USA > Louisiana > A history of Louisiana, revised edition > Part 11
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Foucault pleaded that as he was royal commissary of the King of France, he was accountable only to him. His plea was sustained. Braud pleaded that he had printed the mani- festo only on order of Foucault, which, as royal printer of Louisiana, he was bound to respect. He was released The other prisoners confined their defence to a denial of the juris- diction of the tribunal before which they were arraigned. They claimed that the offences with which they were charged took place while the flag of France was waving over them and the laws of that kingdom were still in force in the colony, and that as the people of Louisiana could not wear the yoke of two kings at once, they could not at the same time, offend against the laws of two kingdoms. O'Reilly had decided from the first, for an example, to proceed with the utmost rigor of the law against six of the prisoners, and as the law authorized a less severe punishment than death unless the charge was proved by two witnesses, the trial in reality was merely to separate those who were to lose life and property from those who were to lose liberty and property. As there was no defence made, the accusation meant condem- nation. The sentence condemned Nicolas Chauvin De Lafreniere, De Noyan (the nephew of Bienville), Pierre
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Caresse, Pierre Marquis and Joseph Milhet to death. They were to be conducted to the place of execution on asses, with ropes around their necks ; to be hanged, and to remain hanging until O'Reilly ordered otherwise. Warning was issued against any one's rescuing the bodies or in any way frustrating the execution of the sentence on pain of death. As Villere had already met his punishment, all that Span- nish authority could do was to condemn his memory as in- famous. Petit was sentenced to prison for life ; Masan and Doucet for ten, and Boisblanc, Milhet and Poupet for six years. All copies of the manifesto and all papers relating to the event were to be burned in the public place by the hangman. .
Execution of the Sentence. September 28, 1769 .- As there was no hangman * in the colony, O'Reilly was pre- vailed upon to commute the sentence to death by shooting. On the morning of the fatal day the guards were doubled at every gate and station of the city. All the troops were put under arms and were kept prepared for action along the levee and on the public square. Those of the citizens who could, fled into the country. Doors and windows were barred ; all sign and sound of life suppressed. At 3 o'clock the patriots were led out of their prison to the square in front of the barracks. They were tied to stakes and received their death with the calm firmness of the innocent and of the brave.
O'Reilly Governor. 1769 .- In the cession of the colony, Louis XV had expressed the hope that justice should be administered according to the accustomed laws, forms and
* The historian Dumont relates: "As at one time there was no executioner in " the colony and no one who would take the exercise of the office, and as every " well organized goverment needed an official executioner, it was decided to give " the charge to a negro, named Jeannot, belonging to the Company of the Indies. " He was summoned and told what was intended. He tried toget out of it, " although the office would havegiven him his freedom. But he saw that there was " no escape, that he would be forced into it : ' Very well,' he said, ' wait a moment.' " Hle hastened to his cabin, seized a hatchet, laid his arm on a block of wood, and " cut off his hand. Returning he showed his bloody stump to the commissioners."
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usages of France. O'Reilly, in his policy of reconstruction. heeded no such desire. A proclamation in November an. nounced to the colonists that all hitherto existing forms of government were abolished and that Louisiana was to be placed under the same regulations that reigned in- other Spanish colonies. For the Superior Council, a cabildo was substituted, composed of six regidores, two alcades, an attorney general, syndic and clerk, over all of which the Spanish governor was to preside. The Spanish language was ordered to be employed by all public officers; and the colony was to be made as far as possible Spanish, at least in appearance.
During the winter the governor made a tour of inspection of the settlements along the river coasts. The most notable planters were invited to meet him; but he received only a dignified and cold submission from them. Some of the French soldiers enlisted in the Spanish service. Many were discharged and received grants of land; those who wished to remain in the French service were offered free passage to St. Domingo or France. Aubry sailed with those who re- turned to France. His vessel reached the continent in safety, but foundered in the river Garonne. Aubry perished, with nearly all on board.
Large numbers of merchants and mechanics of New Or- leans, having no taste for the sample of government they had seen, emigrated to St. Domingo. Many of the most pros- perous planters followed them. The movement, indeed, became so great that O'Reilly, to check it, withheld pass- ports from the applicants.
O'Reilly, himself, took his departure from the colony dur- ing the summer, leaving behind him a reputation which has become immortalized in Louisiana in the sobriquet of " Bloody O'Reilly."
He appointed as successor one of his colonels, Don Luis de Unzaga.
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Unzaga Governor. 1770-1777 .- Unzaga's appointment was confirmed by the court of Spain. His mild and easy administration relieved the colonists from the gloom into which the horrible rigor of O'Reilly had plunged them. He married the daughter of a prominent creole of the province, and some of his officers following his example, good will was not long in being established between the two nations. But the colony was nothing more than a royal apanage. The narrow-minded commercial policy of Spain which the New Orleans merchants had dreaded was applied rigorously, and it produced the effect they had predicted-it killed all enterprise. The only trade carried on was still by the alert English in contraband. Besides large warehouses in Man- chac, Baton Rouge and Natchez, and their vessels of goods moored at Little Manchac, they now had two large boats, with their cabins fitted out like stores, which they kept trav- eling up and down the river, stopping at the call of any planter. Unzaga closed his eyes at the infraction of the law, without which he knew it would be impossible for the colony to subsist. *
War of Independence. 1775 .- In the British colonies resistance to the arbitrary taxation of the home government had culminated in the memorable war which was to result in the independence of America and the federation of the United States. During the desperate struggle that ensued after the battle of Lexington, the need of supplies by way of the Mis- sissippi brought American merchants and emissaries to New Orleans, where, with Unzaga's connivance, they established commercial connections to buy arms and ammunition to ship to the colonial forces.
* It was during Unzaga's administration that the celebrated religious war be - tween the French and Spanish Capuchins took place; from the Spanish father, Cirilo, attempting to substitute the grim fanaticisin of Spanish practices for the pastoral government of the Freuch father, Dagobert, an episode much celebrated in local fiction and poetry, and one which has elevated the French Capuchin, good Father Dagobert, into the ecclesiastical hero of the place. Unzaga acted during the troublons discussion with the toleration and equity which eminently distin- guished hims in all his administrative difficulties.
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Unzaga was appointed captain general of Caraccas and was succeeded by Don Bernardo Galvez.
Don Bernardo Galvez. 1777-1785 .- Galvez was a brill- iant young officer of twenty-two, the colonel of the Spanish
regiment of Louisiana and powerfully connected ; his father being viceroy of Mex- ico and his uncle secretary of state and president of the Council of the Indies, an office second in authority only to the king.
Galvez, like Unzaga, did all in his power to ren- der his nation and his gov- ernment acceptable to the colonists. He opened his administration by mitigating . BERNARDO DE GALVEZ. the strict decrees against trade, and French vessels were once more permitted to land at New Orleans. Competing with the English, they soon suc- ceeded to their monopoly, and enterprise and activity revived among the creole merchants and planters, who were further encouraged by the offer of the Spanish government to buy in future all the tobacco raised in the colony. In the city, assist- ance was furnished more and more openly to the warring American colonies. Not only were regular shipments of supplies made to Virginia and Pennsylvania, but emissaries passing backward and forward in their effort to stir up a revolt also in the Floridas made it a stopping place and rendezvous. An American in Philadelphia even fitted out in New Orleans an expedition against the British posts which captured the fort at Manchac and ravaged the plantations as far as Natchez.
War .- It could not be expected that France should remain neutral in the conflict between the Americans and her old foe.
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From private encouragement and assistance she passed to open recognition of the independence of the revolted colonies and to a treaty of alliance with them. England responded by hostilities against France. Spain offered her mediation for a general peace based on the separation of the colonies from the mother country. England, haughtily refusing, Spain de- termined to take a hand herself in the quarrel, by declaring war against England. It was the opportunity above all others desired by Louisiana's young martial governor.
Capture of British Forts .- Galvez mustered a force of about fourteen hundred men, composed of the colonial militia, Indians, colored soldiers, and volunteers from the Americans in the city. Marching up the river he captured Fort Bute ; forced Baton Rouge to capitulate, and in her capitulation to include Fort Panmure at Natchez, and three other small gar- risons in the neighborhood.
Mobile Captured. 1780 .- Returning to New Orleans, he immediately commenced preparations for an expedition against Mobile, and sailed from the Balize with over two thousand men. In the gulf he was overtaken by a storm, which came near wrecking the whole expedition. He succeeded, however, in reaching Mobile river, and, in spite of the con- fusion and demoralization of his army, marched to Fort Char- lotte and forced its surrender.
Expedition Against Pensacola. 1781 .- The conquest of Pensacola was next determined upon, but this place was too well fortified for Galvez to hope for the easy triumphs of the past. He sent to Cuba for troops. The captain gen- eral promised but did not send them. Galvez then sailed there in person and obtained them. Returning across the gulf, he encountered a terrible hurricane ; many of his transports foun- dered, the rest were dispersed. He put back to Havana, col- lected and refitted a new armament and sailed for Pensacola with a ship of the line, two frigates, several transports and fourteen hundred men, with full equipment of artillery.
كتوبة
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He landed on the island of St. Rosa in March, and erected a battery to protect his ships while crossing the bar: But when the attempt was made the commodore's ship got aground and he refused to proceed. Galvez had the channel sounded, and found water enough for his largest vessels, but the Spanish officers still refused to risk the royal fleet, in a channel they did not know, under fire of a formidable fort. Galvez then decided to carry through his own colonial gun- boats and thus force the Spanish commodore into following his example. Towards noon he went aboard, ordered the pennant to the mainmast, salutes fired and sails set. The fort commenced a brisk cannonade, but his boats sailed trium- phantly through it, and Galvez landed on the island of St. Rosa, amid the acclamations of his men. The rest of the fleet crossed the bar next day with like success.
Attack .- After some parley, with a view of excluding the town of Pensacola and its inhabitants from exposure to the fortunes of war, the English commander withdrew with all his forces into the fort. The Spaniards threw up their earth works on both sides the British walls and stationed their batteries. From these and from the fleet in front a tremen- dous fire was poured into the fort. Agam and again the men were driven from their guns, but the Spaniards gained no decided advantage. On the contrary, the British erected a battery whose heavy guns soon silenced the Spanish ships and drove them to the other side of the bay. After a month's siege an accident turned the uncertain victory to the account of Galvez. The powder magazine in one of the advanced re- doubts took fire from a shell and blew up, opening a passage to him. He had barely taken possession of it when the British displayed a white flag. A capitulation was agreed upon by which the whole province of West Florida was sur- rendered to Spain. The garrison was allowed the honors of war and transportation into the English dominions.
The brilliant services of Galvez were rewarded with the
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Cross of the Royal Order of Charles III, the title of Count, promotion to Lieutenant General in the army, and Captain General of Florida and Louisiana. He sailed shortly after- wards to Havana, to take command of the Spanish forces in a combined French and Spanish attack on Jamaica, leav- ing the government of Louisiana during his absence to Don Estevan Miro, colonel of the Spanish regiment of Louisiana.
Peace of Paris. American Independence, 1783 .- The great and glorious struggle of the Americans drew to an end. Great Britain was forced to acknowledge their in- dependence. The peace was signed at Paris, September 3, 1783. It fixed the southern boundary of the United States at a line beginning in the middle of the Mississippi, latitude 31 degrees north, and along this parallel to the Chattahoochee river ; down the middle of this river to its junction with the Flint ; thence in a straight line to the head of the St. Mary's, and along the St. Mary's to the sea. The navigation of the Mississippi, moreover, from its source to its mouth, was de- clared free to the subjects of Great Britain and to the citizens of the United States.
By a treaty of the same date, however, Great Britain ceded and guaranteed to Spain the possession of both the Floridas. The King of Spain, who claimed that West Florida extended as far north as parallel 32.28, now refused to accept the boundary line fixed by Great Britain, and also denied that the privilege of navigating the Mississippi through his posses- sions could be granted without his consent. These questions caused negotiations to be reopened between the government of the United States and the court of Spain, which, as we shall see, lasted for a number of years.
1784 .- During their short and brilliant war against their English neighbors, the Louisianians suffered great agricul- tural and commercial depression. The paper money fell to half its value ; crop after crop failed. The sorely needed
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peace did little to mitigate the crisis. For two years succes- sively hurricanes had swept the country bare of vegetation and buildings ; and the waters of the gulf, driven inland in a great tidal wave, had submerged land and stock. In addition, there were the usual overflows from the river, and a rainy summer following brought an epidemic of fever. The nec- essaries of life rose to an extreme height and want and suf- fering wrung bitter complaints from the inhabitants. The severity of the winter that succeeded was unknown in all pre- vious experience. White frosts appeared in September. By November the cold was intense. In February the whole width of the river in front of New Orleans was so filled with blocks of ice that for five days all communication be- tween the two banks was interrupted.
Early in 1785 Galvez was appointed viceroy of Mexico, to succeed his deceased father, and Miro became governor of Louisiana.
QUESTIONS.
Give an account of O'Reilly in New Orleans. Arrest of the pa- triots. Their trial and execution. Spanish reconstruction in Louis- iana. Unzaga's administration. Administration of Galvez. Capture of the British possessions. Give account of the Peace of Paris-the boundaries it fixed and the provision regarding the Mississippi river.
CHAPTER XIX.
Governor Miro. 1785-1791 .- Miro continued the wise policy of his predecessors, exerting himself to obtain from the Court of Madrid as much extension of commercial privi- leges as possible, foreseeing that in commerce lay the very life of the colony. He was fully impressed with the impor- tance of the Mississippi as the artery of trade of the country.
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"As many as forty vessels at a time," he wrote to the home government, " could be seen on its waters."*
The natural, and in that ante-railroad period the only outlet for the produce of the Middle, or, as they were then called, the Western States, the river was indeed asserting its importance in a manner that both governments were forced to consider. After the War of Independence there poured down upon its currents one continuous line of flat-boats laden to the edge with the produce of the rich soil from above. These cargoes found ready sale, and were soon the main source of food supplies to the city. The flat-boats, after being unloaded, were broken up and sold for timber. But the sturdy flatboatmen from Ohio and Kentucky, on their return, had always a long list of seizures, confiscations, im- prisonments, and vexatious interferences of all kinds by the Spanish authorities, to report, and the people of the States, strong and bold in their new liberty, were not of the kind tamely to brook such treatment. They considered that the Mississippi river belonged to the people of the Mississippi valley, and they were determined to liave the use of it to its mouth. Among the violent, invasion of Louisiana and forci- ble seizure of New Orleans were talked about. The more peaceable applied to Congress to obtain from Spain by ne- gotiation the full observance of the last treaty.
Miro, alive to the critical temper of Americans and to the defenceless condition of the colony, redoubled his vigilance and relaxed the restrictions upon the river trade. To fill up the country, he encouraged emigation from the West into the Spanish possessions on the Mississippi, and another large number of Acadian families coming into the colony, he settled them in the neighborhood of their compatriots on
*One of the first acts of Miro's administration was the building of a hospital for lepers in New Orleans on what was long called " la terre aux lepreux," or lepers' land, situated on Metairie Ridge. Ulloa had attempted to confine some of the lepers at Balize, but the public discontent caused him to desist.
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both sides of the Mississippi and in the Attakapas* district. To increase Spanish population, the Spanish govern- ment had in this, and also during the previous adminis- tration, transported to Louisiana a number of families from the Canary Islands. ; These were settled, some at Terre- aux-boeufs ; some at Bayou Manchac, where they formed a village called Galvezton ; and some at Venezuela, on Bayou Lafourche.
The English inhabitants of the Natchez district were en- couraged to remain and take the oath of allegiance to Spain ; they were forbidden, however, the public exercise of their worship, and the king sent out, at his own expense, Irish priests to convert them to the Roman Church.
At the same time, Miro spared no means to conciliate the Indians, and he succeeded in drawing to New Orleans thirty-six of the most influential Chickasaw and Choctaw chiefs, gave them rich presents, harangued and feasted them.
1787 .- General Wilkinson, a distinguished officer in the War of Independence, became a prominent figure in the crisis. He conceived the plan of relieving the strained con- dition by establishing such relations between the people of the interior and the Spaniards as would be profitable to both. Ile came to New Orleans and made the acquaintance of Miro, who, fearful at every rise of the river of an invasion from the indignant Americans to the north, eagerly wel- comed any arrangement by which such a possibility might be avoided. He even flattered himself that Wilkinson's friendship and the necessity of the Mississippi to the Middle States, properly handled, might result in their secession from the Union, and the erection of a friendly republic under the
*In the beginning of 1787 the districts of Opelousas and Attakapas, which so far had been under one officer, were divided into two separate commands. Nicholas Forstal was appointed commander of the Opelousas district, and the Chevalier de Clouet, who had before presided over both, was left in charge of the Attakapas. ( Called to this day " Islingues," from islenos, islanders.
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dependence of Spain, between the Spanish and the United States boundaries.
New Orleans. 1788 .- In the capital life was changing from the rude simplicity of the early Canadian days to the tone and fashion of European cities, of which the foreign officers and their families set the standard. Handsome resi- dences of brick and stucco with hand-wrought iron gates and balconies, and spacious court yards, began to replace the low, tile-covered cottages of the first settlers. But the march of improvement was arrested by a most disastrous occurrence.
On Good Friday, 17SS, the house of one of the Spanish officials caught fire from the lights on the altar of the domestic chapel. The flames spread until the entire city seemed doomed; eight hundred and fifty-six houses, the Cathedral, Convent of the Capuchins, Town Hall, the arsenal and all its contents, were consumed. Nothing could exceed the scene of ruin and desolation that ensued. New and handsomer buildings, however, were soon being built on the old sites, and Don Andres Almonester,* a rich and influential citizen, commenced his generosities to the city by replacing the burned schoolhouse, and laying the foundation of a new and handsome cathedral.
In the beginning of 1789 Louisiana learned that Charles III was dead, and that Charles IV, his son, succeeded him. But the new king was more intensely Spanish than the last, as the colony soon perceived.
Inquisition .- The Spanish Capuchin priest, Antonio de Sedella, who had lately arrived, was commissioned to intro- duce the Inquisition into the city. He made his preparations with the utmost secresy and caution, and notified the gov-
*Don Andres Almonester y Roxas was a native of Andalusia. He was a Knight of the Royal Order of Charles III, colonel of the militia, alderman and royal lieutenant of the corporation, founder and donor of the cathedral, the court house, of the Hospital of St. Charles and of its church; also of the hospital for lepers and of the convent and school of the Ursulines. He died in 179S, and was buried in the cathedral, in which perpetual masses are celebrated for his soul.
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ernor that he might soon, at some late hour at night, find it necessary to require guards to assist him.
Miro did not hesitate to risk his own authority to prevent an establishment, the idea of which made him shudder. - The night following the Capuchin's notification, when the rep- resentative of the Inquisition was quietly sleeping, he was aroused by a heavy knocking ; opening the door, he saw an officer and a file of grenadiers. Thinking they had come in answer to his letter, he said : "My friends, I thank you and " his excellency for the readiness of this compliance with my " request. But I have now no need for your services, and " you shall be warned in time when you are wanted. Retire " with the blessing of God."*
Great was his stupefaction when he was told that he was under arrest. "What," exclaimed he, "Wili you dare lay your hands on a Commissioner of the Inquisition !" "I dare obey orders," replied the undaunted officer; and the Reverend Father Antonio de Sedella was instantly carried on board of a vessel which sailed the next day for Cadiz. t
Goddess of Liberty. 1791 .- Tender of the political as well as religious condition of the people, the King of Spain prohibited the introduction into the colony of any boxes, clocks, or other objects stamped with the figure of the American goddess of liberty.
French Revolution. 1789-1791 .- It was a time indeed to fear the spread of ideas of liberty. The heroic stand of the United States against England, and the independence and freedom thereby gained, had fired the long discontented French people into a revolt against their monarchy.
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