Sketches, historical and descriptive, of Louisiana, Part 18

Author: Stoddard, Amos, 1762-1813
Publication date: 1812
Publisher: Philadelphia : Published by Mathew Carey
Number of Pages: 978


USA > Louisiana > Sketches, historical and descriptive, of Louisiana > Part 18


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The population of Upper Louisiana, if we take into view the commencement of it, may be considered as ra- pidly formed. The first settlers from Canada planted themselves on the east side of the Mississippi. Before the treaty of 1763, few grants of lands only were made on the opposite side of that river. These were mostly designed to embrace mineral riches; and as the surface of the country about the mines appeared steril and broken, the old inhabitants were not disposed to change their si- tuations. We have already seen, that St. Louis was founded in 1764, and that in 1766, in consequence of the inability of France to maintain her possessions in North America, much of the population was transferred to the


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. west side of the Mississippi ; and from this circumstance the settlements in Upper Louisiana derived their origin. 'I'wo subsequent causes served to increase this population, and to diminish it on the opposite side of the Mississippi. The first was the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude in what was then denomi- Dated the north western territory. The slave holders were disposed to preserve this species of property ; and to do it effectually they abandoned their ancient habitations, and joined their friends in the new dominions of Spain. The second was the rupture in 1797, when an attack from Ca- nada was projected on the Spanish possessions along the Mississippi. At this period, Spain was bound to evacu- ate all her military posts on the east side of that river to the north of the thirty first degree ; and Upper Louisiana was the only barrier she had to oppose the descent of the English. The distance of this province from the capital, added to a wilderness of nearly a thousand miles in ex- tent between them, seemed to point out the necessity of strengthening it; and she conceived it good policy to po- pulate it by the citizens of the United States, especially as they appeared disposed to act with vigor against the En- glish. Additional prospects, therefore, were held out to settlers, and pains were taken to disseminate them in eve- ry direction. Large quantities of land were granted them, attended with no other expenses than those of office fees, and surveys, which were not exorbitant; and they were totally exempted from taxation. This sufficiently ac- counts for the rapid population of Upper Louisiana ; which, in 1804, consisted of more than three fifths of En- glish Americans.


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It was customary under the Spanish government for each district to furnish an annual census of the inhabitants, with the number of births and deaths, the number of swine, cattle, and horses on hand, the various articles pro- duced by agriculture, and industry, as also those export-


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ed. The persons employed to furnish the census never took the pains to be-accurate ; and in consequence of this inattention the population was probably underrated, par- ticularly as its annual increase in many of the districts ex- ceeded what mere superficial observers had reason to ap- prehend. This is not the only difficulty in the way of ac- curately estimating the population. : No census was taken of some of the districts subsequent to 1800; others fur- ' nished them as late as 1803 ; so that we have no precise data for the population in 1804. It was, however, the general opinion at the latter period, that it exceeded elev- en thousand. This calculation is probably too high, as those who made it did not allow for deaths, and for the occasional removals out of the country. If therefore we estimate the population of Upper Louisiana at the time we took possession of it at nine thousand and twenty whites, and one thousand three hundred and twenty blacks, we shall not be very wide from the truth. The same de- . fects exist in the census of New Orleans, and in those of the several districts in Lower Louisiana. They enable 1 us, however, to calculate with some degree of certainty the annual increase of population from 1799 to 1804, when, by the best accounts, it consisted of about forty one thousand seven hundred whites, and thirty eight thousand . eight hundred blacks, besides several hundred people of mixed color. Hence the province of Louisiana, at the time we acquired it, contained about fifty thousand seven hundred and twenty whites, and forty thousand one hun- dred and twenty slaves ; total ninety thousand, eight hun- dred and forty, exclusive of the free people of mixed co- lor, who mostly resided in New Orleans, and were estimat- ed at about two thousand five hundred. 1:


In a country so young and so lately settled as that of Upper Louisiana, it cannot be expected, that agricultural experiments have been numerous or extensive. The first care of a settler is to raise the necessaries of life ;


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and beyond this his views do not extend for some years, because he is either destitute of slaves, or the markets are too distant to authorise the hopes of success. Until great- er industry and enterprise be excited, we shall hardly know what the soil is calculated to produce. . We have reason to believe, that cotton, tobacco, hemp, and rice, exclusive of the various kinds of grains, may be cultivat- ed to advantage in the district of New Madrid. Indeed, hemp and tobacco flourish extremely well in the more northern districts. Cotton produces very well in the neighborhood of St. Louis, where some of the farmers raise a sufficient quantity of that article to clothe their fa- milies. One of them, who emigrated from the state of Georgia, is of opinion, that the cotton raised in that state is longer, but not so fine as that cultivated on the high grounds by himself. He declines the cultivation of it on a large scale, as he is apprehensive that the summers are too short to authorise the hope of good crops, though, du- ring the three years he had raised this article, it ne- ver experienced any injury from the frosts. May not cotton by repeated cultivation, like many other articles, become in some measure naturalized to the climate ? To- bacco is an indigenous plant on the lower part of the Mis- sissippi ; and in no part of the United States does it grow larger than in Upper Louisiana, where it is cured and made into carrots for the Indian trade, and in this way it becomes an article of commerce. The people, howev- er, seldom use it when they can obtain any other ; per- haps because they are unacquainted with the manufacture of it.


Exclusive of the articles just mentioned, those more common 'to all the districts, and more generally cultivat- ed, are the following : Indian corn, wheat, rye, oats, bar- ley, buckwheat, and flax. The soil also produces all kinds of esculent roots, and culinary vegetables; a multi- tude of different berries and plums of a delicious flavor,


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all of which are indigenous ; cucumbers and all sorts of . . mellons grow in the greatest perfection. Sweet and Irish . potatoes are common to the country. Apple, pear, and peach trees have a rapid growth, and the latter are gene- ¿ rally so loaded with fruit as to break down. The peach- . . es are manufactured into brandy, and some of the farmers annually distil four hundred gallons of this spirit ; an ex- cellent substitute for foreign distilled spirits, the expense of which in a great measure prevents the use of them. Whiskey is also distilled from rye and Indian corn, ¿ which is mostly disposed of to the Indians, like the to -. bacco, in exchange for furs and peltries. The country is filled with wild grape vines of a large size ; some of them are seven inches in diameter, six feet above the ground, and they run to the tops of the tallest trees. They bear grapes of a tolerable flavor, especially when fully exposed to the sun ; and it is said that, in 1769, the settlers in the - Illinois country made a hundred hogsheads of good wine 'from them. "The grape vines imported from France and ·the south of Germany, and cultivated at St. Louis, flou- rish extremely well. ,


It has been found on experiment, that the bottoms are too rich for the culture of wheat, oats, and some other grains. These articles grow to an extraordinary height and size ; but they contract a rust about the time they are .in blossom, which prevents the formation of the edible substance. They are raised on the high grounds ; and the farmer is able to obtain thirty five and sometimes forty bushels of wheat from the acre, each of which will weigh from sixty five to seventy pounds. The bottoms are sui- table for roots and vegetables of all kinds, grass, corn, hemp, flax, fruit trees, and many other articles. When properly cultivated, an acre will yield a hundred bushels : of corn, and this is common. But from some cause or other, probably the heats and the want of slaves, tillage is much neglected ; most of the farmers only pass the plough


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occasionally between the rows of corn, and seldom make . use of the hoe ; and in this way they obtain from fifty to sixty bushels from the acre. All these bottoms are form- ed by the alluvious substances rolled down by the rivers, and will never require the aid of manure. Some of them on the east side of the Mississippi about Cahokia and Kaskaskia, have been under cultivation for more than one hundred and twenty years, and are at this time as fertile and productive as those of recent culture.


The country produces all the substantial provisions of life in abundance ; particularly mutton, fowls, beef, pork, butter, and cheese. It is common for a farmer to own from a hundred to a hundred and fifty head of cattle, and as many swine; nor ought this to be deemed extraordi- nary, when it is considered, that the rearing of them is productive of very little expense and trouble. The for- mer in summer subsist on the grass, with which the coun- try is covered ; and in the winter they retire to the bot- toms, where they find plenty of cane and rushes. The latter subsist on the mast found in the woods : and hence both the cattle and swine keep fat most of the year. No hay is necessary, except for such cows and horses as are stabled, and plenty of this is always to be obtained in the proper season from the prairies. 'The high grounds are seldom so thickly covered with wood as to prevent the ' growth of grass. They exhibit more the appearance of extensive meadows than of rude and gloomy forests. In 1803 large quantities of beef were sold for three dollars per hundred, and some for fifty cents less ; but since that period the price has gradually risen. When a farmer has an inclination to export a quantity of beef and pork, he carries his barrels and salt into the woods, and with his rifle he kills his cattle and swine, and packs away the . meat ready for market. 'T'he same practice is followed in most other parts of the western country. Considera- ble quantities of butter and cheese are also made for ex-


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portation, though the latter is of an inferior quality. In a country so fertile, and so well adapted to the raising of cattle and swine, the inhabitants have it in their power to live as they please, and to become opulent with little la- bor. - The greatest inconvenience they suffer is from the want of ready markets in their neighborhood. The cus- tom of exporting the surplus produce to New Orleans is not general. The raw materials and surplus produce of an interior country most usually pass into the hands. of · traders and merchants, and are by them exported. This practice has not obtained in Upper Louisiana, where men of this description mostly receive peltries, lead, and salt, in exchange for their goods. Hence the beef and pork, and other surplus items of provisions, as well as raw mate-" rials, are mostly conveyed to New Orleans by the origi- nal owners. .


- Part of the natural growth of the country has been cursorily mentioned ; but it is necessary to be more par -. ticular. Some species of trees are common both to the high and low grounds, and we shall endeavor to distin- guish them.


The low grounds produce the cotton wood, swamp maple, peccon, sycamore; aspin, pawpaw, annona, and willow. On the high grounds are found the persimmon, mulberry, chesnut, seven or eight kinds of oak, iron wood, and the crab apple. Common to both the high and low grounds are sugar trees in abundance, several kinds of walnut, several kinds of hickory, cherry, buck-eye, black and honey locust, three kinds of elm, gumtree, lyn, ' sassafras, nine bark, spice and leather wood, two kinds of ash, several kinds of poplar, beech, two kinds of , birch, dogwood, and the coffee tree. Near a hundred different kinds of trees are enumerated by some ; but the selection we have made will sufficiently explain the nature of the country, and the qualities of its soil. The country also produces the several species of wild nuts and berries


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commonly found in the United States ; likewise some of an indigenous nature, and a variety of medicinal plants, which are of importance to the people of those regions, and some farinaceous vegetables in use among the natives.


The forests are filled with about fifty species of indige- nous animals ; among which are the buffaloe, two kinds of elk, two kinds of deer, the roe, the bear, the beaver, the otter, two species of the fox, a species of the goat, the mink, the raccoon, the opossom, the rabbit, and seven kinds of squirrels. These forests also, according to the best accounts, contain about a hundred and thirty species of birds. The most useful of them are several kinds of ducks, three kinds of teal, the wood-cock, the plover, the pheasant, the partridge, the quail, the pigeon, the prairie hen, or grouse, the wild goose and turkey. Here the lovers of sport may be gratified at all seasons of the year; and epicures can be at no loss for variety and deli- cacy of food.


The rivers and lakes produce but few fish, and some of , them are of an indifferent quality. The carp and catfish are found in the large streams, and some of them are of a very large size. The perch, trout, and sunfish, inhabit some of the small streams and lakes ; but they are too scarce to be of any material use to the settlers. These are considered as a great delicacy ; and the price of them when purchased, is exorbitant. i


From the mouth of the Arkansas to the head of Tiwappa- ty bottom, a distance of about four hundred and fifty miles very few, if any stones, are to be found. This immense tract of country is wholly composed of alluvion, and this accounts for the scarcity of rock. The rocks make their appearance just below cape Gerardeau ; and in all the dis- tricts to the northward of that place more or less of them are to be found : sometimes on the margins of the rivers where they rise to a prodigious height, and sometimes on the more elevated grounds about the country. The vil-


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lage of St. Louis is almost wholly built on a rock, and the other villages generally have a supply of it in their neigh- borhood. As the country becomes settled, the want of this material will be felt, particularly as it is not scattered about in equal portions, but is rather confined to ridges, and to the banks of some of the rivers and streams. The" rocks in this country are almost universally of the calca- reous kind, and as universally deposited in horizontal stra- ta. Petrified testaceous shells, and coralline substances are found in various places on the Mississippi, particular- ly in the neighborhoods of Kaskaskia and St. Genevieve. 'These animal exuvia are always connected by a calcare -. ous cement. Petrified nuts and vegetables of various , kinds, as also the excrement of the buffaloe and other ani- mals are scattered about Upper Louisiana, and on some parts of the Ohio.


Perhaps it may not be deemed impertinent to give a sketch of the settlements on the east bank of the Mississip- pi, especially as these once belonged to the French, and were within the boundaries of Louisiana. The first set- tlements made by them in the country were at Cahokia, St. Philips, La Prairie du Rocher, and Kaskaskia. The first is situated nearly opposite to St. Louis, and contains about one hundred and twenty houses ; the second has become extinct ; the third is about twelve miles above. Kaskaskia, and contains thirty two houses. Kaskaskia is. situated about seven miles up a river of the same name, though not more than three miles from the Mississip- pi, nearly opposite to St. Genevieve, and about fifty five miles below Cahokia. This village was once considered as the capital of the country, and was rich and popu- lous ; even so late as 1772 it contained five hundred whites, and as many blacks: but it is now reduced to a- bout forty five families. The causes of this declension have already been detailed. In the time of father Char- levoix, 1721, this village contained a Jesuit's college. The .


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ruins only of this fabric now remain. All these villages were founded about the year 1683 by the unfortunate M. de la Salle, or by his followers.


'These villages, as also the intermediate settlements, are situated on a fertile bottom, which commences at the mouth of Kaskaskia river, and extends nearly to the Illinois, a distance of about eighty miles, and is from four to six miles in depth. That part of it along the Missis- sippi, about a mile in breadth, is covered with a thick growth of heavy timber ; the rest is mostly prairie. It is bounded in the rear by a lofty ridge of lime rocks, the front of which is in many places perpendicular, and el- evated to the height of one hundred and fifty to two hun- dred feet. This ridge commences below Baton Rouge, and approaches the east bank of the Mississippi in a va- riety of places ; it crosses the Chio at what is called the grand chain, about twelve miles above the mouth of that river, and extends along back of Kaskaskia to some dis- tance up the Illinois. This extensive bottom furnishes ex- cellent land, and a considerable portion of it is under good cultivation. The French mostly inhabit the villages, and the rest of the country is settled by English Americans. The lands back of the ridge are by no means indifferent ; many good settlements are formed on them ; and, in ad- dition to the other articles usual to the country they pro- duce cotton of a good quality,


While the French were in possession of the country, ; they built several forts. The one at Kaskaskia is almost wholly destroyed. They also had one on the Ohio, about thirty six miles from the Mississippi ; the Indians laid a curious stratagem to take it, and it answered their pur- pose. A number of them appeared in the day time on the opposite side of the river, each of whom was cover- ed with a bear skin, and walked on all fours. The French supposed them to be bears, and a party crossed the river in pursuit of them. The remainder of the troops left


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their quarters, and resorted to the bank of the river in front of the garrison to observe the sport. In the mean time a large body of warriors, who were concealed in the woods near by, came silently up behind the fort, and en- tered it without opposition, and very few of the French escaped the carnage. They afterwards built another fort on the same ground, and called it Massac in memory of this disastrous event; and it retains this name to the pre- .sent time.


Fort Chartres was built in the year 1720, and much re- paired in 1750. It is situated in the neighborhood of La Prairie du Rocher, and was originally about one mile and a half from the Mississippi. Its figure is quadrilateral, with four bastions, the whole of which is composed of lime stone well cemented. Each side measures about 340 feet. The walls are fifteen feet high, about three feet thick, and still entire. The stone walls of a spacious square of bar- racks, are also in good preservation, as likewise a capaci- ous magazine, and two deep wells very little injured by time.' Each port or loop hole is formed by four solid clefts or blocks of what is here called free stone, worked smooth, and into proper shapes. All the cornices and casements about the gates and building are of the same material, and appear to great advantage. The area of this fort is now covered with trees, which are from seven to twelve inches in diameter. ' In fine, this work exhibits a splendid ruin. It was originally intended as a place of refuge for the inhabitants of the adjacent country in time of war. Some years after it was built, the Mississippi broke over its banks, and formed a channel so near the fort, that one side of it, and two of its bastions were thrown down. This circumstance induced the English to aban- don it in 1772; and since that period the inhabitants have taken away great quantities of materials from it to adorn their own buildings.


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In summer the winds in Upper Louisiana are variable, though those from the south and south west are the most prevalent. Those from the north east and east are pro- ductive of considerable humidity in the air; and if they blow with violence they are usually attended with rain, probably because they pass over the great reservoirs of fresh water on the borders of Canada. Westerly winds are common; they cool the air, and render it less humid, and more easy of respiration ; they are sometimes attend- ed with thunder, and heavy showers of rain. These brace the system ; while those from the southern and o- ther quarters create lassitude and sluggishness. .


It is observed in the notes on Virginia, that, as we pro- ceed westward from the Atlantic, the heats gradually abate till we arrive at the summit of the Allegheny mountains ; . and that from thence to the Mississippi they gradually in- crease. As these mountains are much nearer to the Atlantic ocean than to the Mississippi, it seems to follow that the heats are greater at the latter than at the former place in the same latitude ; and this indeed is the fact. It is estima- ted, that these mountains are on an average, about two hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean. They stretch along through the back part of Georgia, and terminate in a cluster of sand hills near the line of demarcation ; But more to the northward they gradually diverge from the Mississippi, so that in latitude forty degrees north, they are about seven hundred and fifty miles from it. The Mexican mountains in the same latitude are rather more than six hundred miles to the westward of it; and from the known declivity of the country each way to it, deter- mined partly by observation, and partly by the rapidity of all the currents, we may readily presume that the Missis- sippi rolls its waters through an immense valley, and nearly at equal distances from two lofty and distant moun- tains on each side of it. It must be remarked also, that 2 H


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the atmosphere in Upper Louisiana is never refrigerated by the breezes from the ocean.


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The settlements in that country are between the thirty third and fortieth degrees of north latitude. The win- ters among them are much more severe than in the cor- responding latitudes on the sea coast. They generally set in about the twentieth of November, and continue till near the last of February ; though hard frosts, and even snow, are common in October and March. For three successive winters, commencing in 1802, the Mississippi at St. Louis was passable on the ice before the twentieth of December each year ; and it was clear of all obstruc- tion, with only one exception, by the last of February. In January 1805, the ice in that river rather exceeded twenty two inches in thickness. There is seldom more than six inches of snow on the ground at the same time ; but the severity of the weather at St. Louis, in latitude thirty eight degrees twenty four minutes north, is generally about the same as in the back parts of the state of New . Jersey. The mercury frequently falls below 0; and the - cold keeps it depressed as low as ten or fifteen degrees for several weeks during each winter.


If the cold in these regions in winter is greater than that in the same parallels of latitude on the sea coast, the heat in summer bears a proportionate increase. We can- not estimate the degrees of heat by any regular thermo- metrical observations, for any number of years : But in the summer of 1805 a thermometer was suspended in a large drawing room at St. Louis against a stone partition wall, and constantly in a current of air; and from about ' the last of June to sometime in August, the mercury fre- quently rose to ninety six degrees, and remained at that point for several hours in the day. The heats in this quarter while they continue are supposed to be more op- pressive than those in the Mississippi territory ; Owing,


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perhaps, to the greater concentration of the rays of the sun in the deep and spacious valley of the Mississippi. They continue, however, only about two months in euch year in Upper ,Louisiana ; whereas they rage with vio- lence for at least four months at Natchez.




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