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 23
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228
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
Perhaps humanity never suffered more than did the unfortunate people who were induced to come to the mouth of the Mississippi with D'Iberville-all for the purpose of cementing the claims of France to that river and keeping the Spanish and the English out. And the trials continued until Crozat made some improve- ment in 1713-17. The real relief arrived with the ships of the Western Company from 1717 to 1732. Prior to 1713, the real bone and sinew of the Louisiana colony came from Canada-up the Great Lakes and down the rushing Mississippi. La Salle at his own expense and the missionaries at their own risks had set- tled the Illinois country and made it "a terrestrial paradise." Hundreds of French Canadians, accompanied by their wives and children, risked the hardships of the journey and the dangers from hostile savages, to reach this far-famed land, the fertility and richness of which they had heard so much. Many came down the mighty Mississippi to swell the numbers and the courage of the settlement at the mouth of the river. They knew the country, knew the Indians, knew how to make a living, and taught the green settlers at Biloxi, Mobile and New Orleans how to survive in spite of the neglect of the French government. These Canadians did more than France did to make the colony at the mouth of the river a permanent one. Crozat would have done more for the colonists had he taken personal supervision of affairs. He soon found that government at long range was not practical nor successful. Had he lived in Louisiana he would certainly have seen that, if he had done nothing else for the colony than to sell the ship-load of slaves, which he was permitted to sell ani- ally, he could have easily maintained his colony, and probably saved his own private fortune.
The Western Company firmly established the colony, but after 1732, when the government of France again assumed the reins, affairs were loose and uncertain. But the colony now could take care of itself and did so. Under the teachings principally of the Canadians, they had learned how to live from the resources of the country. The first colonists at Biloxi were ignorant, indolent or wicked enough not to be able to maintain themselves from their gardens, at least in part ; but sat down and waited for provi- sions, while they chewed the cud of discontent and found it con- tained very little nourishment. If the soil was bad where the fort stood, that structure should have been built a little higher up where the black alluvial land lay, and where a German could have sustained himself the year round on a tract one hundred feet square. After 1732 the settlers found they could live from their
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229
LOUISIANA UNDER THE FRENCH CABINET.
gardens, the chase, by traffic, etc. They were now independent of the government so far as a livelihood was concerned, and doubt- less the latter was heartily glad of it. But the officials were high- priced, and the expense was wormwood on the lonied tongue of the French monarch. The building of Fort Chartres was regarded as a piece of almost criminal uselessness, though an act of the highest wisdom, from the light then shining in the world. The extravagance of the French nobility, and the folly of many of the European wars, had much to do with the charges of defal- cation in Louisiana. The views of the French monarch concern- ing Louisiana seemed like those of the Indians mentioned by Father Poisson, missionary to the Arkansas nation in 1728-9, "They gave nothing for nothing." Louis XV wanted a reve- nue-wanted it or wanted no further outlay. The prodigality and splendor of his court must not be dimmed by a thought of the necessities and wretchedness in America.
The Jesuits were expelled from Louisiana by the . French in 1764, the year all the territory east of the Mississippi passed to the English as a result of the Seven Years' War. All the mis- sionaries were obliged to leave the territory west of the river as well as east of it. Owing to the apathy of both the Indians and the French, Father Carette had left the Illinois country some time before. There was no longer any chapel in the fort ( Chartres)- no place to say mass except in the dining room where the com- mandant took his meals. There bad language prevailed; nothing was sacred. While an attempt was made to hold service, a domestic chicken flew in and upset the chalice; whereupon an 'Indian present exclaimed, "Ah! beholdt the shop of the good God thrown down." So Father Carette became tired of his well- doing and departed from the wicked post. The good fathers at Natchitoches, the Arkansas and New Orleans were compelled to quit the country. The decree of condemnation against the Jesuits was, Ist, that they did not take care of their missions; 2d, that they cared only for their estates ; 3d, and that they were usurpers of the vicariate-general for New Orleans. All these charges were afterward disproved. Notwithstanding the injustice of the decree and the unquestionable outrage and manifest persecution of the act, all their church property was taken from them and sold for the benefit of the king. Nay, even the personal property of the Fathers was seized and sold. Slaves, cattle, sacred pictures, furniture, provisions, religious vessels and vestments-all were "unjustly seized, confiscated and sold by the French government after the cession of the country to England." Forty-eight negroes
230
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
belonging to the Jesuits of Kaskaskia and Saint Genevieve were confiscated and shipped down the river to New Orleans for con- veyance to France. They set out from Fort Chartres Novem- ber 24, 1764, and were in charge of a squad of French soldiers. At the same time there went down twenty Englishmen who had been captured in the West by the Indians and the French. At New Orleans the Jesuits were shown scant consideration by the French officials ; but the Capuchin Fathers there, be it said to their credit, made their unfortunate rivals as comfortable as possible. The expulsion was an undoubted act of absolute persecution. The good Fathers who had done so much for the cause of France, as well as for the cause of humanity, in the inhospitable wilder- ness of America through the trying and dangerous years of exploration and discovery, were now wronged, persecuted and exiled. The act savors in inhumanity of the exile of the Acadi- ans, and can have no justification in the light of human advance- ment and civilization.
After the expulsion of the Jesuits and the arrival of the English garrison at Fort Chartres, the cemetery at Kaskaskia was used as a garden and the chapel as a store-house. They rented them from Jean Baptiste Bauvais, "who under the decree of confisca- tion and the contract of sale and purchase of the property was obliged to demolish the chapel and leave its site and that of the cemetery uncultivated under the debris." Bauvais claimed that the executor of the decree sold the property to him. "By what right?" asks Father Meurin in 1768. "The presses used for the vestments and sacred vessels are now used in his apartments, as well as the altar-cruets and the floor, etc." Father Meurin minis- tered to Kaskaskia and Saint Genevieve at this period. Though France, Spain, Portugal and Prussia had expelled the Jesuits, the English had not done so, and hence Father Meurin had come to this post. But the English did not favor the Jesuits; they merely tolerated them. "Since the English have taken possession of this country, there has been as yet no procession of the blessed sacraments (there being on the west side of the Mississippi French, Spanish and English). This year, at the request of the inhabitants, I asked Messieurs, the commandants, to allow the militia to turn out under arms, as is the custom among Roman Catholics, to escort the blessed sacrament. This they refused. The weather was not settled; I was indisposed and fatigued, through having had a procession very carly on the other side at Sainte Genevieve. Here I had one only in the church and like- wise on the day of the octave."
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23I
LOUISIANA UNDER THE FRENCH CABINET.
Concerning Saint Genevieve, Father Francois Philibert Watrin wrote as follows in 1764: "Fifteen years ago, at a league from the old village on the other bank of the Mississippi, there was established a new village under the name Sainte Genevieve. Then the Cure of Cascakias found himself obliged to go there to administer the sacraments, at least to the sick; and when the new inhabitants saw their houses multiplying, they asked to have a church built there. This being granted them, the journeys of the missionary became still more frequent, because he thought that he ought then to yield himself still more to the willingness of his new parishioners and to their needs. However, in order to go to this new church he must cross the Mississippi, which in this place is three-eights of a league wide. Ile sometimes had to trust himself to a slave wlio alone guided the canoe : it was neces- sary in fine to expose himself to the danger of perishing, if in the middle of the river they had been overtaken by a violent storm. None of all these inconveniences ever prevented the Cure of Cas- cakias from going to Sainte Genevieve when charity called him thither, and he was always charged with this care until means were found to place at Sainte Genevieve a special Curé, which occurred only a few years ago, when the inhabitants of the place built a house for the pastor."*
Father Vivier seemed to have had a very high opinion of the country west of the Mississippi, not merely on account of its natural resources, but as well on account of its strategic advan- tages. He wrote in 1750, "For the rest, this country (the Illi- nois) is of far greater importance than is imagined. Through its position alone, it deserves that France should spare nothing to retain it. It is true that it has not enriched the king's coffers and that convoys to and fro are costly ; but it is none the less true that the tranquillity of Canada and the safety of the entire lower part of the colony depend upon it. Assuredly, without this post (Fort Chartres) there would be no communication of land between Louisiana and Canada. There is another consideration : Several regions of the same Canada and all those on the lower part of the river would be deprived of the provisions they obtain from the Illinois, which are often a great resource to them. By founding a solid establishment here (in the Illinois country), prepared to . meet all these troubles, the king would secure the possession of the most extensive and the finest country in North America." In the light of subsequent events how true was the view of Father
* Thwaites's reissue of the Jesuit Relations and other Documents.
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232
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
Vivier. But he was not the only Frenchman who saw the immense possibilities of the western country. Governor Ker- lerac realized the vast importance to France of not only holding but of materially strengthening the Illinois country; he therefore made Fort Chartres the strongest fort in the Mississippi valley, but was disgraced for this most proper and loyal act.
"On the river Marameg on the west side of the Mississippi they found those mines that gave rise to the Mississippi scheme in 1719. In 1742, when John Howard, Sallee and others were sent from Virginia to view those countries, they were made pris- oners by the French, who came from a settlement they had on an island in the Mississippi a little above the Ohio, where they made salt, lead, etc., and went from thence to New Orleans in a fleet of boats and canoes guarded by a large armed schooner." *
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In 1708 Nicolas de la Salle reported that there were in Louis- iana 122 persons at the garrison-men, boys and priests ; 77 out- side inhabitants, men, women and children ; and 80 Indian slaves. It is uncertain whether these included the few at Natchitoches, the Arkansas and the Illinois, but probably not, as the numbers at those places could not have been known to him. In 1712 there were 400 persons and 20 negroes in the colony-reported to be. At the time L'Epinay succeeded Cadillac in March, 1717, there were said to be present 700 persons, including negroes, but not including Indians. In 1721 there were 5,420 persons in all Louis- iana, of whom about 600 were colored. According to La Harpe there were in the colony in 1724, 5,000 whites and 3,000 blacks. In 1732 the Company of the Indies reported 5,000 whites and 2,000 blacks in Louisiana. In 1745 they were said to number 6,020, of whom a few less than 4,000 were white. At no time was an exact enumeration made of the inhabitants of the whole colony. Esti- mates, of course, varied, so that the above figures must be received with some grains of allowance; still, they are no doubt approxi- mately correct. Every ship that arrived or departed, changed the population, because, while numbers came from France, other numbers and their slaves in some cases returned to the mother country. There will be noticed two important periods of growth : During the Crozat administration, and during the carly part of the government of the Western Company-before the failure and flight of Mr. Law. From 1721 to 1732 there was an actual decrease. -
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*Report of the Government of Virginia.
LOUISIANA UNDER THE FRENCH CABINET.
233
Est. 1769.
1785.
1788.
1799.
New Orleans
3,190
4,980
5,338
Bayou St. Jolin and Gentilly
307
678
772
Balize to the city
570
2,100
2,378
At the Terre aux Boeufs
. ..
576
661
Barataria
. . .
. ..
40
Tchoupitoulas
4,192
7,046
7,589
Parish of St. Charles
639
1,903
2,381
St. John the Baptist
544
1,300
1,368
St. James
. ..
1,332
1,559
Lafourche
267
646
1,164
Lafourche, interior
. . .
352
1,500
Iberville
376
673
944
Pointe Coupée
783
1,521
2,004
Opelousas
...
1,2II
1,985
Attakapas
409
1,070
2,54I
New Iberia
. ..
125
190
Ouachita
IIO
207
232
Rapides
47
88
147
Avoyelles
314
287
209
Natchitoches
81I
756
1,021
Arkansas
88
196
896
949
St. Louis
891
897
1,197
925
Manshac
. ..
77
28.4
Galveston
...
2.12
268
Baton Rouge
. ..
270
682
Feliciana
. . .
. ..
730
Natchez
. . .
1,550
2,679 ·
Mobile
. ..
746
1,468
Carondelet
. . .
...
...
184
St. Charles
. . .
. ..
...
875
St. Fernando
. . .
. . .
. ..
276
Marais des Liards
. . .
. ..
.. .
376
Maramec
. . .
. . .
...
II5
St. Andrew
. . .
. . .
.. .
393
New Bourbon
. ..
. . .
...
560
Cape Girardeau
. . .
. . .
.. ..
521
New Madrid
. . .
. ..
. ..
782
Little Meadows
. . .
. . .
. . .
72
Totals
14,238 31,433 42,346
6,028
St. Genevieve
594
234
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
CHAPTER VII
D'Ulloa and O'Reilly
N SUCCESSION the golden opportunity of possessing the whole of the Mississippi basin was presented to Spain, France and Great Britain and in turn was lost to each through its own misconduct and blindness. Dazzled with the gold of Peru and Mexico, Spain was unable to descend from her dizzy dreams of wealth to the exacting experiences and expenditures of coloni- zation in a purely agricultural country; and therefore took no steps whatever to settle her subjects along the banks of the "great river." Her daring navigators led the way to the Gulf, exploring the whole of its treacherous coast and ceremoniously took posses- sion of the same and of the lower Mississippi river ; but the Span- ish government made no effort to acquire permanently this invaluable possession. After the Spanish abandonment the opportunity of securing the wonderful Mississippi basin remained open to any nation for more than a century; or until France, actuated more by international jealousy than by praiseworthy enterprise, permitted her voyageurs and explorers, mainly at their own expense, to re-discover the Alississippi, and thus attach that vast and marvelous basin to the French American possessions.
After thus acquiring the territory, it may even be admitted that France did all that was necessary to do to hold it, and still it may be far from admitting that she did all that she should have done. As in the case of Spain, blindness lost her the Mississippi basin ; so in the case of France, indifference lost her the same glorious possession. Louis XIV did, or perhaps permitted his cabinet 10 do, barely all that was necessary to hold the whole of the Missis- sippi valley, except possibly the upper Ohio basin ; and his boyish successor, Louis XV, or the Regency, endeavored to pursue the
235
D'ULLOA AND O'REILLY.
same course, and for many years succeeded, more by reason of good luck than by ability and fitness to wage war and resist attack. France was almost bankrupt when Louis XIV passed from the earthly stage of action ; and no wonder little had been done for the poor colonists of Louisiana. The government had been obliged to borrow money at four hundred per cent, was in debt two thou- sand four hundred millions of livres at the time of his death in 1715, and three thousand millions a few years later, and taxation had become something crushing and frightful. Meanwhile, the splendors of the court of Versailles had dazzled all of Europe, and are even imitated to this day by all civilized countries. The Mississippi Scheme still further burdened the French people with vexation and debt.
When at last Louis XV took the reins, it soon seemed that the devil himself had broken loose in that kingdom. The whims of the young king's mistresses regulated the national and colonial policies. Imbecile courtiers and designing prelates occupied the principal offices and shaped the destinies of the commonwealth. Madam D'Chotearoux, the king's paramour, became the supreme ruler ; and was succeeded by Madam D'Pompadour, another wan- ton, who had no eyes nor ears for the suffering colonists of Louis- iana. Under their dictum Fleury and Choiseul were the only prime ministers who accomplished anything of consequence for France or for Louisiana. The galling taxation and the wicked extravagance of the Versailles court were the twin evils that crushed and humiliated France and prevented the much-needed assistance and attention from being extended to Louisiana. Louis XV at first became "the well beloved," because he permit- ted everything to be ruled by the devil, and he himself appeared to enjoy the society of that mythical individual. Thus it may be said humorously and to some extent literally that Louisiana was between the devil (France) and the deep sea (England). In fact it is not too much to say that Vice became the actual ruler of France, and that the rule was extended to Louisiana. Defeat in war and dishonor in both war and peace, bowed the heads of all right-minded Frenchmen with shame. All resulted from the weakness, profligacy and licentiousness of the king and his butter- fly and brilliant court. This ephemeral glitter, extravagance and wickedness were transferred in modified form to the province of Louisiana. The deliberate malfeasance and corruption of the colonial officials led to their continuous and outrageous quarrels to see which should get the lion's share of the spoils. Thus the burden fell like a curse on the colonists of Louisiana ; but all was
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236
THIE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
accompanied with the soft and entrancing manners and the knightly bearing and radiance of the courtiers and nobles-exotics that had no proper place in the primitive soil of the colonies, because the worm of corruption was gnawing industriously at the roots and contaminating the virgin earth. Even the "family compact," which was occasioned by the jealousy of France and Spain for Great Britain, did not avail when the crisis came, because England obtained all east of the Mississippi and Spain all west of that river ; while France was left to mourn through all time for the severest loss that ever fell to the lot of that wonderful people.
It will now be seen how England, influenced by both blindness and indifference, lost her American colonies-lost the greatest opportunity ever offered to her political and territorial develop- ment. No one doubts that had the English American colonists been treated on terms of equality with the residents of England proper, they would have remained faithful and loyal subjects of King George III, just as Canada, though almost wholly French, has remained to this day. Under this probability what a vast field is offered to conjecture and fancy! The stupidity, blindness and ill-treatment of the English king and his cabinet alone severed from the royal crown the whole of the present United States; because those offences led to the insult, oppression and alienation of the colonists. Had this course not been taken ; had the col- onists been treated with fairness and honor, and as the equals of their brothers, the residents of fair Albion's isle; and had such kind treatment been continued as the toiling years crawled by, all of North America above Mexico, and perhaps both Mexico and Central America, would today be willingly and proudly flying the glittering Cross of St. George. This country would have become the seat of the English kings and of the British nobility ; and Great Britain, instead of now being a decadent nation, would be safe in the Western Hemisphere from her ancient and implac- able rivals, and would be like Rome was at the summit of her splendor -- the undoubted. and undisputed Mistress of the World. While there may have been some excuse for the blindness of Spain and the indifference of France, there was none whatever for the'ill-treatment by England under George III. His course was that of the spendthrift who threw away his patrimony with- out hope of relief ; and was worse than that of the Prodigal Son, because he had no kind old father to forgive his wrong-doings, receive him again to his bosom, and kill for him the fatted calf. The colonies were gone forever.
237
D'ULLOA AND O'REILLY.
The colony of Louisiana had been maintained by France with the principal, perhaps the sole, object of keeping the Spanish and the English out of the Mississippi valley. Louis XIV had hur- riedly sent D'Iberville there in 1798, and none too soon, in order to forestall the ships of both of the other countries. Only suffi- cient colonists and means were sent out from time to time to maintain his frail tenure to the soil, because the expense was large and the revenue nothing. Stimulated with the hope of acquiring great wealth, either from the mines or from the Indian and Spanish trade, Crozat took the colony, but lost a fortune and retired from sight. The Western Company and its successor, the Company of the Indies, did no better, but sank 20,000,000 of livres ($3,700,000) in fourteen years in a vain attempt to place the colony on a profit-paying basis. Afterward, the colony was maintained at the expense of the government, but no returns · rewarded the outlays. It is safe to say that France alone, from first to last, spent 50,000,000 of livres ($9,250,000) to sustain the colony. The court of Louis XV, plunged as it was in extrav- agance and licentiousness, had become weary with carrying this load ; but realizing its ultimate value, had clung to it, hoping that in time all the outlay would come back with profits added, and hoping also that the ancient enemy, England, would thus be kept confined to the Atlantic coast.
But the Seven Years' War ( 1755 to 1762) instantly changed this panorama of events. France became deeply indebted to Spain for assistance, and besides had lost all of her American pos- sessions east of the Mississippi to England. The latter now possessed much of what France had wrested from the savages through many years of untold dangers and hardships, and stood on the left bank of the Mississippi with bristling bayonets and tawny cannons. France was in no condition, nor was she likely to be for many years to come, to defend the remainder of the col- ony-that portion west of the river. Her old, cherished, and war- like scheme of a line of impregnable forts stretching from Canada to New Orleans, was now dissolved in a cloud of mist. The vast empire of the interior, peopled with French subjects and domi- nated by the French cabinet, was now a dream of the past, never to be realized in actuality. The territory west of the river was certain. to become the prey of England at the outbreak of the first war. The colony had always been a burden, and was likely to be so for many years to come. Now was the time to turn it over to Spain to repay hier for her losses during the Seven Years' War. France thus had every reason to get rid of the colony, and none
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238
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
whatever under the circumstances to retain it. But there is evi- dence to prove that Spain was not anxious to take the new Louis- iana, either in payment for the French obligations, or upon any terms. She had had her own experiences with expensive and rebellious colonies. She saw the danger from the proximity of the English across the river, but finally consented to take it. It is evident that one of the conditions of transfer was that France should re-acquire the colony, either upon her own demand, or upon the request of Spain. The latter found no occasion to make such a request, but the former did find occasion to make such a demand in 1800.
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