, one of the highest gifts of Heaven, the most refined ethereal part of the mind, because, when carried to perfection, it is the combined essence of all the finest faculties of the human intellect. There may be sound judgment, acute perceptions, depth of thought, great powers of conception, of discrimination, of re- search, of assimilation, of combination of ideas, without imagination, or at least without that part of it which elaborates and exalts itself into poetry, but how can we conceive the existence of a poetical imagination in its highest excellence, without all the other faculties ? Without them, what imagination would not be imper- fect or diseased ? It is true that without imagination there may be a world within the mind, but it is world without light. Cold it remains, and suffering from the effects of partial organization, unless by some mighty fiat imagination is breathed into the dormant mass, and the sun of poetry, emerging in the heaven of the mind,
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POETRY AN ELEMENT OF TRUE GREATNESS.
illumines and warms the several elements of which it is composed, and completes the creation of the intellect.
Hence the idea of all that is beautiful and great is concentrated in the word poetry. There is no grand conception of the mind in which that intellectual faculty which constitutes poetry is not to be detected. What is great and noble, is and must be poetical, and what is poetical must partake, in some degree or other, of what is great and noble. It is hardly possible to conceive an Alexander, a Cæsar, a Napoleon, a New- ton, a Lycurgus, a Mahomet, a Michael Angelo, a Canova, or any other of those wonderful men who have carried as far as they could go, the powers of the hu- man mind in the several departments in which they were used, without supposing them gifted with some of those faculties of the imagination which enter into the composition of a poetical organization. Thus every art and almost every science has its poetry, and it is from the unanimous consent of mankind on this subject that it has become so common to say " the poetry" of music, of sculpture, of architecture, of dancing, of paint- ing, of history, and even the poetry of religion, meaning that which is most pleasing to the eye or to the mind, and ennobling to the soul. We may therefore infer from the general feeling to which I have alluded, that where the spirit of poetry does not exist, there cannot be true greatness ; and it can, I believe, be safely aver-
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA POETICAL.
red, that to try the gold of all human actions and events, of all things and matters, the touchstone of poetry is one of the surest.
I am willing to apply that criterion to Louisiana, considered both physically and historically ; I am will- ing that my native State, which is but a fragment of what Louisiana formerly was, should stand or fall by that test, and I do not fear to approach with her the seat of judgment. I am prepared to show that her his- tory is full of poetry of the highest order and of the most varied nature. I have studied the subject con amore, and with such reverential enthusiasm, and I may say with such filial piety, that it has grown upon my heart as well as upon my mind. May I be able to do justice to its merits, and to raise within you a cor- responding interest to that which I feel! To support the assertion that the history of Louisiana is eminently poetical, it will be sufficient to give you short graphical descriptions of those interesting events which consti- tute her annals. Bright gems they are, encircling her brows, diadem-like, and worthy of that star which has sprung from her forehead to enrich the American con- stellation in the firmament of liberty.
Three centuries have hardly elapsed, since that im- mense territory which extends from the Gulf of Mexico to the Lakes of Canada, and which was subsequently known under the name of Louisiana, was slumbering
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PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
in its cradle of wilderness, unknown to any of the white race to which we belong. Man was there, however. but man in his primitive state, claiming as it were, in appearance at least, a different origin from ours, or being at best a variety of our species. There, was the hereditary domain of the red man, living in scattered tribes over that magnificent country. Those tribes earned their precarious subsistence chiefly by pursuing the inhabitants of the earth and of the water ; they sheltered themselves in miserable huts, spoke different languages, observed contradictory customs, and waged fierce war upon each other. Whence they came none knew ; none knows, with absolute certainty, to the present day ; and the faint glimmerings of vague tradi- tions have afforded little or no light to penetrate into the darkness of their mysterious origin. Thus a wide field is left open to those dreamy speculations of which the imagination is so fond.
Whence came the Natchez, those worshippers of the sun with eastern rites ? How is it that Grecian figures and letters are represented on the earthen wares of some of those Indian nations ? Is there any truth in the supposition that some of those savages whose com- plexion approximates most to ours, draw their blood from that Welsh colony which is said to have found a home in America, many centuries since ? Is it possi- ble that Phoenician adventurers were the pilgrim fathers
----
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PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
of some of the aborigines of Louisiana ? What copper- colored swarm first issued from Asia, the revered womb of mankind, to wend its untraced way to the untenanted continent of America ? What fanciful tales could be weaved on the powerful Choctaws, or the undaunted Chickasaws, or the unconquerable Mobiliens ? There the imagination may riot in the poetry of mysterious migrations, of human transformations ; in the poetry of the forests, of the valleys, of the mountains, of the lakes and rivers, as they came fresh and glorious from the hand of the Creator, in the poetry of barbaric manners, laws, and wars. What heroic poems might not a fu- ture Ossian devise on the red monarchs of old Louis- iana ! Would not their strange history, in the hands of a Tacitus, be as interesting as that of the ancient barbarian tribes of Germany, described by his immor- tal pen ? Is there in that period of their existence which precedes their acquaintance with the sons of Europe, nothing which, when placed in contrast with their future fate, appeals to the imagination of the mo- ralist, of the philosopher, and of the divine ? Who, without feeling his whole soul glowing with poetical emotions, could sit under yonder gigantic oak, the growth of a thousand years, on the top of that hill of shells, the sepulchre of man, piled up by his hands, and overlooking that placid lake where all would be repose, if it were not for that solitary canoe, a moving speck.
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PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
hardly visible in the distance, did it not happen to be set in bold relief, by being on that very line where the lake meets the horizon, blazing with the last glories of the departing sun ? Is not this the very poetry of landscape, of Louisianian landscape ?
When diving into the mysteries of the creation of that part of the southwestern world which was once comprehended in the limits of Louisiana, will not the geologist himself pause, absorbed in astonishment at the number of centuries which must have been neces- sary to form the delta of the Mississippi ? When he discovers successive strata of forests lying many fathoms deep on the top of each other ; when he witnesses the exhumation of the fossil bones of mammoths, elephants, or huge animals of the antediluvian race ; when he reads the hieroglyphic records of Nature's wonderful doings, left by herself on the very rocks, or other gran- Re and calcareous tablets of this country, will he not clasp his hands in ecstasy, and exclaim, "Oh ! the dry- Less of my study has fled ; there is poetry in the very foundation of this extraordinary land !"
Thus I think that I have shown that the spirit of fortry was moving over the face of Louisiana, even in her primitive state, and still pervades her natural histo- ry. But I have dwelt enough on Louisiana in the dark ages of her existence, of which we can know nothing, save by vague traditions of the Indians. Let us ap-
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EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO.
proach those times where her historical records begin to assume some distinct shape.
On the 31st of May, 1539, the bay of Santo Spiritu, in Florida, presented a curious spectacle. Eleven ves- sels of quaint shape, bearing the broad banner of Spain, were moored close to the shore ; one thousand men of infantry, and three hundred and fifty men of cavalry, fully equipped, were landing in proud array under the command of Hernando De Soto, one of the most illus- trious companions of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru, and reputed one of the best lances of Spain ! " When he led in the van of battle, so powerful was his charge," says the old chronicler of his exploits, " so broad was the bloody passage which he carved out in the ranks of the enemy, that ten of his men at arms could with ease follow him abreast." He had acquired enormous wealth in Peru, and might have rested satisfied, a knight of renown, in the government of St. Jago de Cuba, in the sweet enjoyment of youth and of power, basking in the smiles of his beautiful wife, Isabella de Bobadilla. But his adventurous mind scorns such inglorious repose, and now he stands erect and full of visions bright, on the sandy shore of Florida, whither he comes, with feudal pride, by leave of the king, to establish nothing less than a marquisate, ninety miles long by forty-five miles wide, and there to rule supreme, a governor for life, of all the territory that he can subjugate. Not
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