USA > Louisiana > The history of Louisiana : from the earliest period, Volume I > Part 18
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 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
In the following year, the British cabinet determi- ned on vigorous and simultaneous attacks on Montre- al and Quebec.
...
The first was to be conducted by General Nichol- · son, successively lieutenant-governor of New York and Virginia; he was to proceed through lake Cham- plain. He led his force to Wood creek, where he was to wait the arrival of a British fleet at Boston, at which place it was to receive the troops destined to act against Quebec. The New England provinces, and that of New York had very cheerfully raised the men required for this service. The expectations, which this armament had excited in the British pro- vinces, were disappointed, in consequence of thefleet, which was to proceed to Boston, being ordered on another service in Portugal.
The success of the settlement, attempted in Loui- siana, not having answered the hopes of the court of France, it was determined to make a considerable change in the government of the colony. With this view, de Muys. an officer who had served with dis- tinction in Canada during the preceding and present war, was appointed governor-general of Louisiana : the great distance from that colony to Quebec, the seat of the governor-general of New-France, of which it was a dependence. had induced the belief that the former ought to be independent of the latter. Di- ron d'Artaguette was sent as commissary ordonateur, with instructions to inquire into the conduct of the
.
-
171
THE SEVENTH.
1711]
former administrators of the colony, against whom complaints had been made, to which the ill success of the establishment seemed to give consequence. The frigate, in which these gentlemen had embark- ed, arrived at Ship island in the beginning of the New Year. The governor-general had died during the passage.
D'Artaguette found Louisiana in comparative tran- quility. Vessels from St. Domingo, Martinique and La Rochelle, now came to trade with the colonists.
Early in September, a privateer from Jamaica, land- ed his men on Dauphine island, where they commit- ted considerable depredations. This is the first in- stance of hostility of white people against the colony.
On the twenty-fourth, General Nicholson with a corps of marines, and four regiments of infantry, arriv- ed from Boston, before Port Royal in Acadie. He immediately invested the town, which soon after sur- rendered: Its name, in compliment to the British queen, was changed to that of Annapolis. Colonel Vetche was left there in command.
The settlement near the fort at Mobile suffered much in the spring, from the overflowing of the river; in consequence of which, at the recommendation of d'Artaguette, the spot was abandoned, and a new fort built higher up. It was the one, which till very lately, stood immediately below the present city of Mobile.
The government of South Carolina prevailed again on the Chickasaws to attack the Choctaws. who were always the steadfast friends of the French. When intelligence of this reached Mobile, there were about thirty Chickasaw chiefs around the fort. Bienville, at their request sent Chateaugue, with thirty men to escort them home. This service was successfully
172
CHAPTER
1712 ,
performed, notwithstanding the Choctaws made great efforts to intercept these Indians.
The government of France from this period ceas- ed furnishing supplies to Louisiana, and trusted to the industry of private adventurers, to whom however, it afforded some aid. A frigate arrived in the month of September, laden with provisions by individuals ; the king furnished the ship only. D'Artaguette returned in her, much regretted by the colonists ; observations, during his stay in Louisiana, perfectly convinced him, that its slow progress could not be accelerated by Bienville, with the feeble means of which he had the command ..
.
In the summer, General Hill, at the head of six thousand five hundred European and Provincial troops. sailed from Boston for the attack of Quebec; on the twenty-third of August, a violent storm cast eight of his transports on shore near Egg Island. One thousand of his men perished: the ships were greatly injured; and this disaster induced him to return. In the mean while, General Nicholson had led four thou- sand men destined to the siege of Montreal to Alba- ny. The return of the fleet having enabled the Mar- quis de Vaudreuil to support Montreal, with all his force, Nicholson retrogaded.
A ship of twenty-six guns, under the orders of La- ville Voisin, came to Ship Island in the beginning of the next year. This gentleman had made a fruitless attempt to sell her cargo to the Spaniards at Touspe. He had brought to the viceroy letters, which he sup- posed would have insured his admission into the ports of Mexico; but through some mismanagement his scheme failed; not however, without his selling his cargo to some Spanish merchants, who engaged to re- ceive it at Ship Island. He grew impatient of wait- ing for them, and went on a short cruize towards St.
-
173
THE SEVENTH.
1713]
Antonio. Themerchants arrived with their cash, wait- ed awhile, and went away without seeing him.
On the arrival of d'Artaguette in France, and the re- port he made of the state of the colony, the king's council despaired of realizing the advantages which had been anticipated from it, as long as it remained on its former footing, and determined to grant the ex- clusive commerce of Louisiana, with great privileges, to Anthony Crozat. an eminent merchant.
The war was terminated by the treaty of Utrecht, on the thirtieth of March of the following year: by its twelfth article, France ceded to Great Britain, "No- va Scotia or Acadie, with its ancient boundaries, as also the city of Port Royal, now called Annapolis, and all other things, in the said parts, which depends on these lands."
There were at this period in Louisiana two compa- nies of infantry of fifty men each, and seventy-five Ca- nadian volunteers in the king's pay. The rest of the population consisted of twenty-eight families; one half of whom were engaged, not in agriculture, but in hor- ticulture : the heads of the others were shop and ta vern keepers, or employed in mechanical occupations. A number of individuals derived their support by mi- nistering to the wants of the troops. There were but twenty negroes in the colony: adding to these the king's officers and clergy, the aggregate amount of the population was three hundred and eighty persons. A few female Indians and children were domestica- ted in the houses of the white people, and groups of the males were incessantly sauntering, or encamped around them.
The collection of all these individuals, on one com- pact spot, could have claimed no higher appellation than that of a hamlet; yet they were dispersed through a vast extent of country, the parts of which
-
174
CHAPTER
[1713
were separated by the sea, by lakes and wide rivers. Five forts, or large batteries, had been erected for their protection at Mobile, Biloxi, on the Mississippi, and at Ship and Dauphine Islands.
Lumber, hides and peltries, constituted the ob- jects of exportation, which the colony presented to commerce. A number of woodsmen, or coureurs de bois from Canada, had followed the missionaries, who had been sent among the nations of Indians, between that province and Louisiana. These men plied with- in a circle, of a radius of several hundred miles, of which the father's chapel was the centre, in search of furs, peltries and hides. When they deemed they had gathered a sufficient quantity of these articles, they floated down the Mississippi, and brought them to Mobile where they exchanged them for European goods, with which they returned. The natives near- er to the fort, carried on the same trade. Lumber was easily obtained around the settlement: of late, , vessels, from St. Domingo and Martinique, brought sugar, coffee, molasses and rum to Louisiana, and took its peltries, hides and lumber in exchange. The colonists procured some specie from the garrison of Pensacola, whom they supplied with vegetables and fowls. Those who followed this sort of trade, by fur- nishing also the officers and troops, obtained flour and salt provisions from the king's stores, which were abundantly supplied from France and Vera Cruz. Trifling, but successful essays had shown, that indi- go, tobacco and cotton could be cultivated to great advantage: but hands were wanting. Experience had shewn, that the frequent and heavy mists and fogs were unfavourable to the culture of wheat, by causing it to rust.
The French had been unfortunate in the selection of the places they had occupied. The sandy coast
A
1
178
THE SEVENTH.
1713]
of Biloxi is as sterile as the deserts of Arabia. The stunted shrubs of Ship and Daupine Islands, announce the poverty of the soil by which they are nurtured. In the contracted spot, on which Sauvolle had located his brother on the Mississippi, the few soldiers un- der him, insulated during part of the year, had the mighty stream to combat. The buz and sting of the musquetoes, the hissing of the snakes, the croak- ings of the frogs, and the cries of the alligators, inces- santly asserted, that the lease the God of nature had given these reptiles of this part of the country, had still a few centuries to run. In the barrens, around the new fort of Mobile, the continual sugh of the nee- dle-leaved tree seemed to warn d'Artaguette his people must recede farther from the sea, before they came to good land.
It is true, during the last ten years, war had in some degree checked the prosperity of the colony, al- though during the whole of its continuance, except the descent of the crew of a privateer from Jamaica, no act of hostility was committed by an enemy with- in the' colony; but the incessant irruptions on the land of the Indians, under the protection of Louisia- na by those in alliance with Carolina, prevented the extension of the commerce and settlements of the French towards the north. Yet, all these difficulties would have been promptly overcome, if agriculture had been attended to. The coast of the sea abounded with shell and other fish; the lagoons near Mobile ri- ver were covered with water fowls; the forests teem- ed with deer; the prairies with buffaloes, and the air with wild turkies. By cutting down the lofty pine trees around the fort, the colonists would have unco- vered a soil, abundantly producing corn and peas. By abandoning the posts on the Mississippi, Ship and Dauphine Islands, and at the Biloxi, the necessary
173
CHAPTER
[1714
military duties would have left a considerable num- ber of individuals to the labours of tillage ; especially if prudence had spared frequent divisions of them to travel for thousands of miles in quest of ochres and minerals, or in the discovery of distant land, while that which was occupied, was suffered to remain un- productive. Thus, in the concerns of communities, as in those of individuals, immediate, real and se- cure advantages are foregone, for distant, dubious and often visionary ones.
According to a return made by the Marquis de Vau- dreuil to the minister, there were, at this period, in New France, including Acadie, four thousand four hundred and eighty persoas capable of bearing arms ; which supposes a population of about twenty-five thousand.
Charlevoix .- Laharpe.
1713]
THE EIGHTH.
179 1
CHAPTER VIII.
Charter .--- Lamotte Cadillac, Duclos, Lebas, Dirigoin, La- loire des Ursins .-- Superior Council .- Arrangements with Crozat .- His plans .- Misunderstanding between the new governor and Bienville .- Indians -Card money of Ca- nada .-- Part of the Choctaws drawn to the British .- Fort Toulouse .- St. Denys .- George I .- Lamotte Cadil- lac goes to the Illinois in search of a silver mine, and is disappointed .- The Choctaws are prevailed on to drive the British traders from their villages .- Massacre of the Indians in South Carolina .- Bienville reconciles the Choctaws .- Arrival of two companies of infantry .- Ma- rigny de Mandeville .-- Bagot .- Rouzant .- Bienville commandant-generul on the Mississippi .- Ships from La Rochelle and Martinico not allowed to trade .- Louis XV .- The Duke of Orleans .- The Cherokees attack the French on the Wabash .- Bienville goes to the Mississip- pi .- Has a conference with the Chaouachas .- Reaches Natchez .- Is informed of the murder of two Frenchmen, and demands the head of a Sun .- An Indian consents to die in his room, and his head is brought to Bienville, who refuses to receive it .- The same deception is attempted with as little success on the next day .- Six pirogues from the Illinois are prevented from falling into the hands of the Indians .- The Natchez kill one of their chiefs, who participated in the murder .- Bienville goes to their vil- lage .- He builds Fort Rosalie, and leaves a garrison in it .- One of Crozat's ships arrives at Mobile .- St. De- nys' return from Mexico .-- Re-establishment and new mod- eling of the Superior Council .- Ordinance relating to re- demptioners and muskets .-- Delery, Lafreniere and Beau- lien go on a trading journey to the Spanish provinces .- Dutisne goes with a detachment to build a fort at Nat- LOU. I. 23
178
CHAPTER
[1713
chitoches .- L'Epinai and Hubert, and three companies of infantry arrive .- New colonists .-- Trefontaine. Gimel, Dubreuil and Mossy .- The bay of Ship Island is stopped up .- Misunderstanding between Bienville and L'Epinai and Hubert .- Crozat's agents make a last but unsuccess- ful attempt to trade with Vera Cruz .- He surrenders his privilege.
CROZAT'S charter bears date the twenty-sixth of September, 1712.
Its preamble states, that the attention the king has always given to the interests and commerce of his subjects, induced him, notwithstanding the almost continual wars he was obliged to sustain, since the beginning of his reign, to seek every opportunity of increasing and extending the trade of his colonies in America; that, accordingly, he had in 1683, given orders for exploring the territory on the northern continent, between New France and New Mexico; and Lasalle, who had been employed in this service, had succeeded so far, as to leave no doubt of the facility of opening a communication between Canada and the gulf of Mexico, through the large rivers that flow in the intermediate space; which had induced the king. immediately after the peace of Riswick to send thither a colony and maintain a garrison, to keep up the possession taken in 1683, of the territory on the gulf. between Carolina on the east, and old and new Mexico on the west. But, war having broke out soon after in Europe, he had not been able to draw from this colony the advantages he had an- ticipated, because the merchants of the kingdom, engaged in maritime commerce, had relations and concerns in the other French colonies, which they could not relinquish.
The king declares that, on the report made to him
.
179
THE EIGHTH.
1713]
of the situation of the territory, now known as the province of Louisiana, he has determined to estab- · lish there a commerce, which will be very beneficial to France ; it being now necessary to seek in foreign countries many articles of commerce, which may be obtained there, for merchandize of the growth or manufacture of the kingdom.
He accordingly grants to Crozat the exclusive commerce of all the territory, possessed by the crown, between old and new Mexico, and Carolina, and all the settlements, ports, roads and rivers there- in-principally the port and road of Dauphine Island, before called Massacre Island, the river St. Louis, previously called the Mississippi, from the sea to the Illinois, the river St. Philip, before called Missouri, the river St. Jerome, before called the Wabash, with all the land, lakes and rivers mediately or immed- iately flowing into any part of the river St. Louis or Mississippi.
The territory, thus described, is to be and remain included, under the style of the government of Louis- iana, and to be a dependence of the government of New France, to which it is to be subordinate. The king's territory, beyond the Illinois, is to be and con- tinue part of the government of New France, to which it is annexed ; and he reserves to himself the faculty of enlarging that of Louisiana.
The right is given to the grantee, to export from France into Louisiana, all kinds of goods, wares and merchandize, during fifteen years, and to carry on there such a commerce as he may think fit. All persons, natural or corporate, are inhibited from trading there, under pain of the confiscation of their goods, wares, merchandize and vessels: and the officers of the king are commanded to assist the grantee, his agents and factors, in seizing them.
180
CHAPTER
[1712
Permission is given him to open and work mines. and to export the ore to France during fifteen years. The property of all the mines, he may discover and work, is given him : yielding to the king the fourth part of the gold and silver, to be delivered in France, at the cost of the grantee, but at the risk of the king, and the tenth part of all other metals. He may search for prescious stones and pearls, yielding to the king one-fifth of them, in the same manner as gold and silver. Provision is made for the re-union of the king's domain of such mines as may cease during three years to be worked.
Liberty is given to the grantee, to sell to the French and Indians of Louisiana, such goods, wares and mer- chandize as he may import, to the exclusion of all others, without his express and written order. He is allowed to purchase and export to France. hides, skins and peltries. But, to favour the trade of Canada, he is forbidden to purchase beaver skins, or to ex- port them to France or elsewhere.
The absolute property, in fee simple, is vested in him of all the establishments and manufactures he may make in silk, indigo, wool and leather, and all the land he may cultivate, with all buildings. &c .; he taking from the governor and intendant grants, which are to become void, on the land ceasing to be improved.
The laws, edicts and ordinances of the realm, and the custom of Paris are extended to Louisiana.
The obligation is imposed on the grantee to send yearly two vessels from France to Louisiana, in each of which he is to transport two boys or girls, and the king may ship free from freight twenty-five tons of provisions, ammunition, &c. for the use of the colony, and more, paying freight; and passage is to be afford-
1
-
4
1713]
THE EIGHTII.
181
ed to the king's officers and soldiers for a fixed com- pensation.
One hundred quintals of powder are to be furnish- ed annually to the grantee, out of the king's stores, at cost.
An exemption from duties on the grantee's goods, wares and merchandize, imported to, or exported from Louisiana, is allowed.
The king promises to permit, ifhe thinks it proper, the importation of foreign goods to Louisiana, on the application of the grantee, and the production of his invoices, &c.
The use is given him of the boats, pirogues and canoes, belonging to the king, for loading and unload- ing : he keeping and returning them, in good order, at the expiration of his grant.
The faculty is allowed him to send annually a ves- sel to Guinea, for negroes, whom he may sell in Louis- iana, to the exclusion of all others.
After the expiration of nine years, the grantee is to pay the field officers and garrison kept in Louisiana, and on the occurrence of vacancies, commissions are to be granted to officers presented by the gran- tee, if approved.
A fifty gun ship, commanded by the Marquis de la Jonquere, landed at Dauphine Island, on the seven- teenth of May, 1713, the officers who were to admin- ister the government of the colony under the new system.
The principal of these were, Lamotte Cadillac, an officer who had served with distinction in Canada, during the preceding war, who was appointed gov- ernor; Duclos, commissary ordonnateur; Lebas, comptroller ; Dirigoin, the principal director of Cro- zat's concerns in Louisiana, and Laloire des Ursins, who was to attend to them on the Mississippi.
182
CHAPTER
[1713
The ship brought a very large stock of provisions and goods.
The governor and commissary ordonnateur, by an edict of the eighteenth of December, of the preced- ing year, had been constituted a superior council, vested with the same powers as the councils of St. Domingo and Martinico; but the existence of this tribunal was limited to three years from the day of its meeting.
The expenses of the king for the salaries of his officers in Louisiana, were fixed at an annual sum of ten thousand dollars. It was to be paid to Crozat in France, and the drafts of the commissary ordonnateur, were to be paid in Crozat's stores, in cash, or in goods, with an advance of fifty per cent. Sales in all other cases were to be made, in these stores, at an advance of one hundred per cent.
Commerce was Crozat's principal object, and he contemplated carrying it on chiefly with the Span- iards. His plan was to have large warehouses on Dauphine Island, and to keep small vessels plying with goods to Pensacola, Tampico, Touspe, Cam- peachy and Vera Cruz. His designs were however frustrated ; the Spaniards, after the peace, refusing admittance to French vessels in those ports, on the solicitation of the British, to whom the king had granted privilege by the treaty of the Assiento.
He had recommended to Lamotte Cadillac, to whom he had given an interest in his concerns in Louisiana, to send a strong detachment to the Illinois, and towards the Spanish settlements in the west, to be employed in the search of mines and the protec- tion of his commerce.
The benefits, which the French government had anticipated from a change of administrators in Louis- iana, were not realized. An unfortunate misunder-
183
THE EIGHTH.
1714]
standing took place between the new governor and Bienville-the former being jealous of the affection, which the soldiers and Indians manifested to the latter.
La Louisiane, a ship belonging to Crozat, arrived in the summer, with a large supply of provisions and goods, and brought a considerable number of passen- gers.
In the course of the winter, deputations from most of the neighbouring nations of Indians came to visit and solicit the protection of the new chief of the colony.
Canada was so overwhelmed, by repeated emis- sions of card money, and the consequent ruin and distress was so great, that the planters and merchants united in a petition to the king, for the redemption of the cards at one half of their nominal value, offering to lose the other.
The British of Carolina, after the peace of Utrecht, gave a great extension to their commerce with the Indians near the back settlements of the province. Their traders had erected storehouses among the · tribes, in alliance with the French, as far as the Natchez and the Yazous. The Choctaws were so attached to the French, that they had heretofore refused to allow the British to trade among them. In the spring, however, a party of the British, heading two thousand Indians of the Alibamons, Talapouches and Chickasaws, came among the Choctaws; they were received in thirty of the villages : two only re- fusing to admit them. Violence being threatened against the minority, the Choctaws of these two vil- lages, built a fort, in which they collected, bidding defiance to their countrymen, the British and their allies. They held out for a considerable time : at last, on the eve of being overwhelmed, they escaped
184
CHAPTER [1714
during the night, and made their way to the French fort at Mobile, where they were cordially greeted.
While the bulk of the Choctaws were thus divert- ed to the British. the Alibamons testified their at- tachment to the French, by aiding them to build a fortress on their river. It was called Fort Toulouse.
Lamotte Cadillac, being disappointed in his hope of trading with the Spanish ports on the gulf, made in the summer, an attempt to find a vent for Crozat's goods, in the interior parts of Mexico. His object also was to check the progress of the Spaniards, whom he understood, were preparing to advance their settlements in the province of Texas, to the neighbourhood of Natchitoches. St. Denys was there- fore sent with a large quantity of goods, attended by thirty Canadians and some Indians, on this service.
In the month of August, Queen Anne, of Great Britain, died at the age of fifty, without issue, al- though she had given birth to nineteen children. She was the sixth and last sovereign of the house of Stuart. The crown, according to a statute for the exclusion of the children of James the second, passed to George, elector of Hanover, a grand-son of princess Sophia, grand-daughter of James the first.
The discovery of mines of the precious metals was a darling object with Lamotte Cadillac, and in the latter part of the winter, his credulity was powerfully acted upon. A man, named Dutigne, came from Canada, bringing from the Illinois two pieces of ore, which he asserted had been dug up in the neighbour- hood of the Kaskaskias. The governor had them assayed, and they were found to contain a great proportion of silver. Elated at the discovery, and eager to secure what he considered as a rich mine, he sat off for the Illinois, without disclosing the cause of his sudden departure, and had the mortification to
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.