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Visit from the Spaniards. 1700 .- De la Riola, governor of Pensacola, came in all the panoply of his power with three armed vessels and several hundred men to protest against the French settling in a country which he claimed belonged to the King of Spain. The French, no ways intimidated by the Spaniard's pomp and arrogance, determined to make as brave a show as he. During the four days of his visit all traces of sickness and privation were carefully hidden ; men and officers wore their gala uniforms; wine flowed and banquets were served with reckless prodigality and the fort and garrison kept up one continual round of gaiety and frolic. De la Riola sailed away as majestically as he
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came, but was very much impressed with the abundance and stability of the new French establishment. He was soon to be still more impressed with it.
Seven days afterwards the officers at Ship Island saw an open boat approaching from the sea, with figures of men in distress in it. They proved to be the stately Spanish com- mander and his officers, naked and famishing. A gale in the night had struck their squadron shortly after leaving Biloxi, and every vessel had been wrecked on Chandeleur Islands ; they had not had time even to clothe themselves, and for five days had only had a small bit of chocolate to eat and nothing but sea water to drink.
Again the French proved themselves equal to the occasion. Messengers were despatched with the news to Pensacola; boats were sent to rescue the miserable crews perishing on the exposed sand bars; food, drink and clothing were pre- pared. De la Riola was equipped from tip to toe out of Iberville's wardrobe ; the officers were supplied by the other French officers, and French boats conveyed them all to Pensacola.
QUESTIONS.
Where did Iberville intend to make his settlement? What of Sau- vole after Iberville's departure? What of Bienville? What Indians lived on Bayou Plaquemine? Give the meeting with the English ves- sel? What commemorates the circumstance? When did Iberville re- turn? Who accompanied him? What was his next expedition? What of Fort Maurepas? Planting of cane? What expedition did Iberville and Tonty undertake? What seed did Iberville give the Houmas? Describe Natchez village and the Natchez? Give an ac- count of Spanish commander's visit?
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
CHAPTER IX.
FURTHER ESTABLISHMENT.
Bienville left the Tensas village with his party; twenty- two Canadians, with six Tensas and one Ouachita for guides. It was early March, the severe winter still lingered, and the country was beginning to overflow from rising water. Not only was every little bayou swollen into a rushing stream, but great tracts of land lay under the water from knee to breast deep ; in many places over the head. As they had no pirogues they crossed on foot-logs when they could find them (they were generally hidden under water), and sometimes they would fell a tree for a bridge. But most of the times they swam or waded across, pushing their clothes before them on rafts; always firing off their guns first, to scare away the alligators. Bienville was only of medium height, so he was at a great disadvantage, and many times had to swim, when his companions simply waded. The water was icy cold and the Indians soon turned back, saying they did not like walk- ing naked all day in cold water. At night the camp was pitched on any dry spot to be found. Sometimes the trav- elers would come to a good hunting place and a day would be given up to supplying their bags with game; but days would often pass when all the meals consisted only of sagani- ity. They would make from ten to twelve miles a day, cross- ing from six to a dozen bayous and swamps. Hardy as the Canadians were, many of them fell ill from the hard- ships and exposure. Often in the water they would be seized with chills and cramps, and were forced to climb trees and stay in the branches until they recovered. Once four men thus passed a whole day in the trees until rafts were sent to fetch them away. To add to their discomfort rain set in, and every day drenching showers would again and again wet them to the skin. But Bienville says they never stopped sing-
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ing and laughing, to show the Indians they met that French- men, unlike Spaniards, did not mind such fatigue. They met only a few Indians journeying to get out of the high water, or carrying salt from the salt springs in the Ouachita country to sell to the Indians along the Mississippi.
They came to Red river, but found most of the villages inundated and abandoned. What Indians remained were liv- ing on rafts and scaffoldings, and their supplies of corn were too meagre for the French to buy any.
Bienville visited some villages of the Natchitoches, Sou - chitionis, Nakasas, and Yataches, living above the water, and there he met some Caddodaquious Indians, They gave him so discouraging an account of the road and distance to their village that Bienville decided not to push his sick, disabled and half-starved men any further to get there. Procuring pirogues, he brought them down Red river to the Missis- sippi .* On his arrival at the settlement, Iberville put him in command of Fort Maurepas and sailed to France.
Fort Maurepas. 1700 .- Bienville took up his position at Fort Maurepas, which soon, with its fields of corn and vege- tables, formed a bright picture on the banks of the great, savage river. Canadian coureurs de bois learned the way down there from the north and west; and every now and then bands of them would paddle up to the landing, their pirogues almost sinking under the heavy loads of peltry, dried meat and bears' grease ; the sombre forests resounding with the echoes of their loud frolicking. More quietly and humbly, missionaries, who had already begun to estab- lish themselves along the Mississippi, would come, with a few attendants only and Indian guides, to the new settlement of their faith and country to greet their compatriots and get tidings from France.
* Juchereau de St. Denis the following year explored the same country as far as the Caddodaquious ; and a few years afterward founded a post at Natchitoches. St Denis' attempts to open an overland trade from the French colony to Mexico led to a series of romantic and thrilling adventures of which he was a most interesting here. St. Denis may be called the father of the Natchitoches country.
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
Biloxi. 1700 .- At Biloxi Sauvole struggled through try- ing experiences. The Canadian settlers proved themselves unruly under discipline ; they liked no work but hunting and fighting, and were much given to drinking, saving up their daily allowance of spirits until they accumulated enough to get intoxicated. Then the Indian visitors came in such num- bers that he was hard pressed to give them the food and presents they expected, and without which they might turn into enemies ; in addition to this, great pirogues of Canadians would come to Biloxi from Fort Maurepas, and they would quarter themselves on the garrison until asked to leave. The ship of supplies promised from France did not arrive. Sau- vole had to send to St. Domingo and buy the necessaries of life. There was a drought which killed all vegetation and dried up all the springs. This was followed by a season of great rain. Fever broke out and soon became epidemic. Soldiers and Canadians died in numbers.
Death of Sauvole. August, 1701 .- The gallant young commander himself was stricken with it and died in August, 1701, leaving his uncompleted journal for a record of his faithfulness and conscientiousness in duty. At the news of his death, Bienville hastened over from Fort Maurepas to Biloxi and took command.
Arrival of Iberville. 1701 .- In December, couriers from Pensacola brought news of Iberville's arrival at that port, accompanied by De Serigny, his brother, a mariner of great repute in the royal navy. He was unable to move from Pen- sacola, being confined to his bed with an abscess in his side, which caused him great suffering, and for which he had been operated on ship-board. The fever which he had caught on the Mississippi had continued in France, ahnost causing his death there, and preventing his return sooner to the colony with the supplies he had promised.
Impressed with the necessity of a port directly on the gulf coast as a protection to his position on the Mississippi, and
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still unreconciled to the possession of Pensacola by the Span- iards, Iberville had, during his long stay in France, endeav- ored to procure its cession from Spain. He wrote an able paper to the court of Spain on the subject, assuming as war- rant for his presumption the new and near relations between the thrones of France and Spain (the grandson of the king of France being heir to the throne of the king of Spain). The paper was submitted to the Spanish Junto, or council of state, who, far from approving his designs, warned him, as an interloper, off the coast which they claimed still as Span- ish.
Iberville's answer to this was the determination to settle Mobile. That would give France a close and definite boun- dary line on the east against the Spaniards, assure her of the possession of the Mobile river, the next important stream of the country after the Mississippi, and secure to her the con- tinuous stretch of Gulf Coast all the way to La Salle's western limit, Matagorda Bay. Without loss of time, he sent orders to Bienville to transport the colony from Biloxi to Mobile.
Mobile. 1702 .- The new fort, named Fort St. Louis de la Mobile, was to be situated on the right bank of the Mobile river, about fifty miles above its mouth. The work of removal from Biloxi was pushed forward vigorously. De Serigny brought over from Pensacola his ship laden with the supplies for the colony, and all the small boats and men to be spared from Iberville's ship. Tents were erected on Massacre Island for the storage of freight until flat-boats could be built to convey it across the bay and up the river. As soon as Iberville was well enough to come to Mobile and superintend the work, Bienville was sent out to establish re- lations with the tribes of the country round about. On the island at the mouth of the Mobile he found only deserted habitations, and on one of them the carefully hidden gods of one of the vanished tribes. They were rude figures of men and animals, which the Indian guides would only approach by
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walking backwards, and which they warned Bienville not to touch on pam of death.
Bienville, to the Indians' astonishment, carried them with- out suffering any disaster to Iberville, who examined them and pronounced them relics of some of the old Spanish ex- plorers.
Eighteen miles above the fort were the Mobile Indians, the descendants of the fierce warriors who had given De Soto so warm a reception. Six miles above the Mobiles lived the Tohomes, a small but industrious tribe, whose corn crops often stood between the French garrison and hunger. On the Alabama river were the Alabamas, a fighting, refrac- tory tribe, whose warriors were ever on the war path against their neighbors, white and red. On the Apalachicola river were the Apalaches, or Conchaques; a peaceful tribe sub- dued to the Spaniards, but suffering such ravages from the inroads of the Indians incited by the English of Carolina that they soon moved into the neighborhood of the French for protection. To the northwest, between the Tombigbee and the Mississippi, was the territory of the Choctaws, the largest and most powerful tribe of the region. Cunning, brave and well skilled in their savage warfare, they formed the great safeguard of the French against the vin- dictive and unconquerable Chickasaws. The lands of this celebrated tribe lay to the north of the Choctaw, between the French and English possessions, and the French found them in course of time more redoubtable foes than the Eng. lish themselves.
It was with great satisfaction that during the building of the fort Iberville received forerunners from Tonty, announc- ing his speedy arrival, with chiefs from both these important tribes. A grand reception was at once prepared, and pres- ents selected. These were exposed in full view ; two hun- dred pounds of powder, the same quantity of balls and bird shot, twelve guns, a hundred hatchets, fifty knives, a number
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of cauldrons, and quantities of small articles. such as beads. flints, awls, etc. With so tempting an array spread before them, the chiefs smoked all the calumets and made all the treaties desired by Iberville, and departed from the fort well promised to France and laden with booty.
Mobile. 1702 .- Iberville sailed away from his anchorage at Massacre Island on the last day of March, 1702; neither his brother nor his colony ever saw him again .*
QUESTIONS.
Describe Bienville's expedition. What of the Indians he met? Did he go to the Caddodaquious? What of life at Fort Maurepas? When did Sauvole die? What followed? What news came from Pensacola? Who accompanied Iberville? Describe the removal from Biloxi. What was the new fort named and where situated? Give an account of the Indians of the Alabama country.
CHAPTER X.
MOBILE. 1702-1711.
Mobile. 1702-1711 .- Bienville was left in command. The charge committed to him by Iberville was no light one. He was not only to maintain himself in his present position, but with his handful of men to hold Iberville's great grasp of country, with the mouth of the Mississippi, firm to the crown of France. The Spaniards to the east and the English to the north were to be kept in check, and all the warring, rest- less savage tribes under him to be fastened together in tract- able submission to his authority and armed into an efficient force to oppose against the colonies of France's rivals.
* The gallant Canadian died of yellow fever at Havana, in 1706, four years later. His last effort at arins, like his first, was against the English. He was preparing, with a large armament, to attack the British islands in the Antilles and their settle. ments on the Carolina coast. Landing at Havana for reinforcements of Spaniards and filibusters, he was attacked by the prevailing epidemic, and died. Iberville had advanced large sums to the government for Louisiana, solent little to his widow and children. His widow afterward masned a French problemen, the count de Bethune.
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
Let us give a glance at the life and character of the twenty- two-year-old governor.
Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur de Bienville was. the ninth son of his father and the sixth brother of Iberville. Left an orphan when a child, he lived with his eldest brother, the Baron de Longueuil, in the chateau de Longueuil, near Montreal. At fourteen he followed Iberville to sea, and before he was eighteen had taken part in all the thrilling dangers of the struggles in Hudson Bay. Quiet, gentle and reserved, he yet possessed an indom- itable will and inflexible courage ; well proven in the course of this history. Even at an early age he knew how BIENVILLE, to gain a powerful influence over his friends and men under his command. The Canad- ians were ever devoted to him, and formed an unfaltering clan behind him, ready for any service of offence or defence. The Indians respected and revered him and called him father. He knew the Indians, indeed, as few white men ever knew them, and in his dealings with them acted with a judgment which they never questioned. He boasted that he never broke his word to them, always conformed to their manners and customs, and talked to each tribe in its own dialect. In Can- ada, he spoke with ease the language of the natives, and on his arrival in Louisiana he acquired the dialect of every tribe with which he came in contact, a capital of infinite advantage to him in his after career.
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Fort Louis de la Mobile. 1702 .- With all its de- pendences, the fort was soon completed. Standing eminent on the bank of the river it was an imposing edifice for the times in that wild country. It measured three hundred and sixty feet square, and held at each corner a battery of six guns. Inside were a chapel, the guard house, officers' lodg- ings and a parade ground. The barracks for the soldiers and Canadians were outside, some fifty paces to the left, on the bank of the river. Later, also, on the left of the fort, a residence for the priest was erected.
The Indians from all the neighboring country flocked to sate their wonder at the marvelous structure, always leaving loaded down with presents and well impressed with the power and wealth of the French. The Spaniards from Pensacola came also as often as the Indians; and Bienville claimed that these neighbors were even more costly to him than the In- dians. Pensacola seemed always in a state of famine, the supply ships from Vera Cruz being ever delayed or lost at sea, and hardly a week passed that a boat was not sent to Mobile to borrow provisions. As Bienville complained, the Spaniards would many a time have been forced by starvation to aban- don their settlement, if he had not kept them up from his scant stores, not daring to refuse on account of the new alli- ance and kinship between the French and Spanish monarchs.
War with England .- The war* declared by England against France and Spain, on account of this very kinship, made itself felt before he was firmly established in his fort. Indian war parties, equipped by the English, in Carolina, over and over again ravaged the corn fields and burned the villages of the Indians of Florida, and attacked the Indians in the French territory, while an English fleet, hovering in the gulf, kept the seaboard from St. Augustine to Mobile in a constant state of alarm.
* War of the Spanish Succession, 1700, over the succession of the grandson of Louis XIV to the throne of Spain. England, Germany, Holland, Portugal and Prussia opposed this aggrandizement of the royal house of France.
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HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.
Bienville flew to the rescue of his Indian allies, distribut- ing arms and ammunition to their warriors, and equipping them into equality with the English Indians. The flying bands of Apalaches were received and settled along Mobile river .* The Spaniards at Pensacola, instead of assisting him in these crises, only increased his burdens. As ill provided with munitions of war as with provisions, they knew no bet- ter means of defence, when threatened, than to shut them- selves in their strongholds and send appeals to Bienville, and he was forced to respond with men, arms and boats.
Indian Troubles .- And along the Mississippi, wherever English traders could insinuate themselves in the Indian tribes, the savages would break into revolt, and the toma- hawk would be raised to spread destruction and carnage up and down the river. The humble, pious missionaries and their attendants were always the first victims. And almost as often Spanish barks, long pointed pirogues, from the river countries would come flying across the gulf bearing news of assassination and murder, and fetching a load of wounded praying for protection and medical help.
So, one day came good father Davion, ; fleeing from the Tunicas, telling the story of the murder of the aged priest Foucault and his attendants, by their Coroast guides, as they were peacefully descending the river to visit Mobile ; and so, later, Father Graviers arrived, his arm pierced with five arrow-heads, shot by the Indians of his mission on the Illinois.
* Here, under the spiritual charge of M. Huve, they built themselves a church, and became so edifying a religious example that the colonists used to jaunt out on Sundays and feast-days to see them perform their devotions and hear them sing the Latin hymns.
t Father Davion had originally settled at Natchez, but making no converts, he went to the Tunicas, and erected a cross on the highest bluff, where he said mass every morning. The bluff was called Roche a Davion until 1764, when it became known as Loftus Heights, and afterwards and ever since as Fort Adams. - Clai- borne's Mississippi.
Nicholas Foucault had a mission among the Arkansas, where he had accom plished much good, when, in 1702, he set out for Mobile with three attendants and two Coroas guides. The guides killed them for the plunder of their luggage.
§ Father Gravier, a Jesuit, had succeeded to the mission at Kaskaskia, among the Ill nois, continued by Allouez after the death of Marquette. He was appointed Vicar General by the Bishop of Quebec. An accomplished as well as a devoted priest, he has left valuable descriptions of the Indians and early settlements by the French. He was always an earnest friend of Bienville.
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War with the Alabamas. 1702 .- Bienville intrusted the punishment of the Coroas to the Arkansas, who gladly un- dertook it, while he prepared to inflict upon the Alabamas what they merited for an act of treachery which had incensed the whole colony.
Some of their chiefs came to the fort with such plausible stories of the plenteousness of corn in their village that Bien- ville sent five men home with them to purchase. After some weeks, one of them came back alone to tell of the treachery of the savages. The party had traveled to within two days' journey of the Alabama village. Here the chiefs begged the white men to remain while they went on to notify their people, so that a reception could be prepared. That night, while the white men slept, the Indians returned and toma- hawked four of them. One escaped by leaping into the river and swimming tor his life. A hatchet thrown after him in- flicted an ugly wound on his arm; this he dressed with pine gum, gathered from the trees, chewed, and applied as he fled through the forest.
Bienville, raising a levy amongst his Indian allies, mus- tered, with his Canadians, a force of nearly two hundred men, of which Tonty and St. Denis shared with him the command.
The plan was to ascend the Mobile river and the Alabama to some convenient point, to land, and marching rapidly across the country, fall a surprise upon the foe. The Mobilians were to act as guides and baggage carriers. But it was soon seen that they were in secret sympathy with the Alabamas They conducted the little army so cunningly that at the end of eighteen days it was spent with marching and very little if any nearer the enemy than when it set out. Then, upon some trivial pretext, all the Mobilians, Choctaws and To- homes deserted in a body.
The French commanders were thus forced, without strik- ing a blow, to return to the fort, which they reached (by marching in a straight line) in four days. But in a few days
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they quietly led forth another expedition, composed of white men only. They made the entire journey by water. As they neared the spot where their companions had been assas- sinated, scouts were sent to spy out the camp. It was found a short distance above on a bluff upon the bank of the river. Bienville was for attacking it at once; but his companions prevailed in favor of a surprise at night. They waited in their hiding places through the rest of the day until dark- ness fell and the camp fires dimmed to a dull smouldering glow, when the savages, as they judged, would be in a heavy sleep. Then the command was given and the stealthy ad- vance began. With all their precautions a dry twig crackled under some foot. The war cry rose in the air. The old men, women and children broke from the camp and ran into the forest. The warriors retreated slowly after them, firing their guns at the invaders. All escaped with the exception of four ; two killed and two wounded. The French also had two men killed, and had, for the rest of their vengeance, to content themselves with destroying the Alabamas' camp, breaking up their pirogues and throwing their hunting booty into the river.
On his return to Mobile, Bienville put the scalps of the Alabamas in the market, offering a gun and five pounds of powder and ball apiece for them.
The war sputtered along like a slow fire for nine years. The Mobilians a few years afterwards were detached from the Alabamas by Bienville's generosity in restoring to them some captive Alabama women and children taken prisoners, whom the Mobilians claimed as kinspeople. Their gratitude to Bienville for the restoration maintained them in unswerv- ing loyalty to the French ever afterwards.
The Ist of February, 1705, tidings came to Mobile that the Chickasaws had seized and sold as slaves to the English several Choctaw families who had come to visit them in good faith, and that the act of treachery had caused a rupture be-
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tween the two nations. As there were in Fort St. Louis at that time more than seventy Chickasaws of both sexes, they were very much troubled about returning to their villages, which they could not do without passing through the territory of the irate Choctaws. At their solicitation, Bienville sent twenty-five Canadians under De Boisbriant to escort them. When the whole party arrived at the Choctaw village about the end of the month, the Choctaw chief assured De Boisbriant that he would not oppose the return of the Chickasaws, but that it was only just to reproach them with their perfidy in the presence of the French. Therefore, the Chickasaws were invited to assemble in the open space in the centre of the village, and the Choctaw chief, with his calumet in his hand, began his harangue to them. He reproached them with their injustices and want of good faith; told them if the French took any interest in them, it was because of ignorance of their real character. The Chickasaws listened with more uneasiness than contrition. Around, a circle of Choctaws had gradually closed them in. When the orator had reached his-point that they were too vile to live, and therefore it was proper they should die, he reversed the calumet in his hand. There was no hope of escape from the sentence, which was executed at the instant. Only the women and children were spared. Several Choctaws were killed in the melee, and De Boisbriant accidentally received a ball in trying to get out of the way. He was placed upon a litter and carried to the fort by a numerous escort of Choctaws.
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