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Site of New Orleans .- That night the camp was pitched close to the spot selected by Bienville twenty years afterwards
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FRENCH EXPLORERS.
for the site of New Orleans. Near by was a deserted Indian village formerly inhabited by the Quinipissas It consisted of ten cabins, thatched with palmetto. On a tall point of the bank commanding the river, was a fortified oval shaped cabin, surrounded by a palisade. A few miles higher up the guide conducted Iberville to the portage used by the Indians in their journeys between the river and the lakes. Taking their pirogues out of the river, they had only to drag them over a short road to launch them into a bayou that ran into the lake. Both banks of the river in this locality were covered with canebrakes of enormous height and thickness.
At the mouth of a bayou on the west bank, which seems to have been our present Lafourche, two large pirogues of Ouachas and Bayougoulas were met. As soon as the Bayou- goulas heard that the French intended visiting their village, they turned back in their pirogues to announce the news, so that a reception could be prepared. The next day, when the boats arrived in sight of the landing, a pirogue of Bayou- goula and Mongoulacha warriors came out to meet them, chanting peace songs and brandishing their calumets, gaily adorned with brilliant feathers. At the landing the white men, according to Indian notions of politeness, were ten- derly helped from their boats, supported under their elbows, and conducted to where the chief sat, surrounded by the squaws and warriors of the united Bayougoula and Mon- goulacha tribes. Mats of cane and skins were spread on the ground in a cleared space for the guests. In the centre, resting on two forked sticks, guarded by two warriors who never took their eyes from it, was the precious calumet pre- sented by Iberville on the lake shore.
Traces of Tonty .- The chief, a man of great pride and dignity, wore a coat of blue French serge. Iberville's first question was to find out where it came from. The chief answered that it had been given him by Tonty, of the Iron Hand, who had paid his tribe a visit in passing along
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
the river. The next day, when Iberville went over to the village, a few miles inland from the river, he discovered among the treasures of the temple a glass bottle, which the Iron Hand had also left in the tribe.
The Bayougoulas and Mongoulachas. 1699 .- The vil- lage of the Bayougoulas and Mongoulachas resembled almost identically that of the Tensas. There were only one hun- dred and fifty inhabitants in the village, a great many having died off in a recent epidemic. The cabins were cleanly kept. The bed frames, about two feet above the ground, had bark- covered branches the size of a man's arm, laid close together for mattresses, cane mats for sheets, and skins for covering. The only other furniture was earthen pots which the women made very nicely. The women tied their hair high on top of their heads and wore girdles of cloth woven from the fibres of trees, colored red and white and fringed with long cords that fell to the knee and shook with every movement of the body. The little girls wore girdles of moss. The men went naked except on grand occasions, when they tied around them a kind of sash made of feathers strung together and weighted at the ends with bits of stone or metal, which jangled and tinkled gaily when they danced. The warriors were handsome, well made and active, but very lazy. The fields for corn and pumpkin were small, and were tilled with implements of bone. When the crops were gathered they were used as play grounds by the tribes. There were a few chickens in the tribe which were said to have come from tribes in the far west, evidently from some of the Span- ish possessions. The dead, wrapped in straw mats, were placed on little conical, covered platforms, raised all around the village, attracting great crowds of buzzards and dissem- inating loathsome odors.
The tribe regarded the opossum with particular venera- tion, but the French found it only a hideous combination of
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ugliness, with its pig's head, rat's tail, badger's skin and pouched stomach.
To requite the hospitality and friendliness of these Indi- ans, Iberville spread upon the ground before them a dazzling array of presents-scarlet doublets embroidered in gold, scarlet hose, blankets, shirts, mirrors, beads, hatchets and knives. The Indians gave also of their best in return ; feasts and entertainments, abundant supplies of corn and twelve large dressed deer skins.
From accounts that he had of La Salle's Mississippi ex- ploration, Iberville understood that there was a fork about here in the river. His plan was to return to the gulf by this fork. But when he questioned the Bayougoulas they denied that there was any fork in the river, and said that when Tonty went to rescue La Salle he had paddled the same way both up and down the Mississippi. Fearing that the Bayougoulas might be deceiving him and concealing one of the outlets of the Mississippi, Iberville decided to go on to the next tribe, the Houmas, and interview them. One of the Bayougoula chiefs and a party of warriors accompanied him as guides and introducers to the Houmas.
Manchac .- On the way the Bayougoula chief pointed out on the right a small stream, which he said was the only stream he knew that ran from the Mississippi into the gulf. It was called Ascantia, now Bayou Iberville or Manchac. Some miles further on, on the east bank, they came to a small river celebrated for its fish, that formed the boundary line between the hunting grounds of the Houmas and the Bayou- goulas.
Baton Rouge .- Here Iberville saw a tall, straight pole, painted red and hung with offerings of fish and game by the Indian hunters. The Frenchmen called it a "Baton Rouge," and thus named the spot afterwards to become the capital of Louisiana.
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
Pointe Coupee .- The next day the chief pointed to a tiny stream running into the river on the left, and said if the boats could only get through it, they would cut off a whole day's journey. Iberville was not the man to be stopped by an " if." He put his Canadians at once to work. A huge drift pile was cut away, the bottom of the stream was deep- ened and cleared, and the boats were slowly towed through and launched into the Mississippi, just eighteen miles above the point where they had left it. The Mississippi in course of time adopted this cut-off also, and in a few years aban- doned its old channel entirely for it.
The Houmas. 1699 .- The Houmas' reception was even more cordial than that of the Bayougoulas and Mongoul- achas. A delegation of them were waiting to welcome Iber- ville at their landing, and there was no end to their ceremo- nies and professions of friendship. Iberville, who did not smoke, complained of the number of times he had to smoke the calumet. When the ceremony was at last over, the officers and the delegation set out for the Houma village, some eight miles inland. The Indians kept up their peace songs all the way, leading their guests up and down hill, through canebrakes and swamps, at such a pace that the heavily clad Frenchmen were severely tasked to follow them.
At the entrance to the village the chiefs and principal warriors advanced, brandishing crosses made of white wood. All assembled in the open space in the centre of the village, where presents were exhibited, speeches made, more calu- mets smoked, and a great feast served. In the afternoon the handsomest of the young warriors and squaws, in all their finery of paints, feathers and jingling girdles, bounded from behind the trees and danced until late in the evening, to an orchestra of gourd rattles .*
Then all adjourned to the great cabin of the chief, where, lighted by huge blazing fagots of cane, the frolic was kept
.Called Chichiconchy. made of hollow gourds with pebbles inside.
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up till midnight. The French officers retired to the couches prepared for them, but not to sleep, for the chiefs harangued one another with interminable addresses until daylight.
The Houma village was large and well built, like that of " the Bayougoulas, but the tribe had also been very much thinned by a recent epidemic. They knew Tonty, who had passed several days with them, leaving his boats at the same landing where Iberville left his. But they said also that they knew of no fork in the river. Thinking that, like the Bayou- goulas, they might have some reason for deceiving him, Iberville determined to bring his visit to an end and hurry on to the Tensas and question them. Some of the Houmas and a Tensas Indian visitor consented to go with him.
Turning Point. 1699 .- The boats pushed away from the landing ; the oarsmen showing fatigue and discouragement after their long, hard pull up the river, on no better rations than sagamity with an occasional treat of dried beef. Stop- ping for dinner, Iberville cross-examined all the Indians again, separately, about the fork in the river. They all agreed that the Mississippi flowed without a break to the gulf and that La Salle and Tonty had never traveled but one way to the gulf and back. He was forced to believe them. The Bayougoula chief, to prove his veracity, confessed to Iberville that Tonty had left a letter in his tribe to be delivered to a Frenchman, who was to come up from the sea (evidently meaning La Salle). The letter had been kept a secret from Iberville out of the suspiciousness and distrust natural to the Indian in treating with the white man.
As he was pushed both for time and provisions, Iberville concluded that a further journey would be unwise and use- less. He gave the orders ; the boats were turned around.
Rowing down stream, the men easily put mile after mile behind them. Arrived at the bayou called Ascantia, Iber- ville decided to go through it to the gulf. Ile left Sauvole in command of the expedition, and charged Bienville to obtain
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
at any price Tonty's letter from the Bayougoula village ; and with two canoes, four Canadians and an Indian guide, he pushed his way through the tangled opening of what was called henceforth Bayou Iberville.
Bayou Iberville. 1699 .- It proved to be but ten feet wide and three feet deep at most, and so choked up as to be almost impassable for even a pirogue. The first day they traveled twenty-one miles and made fifty portages over fallen trees and rafts. After a few days the Indian guide deserted. Iberville continued without him, resolved to show the natives that he was not dependent upon them. Then one of the Canadians fell ill, and Iberville had to take his place, not only in paddling the pirogue, but in carrying an end of it over the portages. He noted with delight the beautiful country through which the Ascantia flowed. He said it was one of the finest he had ever seen-rich soil, handsome forests, and no canebrakes. The river was filled with fish, and alligators were so thick in it that at times he seemed to be paddling through a solid mass of them. He heard wild turkeys in quantities, but he did not succeed in killing any.
The first lake he came to he named after his young pro- tector, the count de Maurepas ; the second after the count de Pontchartrain.
Camping at night on the low grassy points or islands around the lakes, he made acquaintance with those pests of hunters and fishermen, mosquitoes ; " terrible little animals," he calls them, " to men in need of rest."
Traveling from twenty to thirty-six miles a day, he soon came to the shores opposite Ship Island. He crossed over and mounted the deck of the Badine, just one month and two hours after he had started on his expedition. Eight hours later Sauvole and Bienville were seen speeding their way across the gulf.
Bienville brought the precious letter left by Tonty. He had bought it for a hatchet. It was addressed to M. de la
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FRENCH DOMINATION.
Salle, Governor General of Louisiana, and contained the account of the loyal pioneer's efforts to rescue his friend. He said he had found the cross erected by La Salle eight years before, lying half buried in the sand, and had set it up again twenty-one miles higher up the river. He had left another letter for De La Salle concealed in the hollow of a tree near the cross. As we have seen, no cross was found by the Iberville expedition, either going up or coming down the river; it had disappeared, and with it all clue to the other letter.
QUESTIONS.
What took place Mardi Gras morning? Account of journey up the river? The meeting with the Indians? Where did the French camp that night? What of the portage? Describe arrival and reception at Bayougoula and Mongoulacha landing? What did the chief wear? What was this trip of Tonty's? Describe Bayougoula and Mongoul- acha village? What of the Ascantia? Relate origin of the name of Baton Rouge? What about Pointe Coupee? Describe Houma recep- tion? Welcome of French? Did the Houmas know of the fork in the river? What did Iberville do at noon? What did Mongoulacha chief confess? What did Iberville conclude? What did he decide about the Ascantia? What was the Ascantia henceforth called? When did he arrive at his ships? What did Bienville bring?
FRENCH DOMINATION.
CHAPTER VIII.
ESTABLISHMENT.
Iberville had intended to take possession of the mouth of the river by making an establishment there. But now, with time and provisions running short, he saw that he must select some spot nearer Ship Island and his vessels. His choice lay between a site on Lake Pontchartrain; the mouth of the
HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
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MAP SHOWING FRENCH SETTLEMENTS ON THE GULF COAST AND MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
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FRENCH DOMINATION.
Pascagoula river, and the Bay of Biloxi. The advantages of the last were found so superior to those offered by the other two places that he decided in favor of it.
The spot selected for the fort was on the highest point of the rising ground on the eastern shore of the bay. Work was commenced upon it immediately. Trees were cut, a space cleared and the fort laid out. The barges and small boats plied incessantly between it and the ships, fetching over the supplies of tools, implements, provisions, arms and ammunition, and the details of workmen drawn from the crews. The logs for the bastions and stockades were cut a mile and a half away and boated to the building. Corn and peas were sown in the clearings. In six weeks enough was completed to justify Iberville's leaving for France. He put the Sieur de Sauvole in command, and Bien- ville second in command under him. Then taking with him only the men and provisions necessary for his own ships, he sailed for France.
Sauvole vigorously carried on the work left him to do. He finished the fort, maintained discipline among his men, and made friends with his Indian neighbors. Almost every week brought a visit from some of them, prompted by curiosity or greed.
The first to make an appearance was their old acquaint- ance, Autobiscania, the Bayougoula chief, with a party of his warriors. They were received with military honors, which duly terrified them, as was intended ; but the presents reassured them, particularly the shirts, which to their great delight were fitted upon them. They looked with wonder at the fort, astonished that the French could get together and pile up such a number of great logs in so short a space of time. All went well until the sentinel came at nightfall to get the watchword from the sergeant. The whisperings threw the Indians into lively fears of treachery, out of which Sauvole had to calm and soothe them.
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
At daylight they confessed that their wives were on the side of the bay, and they would also like to see the fort. Permission being given, the savage dames were sent for. They landed ; Autobiscania, anxious that the show should be equal to female expectations, made signs to Sauvole to put his men under arms, and ran himself to hunt up the drummer. The visit terminated to the satisfaction of all.
Bienville's Explorations .- After Iberville's departure from Biloxi, while Sauvole was regulating the affairs of the fort, Bienville proceeded to make acquaintance with the na- tives and country about him. He visited the Quinipissas, who lived on the shores of Lake Maurepas, and sought out the villages of the Moctobys, Biloxis, and Pascagoulas along the Pascagoula river. From there he went to Mobile Bay again and explored it, and made a reconnoissance on foot of Pensacola and its surroundings. On his return to Biloxi, he, with two pirogues and five Indians, set out once more to retrace Iberville's journey through the lakes and Bayou Iber- ville into the Mississippi, and to explore Bayou Plaquemine. But he found the Indians living on Bayou Plaquemine, the Ouachas, Chouachas and Opelousas, so ferocious and menac- ing that he was glad to beat a retreat to the Mississippi again.
Paddling his way confidently along to within twenty-three miles of its mouth, he rounded a bend and was arrested by a sight which startled and transfixed him. A corvette lay anchored mid-stream before him. He sent his companion pirogue forward to speak the vessel. It proved to be Eng- lish. Bienville then advanced and went aboard. The cap- tain, named Banks, turned out to be one of Iberville's old Hudson Bay prisoners, and therefore an acquaintance of Bienville's. The ship belonged to the expedition of which Iberville had heard, and for which he had been so anxiously on the look-out. It was one of three vessels loaded with emigrams which had sailed from England to make an estab-
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FRENCH DOMINATION.
lishment on the banks of the Mississippi about the very time that Iberville, with his squadron, sailed from France. They had passed the winter in Carolina, where the greatest number of colonists, pleased with the climate, had chosen to remain. One ship had returned to England, leaving the other two to pursue the search for the mouth of the Missis- sippi. The captain said they had cruised fruitlessly for thirty leagues round about, when he found this stream and entered it. As it was the only large stream he had discov- ered in his cruise on that shore, he doubted not that it was the Mississippi. Bienville convinced him that the river and country were in the possession of the King of France, who had force sufficient at hand to protect his rights. He had the satisfaction of seeing the captain raise anchor and head the corvette down stream. "The English Turn " in the Missis- sippi still commemorates the bend in the river where the young lieutenant and his five Canadians obtained this triumph over the Englishman.
Return of Iberville .- Iberville returned shortly after the new year, 1700. He brought with him supplies of money, provisions and reinforcements of men, among them sixty tried Canadians, who had been with him in Hudson Bay. His seventeen-year-old brother, Chateauguay, accompanied him, and his relations the Sieur de Boisbriant, and the famous pioneer, Juchereau de St. Denis ; a noted geologist, the Sieur Le Sueur, came over also with men and means to develop certain copper mines that were said to be in the upper Mis- sissippi country.
Iberville stayed only long enough at Biloxi to get an expe- dition ready to build a fort on the Mississippi, which the visit of the English captain warned him to be necessary. During the search for a proper situation, Iberville coming to the de- serted village of the Quinipissas, made a planting of sugar cane there from seed he had brought from St. Domingo. But the seed, already yellow and sour, came to naught.
18 lan
السلك
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
Fort Maurepas. 1700 .- The location selected for the fort was on the left bank of the river, about fifty-four miles above its mouth. A strong log building twenty-eight feet square was put upon it; and a powder magazine, five feet above the ground, well banked with earth. During the building a pirogue of Canadians came down the river . and stopped at the landing. Iberville greeted the leader, Tonty, " the Iron Hand," with warm welcome. The loyal man had heard of the French settlement and had traveled down the river to offer his services. Iberville gladly accepted them, for an exploration he wished to make into the Red river country, to find out the number of tribes of Indians living there, and the exact limit of the Spanish possessions. They set out at once. Stopping at the Houmas on their way up the river, Iberville gave them some apple, orange and cotton seed to plant. Louisiana thus owes to him the first plantings of her two great staples.
The Natchez. 1700 .- At the Natchez landing Iberville despatched a messenger to announce his presence to the Natchez chief. The chief responded by sending his brother, escorted by twenty-five men, with the calumet of peace and an invitation to the village. Climbing to the summit of the steep bluff, covered with magnificent forest trees, Iberville gazed with joy upon the beautiful rural landscape. "It was a country," he says, " of plains and prairies, filled with little hills and groves of trees, with roads intercrossing from village to village, and from cabin to cabin-a country resembling France not a little." Half way to the village the chief ap- peared, ceremoniously advancing, surrounded by his body guard-twenty large, well made men.
The village differed from the other villages visited only in being handsomer and better built. The cabin of the chief stood on a spacious mound ten feet high. Facing it was the temple ; around stood the cabins, enclosing a handsome open space. A small running stream near by furnished the water.
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The Natchez were the most enlightened and civilized of the Mississippi river Indians. They worshipped the sun, and their chief was called after their deity the Great Sun ; his brothers the Little Suns. The government was an absolute despotism. The Great Sun was master of the labor, prop- erty and lives of his subjects. He never worked. When he wanted provisions he sent out biddings to a great feast, and the invited were required to attend, bringing sufficient sup- plies for the entertainment and for the after support of the royal family. None were allowed to approach him without observing an elaborate deferential ceremony. He selected his servants from the most noted families, and when he died these servants were strangled to death, to accompany him to the next world. When an heir was born, each family that had a new-born infant appeared with it in the royal presence and a certain number were selected to be his attendants. If the heir died, all thus chosen, were strangled. The chief- tainship was hereditary, but it was not the son of the Great Sun, but the son of his nearest sister or nearest female relative, who succeeded to the government. The royal princesses were not allowed to marry in the royal family, but were forced to take their husbands from the common tribe. No women except the mother and sisters of the Great Sun, were ever allowed to enter the temple.
The Tensas. 1700 .- The Indian guides all advised Iber- ville and Tonty not to attempt to go up Red river, which was much rafted and difficult of navigation. They persisted that the easiest and best way of getting into the Red river lands was by going up above Red river and striking across the country from the great Tensas village. The advice seemed reasonable, and it was followed. Iberville, with his party, paddled up to the Tensas landing and made their way on foot through the woods to Lake Tensas, where they found pirogues for the rest of the journey They were well re- ceived by the Tensas, but during the night were witnesses of
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such a scene of barbarity as turned their hearts from the tribe. A terrific storm broke out. Lightning struck the tem- ple, setting it on fire. In a few moments it was entirely consumed. The Indian priest, or " medicine man," as he was called, attributed the disaster to the wrath of their god, because after the recent death of the great chief the tribe had not made the human sacrifices demanded of their faith.
Standing by the furious flames, with the storm raging about him, he called out repeatedly in a loud, commanding voice: " Women, bring your children and offer them in sac- rifice to the Great Spirit to appease him!" Five squaws responded, and five papooses, strapped in their swaddling clothes, were thrown into the heart of the burning pile. Proud of his victory over them, the priest led the unnatural mothers in triumph to the cabin of the new chief, where all the village assembled to praise, caress, and do them honor. A painful trouble in his right knee prevented Iberville, at the last moment, from leading the exploration into the Red river country. He turned the command over to Bienville and journeyed back to Fort Maurepas. On his arrival he fell very ill of fever, which kept him for some time from proceeding to Ship Island, where quite a notable event was happening to enliven the monctony of the officers' lives.
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