USA > Louisiana > Romance of the history of Louisiana. A series of lectures > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14
On the 12th, the two Indian chiefs were put to death, the two warriors having already met their fate on the 9th. When the Chief of the Beard saw that the moment had come for the execution of the sen- tence passed upon him, he ceased his death-song which he had been chanting for some time, and took up a sort of war-song, whilst he looked fiercely at the
218
WAR SONG OF THE
threatening muskets of the French, and at the few Indians of his tribe whom Bienville had detained to witness the death of the culprit.
War Song.
I.
" Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! A child is born to them of the race of their suns. A boy is born with beard on his chin! The prodigy still works on from genera- tion to generation." So sang the warriors of my tribe when I sprung from my mother's womb, and the shrill cry of the eagle in the heavens was heard in joyous response. Hardly fifteen summers had passed over my head, when long and glossy my beard had grown. I looked round, and I saw that I was the only red man that had this awful mark on his face, and I interrogated my mother, and she said :
Son of the Chiefs of the Beard, Thou shalt know this mystery, In which thy curious eye wishes to pry, When thy beard from black becomes red.
11.
Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! A hunter is born to them, a hunter of the race of their suns. Ask of the bears, of the buffaloes, of the tigers, and of the swift- footed deer, whose arrows they fear most. They tremble
,
219
CHIEF OF THE BEARD.
and cower when the footstep of the hunter with beard on his chin is heard on the heath. But I was born too with brains in my head, as well as beard on my chin, and I pondered on my mother's words. One day, when a leopard, whom I strangled, had torn my breast, I painted my beard with my own blood, and I stood smiling before her. She said nothing, but her eye gleamed with wild delight, and she took me to the temple, where, standing by the sacred fire, she thus sang to me :
Son of the Chiefs of the Beard, Thou shalt know the mystery, Since, true to thy nature, with thy own blood, Thy black beard thou hast turned to red.
III.
Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! for a wit- ted chief, worthy of the race of their suns, has been born to them, in thee, my son ; a noble chief, with beard on his chin ! Listen to the explanation of that prodigy. In days of old, a Natchez maid, of the race of their suns, was on a visit to the Mobilians. There, she soon loved the youthful chief of that nation, and her wedding day was nigh, when there came from the big salt lake, south, a host of bearded men, who sacked the town, slew the red chief with their thunder, and one of those accursed evil spirits used violence to the maid, when her lover's corpse was hardly cold in death. She found. in sorrow, her way back to the Natchez hills, where she became a mother ; and lo! the boy had beard on his chin! and when
220
WAR SONG OF THE
he grew to understand his mother's words, she whispered in his ear :
Son of the Chiefs of the Beard, Born from a bloody day, Bloody be thy hand, bloody be thy life, Until thy black beard with blood becomes red.
IV.
Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez! In my first ancestor, a long line of the best of hunters, of chiefs, and of warriors, of the race of their suns, had been born to them, with beard on their chin ! What chase was ever unsuccess- ful, when over it they presided ? When they spoke in the council of the wise men of the nation, did it not always turn out that their advice, whether adopted or rejected, was the best in the end ? In what battle were they ever defeated ? When were they known to be worn out with fatigue, hard- ships, hunger or thirst, heat or cold, either on land or on water ? Who ever could stem, as they, the rushing current of the father of rivers ? Who can count the number of scalps which they brought from distant expeditions ? Their names have always been famous in the wigwams of all the red na- tions. They have struck terror into the boldest breasts of the enemies of the Natchez ; and mothers, when their sons paint their bodies in the colors of war, say to them :
Fight where and with whom you please, But beware, oh ! beware of the Chiefs of the Beard !
Give way to them, as you would to death, Or their black beards with your blood will be red !
221
CHIEF OF THE BEARD.
v.
Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! When the first Chief of the Beard first trimmed the sacred fire in the temple, a voice was heard, which said, " As long as there lives a chief, of the race of the suns, with beard on his chin, no evil can happen to the Natchez nation ; but if the white race should ever resume the blood which it gave, in a bloody day, woe, three times woe to the Natchez ! of them nothing will remain but the shadow of a name!" Thus spoke the invisible prophet. Years rolled on, years thick on years, and none of the accursed white faces were seen ! But they ap- peared at last, wrapped up in their pale skins, like shrouds of the dead ; and the father of my father, whom tradition had taught to guard against the predicted danger, slew two of the hated strangers ; and my father, in his turn, killed four !
Praise be to the Chiefs of the Beard ! Who knew how to avenge their old ancestral injury ! When with the sweet blood of a white foe, Their black beard they proudly painted red.
VI.
Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez! When I · saw the glorious light of day, there was born to thein a great warrior, of the race of their suns, a warrior and a chief with beard on his chin ! The pledge of protection, of safety, and of glory stood embodied in me. When I shouted my first war-whoop, the owl hooted and smelt the ghosts of my ene-
222
WAR SONG OF THE CHIEF OF THE BEARD.
mies !- the wolves howled, and the carrion vultures shrieked with joy, for they knew their food was coming !- and I fed them with Chickasaw flesh, with Choctaw flesh, until they were gorged with the flesh of the red men! A kind master and purveyor I was to them, the poor dumb creatures that I loved ! But lately, I have given them more dainty food. I boast of having done better than my father : five Frenchmen have I killed, and my only regret at dying, is, that it will prevent my killing more !
Ha ! ha! ha! that was game worthy of the Chief of the Beard ! How lightly he danced ! ho! ho ! ho ! How gladly he shouted ! ha ! ha ! ha ! Each time with French blood, his black beard became red !
VII.
Let sorrow be in the hearts of the Natchez ! The great hunter is no more! The wise chief is going to meet his forefathers : the indomitable warrior will no longer raise his hatchet in the defence of the children of the sun. O burn- ing shame !- he was betrayed by his brother chiefs, who sold his blood. If they had followed his advice, they would have united with the Choctaws, with the Chickasaws, and all the other red nations, and they would have slain all the French dogs that came prowling and stealing over the beautiful face of our country. But there was too much of the woman in their cowardly hearts. Well and good ! Let the will of fate be accomplished ! The white race will soon resume the blood which they gave, and then the glory and the very existence
223
HIS EXECUTION.
of the Natchez nation will have departed forever, with the Chief of the Beard ; for I am the last of my race, and my blood flows in no other human veins. O Natchez ! Natchez ! remember the prophet's voice ! I am content to die, for I leave behind me none but the doomed, and I go to revel with my brave ancestors !
They will recognize their son in the Chief of the Beard ; They will welcome him to their glorious homestead, When they see so many scalps at his girdle, And his black beard with French blood painted red !
He ceased, and stood up before the admiring eyes of the French, with a look of exulting defiance, and with his fine athletic person, measuring seven feet high, and seemingly dilated into more gigantic proportions by the excitement which convulsed his soul. The French officer who commanded the platoon of soldiers, chosen on this occasion to fulfil a melancholy duty, gave the word, "fire !" and the Chief of the Beard passed into another world.
On the 3rd of August, the fortifications ordered by Bienville, had been completed, the Indians having strictly complied with the terms of the treaty. They did more : they not only furnished all the materials which had been stipulated, but labored with great zeal in cutting ditches, in raising the parapets and bastions of the fort, and in constructing the buildings required
-
-
224
BIENVILLE ERECTS FORT ROSALIE.
by the French. Stung Serpent even sent one hundred and fifty men to the French, to transport all their bag- gage, ammunition and provisions, from the Tunicas to the Natchez. On the 25th of August, Bienville found himself comfortably and securely established in the strong position which he had, in such a wily manner, obtained, as we know, from the Natchez. However, they appeared to have dropped all resentment at the mode by which Bienville had got such advantages over them, and they behaved as if they were extremely de- sirous to impress upon him the belief that they were delighted at his forming a settlement among them. Five or six hundred men of that tribe, accompanied by three hundred women, came one day to dance under the walls of the fort, as a manifestation of their joy at the termination of their quarrel with the French, and at the determination of the pale faces to establish them- selves among their red friends. Bienville invited the chiefs to come into the fort, and treated them with due honors. It is evident that the Indians wished to pro- pitiate the strangers whom they could not shake off, and whom, from instinct alone, they must have re- garded as their most dangerous enemies, and as the fu- ture cause of their ultimate ruin. But that they felt any satisfaction at the intrusion of these new comers, the knowledge of human nature forbids to believe. Two distinct and antagonistical races had met front to
225
CADILLAC SUPERSEDED.
front, and at the very moment they appeared to em- brace in amity, and joined in the carousing feast, the one was secretly meditating subjugation, and the other, resistance and revenge.
On the 28th of August, seeing no signs of hostility from the Indians, Bienville left Aid-major Pailloux in command of the new fort, which was called " Rosalie," and departed for Mobile, where he arrived on the 4th of October, with the satisfaction of having accom- plished the difficult task with which he had been charged. This was one cause of triumph over his ad- versary, Cadillac, but he there found another cause of gratulation in a letter to him from the minister of the marine department, in which he was instructed to re- sume the government of the colony, in the absence of De l'Epinay, appointed to succeed Cadillac. This was fortunate for Bienville, for he found his quondam supe- rior in a towering rage at his success, and at what he- called Bienville's execrable perfidy in taking forcible possession of the Indian chiefs, as he did. But Bien- ville contented himself with laughing at his impotent vituperation.
Before closing with Cadillac's administration, I shall briefly relate some other curious incidents, with which it was signalized. In 1715, a man by the name of Dutigné, who loved a joke, wishing to amuse him- self with Cadillac's inordinate passion for the discovery
11
ל
226
ANECDOTES OF CADILLAC.
of mines, exhibited to him some pieces of ore, which contained certain proportions of silver, and persuaded him that they had been found in the neighborhood of the Kaskaskias. This was enough to fire Cadillac's overheated imagination. Anticipating the realization of all his dreams, he immediately set off for the Illinois, where, much to his mortification, he learned that he had been imposed upon by Dutigné, to whom the de- ceptive pieces of ore had been given by a Mexican, who had brought them from his country. After an absence of eight months, spent in fruitless researches, he returned to Mobile, where he found himself the laughing-stock of the community. This was not calcu- lated to soothe his mind, and in one of his dispatches, in which he gave an account of the colony, he said :
" There are as many governors here as there are officers. Every one of them would like to perform his duties according to his own interpretation. As to the superior council of this province, allow me to represent to your grace, that its assuming the authority to modify his Majesty's orders, is fraught with injury to the royal interest, and precludes the possibility of establishing here a good government, because the language of its members smacks more of the independence of repub- licans than of the subordination of loyal subjects. 'I will or will not,'-' it shall or shall not be,' are words of daily utterance in their mouths. A governor must
227
ORIGIN OF THE QUARREL WITH THE NATCHEZ.
be clothed with power superior to any other, in order that he inay act with effect, and cause to be executed, with prompt exactitude, the commands of his Majesty, instead of his being checked by any controlling or op- posing influence ; which is always the case, when he is forced to consult subaltern officers, who are swayed entirely by their own interest, and care very little for the service of the king, or for the prosperity of the colony." These were stones flung at Bienville, at the commissary Duclos, and at the superior council, who threw obstacles in his way, and interfered with the ex- ercise of the absolute power which he thought that he possessed, because, as governor, he considered himself to be an emanation from, and a representation of the king !
On his way up the river to search for gold and silver, Cadillac stopped at Natchez. As soon as he was known to approach, the Indian chiefs came out in barbaric state to meet him, and, according to their usages, presented to him their calumet, in token of peace and amity. Highly incensed Cadillac was at the presumption of the savages, in supposing that he would contaminate his patrician lips with the contact of their vile pipe. He accordingly treated the poor Indians very little better than he would uncouth ani- mals, thrusting themselves into his presence. Ilis having departed without having consented to smoke
228
CHOCTAW CHIEF ASSASSINATED.
with them, had impressed the Natchez, who could not understand the nature of his pride, with the idea that he meditated war upon their tribe. Then, they resolv- ed to anticipate the expected blow, and they secretly massacred some Frenchmen who happened to be in their villages. Hence the origin of the first quarrel of the Natchez with the French, to which Bienville put an end, with such signal success, but with a little sprinkling of treachery.
It was not the Natchez alone whom Cadillac had of- fended. He had alienated from the French the affections of the Choctaws, who had always been their friends, but who, latterly, had invited the English to settle among them. Cadillac ordered them to expel their new guests, but the Choctaws answered that they did not care for him, nor for the forty or fifty French rogues whom he had under his command. This was the kick of the ass, and Cadillac resolved not to bear it, but to show them that the lion was not yet dead. After deep cogitations, he conceived, for their punishment, a politic stroke, which he carried into execution, and of which he informed his government, with Spartan brevity : "I have persuaded," said he, " the brother of the great chief of the Choc- taws to kill his sovereign and brother, pledging myself to recognize him as his successor. He did so, and came here with an escort of one hundred men. I gave him presents, and secured from him an advantageous peace."
-
CADILLAC'S REPORT ON THE STATE OF LOUISIANA. 229
Thus, it is seen that Cadillac, with a very bad grace, pretended that his tender sensibilities were shocked at the treatment of the Natchez chiefs by Bi- enville. In his case it was the eye with the beam finding fault with the mote in his neighbor's eye.
On the 22nd of June, 1716, the exasperation of Cadillac, who found himself in a hornet's nest, had become such, that he vented his feelings in these terms, in one of his dispatches : "Decidedly this colony is a monster without head or tail, and its government is a shapeless absurdity. The cause of it is, that the fic- tions of fabulists have been believed in preference to the veracity of my declarations. Ah! why is there in falsehood a charm which makes it more acceptable than truth ? Has it not been asserted that there are mines in Arkansas and elsewhere ? It is a deliberate error. Has not a certain set of novel writers published that this country is a paradise, when its beauty or utility is a mere phantasm of the brain ? I protest that, having visited and examined the whole of it with care, I never saw any thing so worthless. This I must say, because my conscience forbids me to deceive his Majesty. I have always regarded truth as a queen, whose laws I was bound to obey, like a devoted knight, and a faithful subject. This is, no doubt, the cause of my having stuck fast in the middle of my career, and not progressed in the path of promotion, whilst others,
230
CADILLAC'S PROCLAMATION AGAINST DUELLING.
who had more political skill, understood how to frame, at my expense, pleasing misrepresentations. I know how to govern as well as any body, but poverty and impotence are two ugly scars on the face of a governor. What can I do with a force of forty soldiers, out of whom five or six are disabled ? A pretty army that is, and well calculated to make me respected by the in- habitants or by the Indians ! As a climax to my vexa- tion, they are badly fed, badly paid, badly clothed, and without discipline. As to the officers, they are not much better. Verily, I do not believe that there is in the whole universe such another government."
It is not surprising that, under such circumstances, and with the ideas which fermented in his head, Cadil- lac should have thought that a terrible crisis was at hand. Laboring under that impression, he took refuge in Dauphine Island, where he issued a proclamation, in which he stated that considering the spirit of revolt and sedition which reigned in the colony, and the many quarrels and duels which occurred daily and were pro- duced by hasty or imprudent words, by drunkenness, or by the presence of loose women, he prohibited all plebeians from wearing a sword, or carrying other weapons, either by day or by night, under the penalty of one month's imprisonment and of a fine of 300 livres, to be applied to the construction of a church. As to persons of noble birth, they were to prove their
231
HE IS RIDICULED BY HIS ENEMIES.
right to wear a sword, by depositing their titles in the archives of the superior council, to be there examined and registered. Cadillac's enemies, and he had many, availed themselves of this proclamation to turn him into ridicule ;- they fabricated every sort of mock papers of nobility, to submit them to the superior council, the members of which, from ignorance or from a desire to annoy Cadillac, referred the whole of them to him, who, as governor, was their president. Sadly puzzled was Cadillac on these occasions, and his judg- ments afforded infinite amusement to the colonists. His waggish tormentors went farther, and pretending to have formed an order of chivalry, they elected him, in a solemn meeting, grand master of that order, under the title of the Knight of the golden calf. They de- clared, with feigned gravity, that this was done in commemoration of the wonderful achievements and labors of their illustrious governor in his researches for precious metals. This piece of pleasantry stung him to the quick; but he winced particularly at a song which, in alternate couplets, compared the merits of the Knight of the golden calf with those of the celebrated Knight of the doleful countenance, and gave the pre- ference to the first.
Cadillac was preparing to repress these rebellious and heinous disorders, when he received a letter from Crozat, n which the great merchant told him bluntly, that all
------
232
CADILLAC DISMISSED FROM OFFICE.
the evils of which he complained, originated from his own bad administration. At the foot of the letter, the minister of the marine department had written these words : " The governor, Lamothe Cadillac, and the commissary, Duclos, whose dispositions and humors are incompatible, and whose intellects are not equal to the functions with which his Majesty has intrusted them, are dismissed from office." I leave it to a more graphic pen to describe Cadillac's look and Cadillac's feelings when this thunderbolt fell on his head. Suffice it to say, that he contemptuously shook off his feet the colonial dust which had there gathered, and bundling up his household gods, removed himself and them out of Louisiana, which he pronounced to be hell-doomed.
At that time, there were only a few negroes in the colony, and they were all to be found about Mobile or in Dauphine Island. These were the only persons in whom some sympathy was discovered for the departing governor. This sympathy arose from a ludicrous cause. Cadillac had carried to America the fondest remem- brance of his home in Europe, and he loved to dilate on the merits of France, of his native province of Gas- cony, of the beautiful river Garonne, and particularly of his old feudal tower, in which he pretended that one of his ancestors had been blest with the inestimable honor of receiving the famous Black Prince, the boast of England. . There was hardly one day in the week
233
THE CURATE DE LA VENTE.
that he did not harp upon this favorite theme, which he always resumed with new exultation. There was not a human creature in the colony, with the exception of the Indians, who was not familiar with this oft-repeated anecdote, which had gained for Cadillac the nickname of the Black Prince. It became a sort of designation by which he was as well known as by his own family name; and the poor Africans, who frequently heard it, had supposed that Cadillac drew his origin from a prince of their blood and color. This was to them a source of no little pride, and to the colonists a cause of endless merriment.
There was another person who highly appreciated Cadillac, and who keenly regretted his dismissal from office : that person was the Curate de la Vente. No Davion was he, nor did he resemble a Montigny. With a pale face and an emaciated body ; with a narrow forehead, which went up tapering like a pear ; with thin compressed lips, never relaxed by a smile; with small gray eyes, occupying very diminutive sockets, which seemed to have been bored with a gimlet ; and with heavy and shaggy eyebrows, from beneath which issued, habitually, cold and even stern looks ; he would have struck the most unobserving, as being the very personification of fanaticism. When he studied, to qualify himself for his profession, he had, several times, read the Bible and the Gospels through ; but his little
11*
231
THE CURATE DE LA VENTE.
mind had then stuck to the letter, and had never been able to comprehend the spirit, of the holy books. Like a fly, it had moved all round the flask which contained the sweet liquor, without being able to extract the slightest particle of it. When ordained a priest, the Bible and the Gospels were consigned to oblivion. For him, kneeling was prayer, and prayer was religion. Christianity, which is the triumph of reason, because it exacts no belief but that which flows from rational , conviction, was, according to his conception, nothing but a mysterious and inexplicable hodge-podge of crude and despotic dictates, to be accepted on trust and sub- mitted to without reflection, discussion, or analysis of any kind : for him, thought in such matters would have been a grievous sin ; his breviary was the only book which he had read for many years, and he laid to his soul the flattering unction that he was' a pious man, because he minutely complied with the ritual of his church. He fasted, did penance, and never failed reciting, in due time, all the litanies. Thus, observing strictly all the forms and discipline of the Roman Cath- olic faith, he thought himself a very good Christian. But every man who did not frequently confess to a priest, and did not receive the sacraments as often as the catechism of his creed required, was, in his opinion, no better than a pagan, and was entirely out of the pale of salvation. Animated with the fierce zeal of a
235
THE CURATE DE LA VENTE.
bigot, he would not have scrupled, if in his power, to use the strong hand of violence to secure converts, and to doom to the stake and to the fagot, the unbeliever in all the tenets, whether fundamental or incidental, of Catholicism : for his religion consisted in implicit be- lief in all the prescriptions of his church, and his church was God. Hence, all government which was not the- ocratical, or bordering on it, he looked upon as an un- lawful and sinful assumption of power, which the church, by all means, was bound to take back, as its legitimate property.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.