USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana, giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal and military history, mercantile and commercial interests, banking, transportation, etc. > Part 6
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The various tribes or bands of Indians, and the districts in which they were to be found at that period, are given by two writers who were residents of the Ter- ritory of Orleans during the first decade of the nineteenth century. These were Judge Martin, one of our early historians, and Dr. Sibley, of Natchitoches. Their accounts, though differing a little in detail, serve to supplement each other.
In his report, published by the United States government in 1806, Dr. Sib- ley divided the Indians of the territory into two classes :
1. Those who had migrated into the territory within the memory of men then living. These included the Alabamas, the Appalaches, the Conshattas, the Tensas, the Tunicas, Biloxis, Pascagoulas, and Paeanas.
2. The natives, e. g., the Caddos, the Natchitoches, the Adaize, the Ope-
* See Gayarre's Spanish Domination.
* No further mention of emancipation is to be found in Gayarre; but Dr. Sibley, writing in 1806, says the Indian slaves had been emancipated by the Spaniards.
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lousas, the Attakapas, the Choctaws, the Panis, the Houmas, and, he might have added, the Chetimachas.
The Houmas were in their old home on the left bank of the river, about sev- enty-five miles above the city. They numbered about sixty persons. The Ala- bamas, numbering about one hundred persons, were in the Opelousas district. The Appalaches, in small numbers, had settled on Bayou Rapide. The Conshat- tas, three hundred and fifty in number, were on the banks of the Sabine river, or in that neighborhood. The Pacanas were on Calcasieu river. The Tensas had returned from Mobile and settled on the Red. The Tunicas, numbering about sixty, were above Pointe Coupée. There were Choctaws, Biloxis, and Pasca- goulas in Rapides, on Bayou Crocodile and Bayou Boeuf. The Caddos were in their old home, and were able to put a hundred warriors in the field. Below them were the Natchitoches, who numbered one hundred souls. Near them was a small band of Adaize. The Opelousas, in the district of the same name, num- bered only forty men. Martin states that the Attakapas on Bayou Vermilion were nearly extinct, but Dr. Sibley says they still numbered a hundred souls. On Bayou Teche and on Bayou Plaquemine were a number of Chetimachas. Four or five hundred families of Choctaws, says Martin, were scattered through the Ouachita country, and, if the Spaniards had permitted, many more would have come over to the west bank of the river.
It will be seen that of the tribes mentioned by Du Pratz some were in their old haunts, others had disappeared, while a few new tribes had migrated into the territory.
The history of the Louisiana Indians during the nineteenth century may be briefly told. Under the American rule the trading post at Natchitoches con- tinued for a long period to be an important point of rendezvous for the Indians in upper Louisiana; and they brought thither, as in the old days, the fruit of the chase to exchange for the goods of civilization. Some of the tribes, of a more peaceful character, resorted to agriculture, and so far forgot the art of war that some of the chiefs used to express to Major Stoddard their regrets that the young men were growing up with no skill in battle, and even suggested that it might be necessary to provoke hostilities in order that they might obtain the needed instruction.
In the course of time the Chickasaws and the Choctaws in Mississippi were persuaded to leave their lands and to migrate to the Indian Territory. Here, forgetting their old enmity, they settled side by side and became prosperous .
1
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farmers. As large slave owners, they sympathized during the Civil War with the Southern Confederacy, and gave help to the Southern cause. In 1890 the Choctaws still numbered 10,017, and the Chickasaws, 3,129.
In Louisiana the number of Indians seems to be gradually declining. By the eensus of 1880 there were 848 scattered through more than ten parishes of the state, while in 1890 there were only 628 in about the same number of parishes. Besides bands of Caddos, Alabamas and Biloxis, there is a small tribe of Tuni- cas in Avoyelles Parish, near Marksville, who are said to keep up tribal organi- zation in an irregular fashion.
At Charenton, in St. Mary's Parish, there is still a band of the ancient Chetimachas, who maintained their tribal organization until 1879, when their last chief died. As in olden times, they are very quiet and inoffensive, devoting themselves to agriculture and the making of ingeniously woven baskets. In some cases the children of the tribe have attended the public schools, and the adults have exercised the right of suffrage. In January, 1900, the tribe brought . suit in New Orelans for the recovery of some lands that had been sold to resi- dents of St. Mary's Parish by certain members of the tribe without permission of the majority ; but the efforts of their lawyer to prove the sale unlawful were unsuccessful. Among these Chetimachas there is a large admixture of white, but not of negro, blood.
In St. Tammany Parish there still lingers a band of Choctaws. Many years ago they aroused the interest and sympathy of Abbé Adrien Rouquette, the poet-priest of New Orleans. When he died in 1887 he had devoted some thirty years of his life to missionary work among these Indians, and it is said that he met with great success ; at least, he won the love and respect of the sav- ages. They gave him the name of Chatah-Ima, or Choctaw-like-a name of which he was so proud that afterwards he used it as a nom de plume in his writ- ings. When he was dying in New Orleans the friendly savages brought him many little offerings, and around his bier they sat in silent grief for the loss of their white father.
From time to time some members of this tribe are to be seen in the markets of New Orleans selling their pounded sassafras for gombo filet. They always sit in a group apart from the bustling Creoles and Americans around them, as if there were no amalgamation possible with this white race that for more than two hundred years has been forcing the red man to retire before the onward march of its civilization.
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In Louisiana the Indian is doubtless destined to gradual extinction. Hemmed in by the more enterprising pale faces, his longing for free range of hill and dale is stifled. He has ceased to try to adapt himself to his new environ- ment; not for him are the arts of civilization. In Louisiana he stands a shad- owy figure handed down from the past, and his gradual disappearance in pathetic isolation cannot but touch a sympathetic chord in the hearts of those who know his history .*
CHAPTER III.
ADVANTAGES OF NEW ORLEANS.
BY NORMAN WALKER.
I T was predicted by Jefferson, when he purchased Louisiana, that New Or- leans, its port and capital, would become not only the greatest commercial city in America, but in the world; and he gave very good reasons for the prediction. He pointed out, for instance, that it was the natural port of the Mississippi Valley, which he foresaw was to become "the seat of a great and populous empire, and that all the varied product of that valley would find their way to New Orleans by a thousand streams ; while to the south lay Mexico, Cuba, and the tropics." New Orleans, therefore, lay at the gateway of the con- tinent, and could not be better placed to handle the immense trade that must spring up between the Mississippi Valley and the tropics on the one hand, and Europe on the other. Such produce as Latin America shipped to the interior could but be sent through New Orleans, and vice versa; and the people of the interior would, he predicted, find in the "Crescent City" the port they needed
* Among the works consulted in the preparation of this sketch may be mentioned Le Page Du Pratz's Histoire de la Louisiane; Gayarre's Louisiana; Martin's Louisiana; Claiborne's Mississippi; Stoddard's Louisiana; King and Ficklen's History of Louisiana; Winsor's History of America; publications of the Louisiana Historieal Society; Tonti's Narrative (in French); American State Papers (Indian Affairs), etc. Special thanks are due Mr. Wm. Beer, of the Howard Library, for his valuable assistance in gathering information, and to Mr. W. J. McGee, Acting Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, for several letters in regard to the Choctaw language.
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for the exchange of their products with Europe. Through that city, they would find the teeming millions of the "old world" receiving, in return, such manu- factured goods as Europe could turn out more profitably than America. La Salle had a slight conception of the future of New Orleans when he hoisted the French flag over the site of the city in 1684, and Bienville when he located his capital there, and pointed out to the French government the advantages which a location near the mouth of the Mississippi offered. He was more of a prophet than Jefferson, because, at that time, the Upper Valley was entirely unsettled and it required a very vivid imagination to foresee that within two centuries a population of thirty-odd millions would spring up in a country where only a few wild Indians roamed. In Jefferson's time immigration was pouring into the Upper Ohio Valley, and the produce of that section was already beginning to reach New Orleans by flat boat and barge. With wonderful prescience, the author of the "declaration of independence" looked a century ahead and saw what New Orleans ought to become. If this prediction has not been fully re- alized as yet, it is due to the possible accident which Mr. Jefferson allowed for. He could not foresee the fact that the invention of the locomotive would cause a temporary interruption in the commerce and progress of New Orleans, nor could he he imagine the civil war, which undid the work of a century. But what he said is equally true to-day as it was nearly a hundred years ago, when he said it. The commercial advantages of New Orleans are just as great now as then. The city has lost nothing in its opportunities ; it has simply not fully utilized them, because accidents have temporarily prevented it from doing so. From 1803 to 1840 Jefferson's prediction was in a fair way of being realized. Then, for forty years, there was a tendency towards an eclipse; but the eclipse is passing off now ; and the world is beginning to appreciate the fact that New Orleans is as well situated for commerce to-day as it was in 1803; indeed, an advantage which Jefferson did not foresee is coming to light-New Orleans is quite as well situated for manufactures as for commerce. If it utilizes all its advantages, it will become not only a great commercial city, "the mart of the continent"-as the political cconomists of a half a century predicted for it- but one of the world's great manufacturing centers.
New Orleans is to-day, and has been for half a century, the second port in the Union, its commerce, its imports and exports, being exceeded only by those of New York. As already remarked, it promised, at one time, to be the great port of America, and in the decade just preceding the civil war more than
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half the time it exceeded Manhattan in the value of its exports of American produets.
The special efforts of New Orleans for the last quarter of a century have been to recover the ground lost during the eivil war and the demoralized eon- dition of affairs that immediately followed it; and mueh has been aecomplished in that time towards developing the commercial advantages the eity enjoys and in fully utilizing them. Perhaps no port in the country has done more, in the last half dozen years, in the way of improving its transportation and terminal facilities than New Orleans.
New Orleans is situated 110 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River. Thus, while its ships are offered the most perfeet protection from storm and ocean disaster, it is a seaport in every sense of the word, with every facility for handling oecan eommeree and with water sufficient to float in its harbor the navies of the world. This harbor is reached by a permanent channel thirty feet deep; and, as the tide is never more than eighteen inehes, there is ample water for the passage of the largest vessel; and it is not necessary, as at so many other ports, to wait for a high tide to float a vessel in. Actual soundings. show a depth of 200 feet in the river in front of New Orleans, and it is nowhere less than 100 feet there. There is water sufficient alongshore and elose by the wharves to allow the largest vessel to land dircetly at them. Lighterage, which prevails at Buenos Ayres and many of the other great ports of the world, is alto- gether unnecessary at the "Crescent City."
The river frontage embraced in the port of New Orleans is about twelve miles on each side of the Mississippi, making about twenty-four miles which can be utilized for the purposes of eommeree; but, in addition to this frontage, there is considerable wharfage at Southport above, and Port Chalmette below, on the east bank of the river, and at Westwego 'on the west bank, none of which are within the corporate limits of New Orleans. Indeed, were there any need for it, the entire river bank from New Orleans to the Gulf, 100 miles, could be used for loading and unloading vessels. The average width of the river in all this distance is 2,200 feet, with plenty of water on either bank to float the largest ships in the world ; so that there is no difficulty and delay in vessels constantly passing up and down, as in the ease of the narrow channel of the Thames at London.
In the front of the populous portion of the eity on the left or east bank, extending from Louisiana avenue to Piety street, a distance of six miles, are
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wharves that have been recently constructed and are available for the handling of three times the commerce that New Orleans now possesses. The wharves extend from 100 to 200 feet into the river, and are built of heavy timbers capable of sustaining any weight. From these wharves or landings the bulk of the busi- ness of the port is handled.
The several railroad companies with termini at New Orleans have switch tracks extending along the river front, thus enabling men to handle their cars at the ship-side for both inward and outward cargoes.
At Southport, half a mile above the city limits, are extensive wharves be- longing to the Illinois Central and Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroads, at which large quantities of cotton, corn, wheat, lumber, cotton seed oil and cake, and other products are loaded into the steamers which moor directly at the landings.
At the foot of General Taylor street, the Illinois Central has established the Stuyvesant works, the most perfectly equipped in the country. There are two grain elevators, the largest in the South, and ample wharves and warehouses.
At Port Chalmette, just below New Orleans, the New Orleans & Western Railroad, which is practically a belt line for the city, has invested some $2,500,- 000 in providing the most complete terminal facilities, wharves, warehouses, cotton presses, elevators, etc.
Most of the warehouses, elevators and factories of the city are situated along the river front. At Algiers are several dry docks; and the United States proposes to construct an immense dry dock there for the repairs of its men-of- war, and has taken the initial steps in that direction by the purchase of the necessary land. It may be stated in this connection that a commission ap- pointed by the United States government for the purpose of choosing a site for the location of a dry dock, made a thorough investigation of all the Southern ports and decided that New Orleans offered far greater advantages than any other port on the Gulf or South Atlantic, having deeper, safer and better water, better protection from the enemy and being superior in many other ways to other candidates for the government dock.
While New Orleans does not control the commerce of the Mississippi Val- ley as completely as it did a century or even a half century ago, it has made great commercial progress, has developed new lines of commerce and seems disposed at last to fully utilize its advantages. It has built up, for instance, an immense grain trade and is competing for the position of the first grain port of the Union,
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having proved that it can handle the grain of all the country west of the Mis- sissippi on cheaper and better terms than any other port south or east. This grain comes both by rail and by river, and six large elevators in the city are required to handle it.
New Orleans has secured, as was to be expected, a monopoly of the tropical- fruit trade of Central and South America, and, indeed, all the commerce of that country. On the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua and Honduras, not only is the trade monopolized by New Orleans, but nearly all the capital employed there is supplied by this city, and, in fact, most of the real estate is owned by it. This means that New Orleans will be the chief beneficiary by the completion of the Nicaraguan Canal, as it is the nearest American port to the mouth of that canal.
Several tributes have lately been paid to the advantages New Orleans offers as a purchasing and shipping point. Thus, the Spanish government, during the war with Cuba, after establishing purchasing agencies in several ports, finally concentrated them all in New Orleans, and purchased and exported all of their supplies from that city, declaring that they could do so to greater advantage than from any other port in America. What was true of Spain in the Cuban war was equally true of Great Britain in the Boer war, the British war office having established a commission in New Orleans for the purchase of mules, horses and such supplies as were needed, while the Boers made New Orleans the port of shipment of such grain and western produce as they bought in America, the goods being shipped, because of the blockade against Transvaal, via Holland. Finally the Japanese cotton-mill owners sent a number of pur- chasers over to examine the advantages of American ports for the purchase and shipment of cotton to Japan, which commission, after a thorough examination of the subject, reported in favor of New Orleans, and vessels now sail from the "Crescent City" direct to Kobé and other Japanese ports, a distance of 14,000 miles ! by the Suez Canal, one of the longest voyages taken by vessels anywhere.
New Orleans has now direct steamship navigation with more than eighty of the leading ports in the world,-indeed, there is no port of any commercial standing with which it has not direct steamship connection. Most of these steamers engaged in trade, belong to regular lines and run on schedule time, whereas, of old, the trade of the city was largely in the hands of "tramp" vessels.
Steps are on foot to improve the facilities of New Orleans for handling commerce and to reduce the cost. It is proposed, for instance, to make it a
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free port, at which vessels shall pay no charge of any kind. This will be pos- sible in 1902, when the wharves of the city, which are now in the hands of a company, will become the property of the city again.
New Orleans offers the following advantages for commerce :
1. The largest system of great railroad lines terminating there, giving it access to every part of the country. These railroads, formerly inimical to New Orleans or lukewarm as to its trade, have come to see that their prosperity is dependent on the prosperity of the city, are laboring earnestly to hold up its trade, and have invested their capital in wharves, docks and other improve- ments advantageous to the commerce of the city, thereby showing their confi- dence in its future.
2. The Mississippi River atfording, with its tributaries, 17,650 miles of navigable water-way, all of them open three-fourths of the year, and mnost of them open the entire twelve months. These water-ways extend into twenty- nine states and territories, and the population living along their banks now exceeding thirty-two millions. The immense valley drained by these streams and which through them has constant and direct connection by water with New Orleans, enjoys every clime and produces every article, agricultural, mineral or manufactured, that mankind needs. In the North are the grain fields of Da- kota and Minnesota, in the West the mineral region of Colorado, in the East the coal and iron of Pennsylvania and Ohio and the manufacturing cities of that section, while the South offers the lumber of Arkansas, the cotton of Mis- sissippi and Texas and the sugar and rice of Louisiana.
The Mississippi and its net-work of tributary streams offers, free of all charge or cost, one-eighth as much mileage as the railroads of the United States, upon whose construction billions of dollars have been expended. It acts as a regulator of freight and prevents the railroads from advancing their rates as they can do to New York and the Atlantic seaboard; and it offers the cheapest mode of transportation for bulky articles, such as coal and timber, with the consequence that New Orleans receives its supply of fuel at less cost than any American seaport, while its sawmills and furniture and other factories receive their supplies of timber at a minimum cost. The river allows the barges to deliver their coal direct to steamships in the harbor, and offers extraordinary facilities for delivering materials to the mills and in loading products upon ships for export.
3. A splendid harbor, extending some twelve miles on both sides of the
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Mississippi, allowing steamships, steamboats and barges to come together, put- ting the shipping in immediate communication with the railroads and offering the finest opportunities for the transhipment of freight. The harbor is from forty to fifty feet deep immediately off the wharves, and 200 feet deep in the center of the river. This harbor is furnished with a fine system of wharves newly constructed along a large part of the frontage, supplemented by the dock and warehouses of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad above the city at Southport, the extensive wharves, presses and elevators of the New Orleans & Western Railroad just below the city at Port Chalmette, the wharves, eleva- tors, etc., of the Texas & Pacific Railroad at Westwego, just opposite the ter- minal facilities of the Southern Pacific Railroad at Algiers, also opposite the city proper; and the complete docks of the Illinois Central Railroad, in the very center of the river front, and known as the Stuyvesant Docks.
4. Deep water to the Gulf of Mexico, open at all times of the year and free from all danger of ice and storms, and promising still greater improvement when Southwest Pass shall have been jettied, improved and deepened, and an alternative route thus assured to the shipping, permitting vessels of thirty-five feet draft to reach New Orleans without a delay or hindrance.
5. Ample warehouse facilities, grain elevators and cotton-presses sufficient to handle all the warehouse and shipping business of the city, these establish- ments being located convenient to the trade, and rates of handling being fair and reasonable.
6. Railroad switches running from the trunk lines and belt-line railroads, into the factories both in the front and rear of the city, supplying them with such inaterials as they may need, and taking their output to market, at a minimum expense in loading, unloading, hauling and handling.
7. There is practically a belt road, in the New Orleans & Western Rail- road, which runs in the immediate rear of the city, extending from Avondale above, where it is proposed to construct a bridge across the Mississippi River, to Port Chalmette below, thus uniting the various railroads entering the city. The Illinois Central Railroad also enjoys belting privileges on St. Joseph street and Louisiana avenue; and the city council has undertaken to arrange for the continuation of a belt line along the entire river front, which will be owned by the city and controlled and operated in the interest of all the railroads centering there.
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8. Satisfactory labor conditions. The cost of handling goods has been very materially reduced of late by the utilization of labor-saving machinery and devices, instead of depending on rough manual labor as formerly. New Orleans has been but little interfered with by strikes, labor disturbances and similar economic obstacles, as compared with other ports, American and European.
9. The nearness of New Orleans to the chief interior centers of produc- tion, as well as to the Latin-American countries to the South, making it the port through which the products of the South and West can be marketed in the short- est possible time,-this question of time and expedition having become of late the most important element in commerce. A comparison of the differences in distance between New Orleans and its chief rival, New York, shows how great is the advantage in point of time the former possesses :
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