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 22
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band of that tribe attacked this post, killed several persons and carried away thirteen captives. The rest of the whites managed to get inside of the fort, where there were fourteen soldiers; but two of the latter were killed. It was afterward discovered that among the attacking party was a French drummer who had deserted from the Arkansas garrison itself. At this time nearly all of the Indian slaves among the Illinois were of the Panis tribe beyond the Mississippi-this was true to such an extent that the . word "slave" was locally supplanted by that of "Panis," meaning the same thing. The Panis were the modern Pawnees.
One of the early missionaries, Father louis Vivier, seems to have a very high opinion of the Missouri river. Here is what he wrote in 1750: "Mississippi in the Illinois language means 'The Great River.' It seems to have usurped that name from the Mis- souri. Before its junction with that river, the Mississippi is of no great size. Its current is slight, while the Missouri is wider, deeper, more rapid, and takes its rise much farther away. Sev- eral rivers of considerable size empty into the Mississippi ; but the Missouri alone seems to pour into it more water than all the other rivers put together. Here is the proof of it ; The water of most- I might say all-of the rivers that fall into the Mississippi is only passably good, and that of several is positively unwholesome ; that of the Mississippi itself, above its junction with the Missouri, is none of the best ; on the contrary, that of the Missouri is the best water in the world. Now that of the Mississippi, from its june- · tion with the Missouri to the sea, becomes excellent ; the water of the Missouri must therefore predominate. The first travelers who came through Canada discovered the Mississippi ; that is the reason why the latter has acquired the name of 'great' at the expense of the glory of the other."*
In 1752 the expenses of the colony amounted to $172,191. D'Kerlerec succeeded D'Vaudreuil as governor in 1753, and one " of his first steps was to undertake to alienate the Choctaws from the English traders, who were claiming and exercising the right to come to the left bank of the Mississippi and to both banks of the Wabash and the Ohio. But the Choctaws answered that they were better treated by the English, who studied their wants and let them have merchandise at a less price than the French traders. They said, "Satisfy all our wants and we shall now and forever renounce the English." To meet this state of affairs, the gov- ernor called for larger shipments of merchandise. He offered
: * Thwaites's reissue of Jesuit Relations and offer Documents.
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ransoms for French prisoners among the Indians, and made important changes in the officers of the various posts. His troops were reduced to thirteen hundred and fifty regulars and about five hundred militia. In 1754 D'Kerlerec wrote, "The English are moving everywhere about us, and threaten to inter- rupt our communications with the Illinois." It was this year that Captain Villiers, with a column of troops from Fort Chartres, went down the Mississippi and up the Ohio to Pennsylvania to assist in repelling the English from the Alleghany valley. The colonial expense of 1754 amounted to $178,177. D'Kerlerec, having propitiated the Choctaws, received the designation from them of "Father of the Choctaws." This year Captain Favrot was sent to the Illinois country with four companies of fifty men each and an abundant supply of provisions and ammunition. The upper country for the first time was thought to be in danger from the British of the Atlantic coast, and was strengthened. Addi- tional forces were sent to Ship Island, and the fortifications at the English Turn were repaired. He appealed to France for five hundred more soldiers, but Louis XV was too indifferent to pay much attention to his wants or his demands. It was at this time that a bitter war for supremacy was waged between the Capu- chins and the Jesuits.
By 1757 the English fleets had almost cut off all communication between Louisiana and France ; so much so that D'Kerlerec was forced to send to Vera Cruz for gunpowder. English privateers waited like sharks around the mouths of the Mississippi, ready to pounce down on any French vessel that dared make its appear- ance, going or coming. D'Kerlerec fett his insecurity, as he had to guard the whole line of the Mississippi with a handful of men. The Indians began to be troublesome, when in 1758 a ship-load of supplies arrived just in time to quiet them. The Choctaws and the Alibamons could place in the field seven thousand war- riors. "These two nations are the bulwarks of the colony, and they must be conciliated cost what it may," wrote D'Kerlerec.
It was at this time that he formulated his plan of uniting all the tribes of the Mississippi with the object of moving against - the English of the Atlantic coast in order to divert them from a concentration upon Canada. The plan was an excellent one, and should have received the assistance and support of the home gov- ernment. It is not improbable that such an expedition might even have saved Canada by dividing the British force sent to that Province. General Wolfe would hardly have appeared on the Plains of Abraham with so much confidence and prestige, had a
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force of eight thousand to twelve thousand French and Indians threatened the English colonies in his rear. But Louis XV was asleep in the arms of his courtesans, and his courtiers were steeped in debauchery ; they had no time nor inclination to listen to the death wails of the most magnificent colony in all the world. The English, in 1758, suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the French and Indians under Captain D'Aubrey of Louisiana at Fort Duquesne or what is now Pittsburg. Had that attack been fol- lowed up as it should have been by the whole strength of the West, the disastrous results of this war to France might have assumed a different story. The impotence of the French court, not the French people, caused the loss of Canada and all of Louisiana to France. The victory of Captain D'Aubrey was one of the most notable of the war, and opened a path to the heart of the Atlantic settlements of the English. It was accomplished by the men of the Illinois, the Wabash and the Mississippi, men who knew how to fight after the savage or the civilized method. . But they were not sustained and in the end were compelled to fall back.
Trouble arose between Governor D'Kerlerec and Intendent Rochemore. The latter without authority called in 1,800,000 livres of paper money circulating in the colony, and replaced it with an equal amount of a new emission in order to distinguish his administration. He was sharply reprimanded for this insane act. He attacked Governor D'Kerlerec, and accused him of carrying on an illegal traffic with the Indians, and announced that the most extravagant expenses were indulged in. The governor retaliated, and in 1759 Rochemore was dismissed from office, together with several others, all of whom were found to have wrongfully put their hands in the public treasury. Their dishonesty was only another evidence to prove that the officials of Louisiana from start to finish had robbed the colony and crushed it in the dust. Could the facts be known of the corruption under the governments of Crozat and the Company of the Indies, history would no doubt assume an altogether different aspect. The annual deficit on Louisiana was considered a great hamper on the struggles of France for life and commercial supremacy ; in fact France was tired of the annual losses of the colony, but should not have been, owing to the immense value of the Province, which all statesmen now recognized. Instead of reinforcing the army in Louisiana, the king withdrew thirty-six companies in order to reduce the expense, and in order that they might be used elsewhere. Late in 1760 New Orleans was fortified. In 1761 it was ascertained
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that over seven million livres of paper money were in circulation in the colony and that it had depreciated from four to five hun- dred per cent. At this time the Choctaws, who had been neglected, were on the point of taking the warpath against the French, and assistance was asked for, prayed for, but in vain.
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At this juncture, late in 1761, France applied to Spain for assistance against England. In order to incite Spain to this course, France stated that she could no longer hold Louisiana against the English, in which case there would no longer be a bulwark between the Spanish and the British colonies. Spain was asked for pecuniary assistance, and due restitution was faith- fully promised by the French ambassador. D'Kerlerec, upon the receipt of this news, sent couriers in all directions to acquaint the Indians and the Spanish that France and Spain would unite to crush England. But Spain was slow to act. And in the mean- time the Indians were again becoming importunate for their cus- tomary supplies. D'Kerlerec was now in despair, and no wonder. The French armies and fleets were melting away before the Eng- lish onset, and he only too plainly saw that if affairs continued long in the same straits Louisiana would go with the rest to the British crown. His letters show the extremity in which he was placed. To add to his perplexity and indignation, another fierce attack was made upon him by under officers at New Orleans, who were themselves stealing everything they could lay their hands on, and in the meantime were crying loudly "Stop thief." The upper country was comparatively quiet and prosperous. 'This was the condition of things when all of the Province east of the Mississippi was ceded to the English.
Governor D'Kerlerec was accused of various offenses, among which were unjustifiable assumptions of authority, violations of official duty and the expenditure of ten millions of livres in four years. It was during his teri that the new Fort Chartres was built at a cost of about one million dollars, a sum out of all proportion, apparently, to the actual expense. The fort was the strongest and best ever erected in the Mississippi valley, and was in form an irregular quadrangle, with sides four hundred and ninety feet in length. The wall was built of free-stone and was over two feet thick, pierced with loopholes and flanked with powerful bastions. The interior was thoroughly appointed with all the necessary buildings and magazines. It does not appear that D'Kerlerce deserved the opprobrium cast upon him by the government of France. However, upon his arrival in Paris, he was thrown into the Bastile and kept there for many months, and
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soon after his release, so intense was his grief over the accusa- tions and the imprisonment, he died of sorrow and humiliation.
An examination of the facts convinces that a great injustice was done him. There is nothing to show that he pocketed any of the large sums spent for civic and military improvement; on the contrary, he is known to have been an earnest advocate of the importance of strengthening all the French posts on the Missis- sippi, owing to the threats of the English colonies. Two years after he took the helm, England and France were convulsed in the dreadful Seven Years' War. which shook all Europe and caused many a throne to tremble and many a king to quake. Under the stipulations of the "family compact," France and Spain later were allied for the purpose of checking the preten- sions of Great Britain to the mastery of the seas and to colonial supremacy in America. Under the magical leadership of the elder Pitt, the navy of Great Britain not only swept every fleet before it, but threatened wholly to destroy the naval power of France and Spain and capture the maritime commerce of both nations. Canada was soon in the hands of the victors. The passes of the Alleghanies were filled with the colonial troops, among whom was the youthful George Washington, learning his first lessons of war. New Orleans was threatened from the gulf ; and had the war continued would likewise have fallen to the prowess of the English fleets. It was a time to make heroic efforts, even though the cost was an almost limitless expenditure of money and sacrifice of human blood. D'Kerlerec seems to have realized not only the immineney of the danger to the Mis- sissippi valley, but the crushing effect of its loss upon the com- mercial and naval strength of France. He therefore spent immense sums to fortify and equip every post along the Missis- sippi. Why not, when such a course was prudent, consistent and necessary, so far as he could surmise, to maintain French interests along that river? Fort Chartres was the French outpost to the north on the Mississippi. Upon it would fall the first blow, shoukt the English gain the mastery of Canada or succeed in penetrating westward through the notches of the Alleghanies. It would seem that a prudent officer, with the glory of France warm in his heart, could not do otherwise, under the burning impulses of loyalty, than make every effort to meet his country's foe with bristling cannon over adamantine walls. Nor conld he watch where all the money went. He must trust subordinates. The lilies of France-the memorable tides of history, streaming back a thousand years-could not be weighed in the balance with the
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sordid counting of a few miserable livres or the shedding of loyal, volunteer blood. Ile spent the money necessary to protect his country's honor-reared impregnable walls, mounted with impas- sioned cannon, and heard thereby the silver voice of his own patriotism in approval. But what did he receive in return? The slander of associates, the calumny of rivals, the ingratitude of his king, the pitiless walls of the Bastile, the ignominious brand of the criminal. No wonder he grieved at the glaring injustice and pined under the displeasure of the French court. Rascals do not feel such stings; the deliberate criminal is proof against both ingratitude and injustice. The honest, the patriotic, are killed by such blows, and thus in all probability died Governor D'Kerlerec.
When the French were driven down the Ohio river from Fort Duquesne ( Pittsburg) in 1758, they were commanded by Capt. Charles D'Aubry, who had gone there from the Illinois country with a detachment of French and Indians to assist in repelling the English. Passing down the beautiful Ohio, he stopped about thirty-five miles from its month, where, on the north bank, he built Fort Massac, named in honor of the young officer left there in command with one hundred men. D'Aubry continued on down the Ohio, and then up the Mississippi to Fort Chartres, whence he had gone. Under the terms of the treaty of peace in 1763, both forts-Massac and Chartres-were turned over to the British. Maj. Arthur Loftus of the Twenty-second English regiment, was sent up the Mississippi from Pensacola to take military possession of the post of Fort Chartres. He started in February, 1764, with a force of over three hundred men and a considerable number of women and children, all loaded in ten heavy boats and two pirogues ; but when opposite Davion Bluff was attacked from both sides of the river by the Indians and about a dozen of his men were killed and wounded. Presuming that the French were responsible for this attack, Major Loftus returned to New Orleans, but was emphatically informed by D'Abbadie that the French were in no way responsible for the outrage. A little later, another attempt made by the English under the command of Captain Pittman to ascend the Missis- sippi to take possession of the French posts was prudently checked · at New Orleans, owing to the threatening aspect of the Indians along the Mississippi. They were still the friends of the French, and could not be so soon reconciled to their new masters. Maj. Robert Farmer, of the Thirty-fourth English regiment, started a
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little later with the same object in view ; but he also stopped owing to the threats of the Indians.
This persistent hostility of the savages along the Mississippi and in the Illinois country at last became unbearable. In Decem- ber, 1765, a force was again sent up the river under Major Farmer sufficient to withstand any attack from the Indians; but Fort Chartres was already in the possession of the English. In the autumn of 1765, Capt. Thomas Sterling descended the Ohio from Fort Pitt with over one hundred soldiers of the Forty-second regiment, sailed up the Mississippi to Fort Chartres, and took possession of that important stronghold. This possession did not quiet the Indians; whereupon it was resolved to remove all the French officers in the Illinois country and replace them with those of the British army. An expedition sent down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to Kaskaskia under the command of Lieu- tenant Fraser, was too weak to effect this object, the commander being glad to escape with his life and in disguise down the Mis- sippi to New Orleans. At this time the famous Ottawa chief, Pontiac, was encamped near Fort Chartres with about four hun- dred warriors. He called upon St. Ange D'Bellerive, then in command of the fort, and requested an alliance of the French and the Indians against the English, but was prudently evaded by that officer, because peace existed between the two countries. In the spring of 1765, Col. George Croghan sailed down the Ohio from Pittsburg with a small force of Frenchmen and Indians. While at the "Old Shawanee Village," a few miles below the mouth of the Wabash, they were attacked by a body of Mascoutins and Kickapoos and several were killed and the others taken prisoners. They were conveyed to the present Vincennes, and thence to Fort Ouatanon near the present Lafayette, Ind., where Croghan was released through the influences of the French residents there, an act which should have been performed by the French at Vin- cennes. Without going to Fort Chartres, as he had originally intended, Croghan contented himself with securing the friend- ship of the Indians in what is now northern Indiana and southern Michigan, among whom was Pontiac. As the conciliation of the savages was the paramount object of these efforts of the English, they were given up when that finality was reached. Captain St. Ange gracefully surrendered Fort Chartres; but not wishing to become an English subject, retired across the river to the pres- ent St. Louis, where he still might witness the tri-color of France flying proudly in the air.
It was during 1765 that the exiled Acadians, driven from their
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homes in Nova Scotia, came to the hospitable lands of Louisiana to begin anew the struggle of life. In that year, prior to the middle of May, there arrived of them about six hundred and fifty men, women and children, in some instances with broken family groups and all poverty stricken and almost helpless. But it was realized that they must be provided for. In their veins flowed the blood of France and in their hearts were the precious memories of ancestral and national pride. The acting governor gave orders that for some weeks they should draw from the mili- tary stores the same rations drawn by the soldiers. They were assigned a fine stretch of land along the western bank of the Mississippi in the district of the Attakapas and Opelousas, where the extraordinary fertility of the soil promised abundance to the gardener or other agriculturalist. Here they built their rude houses and formed their vine-clad homes. Early the next year, over two hundred more arrived and joined their friends along the Mississippi. Soon they were all comfortably homed from a' point below Baton Rouge upward to Pointe Coupée on a tract which from that day to this has been called the "Acadian Coast." Their thriftiness enabled them soon to forget the distresses of their inhuman exile. They were intelligent, moral, and industrious; and from them have sprung some of the proudest and wealthiest families of the Pelican State.
An account of the western country, written by Le Page du Pratz previous to the Seven Years' War of 1755-62, contains a singularly strong and correct view of the importance of the Kas- kaskia region. The account was first published in 1758, before the results of that war had been reached. If the reader will recollect that there were no railways then, and that navigable water courses into the heart of the continent were all important, the force of the following observations will be recognized: "The most important place in this country, and perhaps in all North America, is at the forks of the Mississippi, where the Ohio'falls into that river, which like another ocean is the general receptacle of all the rivers that water the interior parts of that vast conti- nent. Here those large and navigable rivers, the Ohio River of the Cherokees (Tennessee), Wabache, Illinois, Missouri and Mississippi, besides many others which spread over the whole continent from the Apalachian mountains to the mountains of New Mexico, upwards of one thousand miles, all meet together at this spot. In short, this place is the center of that vast continent and of all the nations in it, and seems to be intended by nature to command them both; for which reason it ought no 1-15
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longer to be neglected by Britain. The Canadians who are numerous in Louisiana are most of them at the Illinois. They bring their wives with them or marry the French or India women. The ladies even venture to make this long and painful voyage from Canada, in order to end their days in a country which the Canadians look upon as a terrestrial paradise. It is this that has made the French undergo so many long and perilous voyages to North America, upwards of two thousand miles, . in order to get to this settlement of the Illinois, which is nigh the forks of the Mississippi, the most important place in all the inland parts of North America, to which these French will sooner or later remove from Canada and there erect another Montreal that will be much more dangerous and prejudi- cial to us than ever the other in Canada was. They will here be in the midst of all their old friends and allies and much more con- venient to carry on a trade with them, to spirit them up against the English, &c., than ever they were at Montreal. To this settle- ment, where they likewise are not without good hopes of finding mines, the French will forever be removing as long as any of them are left in Canada. The great river Missouri which runs to the northwest parts of New Mexico, much farther than we have any good accounts of that continent. affords the most extensive navigation of any river we know; so that it may justly be compared to an inland sea, which spreads over nine-tenths of all the continent of North America; all of which the French pretend to lay claim to for no other reason but because they were possessed of a petty settlement at the mouth of that river (the Mississippi). The hills on the west side of the Mississippi are generally suspected to contain mines, as well as the mountains of New Mexico, of which they are a continuation. But the fertile plains of Louisiana are perhaps more valuable than all the mines of Mexico, which there would be no doubt of if they were duly cultivated. They will breed and maintain ten times as many people and supply them withi many more necessaries and articles of trade and navigation than the richest mines of Peru."*
This was a remarkably correct view of the importance of the western country-Louisiana Province. The vast interior from the Alleghanies to the Rockies, when densely populated, must send its immense commerce down the Missouri, the upper Missis- sippi, the Ohio and its branches ( the Tennessee, Cumberland and
* Le Page du Pratz.
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Wabash ), to the central point on the Mississippi from the Mis- souri to the Ohio. This spot was pre-eminently the commercial heart of the continent ; and had not railways arrived on the scene to destroy all calculations, this would have become the most important business point in all the world. Had the genius of man not devised railways, the banks of all the large rivers would now be occupied by continuous towns; and what would now be the extent of the river commerce? Figures are worse than use- less-they are confounded. No, the writer above, reasoning fron the wisdom of that day, was wholly correct: so was Governor D'Kerlerec, who built Fort Chartres on such a grand scale to with- stand the probable attacks of the English, advancing through the notches of the Alleghanies or westward on the blue and billowy waters of the Great Lakes.
It cannot be said that Louis XIV was an enthusiastic advocate of American exploration and discovery. He was willing that such should be carried on, and that France should get the benefit of it, but did not employ heroic measures nor spend any large sums of French revenue to found colonies in the New World. At all times when Louisiana was under the direct rule of the French government, the colonies were permitted to languish, suf- fer and take care of themselves. The heroic La Salle received little assistance from him. Had it not been for the jealousy of France at the threatened encroachments of the Spanish and the English up and along the Mississippi river, the French govern- ment would have placidly permitted individual enterprise alone to colonize the valley of that stream and its affluents. What set a spur in the ribs of his Most Christian Majesty, was the report that an expedition was forming in England to establish a settle- ment on the Mississippi near its mouth. A fleet was hurriedly prepared under D'Iberville and dispatched, with what result is known to the world. On the 8th of April, 1699, the French Minister of Marine wrote as follows: "The King does not intend at present to form an establishment at the mouth of the Mississippi, but only to complete the discovery in order to hinder the English from taking possession there." He further stated that the king did not think the discoveries of the Canadians in the western parts of America would prove of much value to France, unless gokdl or silver mines should be discovered. Such mines were soon reported to exist. This information was part of the inducement under which Louis XIV permitted La Salle to make his sacrifices; the other inducements were pearls and buffalo wool.
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