USA > Louisiana > The settlement of the German coast of Louisiana and the Creoles of German descent > Part 2
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
"The boundaries of Louisiana are towards east Florida and Carolina, towards north Virginia and Canada. The northern lim- its are entirely unknown. In 1700, a Canadian, M. le Sieur, as- cended the Mississippi over 700 miles. But there is still another district known of over 100 miles, for which reason it is almost to be supposed that this country extends to the 'Polum Arcticum.'"
The soil, the author says, is "extremely pleasant." Four crops a year can be raised. The abundance of the country can- not be easily imagined. There is also game, which every person is permitted to kill : leopards, bears, buffaloes, deer, whole swarms of Indian hens, snipe, turtle-doves, partridges, wood-pigeons, quail, beavers, martens, wild cats, parrots, buzzards, and ducks. Deer is the most useful game, and the French carry on a great "negotium" in doeskins, which they purchase from the savages. Ten to twelve leaden bullets are given in exchange for such a skin.
The principal things, however, are the mines :
"The land is filled with gold, silver, copper, and lead mines. If one wishes to hunt for mines, he need only go into the country of the Natchitoches. There we will surely 'draw pieces of silver mines out of the earth.' After these mines we will hunt for herbs and plants for the apothecaries. The savages will make them known to us. Soon we shall find healing remedies for the most dangerous wounds, yes, also, so they say, infallible ones for the fruits of love."
Of the spring floods in "Februario and Martio" the author says that they are sometimes so high that the water rises over 100 feet, so that the tops of the pine trees on the seashore can no longer be seen.
About New Orleans a man writes to his wife in Europe :
"I betook myself to where they are beginning now to build the capital, New Orleans. Its circumference will be one mile. The houses are poor and low, as at home with us in the country. They are covered with large pieces of bark and strong reeds. Every- body dresses as he pleases, but all very poorly. One's outfit con- sists of a suit of clothes, bed, table, and trunks. Tapestry and fine beds are entirely unknown. The people sleep the whole night in the open air. I am as safe in the most distant part of the town as in a citadel. Although I live among savages and Frenchmen, I am in no danger. People trust one another so much that they leave gates and doors open."
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
The productiveness of the investment in land, and the value of the shares are thus made clear to the people :
"If one gets 300 acres of land for 100 Reichstalers, then three acres cost one Taler; but, if the benefit to be derived and other 'prerogatives' of such lands are considered then an acre of this land, even if not cultivated, is worth about 100 Talers. From this basis it follows that 300 acres, which, as stated already, cost 100 Talers when purchased, are really worth 30,000 Talers. For this reason one can easily understand why these shares may yet rise very high."
No wonder that the agitation on both banks of the river Rhine, from Switzerland to Holland, bore fruit, and that thou- sands of people got themselves ready to emigrate to Louisiana.
TEN THOUSAND GERMANS ON THE WAY TO LOUISIANA.
German historians state that, as a result of this agitation, 10,000 Germans emigrated to Louisiana. This seems a rather large number of people to be enticed by the promoter's promises to leave their fatherland and emigrate to a distant country ; but we must consider the pitiable condition under which these people lived at home. No part of Germany had suffered more through the terrible "Thirty Years' War" (1618-1648), than the country on the Rhine, and especially the Palatinate; and after the Thirty Years' War came the terrible period of Louis XIV., during which large portions of Alsace and Lorraine, with the city of Strass- burg, were forcibly and against the protestations of the people taken away from the German empire, and the Palatinate partic- ularly was devastated in the most terrible manner. Never before nor afterwards were such barbarous deeds perpetrated as by Turenne, Melac, and other French generals in the Palatinate; and whether French troops invaded Germany or Germans marched against the French, it was always the Palatinate and the other countries on both banks of the Rhine that suffered most through war and its fearful consequences; pestilence, famine, and often also religious persecution,-for the ruler of a country then often prescribed which religion his subjects must follow.
These people on the Rhine had at last lost courage, and, as
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
in 1709/10, at the time of the great famine, 15,000 inhabitants of the Palatinate had listened to the English agents and had gone down the Rhine to England to seek passage for the English colonies in America, so they were again only too eager to listen to the Louisiana promoter, promising them peace, political and religious freedom, and wealth in the new world. So they went forth, not only from the Palatinate, but also from Alsace, Lor- raine, Baden, Würtemberg, the electorates of Mayence and Treves (Mainz and Trier), and even from Switzerland, some of whose sons were already serving in the Swiss regiments of Halwyl and Karer, sent by France to Louisiana.
The statement that 10,000 Germans left their homes for Louisiana is also supported by unimpeachable French testimony. The Jesuit Charlevoix, who came from Canada to Louisiana in December, 1721, and passed "the mournful wrecks" of the set- tlement on John Law's grant on the Arkansas River, mentions in his letter "these 9,000 Germans, who were raised in the Palatinate."
How MANY OF THESE 10,000 GERMANS REACHED LOUISIANA?
Only a small portion of these 10,000 Germans ever reached the shores of Louisiana. We read that the roads leading to the French ports of embarkation were covered with Germans, but that many broke down on their journey from hardships and privations. In the French ports, moreover, where no prepara- tions had been made for the care of so many strangers, and where, while waiting for the departure of the vessels, the emi- grants lay crowded together for months, and were insufficiently fed, epidemic diseases broke out among them and carried off many. Indeed, the church registers of Louisiana contain proofs of this fact. In the old marriage records, which always give the names of the parents of the contracting parties, the writer has often found the remark that the parents of the bride or of the bridegroom had died in the French ports of L'Orient, La Rochelle, or Brest. Others tired of waiting in port, and, perhaps,
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
becoming discouraged, gave up the plan of emigrating to Louis- iana, looked for work in France, and remained there.
Then came the great loss of human life on the voyage across the sea. Such a voyage often lasted several months, long stops often being made in San Domingo, where the people were ex- posed to infection from tropical diseases. When even strong and healthy people succumbed to diseases brought on by the pri- vations and hardships of such a voyage, by the miserable fare, by the lack of drinking water and disinfectants, and by the ter- rible odors in the ship's hold,-how must these emigrants have fared, weakened as they were from their journey through France and from sickness in the French ports? At one time only forty Germans landed in Louisiana of 200 who had gone on board. Martin speaks of 200 Germans who landed out of 1200.
Sickness and starvation, however, were not the only dan- gers of the emigrant of those days. At that time the buccaneers, who had been driven from Yucatan by the Spaniards in 1717, were yet in the Gulf of Mexico, and pursued European vessels because these, in addition to emigrants, usually carried large quantities of provisions, arms, ammunition, and money; and many a vessel that plied between France and Louisiana was never heard of again. In 1721 a French ship with "300 very sick Germans" on board was captured by buccaneers near the Bay of Samana in San Domingo.
After considering all this we are ready to approach the question of how many Germans really left France for Louisiana. Chevalier Guy Soniat Duffosat, a French naval officer who settled in Louisiana about 1751, in his "Synopsis of the History of Louisiana" (page 15) says, that 6000 Germans left Europe for Louisiana. This statement, if not correct, comes evidently so near to the truth that we may accept it.
To this it may be added that according to my own searching inquiries, and after the examination of all the well-known author- ities, as well as of copies of many official documents until recently unavailable, I have come to the conclusion that of those 6000 Ger- mans who left Europe for Louisiana, only about one-third-
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
2000-actually reached the shores of the colony. By this I do not mean to say that 2000 Germans settled in Louisiana, but only that 2000 reached the shores and were disembarked in Biloxi and upon Dauphine Island, in the harbor of Mobile. How many of them perished in those two places will be told in another part of this work.
FRENCH COLONISTS.
Besides John Law, who enlisted Germans, the Western Company and the other concessioners also carried on an agita- tion for the enlistment of engagés. How this was done, and what results were obtained with the French colonists, is de- scribed by the Jesuit Charlevoix, an eye witness, who came to Louisiana in 1721 to report on the condition of the colony. He says :
"The people who are sent there are miserable wretches driven from France for real or supposed crimes, or bad conduct, or per- sons who have enlisted in the troops or enrolled as emigrants, in order to avoid the pursuit of their creditors. Both classes regard the country as a place of exile. Everything disheartens them; nothing interests them in the progress of a colony of which they are only members in spite of themselves." (Marbois, page 115.)
The Chevalier Champigny in his Mémoire (La Haye, 1776) expresses himself stronger :
"They gathered up the poor, mendicants and prostitutes, and embarked them by force on the transports. On arriving in Louisi- ana they were married and had lands assigned to them to cultivate, but the idle life of three-fourths of these folks rendered them unfit for farming. You cannot find twenty of these vagabond fami- lies in Louisiana now. Most of them died in misery or returned to France, bringing back such ideas which their ill success had inspired. The most frightful accounts of the country of the Miss- issippi soon began to spread among the public, at a time when Ger- man colonists were planting new and most successful establish- ments on the banks of the Mississippi, within five or seven leagues from New Orleans. This tract, still occupied by their descendants, is the best cultivated and most thickly settled part of the colony, and I regard the Germans and the Canadians as the founders of all our establishments in Louisiana."
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
Franz, in his "Kolonisation des Mississippitales" (Leipzig, 1906), writes :
"The company even kept a whole regiment of archers (band- ouillers de Mississippi) which cleaned Paris of its rabble and adven- turers, and received for this a fixed salary and 100 livres a head, and even honest people were not safe from them. Five thousand people are said to have disappeared from Paris in April, 1721, alone." (Page 124.)
And again :
"Prisoners were set free in Paris in September, 1719, and later, under the condition that they would marry prostitutes and go with them to Louisiana. The newly married couples were chained together and thus dragged to the port of embarkation." (Page 12I.)
The complaints of the concessioners and of the company itself concerning this class of French immigrants and engagés were soon so frequent and so pressing, that the French govern- ment, in May, 1720, prohibited such deportations. This, how- ever, did not prevent the shipping of a third lot of lewd women in 1721, the first and the second having been sent in 1719 and I720.
ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST IMMIGRATION EN MASSE.
The first immigration en masse took place in the year 1718. There landed then in Louisiana, which at that time had only 700 inhabitants, on one day 800 persons, so that the population on that one day was more than doubled.
How many Germans were among these I cannot say ; but, as several concessions are mentioned to which some of these immi- grants were sent, and as the church registers of Louisiana men- tion names of Germans who served on these concessions, we may assume that there were some Germans among them.
In the spring and summer of 1719 immigration to Louis- iana was suspended on account of the war which had broken out between France and Spain. The Louisiana troops took Pensacola from Spain, lost it again, and retook it. In front of Dauphine Island, in the harbor of Mobile, where there were some concessioners with their engagés, a Spanish flotilla ap- peared, shutting off the island for ten days. The crew of a
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
Spanish gunboat plundered the property of the concessioners lying on the shore, but were repulsed in a second attempt by the French solders, some Indians, and the people engaged by the concessioners.
In the fall of 1719 the French ship "Les Deux Frères" came to Ship Island with "a great number of Germans." The ship was laden with all sorts of merchandise and effects "which belonged to them." These people could not have been intended for John Law; for, judging from what they brought along with them, they must have been people of some means, who intended to become independent settlers.
A MISSTATEMENT.
This report is taken from "Relation Pénicaut." Pénicaut was a French carpenter who lived for twenty-two years (1699 to October, 1721) in the colony, and his "Relation" is an im- portant source for the history of Louisiana. Mr. French, whose "Historical Collection of Louisiana" is well known, translated it and published it in the first volume of his "Louisiana and Florida." In this translation (N. Y., 1889, I., 151) we read concerning the German immigrants of the ship "Les Deux Frères," mentioned before, the following :
"This was the first installment of twelve thousand Germans purchased by the Western Company from one of the princes of Germany to colonize Louisiana."
This is not true. For in the first place, the original text of "Relation Pénicaut" which Margry printed in his volume V. does not contain a single word about an installment nor about a German prince who had sold his subjects to the Western Com- pany; and secondly, people who come "with all sorts of mer- chandise and effects, which belong to them," are not people who have been sold.
In November, 1719, when the headquarters of the company were no longer on Dauphine Island, in the harbor of Mobile,4 but had been again transferred to Fort Maurepas (Ocean
"A sand bar formed by a storm in 1717 having ruined the entrance to that harbor.
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
Springs), a part of this fort was burned,5 whereupon the woods on the other side of the Biloxi Bay were cut down, and Dumont reports that "a company of stout German soldiers" were busy at that work. Whence these German soldiers came we are in- formed by the "Mémoire pour Duvergé" (Margry V., 616), where it is stated that a company of 210 Swiss "soldats ouv- riers" had been sent to the colony. They cleared the land at the site of the present Biloxi, built a fort, houses, and barracks for officers and soldiers, magazines, and "even a cistern." This place was called "New Biloxi," and thither the Compagnie des Indes, on the 20th of December, 1720, decided to transfer its headquarters. Governor Bienville also took up his residence there on the 9th of September, 1721, but transferred it to New Orleans in the month of August, 1722.
From this time until the beginning of the Spanish period, in 1768, the Swiss formed an integral part of the French troops in Louisiana. There were always at least four companies of fifty men each in the colony. They regularly received new addi- tions, and, at the expiration of their time of service, they usually took up a trade, or settled on some land contiguous to the Ger- man coast. It was even a rule to give annually land, provisions, and rations to two men from each Swiss company to facilitate their settling.
According to the church records of Louisiana (marriage and death registers), the great majority of these Swiss soldiers were Germans from all parts of the fatherland under Swiss or Alsatian officers. Of the latter, Philip Grondel, of Zabern, be- came celebrated as the greatest fighter and most feared duellist of the whole colony. He was made chevalier of the military order of St. Louis, and commander of the Halwyl regiment of · Swiss soldiers.
As to the general reputation these Swiss-German soldiers established for themselves in Louisiana, it is interesting to read that
"Governor Kerlerec even begged that Swiss troops be sent to him in place of the French, not only on account of their superior
" A drunken sergeant dropping his lighted pipe had set fire to it.
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
discipline and fighting qualities, but because the colonists had as great a dread of the violence, cruelty, and debauchery of the troops ordinarily sent out from France as they had of the savages." (Albert Phelps' "Louisiana," page 95.)
In the beginning of the year 1720, says Pénicaut, seven ships came with more than 4000 persons, "French as well as Germans and Jews." They were the ships "La Gironde," "L'Eléphant," "La Loire," "La Seine," "Le Dromadaire," "La Traversier," and "La Vénus." As "Le Dromadaire" brought the whole outfit for John Law's concession, the staff of Mr. Elias, 6 the Jewish business manager of Law, may have been on board this vessel. For the same reason we may assume that the German people on board, or at least a large part of them, were so-called "Law People."
On the 16th of September, 1720, the ship "Le Profond" brought more than 240 Germans "for the concession of Mr. Law," 7 and on the 9th of November, 1720, the ship "La Marie" brought Mr. Levens, the second director of Law's concessions, and Mr. Maynard, "conducteur d'ouvriers."
The Germans who came on the seven ships mentioned by Pénicaut and those who arrived on board the "Le Profond" seem to have been the only ones of the thousands recruited for Law in Germany who actually reached the Arkansas River, travel- ing from Biloxi by way of the inland route-Lake Borgne, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas, Amite River, Bayou Manchac and the Mississippi River.
HOW THE IMMIGRANTS WERE RECEIVED AND PROVIDED FOR. A TERRIBLE STATE OF AFFAIRS.
A rapid increase of the population, especially a doubling of it on one day, would at all times, even in a well regulated community, be a source of embarrassment; and it would need the most careful preparations and the purchasing and storing of a great quantity of provisions in order to solve the problem of subsistence in a satisfactory manner.
'Terrage calls him "Elias Stultheus".
" La Harpe.
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
On Dauphine Island and on Biloxi Bay, nevertheless, where the officials of the Compagnie des Indes ruled, nothing was done for the reception of so many newcomers. Everybody seems to have lived there like unto the lilies of the field: "They toiled not, neither did they spin." Nobody sowed, nobody harvested, and all waited for the provision ships from France and from San Domingo, which often enough did not arrive when needed most, so that the soldiers had to be sent out to the Indians in the woods to make a living there as best they could by fishing and hunting. Pénicaut says that the Indians, especially the Indian maidens, enjoyed these visits of the soldiers as much as the French did. This statement seems to be confirmed by the baptismal records of Mobile, where the writer found entries saying that Indian women "in the pains of childbirth" gave the names of the officers and soldiers whom they claimed as the fathers of their children. There are prominent names among these fathers.
Thus the poor immigrants were put on land where there was always more or less of famine, sometimes even of starva- tion, and where the provisions which the concessioners had brought with them to feed their own engagés were taken away from the ships by force to feed the soldiers, and the immigrants were told to subsist on what they might be able to catch on the beach, standing for the most part of the day in the salt water up to the waist-crabs, oysters, and the like-and on the corn which the Biloxi, the Pascagoula, the Chacta, and the Mobile Indians might let them have.
Governor Bienville repeatedly demanded that these immi- grants should not be landed on the gulf coast at all, but should be taken up the Mississippi River to the place where he intended to esablish his headquarters and build the city of New Orleans; because thence they could easily reach the concessions, a major- ity of which were on the banks of the Mississippi. But the question whether large vessels could enter and ascend the great river-the French directors pretended not to know this yet, although the colony had been in existence for about twenty years-and the little and the big quarrels between the directors
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
and the governor, whom they would never admit to be right, did not permit this rational solution of the difficulty.
Furthermore, as a very large number of smaller boats, by which the immigrants might easily have been taken to the con- cessions by the inland route through Lake Pontchartrain, had been allowed to go to wreck on the sands of Biloxi, the new- comers, especially those who arrived in 1721, had to stay for many months in Biloxi and on Dauphine Island, where they starved in masses or died of epidemic diseases.
It may be taken for granted that at these two places more than one thousand Germans died.
"Many died," says Dumond, "because in their hunger they ate plants which they did not know and which instead of giving them strength and nourishment, gave them death, and most of those who were found dead among the piles of oyster shells were Ger- mans."
In the spring of 1721 such a fearful epidemic raged in Biloxi among the immigrants that the priests at that place, having so many other functions to perform, were no longer able to keep the death register. (See "Etat Civil" for 1727, where a Capuchin priest records the death of a victim of the epidemic of 1721, in Biloxi, on the strength of testimony of witnesses, no other way of certifying to the death being possible. )
Thus, for many months, the effects of the concessioners and of the immigrants were exposed to the elements on the sand of the beach. Even the equipment for Law's concession, which had arrived in the beginning of 1720, a cargo valued at a million of livres, lay in the open air in Biloxi for fifteen months, before the ship "Le Dromadaire," in May, 1721, at the order of the governor, but against the protests of some of the directors of the company, sailed with it for the mouth of the Mississippi.
This ship, with its load, drew thirteen feet of water and, as the "Neptune," also drawing thirteen feet, had crossed the bar of the Mississippi and sailed up to the site of New Orleans as early as 1718, and as an English vessel carrying 16 guns had passed up to English Turn in September, 1699, there was no reason whatsoever for detaining "Le Dromadaire" for fifteen
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The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana
months. A proper use of the "Neptune" alone, which had been stationed permanently in the colony since 1718, would have re- lieved the congestion in Biloxi and saved thousands of human lives which were sacrificed by the criminal neglect of the officials of the Compagnie des Indes.
As "Le Dromadaire" carried the oufit for the Law conces- sion and for the plantation of St. Catharine, this ship may also have had some passengers on board, German engagés, so-called Law people; but perhaps not very many, as Bienville, in sending her to the Mississippi against the protests of some of the directors of the company, took a great responsibility upon himself, and could not afford to load her too heavily, lest there should be trouble in getting her over the bar of the river. The larger number of the German Law people, those who had arrived during the year 1720, had, no doubt, been sent to the Arkansas River by the inland route to clear the land and provide shelter for the great number of Germans who were expected to arrive in the spring of 1721.
No wonder that under such conditions as obtained in Biloxi a very low state of law and order reigned there, and that com- plete anarchy could be prevented only by drastic measures. A company of Swiss soldiers in the absence of their commander forced the captain of a ship to turn his vessel and to take them to Havana ; and another company marched off to join the English in Carolina. The Swiss in Fort Toulouse, above Mobile, also rose and killed their captain; but these mutineers were captured and punished in Indian fashion by crushing their heads; one Swiss was packed into a barrel which was then sawed in two, and a German who had helped himself to something to eat in the warehouse in Biloxi was condemned by the Superior Council to be pulled five times through the water under the keel of a vessel.
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