USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. I > Part 19
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 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
'The earliest forts built west of the Mississippi by the French were those of St. Louis erected on the Bay of St. Bernard or Matagorda, by La Salle, in 1685, and Fort Arkansas erected the same year by Tonty on the Arkansas river about three leagues from its mouth. The former was abandoned within two or three years ; because the French left there by La Salle were driven off by the Spaniards, or were massacred by the Indians. Fort Arkansas, as built by Tonty, was very rude, but was afterward made strong and secure by the French governor of Louisiana. It was built of stockades in the form of a polygon, the interior of each side measuring about one hundred and eighty feet, and a half dozen or more of cannon were mounted to command the approaches. The fort at Natchitoches was founded in 1713-14, and Fort Dout was built west of it a little later. Fort Chartres on the east bank of the Mississippi, about twenty-five miles above Kaskaskia, was the strongest erected by the French in the Missis- sippi basin. It was built in 1720, and served as a base for all the expeditions which ascended the Missouri and the upper Missis- sippi and its higher branches. Fort Orleans was built on the Missouri near Jefferson City in 1724. The fort built at Pointé Coupée about the year 1720 was a quadrangle having four bas-
1
-
1
THE WESTERN COMPANY AND ITS SUCCESSORS. 189
tions and mounted several cannon. It was constructed of stock- ades and stood on the west bank of the river. Fort Rosalie, at Natchez, was one of the most important in the valley.
Fort St. Louis de Carlorette was built on the south bank of Red river by Bernard De la Harpe in 1719, under the orders of D'Bienville, for the purpose of securing the rights of the French to the country of the Upper Red river, as against the Spanish, who had already visited the head-waters of Red river and worked on the lead mines there. It was located in latitude thirty-three degrees fifty-five minutes north, and stood in northeast Texas. Fort Balize, at the mouth of the Mississippi, was erected in 1699, as a protection against any foreign ships that might try to ascend the Mississippi. However, it was not always garrisoned during the early history of the Louisiana colony. New Orleans was early fortified after the manner, it is said, of Vauban. A ditch was dug around the city, about eighteen feet wide, with ramparts of earth and palisades about six feet high extending along the interior. Strong bastions and redoubts were erected at regular and commanding intervals. All the features of a strong fort were present, including many large cannon-in fact the entire city was thus enclosed and embraced in the end several forts. Two, St. Charles and Condé, were standing when Louisiana was ceded to the United States in 1803. The fort at the present Natchi- toches, La., was built in 1713 by D'Bienville and D'St Denis under the orders of France in order to hold the Spaniards in check and to secure the friendship of the Indian tribes of that region. It at first consisted of two strong log houses enclosed with palisades, but was afterward greatly strengthened, and except for very short intervals was always garrisoned by the French, who well realized its importance. It was the key to the southwest, and was later reinforced by Fort St. Louis de Car- lorette still higher up Red river. Some time after this date, probably about 1714-15, the French establish posts on the Sabine and at Nacogdoches for the purpose of preventing the Spaniards from advancing beyond the Sabine; and maintained them for sev- eral years. Fort Iberville on the east bank of the Mississippi was built in 1700, and was an important shield against the Indians during the first few years of the colony.
Early in 1728 there arrived a vessel containing a number of young girls who afterward became known as the "fillies a la cassette," or the casket girls, owing to the fact that each was possessed of a small casket in which were her clothes. From the fact that these girls were highly respectable, though poor, and
--
-
190
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
from the fact that many of the other girls sent out had been taken from the houses of correction, the proud descendants of later years were always eager to have it known that they were the descendants of one of the casket girls rather than of the others. Governor D'Perier gave great encouragement to agriculture, and under his direction slave labor became well governed. In 1728 it was decreed that those who had not properly improved their concessions should surrender them to the company. A tax was levied for the building of churches and hospitals. The colonial expense for the year 1728 was $89,919.
In 1726 Father Poisson wrote as follows concerning the Law grant on the Arkansas river: "The French settlement of the Arkensas would be an important one had Monsieur Laws contin- ued four or five years. His grant was here on a boundless prairie, the entrance of which is two gunshots from the house in which . I am. The Company of the Indies had granted him a tract six- teen leagues square ; that makes, I think, fully a hundred leagues in circuit. ITis intention was to found a city here, to establish manufactures, to have numbers of vessels and troops, and to found a Duchy. He began the work only a year before his fall. The property which he then sent into this country amounted to more than 1,500,000 livres ($277,500). Among other things he meant to arm and superbly equip two hundred cavalrymen. He had also bought three hundred negroes. The Frenchmen engaged for this grant were men of all sorts of trades. The directors and subalterns with one hundred men ascended the river in five boats in order to come here to begin the settlement ; they must at the start procure provisions that they might be ready to receive those people whom they had left down the river. The chaplain died on the way and was buried in one of the sand- banks of the Mississippi. Twelve thousand Germans were engaged for this grant. This was not a bad beginning for the first year, but Monsier Laws was disgraced; of the three or four thousand Germans who had already left their country, a large number died in the East, nearly all on landing in the country ; the others were recalled. The Company of the Indies took back the grant and shortly after abandoned it; the entire enterprise has, therefore, fallen to pieces. About thirty Frenchmen have remained here; only the excellence of the climate and of the soil has kept them, for in other respects they have received no assist- ance. My arrival here has pleased them, because they now think that the Company of the Indies has no intention of abandoning this district, as they had supposed it would, inasmuch as they have
.
٠١٢
191
THE WESTERN COMPANY AND ITS SUCCESSORS.
sent a missionary here. I cannot tell you with what joy these good people received me. I found them in great need of all things."*
The financial scheme of John Law only incidentally affected Louisiana. There were probably not to exceed 2,000 people in all of Louisiana while this experiment was being tried in France, and they were distributed at a score of settlements along the Mississippi and its branches. Very little money or credit was needed here, because traffic was carried on mainly by the primi- tive system of exchanges-the trader gave his merchandise for the furs of the Indian. The latter did not want his money -- had no use for it ; so the trader immediately converted his money into merchandise again and repeated the exchange, pocketing his profits. There was very little use for money, and consequently very little was in circulation. Nor was there any credit, because all were strangers, shifting hither and thither, and it would have been folly to extend credit to any man.
But while Law's scheme wonderfully stimulated the financial system of France, and no doubt affected somewhat the rudi- mentary monetary operations at the centers of settlement in Louisiana, it cannot be shown, never has been shown, that any serious shock was occasioned here by the bursting of the Missis- sippi bubble. The failure of Crozat to find gold and silver in Louisiana had largely undeceived France concerning the reputed riches of this colony. But Law and his associates, and particu- larly the Western Company, took advantage of the marvelous advance of credits in France still farther to strengthen their sys- tem by reviving the attractive tales of gold and silver in Louis- iana. Ingots of gold and silver were falsely exhibited in Paris as the products of Louisiana ; the object being to show the wealth and resources underlying the Law monetary and credit system, which had been adopted by the French government. To transfer all the furor and excitement to the wilderness of Louisiana is ridiculous in the extreme-worse, because there is no truth in the statement that the excitement in France seriously affected in any important way the finances of this colony. While the Missis- sippi people were made a medium to bolster the insecure and tottering system over which all of France and half of Europe had gone mad, the failure of the system did not strike Louisiana a hard blow, mainly because there was nothing here for it to hit, or next to nothing. Of course, it is popular and customary to
* R. G. Thwaites's reissue of the Jesuit Relations and other Documents. Tome VI.
1
192
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
envelop the Louisiana wilderness in a shifting tornado of financial excitement and eventual paralysis, but this is a perversion of facts and of history.
That Law should employ the supposed gold and silver and the undoubted fur trade of the Mississippi valley as a basis to strengthen his bank, did not produce any appreciable effect in the poverty-stricken and miserable hamlets of Louisiana. It is improbable that any considerable quantity of the bank's bills were at any time held in the Mississippi colony. In adopting the Louisiana colony as one of the bases of his system, Law was abso- lutely safe, because in doing so he dealt in futures-was selling short for present prosperity and strength and taking his chances of covering at some hoped-to-be distant day. Thus, the Missis- sippi scheme was only one of the alleged sources of revenue of the French crown to sustain the Law system of finance. Except as it incidentally affected the operations of the Western Company, the scheme had little bearing and no consequential existence on the banks of the Mississippi. As a matter of fact, however, it must be conceded that the identification of the Western Company with the Law financial system immensely benefited Louisiana, because the stimulus thus kindled was used as a means to induce a large number of wealthy and prominent people to secure con- cessions therein, send out agents, laborers, implements, etc., and endeavor to build up rich and prosperous plantations. If there was any resultant flurry in Louisiana, therefore, when the Law system collapsed, it fell only upon the conditions which that sys- tem had originated and fostered.
The buying and selling of stocks, which occasioned the wild speculation and gambling so conspicuous in France at that time, saw no counterpart whatever in the Louisiana colony. The Mis- sissippi scheme was developed, because Louisiana was unknown, mysterious, supposedly filled with gold, and could therefore be exploited without danger that the sham would soon be unveiled. But the few and scattered people here, struggling to eke out an existence little better than that of the savages, were compara- tively unaffected by the disaster which finally sent credit to the bottom of the financial pit in France. Therefore it must be admit- ted that incidentally the adoption of the Western Company by Law and his associates as one of the means to invigorate his sys- tem, was an enormous advantage to Louisiana. Thousands of colonists-men, women and children -- were sent ont, and vast sums of money were spent. It is even said that the streets and prisons of Paris and other large cities were emptied of their
109 Horbeton Q
Thus for Peoplehave Tra well'd up you sifsipi )
Ouidaougebunaton
Sioux
DE LAEST
the G PP Tintonso 3
A
Ouidachenaton
SIOUX DE L'OUEST 1
Wanderers
Thus for the French Tra -- keli'd up the Missouri
no further
Source of the Mongona
S Piere
R
old Fort ackeither
vo Villages Padoucas
0)
Noodors
Maingana R.
G
. TIH E
G
G
Moha
Tessier IPes
ort
Meadows.
erior
Padoucas
Mines of Lead.
-..
Lead Mine
o c
Porfier 2
3
N
Meadow's
R.
L
0
0
0
Alsenlui or Role O
..
Q The
OcTotata
Chrifal Rock
Padoucas
The Octorate
.
·
the
Confez 00
Padougas
APACHES
-
ILINOIS
The Quicheatcha
R.E.M.
Vino
es
Paintaux Serpens
GULF OF MEXICO
1
0
I Wight Point St Francis
R
real
Coal Mine
coopper Malaminicon
in or Buguer
64 L. Pepin SAhints of Copper
Hinhancion
Old Fort
a fort 0
Verte R
minesof copper
Quicopou R
40 Villages of Panis
> RENARDS
Aldovez R
GO
Village of the Alaquer or Paoutez
Road of Travillers
PART
Pakiranoni Q.
a
12 Villages of Panimana
Moingona
Panis R.
OF
5
I
12 Villages of0 Panis
Sohnes R.
Dare Mountains
Little River of conter The Canfez
AND PODOUCAS
Great River of Cane
-
MAP 1721
-- FASION
R
is or NOis
105
The Maha a Wandering Nation
Machemeton Onghetgechaton
Wanderers
02 Fall of S- Anthony croix R.
Menoframenton
Rocher P
Araquez
.U.
193
TIIE WESTERN COMPANY AND ITS SUCCESSORS.
mendicants and vagabonds to swell the colonial stream. These were the laborers sent to work the various concessions in Louis- iana. It will thus be seen that the Law system was really an advantage to Louisiana; that it occasioned no harm to the colony as a whole, and that the speculation in stocks was not present here. In the spring of 1720 the system collapsed, having lasted about four years, estimating from the establishment of the Law bank in May, 1716. Louisiana felt the existence of the system, if at all, for only about two and a half years.
The concession to John Law on the Arkansas was one of great extent and great value. It was in the heart of the famous Indian country-the territory of the Arkansas nation, and the lands had been mostly cultivated for a period of centuries by that tribe. Here was grown much of the maize that liad sustained the army of De Soto for months when he was engaged in planning the destruction of this faithful people. The tract was twelve miles square,* and located about thirty miles above the mouth of the river. llere the German settlers whom it is alleged he had "bought," were sent-many of them; and here was established the post which was intended to protect them from the savages, and the store-house where they were enabled to obtain their sup- plies of tools, provisions and merchandise-for the cash or for valuable furs. Upon the failure of the concessionaire, the settle- ment was abandoned, though the post was occupied for many years by the soldiers from New Orleans. The tract was situated on the right of the river ascending. In March, 1722, M. de la I larpe found here forty-seven persons of both sexes. They had sown wheat, and had commenced other agricultural operations. Thus at this time the concession was nearly abandoned. It was deemed unwise by the colonial commissioners, owing to the great improvements already made there, to permit the Law concession to be abandoned. They accordingly appointed M. Dufresne director of that colony with a salary of 2,000 livres per annum, and directed him to make arrangements for all persons who desired to cultivate the soil and secure permanent homes in that quarter.
What crushed the Western Company more than any other cause were the various Indian wars-against the Natchez, the Alibamos and the Chickasaws. It required an enormous expendi- ture to equip and sustain an army of from five hundred to a thou- sand men for several months at a time. When to this depressing
*Father Poisson said twelve leagues square.
1-13
i
194
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
expense are added the feverishi investments under the Missis- sippi scheme, there could be no other result than distress until natural commercial conditions had been resumed. These varions burdens, at a time when they were most vexatious and hinder- some, prevented the Louisiana commissioners from obeying the orders of the king to advance and take possession of the country now called Texas. Spain then made the most of her opportunity and preceded France with settlements in what was called the province of Lastikas, or northeast Texas. It is asserted that France established a permanent post at Nacogdoches about the year 1718, but there is no evidence to show that it was permanent, and very little to show that it was made at all. The Western Company had all it could do at the time to build a fort at Natchi- toches and another in the country of the Cadodaquis or what is now Southwest Arkansas, withont trying to extend its domain, even under the positive orders of the French monarch. It is known that the orders of the king to this effect remained unacted upon by the commissioners of Louisiana for several years before De la Ilarpe was finally made governor of the Bay of St. Bernard, and before the expedition was sent there under him for the purpose of forming a permanent colony. The Western Company lacked the strength, and Spain took the lead in the settlement of Texas.
One of the most interesting letters of the missionary era is that of Father Paul du Poisson, dated at the Akensas ( Arkansas) in 1726, and addressed to Father Patonillet. The following are extracts from the same : "Here is another anecdote, which shows how generous they are. Day before yesterday I received a visit from a chief and I offered him a pipe; to fail in that would be to fail in politeness. A moment after he went for a mataché (a robe painted in many figures and colors) buckskin, which he had left in the entry of the house in which I live, and put it upon my shoulders ; this is their way when they make presents of that sort. I begged a Frenchman to ask him, without appearing to do it for me, what he wished that I should give him. 'I have given with- out design,' he answered, 'am I trading with my father ?' (trad- ing here means paying). Nevertheless, a few moments afterward he said to the same Frenchman that his wife had no salt and his son no powder; his aim was that this Frenchman should repeat it to me. A savage gives nothing for nothing, and we must observe the same rule towards them; otherwise we should be exposed to their contempt."# Ile further says, "Finally they
* R. G. Thwaites's reissue of the Jesuit Relations and other Documents. Tome VI.
195
TIIE WESTERN COMPANY AND ITS SUCCESSORS.
returned again to the charge, in order to ask if I would at least be willing that their young men should come to dance in my vil- lage, without design, the reconnoitre dance (this is the one they (lance when they send to reconnoitre the enemy). I answered that it would not trouble me, that their young men could come to dance, and that I would look at them with pleasure. All the people of the village, except the women, came the next day at dawn; we had nothing but dances, songs and harangues until noon. Their dances, as you may well imagine, are somewhat odd. I saw well that I must not send them away with- out giving them a great kettle (feast) ; I borrowed from a Frenchman a kettle similar to those which are in the kitchen of the Invalides, and I gave them corn without stint. Everything went on without confusion; two of their number performned the office of cooks, dividing the portions with most exact impartiality and distributing them in like manner; there was heard only the usual exclamation "Ho!" which each one pronounced when his portion was given him. I never saw a meal eaten with worse manners or with better appetite. They went away well satis- fied."
Father Poisson and several companion missionaries ascended the Mississippi in pirogues, leaving New Orleans May 25, 1727. He says he was taken up by engages, "the men who are hired to paddle a pirogue or boat-and, it may be added, to make those people whom they conduct furious." Ile noted five concessions above New Orleans: Dubreuil's, three occupied by three Cana- dian brothers and one owned by a Parisian, with M. D'Kole in charge. On each concession were from fifty to sixty negroes, engaged in cultivating rice, indigo, corn, tobacco, etc. In Paris during the Law regime, the Louisiana concessions were called "Counties" and "Marquisates." Concessionaires were the prom- inent men in France who received grants or concessions. They were expected to send out vessels with laborers, agents, provi- sions, etc., for the purpose of putting their concessions on a profit- paying basis. The vicissitudes of colonization obliged many to neglect or abandon their vassals, and the latter often took their pay by helping themselves to the stores of their lord. "Do you not recognize in this the Frenchman?" asks Father Poisson. "It is partly this which has prevented this country from being settled as it should be, after the immense expenditure that has been made for that purpose."
A small tract upon which a single family located was called a plantation. The man would clear a few acres, place his house
196
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
on ·piles, cover it with sheets of bark, get a few negro slaves about him, raise corn, rice, tobacco, etc., and soon be independent. Sev- eral of such plantations close together became known as a settle- ment. Young women from the hospitals of Paris and from the Salpêtrière, all of good repute, made the long voyages in the pirogues ; and, according to Father Poisson, many of them shunned marriage as too severe a life, and preferred service, or to take their chances in the Illinois country. Here were young men, too, who had been sent to louisiana "for various reasons" by relatives and by the law, who preferred rowing on the river or other traveling rather than digging in the soil. Here also were the hunters who ascended the river two or three hundred leagues every year to kill the cattle (buffaloes) on St. Francis river and make their plats côtes, by which they dried part of the flesh in the sun. They salted the rest; made bear's oil, obtained buffalo robes, and sent all down the river to market in New Orleans. At this time the buffaloes were first found about thirty leagues above the mouth of the Arkansas. Father Poisson states that in 1726, a Frenchman brought down the river to New Orleans four hundred and eighty buffalo tongues, which he and his partner secured during the previous winter-1725-6. At the Cannes Brulees was the D'Artaguette concession, M. D'Benac being in charge. A little higher were les Allemands. "This is the district that has been assigned to the feeble remnant of that German company (Law's) which perished from destitution either at the East or upon arriving in Louisiana." At Oumas was another French settlement, and still another at Bayagonlas, where M. du Buisson was in charge. At Baton Rouge was an aban- doned concession. A little higher was the grant to M. Mezieres. lIere was a gang of negroes. Above were a few habitations, and a few Frenchmen at the Tonica villages. Father Poisson reached Arkansas July 7. He wrote, "The villages of the Aken- sas are wrongly placed in the map. The river at its mouth makes a fork; into the upper branch flows a river that the savages call Niska-White water-which is not marked on the map, although it is a large stream. We entered by the lower branch; from the mouth of this branch to the place where the river divides it is seven leagues. 'Thence it is two leagues to the first village, which contains two tribes, the Tourimans and the Tongingas; from this first village to the second it is two leagues by water and one by land. This is called the Southonis village. The third village is a little higher up on the same side of the river and the inhabitants are called the Cappas; on the other bank and opposite this last
THE WESTERN COMPANY AND ITS SUCCESSORS. 197
village are the French habitations. The three savage villages which contain four tribes that bear different names, make only one tribe under the common name of Akensas, which the French have also given to the river, although the savages call it 'Ni-gitai,' Red water. They speak the same language and number in all about twelve hundred souls."*
Immediately succeeding the Natchez massacre forts were built at Choupitoulas, Cannes Brulees, Les Allemands, Bayagoulas and Pointe Coupée. In 1728 Father Michel Guignas visited the Sioux near the sources of the Mississippi. He established a mission there, at least in part, but was made a prisoner by the Kickapoos and Mascoutins and kept as such for five months, at the end of which time they made preparations to burn him .. He was saved by an old Indian who adopted him and finally gave him his lib- certy.
The Chickasaws were ever the friends of the English and the enemies of the French; consequently, that nation was the prin- cipal one to attack the French pirogues as they floated down the Mississippi. They were regarded by the members of that nation as legitimate and most desirable prizes. In spite of all the French could do, the convoys, though armed and strong, occasionally fell before the prowess of that war-like nation. The hostility of the Natchez tribe was incurred, as it was in nearly all other cases, by the rapacity and abuse of the French. They retaliated to the wrongs and oppressions by slaughtering nearly all the French at their post on November 29, 1729, and repeating the massacre a few weeks later at the fort on the Yazoo river. They killed about two hundred and fifty men, and made most of the women and children captives and slaves. The news of this bloody act caused the greatest consternation throughout all of Louisiana. Fort Chartres and.every other post was strengthened, and preparations were made to punish the Natchez tribe. 'The Choctaws joined the French, but the wily foe managed to evade the army sent against them. They fled before the French and located west of the Mississippi, where they established three villages at or near the modern town of Trinity, La. Here they strengthened them- selves to the best of their ability, and later were harassed by the Oumas and the Bayagoulas, allies and friends of the French. Believing that the latter had instigated the attacks upon them, they captured the French fort which was being built near, and in which were ten Frenchmen and twenty negroes, only one white
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.