USA > Louisiana > The history of Louisiana : from the earliest period, Volume I > Part 25
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This officer, coveting a tract of land in the posses- sion of one of the chiefs, had used menaces to induce him to surrender it, and unable to intimidate the stur. dy Indian, had resorted to violence. The nation to
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whom the commandant's conduct had rendered him obnoxious, took part with its injured member-and revenge was determined on. The suns sat in council to devise the means of annoyance, and determined not to confine chastisement to the offender ; but, having secured the co-operation of all the tribes, hostile to the French, to effect the total overthrow of the settlement, murder all white men in it, and reduce the women and children to slavery. Messengers were accordingly sent to all the villages of the Natchez and the tribes in their alliance, to induce them to get themselves ready and come on a given day to begin the slaughter. For this purpose, bun- dles of an equal number of sticks were prepared and sent to every village, with directions to take out a stick every day, after that of the new moon, and the attack was to be on that, on which the last stick was taken out.
This matter was kept a profound secret among the chiefs and the Indians employed by them, and par- ticular care was taken to conceal it from the women. One of the female suns, however, soon discovered that a momentous measure, of which she was not informed, was on foot. Leading one of her sons to a distant and retired spot, in the woods, she upbraided him with his want of confidence in his mother, and artfully drew from him the details of the intended at- tack. The bundle of sticks for her village had been deposited in the temple, and to the keeper of it, the care had been entrusted of taking out a stick daily .- Having from her rank access to the fane at all times, she secretly, and at different moments, detached one or two sticks and then threw them into the sacred fire. Unsatisfied with this, she gave notice of the im- pending danger to an officer of the garrison, in whom she placed confidence. But the information was either disbelieved or disregarded.
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An accidental circumstance concurred to destroy the intended concert, by hastening the attack, with- out preventing its success. In the latter part of No- vember 1729, several boats reached the landing from New Orleans, loaded with a considerable quantity of goods. provisions and ammunition. Deceived by the artifice of the female sun, or tempted by the arrival of the boat, the Natchez in the neighbourhood de- termined on a sudden attack, before the day that had been designated.
For this purpose, a number of them equal to that of the French in the fort and on the two grants, went into these places, while another party, pretend- ing they were preparing for a great hunting expedi- tion, asked the loan of a few pieces and offered to pay for some powder and shot. They bartered, in this way, a quantity of corn and fowls. A supply being thus obtained, the attack was begun at nine o'clock, each Indian among the French falling on his man. Before noon, upwards of two hundred of the latter were massacred, ninety-two women and one hun- dred and fifty-five children were made prisoners.
The principal persons who then fell were Chepar, the commandant, Laloire, the principal agent of the company in the post, Kollys father and son, who hav- ing purchased Hubert's grant on St. Catherine Creek had just arrived to take possession of it, Bailly, Cor- dere, Desnoyers, Longpre, and father Poisson, the Jesuit Missionary of the Yazous, who was accidental- ly there. Two white men only were spared ; a car- penter and a tailor-the Indians. imagining they might be useful. No injury was done to any negro.
During the massacre, the great sun with appear- ' ant unconcern, smoaked his pipe, in the company's warehouse. His men bringing the heads of the offi- cers, placed that of Chepar near him, and those of
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the rest around it." Their bodies and those of the other Frenchmen were left the prey of vermin and buzzards.
The savage foe ripped open the bellies of preg- · nant women, and killed those who had young child- ren, whose cries importuned them.
As soon as the Great Sun was informed there did not remain a white man alive, except the carpenter and tailor, he ordered the pillage to begin. The warehouse, fort, dwelling houses and the boats were ransacked ; the negroes being employed in bringing out the plunder. It was immediately divided, except the arms and ammunition, which were kept for pub- lic use.
As long as the liquor lasted, the nights were spent in gambols and carousing, and the days in barba- rous and indecent insults, on the mangled bodies of the victims.
Two soldiers, who were accidentally in the woods during the tragedy, heard of it on their way back, and sat off by land to carry the sad tidings of it to New Orleans. . Perishing with hunger, fatigue and cold, they approached late at night, during a heavy rain, a cabin, from which their ears were saluted with the . yells of Indians : they determined on entering it, rather than to remain exposed during the rest of the night to the pelting tempest, and were agreeably surprised to find themselves with a party of Yazous, returning from a friendly visit to the Oumas.
They were supplied with a pirogue, blankets and provisions and requested to assure Perrier the Yazous would ever remain steadfast in their friendship for the French, that they would proceed up the river . and warn every white man they should meet of the impending danger.
This humane disposition, however, vanished, when LOU. I. , 35
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on their reaching the Natchez, presents were made them of a part of the spoil. They suffered them- selves to be prevailed on to imitate the latter.
Father Soulet, the missionary of the Natchez, was returning from an excursion in the woods, when he . was shot near his cabin. His negro attempted to prevent the pillage of his goods; but the Indians im- mediately dispatched him.
They proceeded, on the next day, to Fort St. Peter, of the Yazous. There were but fourteen men in it, under the orders of the Chevalier des Roches. They were massacred with their chief. Two women and five children were carried into slavery.
Some of the Indians had put on the chaplain's clothes and even the sacerdotal vestments. These headed their countrymen back to the village of the Natchez, who soon discovered from the fantastic dress and gestures of the Yazous, that they had imitated their example and destroyed every white man among them.
Father Doutrelau, the missionary of the Arkansas, availing himself of the leisure of the hunting season, to make a trip to New Orleans, was descending the river, having left his mission on new-year's day. He intended to stop and say mass, at Father Soulet's, of whose death he was ignorant; but being unable to arrive in time, he had stopped at the mouth of the little river of the Yazous, and begun his arrangements for the celebrating of the holy mysteries. He was dressing his altar, when a pirogue full of Indians ap- proached. On being hailed, they answered they were Yazous and friends of the French. They came ashore and shook hands, with the holy man and his companions. A flock of ducks passing over, the fath- er's fellow , travellers fired at them, without taking the precaution of reloading their pieces; this im-
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prudence did not escape the attention of the Indians, who placed themselves behind them, as if intending to join in their devotions. The first psalm was hardly finished, before a discharge of the pieces of the In- dians wounded the father in the arm, and killed one of the men, who were waiting on him. The other Frenchmen, seeing their companion dead and the father wounded, imagining he had met the same fate, fled to their pirogue; but, his wound being a flesh one only, he soon rose and running to the river, with the sacerdotal vestments on, got on board. The In- dians fired again : one of the men had his thigh broke and the father received another small injury.
The pirogue was drifting: the Indians, running along the shore, continued their fire, but without do- ing any more mischief. The French stopped, as soon as they were out of the reach of a ball, to wash the wounds of their men, and then pushed for the settlement of the Natchez.
On their arrival, seeing the houses burnt or thrown down, they did not suffer themselves to be prevailed on to land, by the invitation of the Indians, who hail- ed them, and soon substituted the fire of their arms, to the calls of friendship and hospitality. They de- termined on avoiding either shore, till they reach- ed New Orleans, and began to apprehend that on their arrival there, they would find it necessary to drift to the Balize. On the event of the dire catas- trophe, which began at the Yazous, having continued down to the lower settlement on the river, they hoped to find, on board of the shipping, some person escaped from the general massacre.
As they approached bayou Tunica, they rowed close to the opposite shore, but were discovered, and a pirogue left the landing to reconnoitre them. They pulled faster, but it gained on them: on hearing
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French spoken on board, joy succeeded to alarm. Crossing the stream with their countrymen, they soon found themselves in the middle of a small force gath- ered from Pointe Coupee, Baton Rouge and Manshac. They were friendly received: surgeons attended their wounds, and all were accommodated with room, in a large and commodious boat, that was going to New Orleans for provisions.
As soon as information of the massacre reached the city, Perrier despatched one of the company ships that were in the colony, to France, for troops and succour. He sent courriers to the Illinois, by Red River and to Mobile, the Choctaws and the country watered by the Tennessee and Kentucky rivers, on the other side. Emissaries went also to the Indian tribes in alliance with the French. Every house in the city, and the plantations near it, was supplied with arms and ammunition out of the company's magazine, and the two remaining ships were directed to proceed as far as bayou Tunica, for the reception and safe- ty of women and children, in the last extremity. The city was surrounded by a wide ditch, and guards were put at each corner. There were then small forts at the Tchapitoulas, Cannes brulees, the German Coast, Manshac and Pointe Coupee.
Perrier had collected about three hundred soldiers; having sent for those at Fort St. Louis and Fort Conde. Three hundred men of the militia had join- ed this force, and he was preparing to march at their head, when it was discovered that the negroes on the plantations evinced symptoms of an intention of join- ing the Indians against their masters, in the hope of obtaining their liberty, as some had done at the Natchez. There were then nearly two thousand blacks in the colony, a number equal to one half of the French, but the most of them were in or at a short
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distance above the city, where their number perhaps preponderated over that of the French. The com- pany had a gang of two hundred and sixty, on their plantation, and there were less, but yet very conside- rable, gangs on some of the principal grants. A few parties of vagrant Indians were hovering around the city, and greatly excited the alarms of its inhabitants. Perrier, therefore, gave the command of this small army to the chevalier de Loubois, and sent onwards an officer of the name of Mispleix, to procure infor- mation of the strength and motions of the enemy.
Lesueur, who had gone to the Choctaws, collected seven hundred warriors of that nation and led them across the country.
Mispleix landed at the Natchez on the twenty- fourth of January, with five men. The Indians had noticed the approach of this small party : they fired on it and killed three men and made Mispleix and - the other two prisoners.
Loubois was advancing : his force had been swell- ed at bayou Tunica by the militia of Manshac, Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupee and a few Indians. The Natchez, apprised of this by their runners, des- patched some of their chiefs to meet, and offer peace to Loubois.
Their pretentions were high ; they required that Broutin, who had before been in command at Fort Rosalie, and the principal chief of the Tunica Indi- ans should be sent as hostages. They demanded for the ransom of the women and children in their possession, two hundred barrels of powder, two thou- sand flints, four thousand weight of balls, two hundred knives and as many axes, hoes, shirts, coats, pieces of linen and ginghams, twenty coats laced on every seam, and as many laced hats with plumes, twenty barrels of brandy, and as many of wine. Their intention was
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to have murdered the men, coming up with these goods.
On the day after the departure of these chiefs, they burnt Mespleix and his two companions.
Lesueur, with his Choctaw force, which on the way had been increased to twelve hundred, arrived on the twenty-eighth, in the evening. Runners, whom he had sent ahead, met him with the information, that the Natchez were not at all aware of his approach, quite out of their guard, and spending their time in dancing and carousing. The intelligence soon spreading in Loubois' camp, he was absolutely unable to retain his Indians, as he was ordered to do, until he was join- ed by Loubois, with the army from New Orleans.
At day break, on the twenty-ninth, the Choctaws. in spite of their leader's entreaties, fell on the Natch- ez, and after a conflict of about three hours, brought away sixty scalps, and eighteen prisoners-they liber- ated the carpenter and tailor, with fifty-one women and children, and one hundred and six negroes. They had only two men killed, and eight wounded. After the battle, they encamped on St. Catherine's creek.
The issue of this attack inspired the Natchez with terror. They upbraided the Choctaws for their per- fidy and treachery; attesting their solemn promise to join in the conspiracy and afford their aid, in the to- tal destruction of the French.
Loubois came up on the eighth of February. The six hundred men of the regular force and militia. he had taken at New Orleans, had been joined on the way to bayou Tunica by one hundred others, and had found there two hundred French ; and three hundred Indians of the Oumas, Chetimachas and Tunicas had joined the army on its march to the Natchez, so that it consisted of upwards of fourteen hundred men,
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mostly white. The impatience and indocility of the friendly Indians, the now great relative number of the red people, the fatigue of the march, the scarcity of ammunition, which the Indians either wasted or pur- loined, the strong resistance of the Natchez, who had entrenched themselves and fought like desperadoes, induced Loubois, on the seventh day after the open- ing of the trenches, to listen to the proposals of the besieged, who threatened, if he persisted, to burn the white women and children still in their possessi- on, and offered to surrender them, if the eleven field pieces he had were withdrawn. There were not in the whole army one man that could manage them, and the only hope entertained of them was, that they might scare the Indians.
On the twenty-fifth, the terms were accepted ; and all the prisoners being sent to Loubois' camp, the ar- my moved to the bluff and erected a small fort to keep the Indians in awe, and protect the navigation of the river.
· Loubois deemed it necessary, before the departure of the army, to make an example of three of the ne. groes, who had been the most active and forward in inducing the rest to join the Natchez. They were ac- cordingly delivered to the Choctaws, who burnt them with a cruelty that inspired the others with the great- est horror for the Indians, and the resort to which certainly found an apology in the circumstances of the case.
The inhabitants of New Orleans received with open arms, in the bosom of their families, the widows and children of their friends, who had fallen under the tomahawk of the Natchez. Benevolence reliev- ed their wants, and tenderness ministered those suc- cours, which protracted captivity and, sufferings called for. The nuns opened their cloister to the
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orphans of their sex; those of the other were divided into the families of the easy and affluent, and many a matron listened to solicitations to put an early end to her widowhood.
The Chickasaws had offered an asylum in their na- tion to the Natchez; it had been accepted by a num- ber of them. Having thus aided the enemies of the French, they sought to increase their number, and sent emissaries to the Illinois to induce them to join in the common cause. These Indians replied they would assist their white friends on the Mississippi with all their might, and they sent a deputation to Perrier to assure him of the dependence he could put in their nation, of their sorrow at the catastrophe at the Natchez, and their readiness to lose their lives in the defence of his countrymen.
They returned in the latter part of June to join the Arkansas, in order to fall on the Yazous and Coroas. A party of the latter, going to the Chickasaws, were met by one of the Tchaoumas and Choctaws, who kil- led eighteen of them, and released some French wo- men and children, they were carrying away. A few days after, a number of Arkansas fell on a party of the Yazous. scalped four men, and took four women, whom they led into captivity. Returning homewards they met several Canadian families going to New Or- leans; they bewailed with them the disaster of their countrymen, and particularly the death of father Pois- son, who had been their missionary before he moved to the Yazous : they vowed that, as long as an Arkan- 'sas lived, the Natchez would have an enemy.
While the northernmost tribes remained thus attach- ed tothe French, the smallest ones near the sea, recei- ved emissaries from the Chickasaws, and-suffered themselves to be deluded, so far as to admit among themselves parties of wandering Indians, who much
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distressed the planters, and greatly alarmed the inha- bitants of the city. The Chouachas, a very small tribe, who originally occupied the margin of lake Bar- ataria, had removed to that of the Mississippi, a lit- tle below the city, near the English turn, and had pro- ved themselves useful to the French, when they be- gan to occupy the ground on which New Orleans now stands. They were suspected of being under the in- fluence of the Chickasaws, and had become obnox- ious to the colonists. Their annihilation was judged indipsensable to the tranquillity of the country, and was determined on. The slaves of the neighbouring plantations were incautiously employed in this ser- vice, under the idea that the warfare would sow be- tween them and the Indians, the seeds of such mutu- al hatred, as would ever prevent a coalition between the red and black people. The negroes acquitted themselves with great fury ; indiscriminately massa- creing the young and the old, the male and the ten- derer sex.
On the tenth of August, the people of New Orleans received the pleasant intelligence of the arrival at the Balize a few days before, of a company's ship with troops and succour, under the orders of Perrier de Salvert, a brother of the commandant general. . Much of their joy however was abated when it be- came known that there were but three companies of marines on board, each of sixty men.
The company kept in the province six hundred and fifty men of French troops, and two hundred of the Swiss. With this reinforcement, the total barely exceeded one thousand men-a relatively powerful body, if there had been but one settlement to pro- tect; but a very insufficient one, while the establish. ments were sprinkled over a wide extended territory.
Chagrined at this disappointment, the commandant LOU. r. 36
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general made an excursion to Mobile to seek aid among the friendly tribes near Fort Conde.
On his return, he issued a proclamation conjuring every able bodied man, not already under arms, to buckle a knapsack on his back, put a musket on his shoulder and join the army. But little could be ex- pected from this appeal ; the whole militia from the Alibamons to the Cadodquious and from the Balize to the Wabash, not exceedingeight hundred men.
Most of the Natchez Indians, who had not gone over to the Chickasaws, had crossed the Mississippi. and marched through the country of the Washi- tas to the neighbourhood of the Natchitoches, and on Black river.
The departure of the army was delayed by a most di-tressing event. The negroes who had been em- ployed in destroying the Chouachas, in returning to their labours, began to feel more sensibly the weight and the success of the ferocity they had of their chain exercised against the Indians. gave a hope that liberty might be the result of a similar at- tempt upon the French. But, their views were dis- covered, and the arrest and execution of their lea- ders warded for a while the impending blow.
The Arkansas had promised to come down and join Perrier's force. He now sent a Canadian of the name of Coulange to meet them, and di- rected Beaulieu to proceed to Red river and obtain information of the spot to which the enemy had re- tired, his force and intended movements.
Perrier de Salvert, with the van-guard of the army. embarked on the thirteenth of November. It con- sisted of the three companies of the marines, a few volunteers and Indians; in all about two hundred and fifty. The commandant general sat off two days af. ter with the main body, not larger than the van, com-
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posed of regulars and volunteers. Benac, who com- manded the militia, led the rear, which did not ex- ceed one hundred and fifty. The late alarm render- ed it necessary that the forts should continue to be well garrisoned, to insure tranquillity and awe the slaves.
The army stopped on the right side of the Missis- sippi, opposite to Bayou Manshac, where a Colapissa chief led forty warriors. It now consisted of about seven hundred men.
Lesueur was sent forward and ordered to ascend Red river. On his way, he received the painful in- telligence of the Natchez having surprised Coulange and Beaulieu, killed the former and wounded the latter. Of the twenty-five men who accompanied them, sixteen had been killed or wounded. The Arkansas had come down, according to their promise ; but not hearing of the army, grew impatient and return- ed. He immediately communicated the intelligence to his chief.
Perrier, having ordered the army to proceed to the mouth of Red river, stopped at Bayou Tunica, to join the Indians, who had been directed to rendezvous there ; one hundred and fifty warriors only met him. He joined the army with these on the fourth of Jan- uary.
His whole force now consisted of about one thou- sand men. He ascended Red and Black rivers, and on the twentieth came in sight of one of the enemy's forts, on the banks of the latter. The trenches were immediately opened, and the artillery landed on the following day." On the next, the enemy made a sally, wounded an officer, and killed a soldier and a negro. On the twenty-fifth, a white flag was hoisted on the fort and a similar one displayed on the trenches ; soon after, an Indian came out with a calumet, suing for
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peace and offering to surrender every negro in the fort. Perrier told him he would receive the negroes. and if the Indians wished for peace, they should send the chiefs to speak with him. The messenger replied the chiefs would not come out; but if Perrier would come forth to the head of the trenches, the chiefs would meet him there. He was directed to go and fetch the negroes, and an answer would be given on his return.
Half an hour after, he brought eighteen negro men and one woman, and said the chiefs would not come out-that peace was wanted, and if the army would return, hostilities would cease. Perrier replied no proposal would be listened to, until the chiefs came to speak with him, and if they did not, the attack would be resumed, and quarters given to no one.
The messenger went back, and returning soon after, said the warriors insisted on the chiefs not coming out, and except on this head, were ready to accede to any proposition. Perrier told him the cannon were ready, and he still insisted on the chiefs coming out-that if they compelled him to fire, he would not stop till the fort was blown to atoms, and no one would be spared.
On the man's return, a Natchez Indian, of the name of St. Come, a son to the head female sun, and as such heir to the sunship, who had always been on a friend- ly footing with the French, came to Perrier's camp : he told him that now as peace was made, the French army should return-that he grieved much at the conduct of his nation, but every thing ought to be forgotten; especially, as the prime mover of all the mischief had fallen in the attack of the Choctaws. Perrier told him he was glad to see him, but he de- sired to sce the great sun also, but would not be play- ed with, and he hoped no Natchez Indian would ap-
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