USA > Louisiana > A history of Louisiana, revised edition > Part 7
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The Superior Council. 1719 .- During the Crozat char- ter, 1712, a council, called the Superior Council, was ap-
most beneficial in developing the colony. The title by which it is now known, the Mississippi Bubble, records the verdict passed upon it by posterity. Law fell like his stock, from vast wealth to utter worthlessness. He ended his days a poverty- stricken, homeless adventurer.
* The first directors of the company named by the regent were: Law, director general of the Bank of France; Diron d' Artaguette (former royal commissary), receiver general of the finances of Auch ; Duche, receiver general of the finances of La Rochelle; Moreau, deputy of commerce of St. Malo; Piou, deputy of com. merce of Nantes ; Castagne and Mouchard, merchants of La Rochelle.
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pointed for three years, to administer justice in civil and criminal cases. It was composed of five members-the gov- ernor, the royal commissary, the commander of the royal troops, who elected the other two members, and an attorney general, clerk, etc.
The term of this first board having expired, a new one* was appointed, composed of the directors of the company presided over by the governor, with the director general of the company as senior councillor. But, although he had the seat of honor at the board, the governor had no more power than his one vote entitled him to, and he was in reality subor- dinate to the senior councillor, who performed the functions of president of the tribunal, counting the votes, pronouncing judgments, affixing seals, etc.
Inferior Councils .- Hitherto this council was the sole tri- bunal of the colony, but the increase and the spread of the population demanded that tribunals should be stationed in several parts of the province. The directors of the company and the agents, with two to four of the most notable of the inhabitants of any neighborhood, were, therefore, constituted into such inferior tribunals. Their judgments were appeal- able to the Superior Council.
Bienville Governor. 1718 .- The new company applied all the stimulus of capital and determination to the develop- ment of their enterprise.
They recalled De l'Epinay, and gave the government to Bienville (with the title of Commandant General for the King), as to the one man qualified by experience and ability to carry out their expectations. The appointment was backed by three ships loaded with abundant supplies of money, provisions, merchandise and a full corp of directors, under
*The first Superior Council under the Company of the West was composed of Bienv lle, commandant general ; Hubert, senior councillor; Boisbriant and Cha- ceauguny, king's lieutenants ; l'Archambault, Villardo and Legas, puisne councillors ; Cartier de Baume was the attorney general, and Cuture the clerk.
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a director general,* and more than seven hundred emi- grants.
A large and capable corps of engineers was sent out under the Chevalier Leblond de la Tour, a knight of St. Louis, to superintend the construction of the necessary public works.
Bienville entered upon his duties with an energy which showed that he considered the expectations of the company of easy fulfilment with the means at his disposal.
To make sure of his western boundaries against the Span- iards, he sent Chateauguay to take possession and build a fort at La Salle's old site on the coast of Texas. De la Harpe, with fifty emigrants, was sent to establish a post on Red river among the Caddodaquious. The newly arrived engineers were ordered to examine and report upon the depth of water at the mouth of the Mississippi, with a view to se- curing a good channel into it.
NEW ORLEANS, 1718.
New Orleans. 1718 .- He himself, with a party of work- men, set out to accomplish a design which had lain near his heart ever since the days of his command at Fort Maurepas. This was to found a city on the banks of the Mississippi ;
* Among the first arrivals, in August, 1718, was the first historian of Louisiana, Le Page du Pratz. He came with a force of ten men, and selected a tract of land near the new city. Du Pratz relates the anchoring of his ship in the open road be- fore Dauphin Island ; the chanting of the Te Deum for the safe voyage, the landing of the passengers and their effects, etc, On the island he was lodged and fed by u friend, an old ship captain who treated him to the most wonderful good cheer, the fish particularly eliciting glowing praise.
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for he was convinced that a city thus situated would one day be one of the trading centres of the continent. He had chosen the spot years before, and had even settled some Can- adians there to prove its fertility and height above overflow. It was a ridge of high land near the bank of the Mississippi, about one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth ; commu- nicating with Lake Pontchartrain in the rear by a small bayou (afterwards named Bayou St. John). He named the place after the Duke of Orleans, regent of France, the patron of John Law and the Company of the West.
Colonization. 1718 .- Over in France the Mississippi Company continued parceling out its capital of land in large concessions to its shareholders, who sent over emigrants by the ship load to take possession. The Yazou* district, Natchez, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Baton Rouge, Man- chac, Houma, Tchoupitoulas (just above the site of the new city), Cannes Brulées, Bay of St. Louis, Pascagoula, all were made over to noble or millionaire families. Law him- self secured a tract of four miles square on the Arkansas, to which he shipped Protestant Swiss and German emigrants.
The small establishments of Mobile and Dauphin Island staggered under the sudden increase of population put upon them. According to the terms of the Mississippi Company, free lodging, food and transportation were guaranteed to the colonists. As the concessions were scattered all over the lower Mississippi valley, boats and carts had to be made to convey the emigrants. The overworked carpenters did what they could, but delays were unavoidable, and while the emigrants were waiting for the means of transportation they were
* A company headed by Leblanc, secretary of state, the Comte de Bienville, and the Marquis de Assleck, took possession of the Yazous. Concessions at Natchez were made to the Commissioner Hubert, and to a company of St. Malo merchants. Natchitoches was conceded to Bernard de la Harpe, the compiler of " Journal Historique ;" Tunicas to St. Reine; Pointe Coupee to De Meuse; the present site of Baton Rouge to Diron d'Artaguette; the bank of the Mississippi opposite Manchac to Paris Duvernay; the Tchoupitoulas lands to DeMuys; that of the Oumas to Marquis d'Artagnac ; the bank opposite to De Guiche, De la Houssaie and De la Houpe ; Bay St. Louis to Madame de Meneret; and Pascagoula to Madame de Chambont.
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forced to eat the provisions sent to feed them in their new homes, and spend the money they had brought to furnish them. No lodgings being provided, they were forced to sleep under any shelter they could find. In the summer months this produced great distress and sickness, particularly among the women and children.
Capture of Pensacola. 1719 .- But the colony was to receive an interruption, and an interruption of the pleas- antest kind to the Canadian governor and his soldiers.
in April, 1719, the two De Serignys,* Bienville's brother and nephew, sailed into the harbor of Dauphin Island, bring- ing the news of war between France and Spain. This was the opportunity for which the French had been waiting for twenty years, to capture Pensacola. Bienville summoned a council of war, and it was decided to attack the Spaniards at once, before they heard the news and had time to put themselves in a state of defence.
As soon as his cargoes were discharged De Serigny sailed there with his ships, the Marechal de Villars and the Philippe, followed by the Count de Toulouse, which happened to be in port. They carried one hundred and fifty soldiers. Bien- ville sailed in a sloop with eighty men. With a fair wind they made a good run to Isle Ste. Rosa, the outpost of the Spaniards. Anchoring as close to land as possible, the troops disembarked unperceived, and soon mastered the small gar- rison stationed there. Putting their prisoners in irons and dressing in their uniforms they easily deceived and cap- tured the detail, who came out next morning to relieve guard. Embarking then in the Spanish boat, they crossed the bay, entered the fort, surprised the sentinels on duty, and captured the whole place-soldiers, magazine, storehouse and the commandant, who was still in bed. Chateauguay was
* De Serigny, the brother, was charged with the commission to examine and sound the coast of Louisiana. His maps form the beginning of the scientific car- tography of the Mississippi Delta.
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put in command, and the Spanish garrison shipped for Ha- vana on the Comte de Toulouse. The governor of Havana received the French officers in charge most ceremoniously, thanking them for the politeness of their visit ; but no sooner were the prisoners in his hands than he seized them with their ship, placed the soldiers in irons and put the entire crew, officers and all, in prison. He then equipped the French vessel with a Spanish crew and Spanish soldiers, and sent it with his squadron to retake Pensacola. The Spanish ves- sels drew up behind the Isle Ste. Rosa. The French vessel, flying the French colors, boldly entered the channel. Scarcely was anchor dropped, however, when the French flag was lowered, the Spanish run up, and three cannon shots fired. At the signal the rest of the squadron made its appear- ance, twelve sail in all. The next day eighteen hundred men were landed and began the assault, which soon reduced the fort. Chateauguay was sent to rejoin his compatriots in Havana. The Spanish commander then sailed over to Mo- bile and summoned Serigny, who was in command, to sur- render. Serigny, surrounded by his soldiers, Canadians, and savages in all their war paint, received the messenger and told him that the Spaniards could come when they pleased, they would find the French ready to receive them. And in truth the French made so gallant a show that the Spaniards did not venture to land, nor even come within gunshot of the French batteries. One of their vessels, entering the bay, captured some flat-boats of provisions and ravaged the plan- tations along the shore. Fortunately, that night Bienville was sending a reinforcement of Indians to his brother. These fell upon the marauders. Very few escaped.
The sight of a squadron of French war ships in the gulf hastened the departure of the Spanish fleet. With this strong reinforcement, Bienville and Serigny shortly afterwards sailed again to Pensacola, and capturing it a second time, destroyed its fortifications.
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After this sprightly episode, the colony returned to its former routine of life.
Inflation. 1719 .- Emigrants continued to arrive by the hundred, two hundred, four hundred at a time. Ignorant of all life except that of the small peasant of France, dazed from the long voyage, weak from sea-sickness, a more help- less mass of people never landed in a new country. And no emigrants ever landed in a more unfavorable spot than Dau- phin Island. Put ashore with their scanty effects, they were forced to wait weeks for the means of transportation to their concessions ; without shelter, with insufficient food, unable to find work or gain anything by cultivating the arid soil, tortured and blinded by the dazzling white sand, under the rays of a tropical sun, exposed to the infection of the ships from the West Indian Islands, always waiting and hoping and being disappointed, it is easy to believe that most of the unfortunate creatures died of their misery on the spot. The directors of the company, more and more helpless before the increasing difficulties of the situation, and more and more unable to meet the demands upon them, were panic stricken at the crisis which they saw impending. They could think of no remedy but a change of base.
Bienville exerted himself in vain in favor of New Orleans. The emigrants, he maintained, could be landed there and easily distributed to their concessions, or find self-support in cultivating the rich alluvial soil. He was outvoted at the council, which decided in favor of the old capital, Biloxi.
Biloxi. 1720 .- The move was effected with all haste, and at great expense to the company and colony ; and in a short time Fort Louis de la Mobile was only a garrison post, and Dauphin Island a way station for incoming and outgoing ships. But, as Bienville had maintained, there was no change from the removal except to still greater financial loss and hu- man misery. The emigrants continued to increase in numbers and their quality decreased. Formerly small bodies of con-
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victs were sent to Louisiana to work out their sentences there in clearing and developing the land. Now the company, to keep up by flattering numbers its enterprise in the eyes of the share- holders, began to send as emigrants any material they could get, even by force or fraud. Prisons, reformatories, asylums and hospitals were raided, and the inmates shipped to the Mississippi. Kidnappers in the streets of Paris and other large cities of France drove a thriving trade by furnishing emigrants at so much a head. And to add to the dark pic- ture, slave ships brought their wretched, reeking African cargoes, and dumped them, like so much ballast, on the sands of Biloxi. The result can be imagined. Crime and outrage could not be prevented. The famine became so great that more than five hundred died of hunger. Fish and oysters were all the food that the starving creatures could find, and to get them they had to wade out in water up to their waists. Their dead bodies were found in heaps around piles of oyster shells.
New Biloxi .- A drunken, sleeping sergeant, by letting his lighted pipe fall in his tent, started a fire which consumed Biloxi to the ground. A council of all the colonial officers was held, and another transfer of headquarters was decided upon. Bienville again made an effort in favor of New Or- leans, and was again outvoted, on the pretext that there was not enough water at the mouth of the Mississippi to per- mit the entrance of ioaded vessels. The point of land oppo- site Deer Island, called thenceforth New Biloxi, was chosen for the seat of government, and orders for its establishment carried into effect at once. A fort and extensive buildings were put up on the mainland, and a hospital on the island.
Bienville met the positive denial that loaded vessels could enter the mouth of the Mississippi by the proposition to send the " Dromadaire," a vessel of the company, through it as a test. One of the directors opposed this violently on the strength of a certificate from the captain of the " Drom-
.
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adaire," that his vessel could not get through the mouth of the river. Bienville then declared that he would send the vessel through on his own responsibility ; the director warned him that if he did so he would be held liable for damages. Bienville, shortly afterwards, did in fact carry the " Drom- adaire " triumphantly through the passes.
Pauger, De la Tour's assistant, was dispatched to the passes to make maps of them and a report to send to France, to prove Bienville's theory, that the Mississippi was navigable for large vessels and that New Orleans must be the capital of the province. Pauger* went also with a force of convicts to lay out New Orleans as a regular city. He accomplished the task satisfactorily ; clearing the neglected space, aligning streets, assigning allotments, and making a plan of the whole, containing the names of the owners of the allotments.
The Mississippi Bubble. 1721 .- Just at the time the news of Law's failure and flight, and the collapse of the Mis- sissippi scheme, reached the colony. All enterprise and hope were for a moment paralyzed, and a financial panic seemed inevitable. But ships, emigrants, soldiers and merchandise continued to arrive as before, and it soon became evident that whatever the amount of bankruptcy caused in France to the stockholders and investors in the Mississippi scheme, Louisiana was not going to be given up as a bad debt.
In France the board of directors to whom had been con- fided the liquidation of the company made known their de- termination not to abandon the enterprise by sending out new directors and two officials, Messrs. Daunoy and De la Chaise, to examine into the late accounts.
The statements published by the Company of the West proved that during the term of its charter it had transported to Louisiana 7020 persons, among these 600 negroes. The
* Pauger's map of New Orleans is the earliest we have.
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expenditures had been enormous ; those of the last year alone having risen to 474,274 livres. (The value of the livre was the same as that of the franc, about twenty cents.)
QUESTIONS.
Give an account of the Company of the West? The judicial ad- ministration of the colony? What of New Orleans? Give an account of the capture of Pensacola and following circumstances? What of the inflation of 1719? The sufferings of emigrants? Move to Biloxi? Scenes there? New Biloxi? How did Bienville exert himself in favor of New Orleans? What of the passage of the " Dromadaire " through the mouth of the Mississippi? What was the effect of the breaking of the Mississippi Bubble in Louisiana? How many persons had the Company of the West brought into Louisiana?
CHAPTER XIII.
NEW ORLEANS.
New Orleans, Capital of the Colony. 1722 .- Bienville's repeated letters on the subject, with Pauger's map and re- ports at last convinced the Louisiana administrators in France, and the long desired authorization was received to remove the capital of the colony to New Orleans.
Centralization .- From this moment Louisiana ceased to be a mere colonial experiment, and began to be self sustain- ing. The work of transferring the capital was begun with- out delay and was prosecuted with vigor. In June, 1722, De la Tour and Pauger led the way, by sailing in a loaded vessel through the mouth of the river. As soon as word was brought back that they had passed the bar, other boats fol- lowed with men, building materials, ammunition and pro- visions.
Under De la Tour's supervision, the city took form ane shape. A church and houses were built, levees thrown un
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ditches made, and a great canal dug in the rear for drainage. A cemetery was laid out, and a quay, protected by palisades, was constructed. Bienville arrived and took up his residence there in August. To Pauger was assigned a post at the Balize .* With fifty workmen and a dredge boat, he per- formed marvels in an incredibly short time. Besides keeping a pass open, he built, out of the drift caught from the river, lodgings, storehouses, boats, a smithy, and a chapel with a belfry that could serve for a light-house, while his gardens furnished the gladdest of welcomes both to the eye and heart of the weary incoming sea traveler.
Beginnings of New Orleans .- New Orleans, however, had no more fortunate beginnings than Mobile or Biloxi. In the midst of the building and transportation the September storm came on, with a hitherto unexperienced violence. For five days the furious hurricane, raging from east to west, swept land and sea. The ripened crops of rice, corn, and and buildings of the planters blown down. In New Orleans the church and most of the new edifices were demolished, and three vessels wrecked in the river. At Biloxi, the maga- zine with all the stores, and a ship with its cargo of ammuni- tion and food were ruined ; almost all of the boats, sloops and pirogues were lost, and two ships rendered totally unfit for service. For a week the greatest apprehensions were felt on account of the three ships anchored at Ship Island and for a ship on its way to the mouth of the river loaded with pine timber for a storehouse, which had cost the company over a hundred thousand livres. All of them arrived in course of time at New Orleans, passing with facility over the bar. Another crop of rice which sprouted from the seeds scattered by the storm-a proof of the fertility of the land-came as a great consolation to the colonists; but the destruction of
* Balize means buov. It was on a pass at the mouth of the Missis- sippi.
.
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other food which could not be replaced brought upon them the affliction of a famine.
To complete the sum of disasters fevers broke out with great mortality, and the indomitable Bienville himself fell ill, and for a time his life was despaired of. But the city grew despite it all, and became, as it was destined to become, the centre of the colony, attracting inhabitants from all quar- ters.
After the bankruptcy of Law, his concessions upon the Arkansas became entirely neglected. Most of his colonists, seeing themselves abandoned by him, moved down to New Orleans, in hopes of finding a passage back to their native country. The council, not willing to lose them, gave them land on both banks of the river, about twenty miles above the city. It is still called from them the " Côte des Allemands " (divided between the parishes St. Charles and St. John the Baptist). The industrious Germans took to garden culture and soon supplied the markets of New Orleans with vegeta- bles. Every Saturday their little fleet was seen descending the river, loaded with their fresh green products.
Restoration of Pensacola to the Spaniards .- The ter- mination of the war with Spain, and a double marriage alliance between the two crowns, made the retention of Pen- sacola by France an impossibility. It was formally surren- dered by Bienville in the beginning of the year 1723.
Second Natchez War. 1723 .- The discontented Natchez tribes had gradually recovered from the crushing punishment inflicted upon them, and again influenced by either the English or by the Chickasaws, allies of the English, had commenced their depredations and ambushed assaults upon the French-attempts which had grown in boldness until fears were entertained for the safety of the post. After the usual rou- tine of conciliatory measures-summoning the chiefs to him, haranguing them, giving presents to them, Bienville saw him- self forced into an attitude more intelligible to the savage mind.
-
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in October he landed at Natchez with a small army of seven hundred men-regulars, volunteers and Indians. To give the villagers no time to rally or fortify, he began his march against them the morning after his arrival. "Stung Serpent," a noted- Natchez chief, still loyal to the French, hurried to Fort Rosalie, where the commandant slept, and confessed that the people of the White Apple, Jenzenaque and Gray Village were in a state of insurrection, and obtained from Bienville the promise that vengeance should strike only the three guilty villages. It was on All Saints' Day that the Army, with all precautions for a surprise, filed through the narrow paths of the forest surrounding the doomed White Apple village. They came to a mud cabin, before which were three squaws pounding corn. The women ran in and closed the door after them. Two or three warriors inside made a defence, but they were expeditiously killed and scalped and the women made prisoners. With the exception of some individual ex- ploits by Canadian and Indian scouts, this was the only war- like achievement of the French in the campaign. The White Apple village was found deserted; it was burned and the army returned to St. Catherine's Concession, whence they had set out in the morning.
A few days later, Bienville led his army against the Gray village, with the same results. The village and temple were burned. From a captured squaw it was learned that the In- dians were awaiting the French at the Jenzenaque village, a half league away. On this the army wheeled about, and a Tunica chief leading the way it marched toward the enemy. A strong cabin was discovered on a height, the fifes struck up, and the army forming into a square advanced. This cabin, like the others, was found empty. The Tunica chief, taking a turn around the height, perceived below him one of the enemy's chiefs, a Little Sun, who saw him also at the same time. Both took aim, and fired simultaneously. The Tu- nica chief stretched his enemy dead on the spot, but fell him-
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self, dangerously wounded at the instant. The army then again returned to St. Catherine. Bienville summoned Stung Serpent to him and they agreed upon a peace ; but the Natchez, not the French, were felt to have been victorious in the skirmish.
Bienville Recalled. 1724 .- There had been no more harmony between Bienville and the Directors-General, Hu- bert and Duvergier, than between him and the Governors, Cadillac and De l'Epinay. And, as in the former cases, dis- cords took the shape of charges and accusations. The sus- picion caused by the old stories of De la Salle and De la Vente had never wholly died out, and every dissatisfied official re- turning to France revived them by his versions of new tyran- nies and misappropriations of royal funds.
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